Why isn't that a standard?

[robviti]

I saw this article in the most recent issue of the Boston Phoenix and thought some of you might be interested:

New standards

Is jazz catching up with contemporary pop?

BY JON GARELICK

A soprano sax squeals into its farthest upper reaches, descends into bluesy cadences punctuated with Bechet-like vibrato and shake, then does some fancy arpeggiating. A soulful organ chord enters with a drumbeat and cymbal smash; then everyone shifts into a slow groove with a backing vocal chorus: "Do-do-dowee-oowee, do-do-dowee-oowee, wee-ah!" It sounds eerily familiar . . . could it be? No! But yes, Virginia, it’s all too true: Pavement’s indie-rock slacker anthem "Cut Your Hair" played as an instrumental (not counting the oowees) by a jazz band.

And not just any jazz band. This is multi-reed monster James Carter with pianist Cyrus Chestnut and the rhythm team of bassist Reginald Veal and drummer Ali Jackson. The saxophonist and the pianist have been jazz stars since the mid ’90s, Veal is a long-term Wynton running buddy, and Ali Jackson has just taken the drum chair in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. "Cut Your Hair" is one of eight tracks on the new Gold Sounds, the first release on the New York–based Brown Brothers label. It’s the brainchild of Brown Brothers honchos Jake Cohn and David Elkins, who came up with the idea of bringing expert musicianship to bear on a band known for brilliant songwriting and sloppy execution. In the process, two audiences would meet on common ground: the jazz snobs and the indie-rock purists.

If you think the idea sounds like a hopeless critics’ equation (Pavement nerd rock meets Wynton-era jazz perfection), or as one of my colleagues put it, "middlebrow," you’re not alone. Rolling Stone quoted Gold Sounds’ liner-note question, "What album would we want to buy which doesn’t exist?" and concluded, "If your answer is ‘hot young jazz players covering a grab bag of Pavement songs,’ you probably don’t exist yourself."

But the existence of Gold Sounds (none of the players previously knew who Pavement were) dramatizes a larger issue in the jazz world: the absence of new "standards." That is, contemporary pop songs adapted by jazz musicians as standard repertoire to improvise on.

The drought of such standards is, at this point, about 50 years old. The wealth of what’s become known as the Great American Songbook of the pre-rock-and-roll era once served, in critic and songwriter Gene Lees’s phrase, as the "lingua franca of the art form." Everyone knew, if not the lyrics, then the melody and the chord changes to "I Got Rhythm," "How High the Moon," "I Can’t Get Started," and a gazillion others — the pop music of the day.

But rock was not the stuff of jazz improvisation. The simple three- or even two-chord harmonic patterns just didn’t provide enough fodder for an improviser to dig into. So the Great American Songbook gradually became the equivalent of the standard repertoire that classical musicians rely on.

Which isn’t to say there’s no new material in jazz — jazz musicians of all stripes are writing new music, from mainstream to avant-garde, and instrumental pieces by Ellington, Monk, Coltrane, and others have themselves become standard. But as Lees points out (his essay is in the Oxford Companion to Jazz), popular song was one of jazz’s links to the popular audience — the familiar with which jazz musicians led that audience to the new. Think of Miles Davis’s transformation of "Bye Bye Blackbird," or John Coltrane’s take on Rodgers & Hammerstein’s "My Favorite Things."

But except for Miles’s effective take on Cyndi Lauper’s "Time After Time" in 1985, or Chet Baker doing Elvis Costello’s "Almost Blue" late in his career, what else was there in new standards after 1965?

And yet, the trickle has grown lately. In 1998, Joshua