The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #251

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    I thought we were talking about the songs that jazz musicians play and improvise upon, most of which are not themselves jazz.
    I'm going on Post No.1, the post by the OP Tal_175

    He said, "This is more a history question perhaps. Why is it that the tradition of basing jazz tunes on contemporary popular music ended after 20's and 30's? I get that jazz lost interest in being the music of the dance halls (or may be the other way around*), but bebop and hard bop players (and beyond) continued to play these standards. It seems like since the end of the bebop era, jazz musicians have been expected to write their own originals and play the standards more out of respect for tradition. Of course new standards were added after the 30's but they are almost always originals of jazz greats like Giant Steps, So What or Full House, not popular music of the time."


    The second part of his post is not something I enjoy addressing or discussing, as I don't see Smells like teen spirit or Another brick in the wall or Creep as Jazz or Bebop. The harmony is incompatible. The use of the beats is also conflicting. Up Up And Away and Windy can easily be converted to the Jazz-Pop Style, and, of course, they were. Even "A Day In The Life" was artistically open enough to be realised in the Jazz World, but with a slight Latin rhythm. However, I could not call it a Jazz Standard. Some of Stevie Wonder's songs are very Jazz like, harmonically, and lend themselves to a Jazz rendition. If enough Jazz Musicians like it, it becomes a Jazz Standard, at least in the Real Book. And why not? I can't visualize expanding the jazz audience by Jazzifying Rock, unless it's Jazz-Rock, or Jazz-Rock Fusion. Even then, that audience would have to be a Jazz-Rock audience, or a Jazz-Rock-Fusion audience.

    It's fine with me for musicians to experiment as they please, and have fun with it. I play Rock and I play Jazz. But they rarely meet. I don't play Jazz on bass guitar and I don't play Rock on double bass. On banjo, I play niche tunes and on archtop guitar I prefer Big Band, Vintage Jazz, Pop-Jazz, Jazz-Blues... I guess I should have explained my rationale in basing my opinions on the instruments I play. Clarinet players have their repertoire, Fender Stratocaster players have theirs.

    Like George Costanza said, "Jerry, my worlds are colliding!" Perhaps the answer to the OP's question is that the reason we have not seen much of this, is a result of the harmonic and rhythmic incompatibility between completed Rock Hit Songs and Jazz, thus their small possibility of being converted into a Jazz Standard. Thus, a technical hitch rather than an artistic one. I could never envision Milt Jackson playing a Rock song like Teen Spirit in a Jazz style. A lot of money goes into music production, so it's not like mixing genres in the basement. Reputations are on the line in the professional world and the absurd quickly gets weeded out.


    Last edited by StringNavigator; 04-11-2021 at 05:37 PM.

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  3. #252

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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter C
    No standards in 2021, just people playing music. Take it or leave it and try not to get left behind.

    Norwegian Wood is a blast to jam to.

    This is great, but old by now, looks like it was recorded on tape

    I think is more fun that way?

    Learn songs you like. Play them with like spirits. Teen spirits even...

  4. #253

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    Bye Bye Blackbird, Hello Blackbird
    I can find great videos of accordionists playing "Smoke On The Water". Is it Rock? Certainly not. Do I like it? In a perverse sense, yes, I do. How about AC/DC on clarinet? Why not Rock? Because it's Acker - not Angus. A Jazz Style musician can play Paul McCartney's "Blackbird" and we can appreciate it. Would it be a Jazz Standard? I could not fully agree with that. A cross-over recording, maybe, from Pop or Folk, but done in a Jazz Style. It's interesting, and fun to arrange, but it could never be considered a Jazz Standard. It is certainly a Pop Standard, regardless of the arrangement style, at least according to editors selling sheet music and with radio disc-jockeys pattering their drivel. I like Simon & Garfunkel, but as a pop-folk duo, not warmed up as a Jazz Standard. Jazz is so much a Southern US style, a Broadway Show Tune, a swinging pop-vocal, but it doesn't travel easily into every genre.

    Do-Si-Do, Swing Your Partner To And Fro
    A lot of music deemed to be "Jazz" does exist. But can you whistle the melody? Can you and your wife dance to it? Those two criteria were the hallmarks of Jazz in the 1920's. Even the Jazz of the 1920's was markedly different from the Jazz of the 1940's. It was becoming a listener's music. Try selling a Jazz-Funk album to your great-grandparents.

    Jazz Is A Four Letter Word
    Why do we call music of 2021 "Jazz"? After 120 years, hyphens should be mandatory, otherwise we don't know what we're disagreeing about. You could say something is a Jazz-Funk Standard, or a Rock And Roll Standard. But the term, "Jazz Standard" refers to Cole Porter, Gershwin or Hoagy Carmichael. There are Bebop Standards. To call them Jazz Standards would be less than honest, unless you are referring to the original music being used as a contrafact. We need to stop using the term "Jazz". It is far too broad. And it is misused by marketers. Sounds great, though. Even airline companies claim it, now.

    Living In The Past, Darkly
    Why are there no new Jazz Standards? Because that era has passed. That train has left the station. We're like children crying to our mother's at the amusement park that the ride is over and done and it's time to go home. It's time Gentlemen, Please...! Jazz is dead. Rock And Roll is dead. Jump-Blues is dead. Ragtime is dead. Soul is dead. Dead, dead, dead...

    I Accept Today's Reality
    My happiest moments are when I wake up and my agenda is cleared so I can play a Jazz Standard on one of my instruments. It's a hobby, it's Retro, it's probably from Broadway and anywhere between 1890 and 1964. However, it could be an outlier, also. But I accept the fact that there will be no more Jazz Standards, unless someone copies the past and comes up with a new combination of chords that is good enough to be a Standard and can be passed off as Jazz. But the Business Plan exhibits poor prospects.

    Death By A Thousand Cuts
    People learned to play Jazz from the radio, not in a college.
    Although educated in harmony and sight-reading as children by music teachers, most of the Jazz masters taught themselves to play Jazz.
    Colleges now prefer Scalar-Modal Improv to composing lines on changes. Goodbye Hawk!
    Economics blasted the Big Bands out of the water.
    People stopped dancing together and stopped being charmed by lyrics.
    Television changed everything. Big Bands don't move around very much.
    Accompaniment and melody lost out to long choruses of virtuoso soloing... fastest...highest...
    The Masters Of The Media have found other ways of making money.
    Computers now monitor new songs to detect plagiarism and prove lawsuits, causing songwriters to abandon melody for percussive rhythms and warbling Belly Button Girls.
    Family disintegration led to the loss of traditional ways.
    The media chose to indoctrinate youth into rebelling against their parents' music.
    Internet and computer games preclude children from advancing musically.
    Jazz is a hold-over from The Greatest Generation That Ever Lived. It's not really in us like it was in them.
    The music of our era is certainly not Jazz. It may not even be music.
    Last edited by StringNavigator; 04-11-2021 at 07:42 PM.

  5. #254

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    Good idea to bring up the OP.

    Maybe it's no longer based on pop music because the form of pop music isn't as codified at it was coming from tin pan alley.

    Many pop songs are now written by the performer as opposed to someone sitting in tin pan alley.

  6. #255

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    Many pop songs are not so much written as produced. Finding something on which to improvise behind all the production is not easy.

  7. #256
    Here Marcus Miller is talking about Miles's take on this subject:

  8. #257

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    Quote Originally Posted by Littlemark
    Whatever wedding bands play must be standards (or a bar band). They have to play (though rarely if ever interpret), songs that a wide cross section of the public know.
    This is an interesting idea, even if you’re suggesting it as irony or even sarcasm. I’ve been a co-conspirator at over 3000 weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, anniversary parties etc. I paid dues to local 77 for a few decades for the true privilege (definitely not sarcastic here - it was!) of playing a few high end affairs weekly with Philadelphia’s best. This included guys between tours with greats from Basie to Chicago. I probably got the job more because I knew so many tunes than for my chops. I’d been playing them since my first gigs at 13 - I grew up in Atlantic City and had friends who played drums, bass, and tenor very well even at 13. We played private parties in the old boardwalk hotels, and I’d learned early on to find a way to enjoy something about every tune.

    I replaced Chuck Anderson, and the “kid” who got my regular chair when I got married and cut back some went on to Stevie Wonder and his own Grammy. I was not among the top players - I started with the office at 23 and saw it as the world class learning experience it was. The only way we could keep our bandleaders highly paid and in vogue (and our minds from exploding with boredom) was to play “wedding songs” as well as possible and make them interesting for us. These were players who made “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” swing! The secret was to stick close enough to the tune so the hosts and guests loved it while using subtle substitutions, inversions, scales, etc that kept us interested. When you play a tune this way a hundred+ times a year and it’s recognizable but never exactly the same as the other times you played it, it’s a standard..........dare I say a jazz standard?

    My jazz trio plays a show every Thursday night (now thankfully restarted). We interpret everything from the tunes in my first fakebook (bought for $10 in 1958) to Cold Cold Heart to Joni’s Woodstock to recent Broadway originals to the occasional punk or reggae tune that one of us found. We even do jazz takes on classical pieces. When I look on YouTube for a link to send the bass player and drummer, I’m amazed at how many great people have gotten new ideas about the same songs. And I’m gratified to hear players who “heard it here first” take a tune from us and roll with it.

    We create standards by finding more in “ordinary” tunes and using them as infrastructure for building on our ideas. Jimmy Smith pushed I’m An Old Cowhand and When Johnny Comes Marching Home into being standards. There are future standards being written right now - our job is to find them, embrace them, and use our collective artistry to help them endure. I’m meeting great young players every week - do not give up on jazz or jazz standards!

  9. #258

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    Quote Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
    This is an interesting idea, even if you’re suggesting it as irony or even sarcasm. I’ve been a co-conspirator at over 3000 weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, anniversary parties etc. I paid dues to local 77 for a few decades for the true privilege (definitely not sarcastic here - it was!) of playing a few high end affairs weekly with Philadelphia’s best. This included guys between tours with greats from Basie to Chicago. I probably got the job more because I knew so many tunes than for my chops. I’d been playing them since my first gigs at 13 - I grew up in Atlantic City and had friends who played drums, bass, and tenor very well even at 13. We played private parties in the old boardwalk hotels, and I’d learned early on to find a way to enjoy something about every tune.

    I replaced Chuck Anderson, and the “kid” who got my regular chair when I got married and cut back some went on to Stevie Wonder and his own Grammy. I was not among the top players - I started with the office at 23 and saw it as the world class learning experience it was. The only way we could keep our bandleaders highly paid and in vogue (and our minds from exploding with boredom) was to play “wedding songs” as well as possible and make them interesting for us. These were players who made “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” swing! The secret was to stick close enough to the tune so the hosts and guests loved it while using subtle substitutions, inversions, scales, etc that kept us interested. When you play a tune this way a hundred+ times a year and it’s recognizable but never exactly the same as the other times you played it, it’s a standard..........dare I say a jazz standard?

    My jazz trio plays a show every Thursday night (now thankfully restarted). We interpret everything from the tunes in my first fakebook (bought for $10 in 1958) to Cold Cold Heart to Joni’s Woodstock to recent Broadway originals to the occasional punk or reggae tune that one of us found. We even do jazz takes on classical pieces. When I look on YouTube for a link to send the bass player and drummer, I’m amazed at how many great people have gotten new ideas about the same songs. And I’m gratified to hear players who “heard it here first” take a tune from us and roll with it.

    We create standards by finding more in “ordinary” tunes and using them as infrastructure for building on our ideas. Jimmy Smith pushed I’m An Old Cowhand and When Johnny Comes Marching Home into being standards. There are future standards being written right now - our job is to find them, embrace them, and use our collective artistry to help them endure. I’m meeting great young players every week - do not give up on jazz or jazz standards!

  10. #259

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    I can't find the post I wanted to respond to a while back and I couldn't then because my computer wouldn't let me sign in for some dumbass reason. Probably because I use this old kindle instead of my fancy smart phone that got lost! Anyways everybody seemed to forget to mention Charles Mingus when they were mentioning great jazz composers! Just thought I'd add that lol. Sorry for the long rant!

  11. #260

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    Quote Originally Posted by emilP
    I write my own standards and have fun to play them
    You mean you write your own songs lol! It's over time and usage that makes them standard right?!

  12. #261

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    Quote Originally Posted by BickertRules
    Maybe because the intellectuals, writers, artists, and celebrities of the time in New York, Chicago, Hollywood, and Paris liked jazz? And maybe that’s how we define eras in retrospect. I’m not sure that the millions of people living outside that narrow milieu were jazz fans, or lived the lifestyle we associate with the “Jazz Age” or the “Roaring Twenties”.

    When people today think of “The Sixties” I don’t think what they have in mind is this list of the top selling albums of the decade.

    Attachment 78166
    List of best-selling albums by year in the United States - Wikipedia

    Three things jump out for me:

    • Broadway Show Original Cast/Soundtrack Recordings (for over HALF the decade!)
    • The Monkees!!??
    • No Jazz (actually, not surprising)
    • No Beatles


    Sometimes the stories we are told (or tell ourselves) are very incomplete, if not romanticized fictions.
    The Beatles always had number 1 singles but not albums. Which makes since early on before they became a studio band. But it doesn't make sense that Revolver, Sgt.Pepper, White Album, and Abbey Road aren't on there an I right lol!? Or even Help! and Rubber Soul for that matter! Anyone of those beats the piss outta the Monkees!

  13. #262

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    My 0.000002c

    I suspect it has more to do with the culture at large and the overall shifts in the music industry than specifically being a jazz-related thing. it's likely the same reason popular music, rock, R&B, whatever, isn't generating iconic larger than life forever bands, artists and songs like they did at one time. The industry today is much more about finding something new than holding on to what once was. The fractured segmented market means you're not hearing a pop band played on 5 different mainstream commerical radio stations at once. We don't even have the same monolithic corporate marketing industry with a powerful tight hold on the music market.

    I think jazz artists are still writing and creating great music. But there's much less motivation for every other jazz artist on the scene to cover those tunes; instead they write and create their own. Song for Bilbao is a great tune, but I don't hear many successful jazz artists cover it. I thikn artists want to write and create their own music, and have much more of a say today to pursue that, than having a record exec tell them to do another album of cover Porgy & Bess covers.

    None of those tunes we call standards were standards when they were written. They became that via an industry that worked on that model. Classic rock artists aren't simply "classic" because they wrote good music. They were part of an industry that created a few huge megastars by playing them repeatedly on every radio station and TV channel in the world. That simply doesn't happen any more, and it has little to do with the quality of the art or artist. It's just a very different industry and marketplace today.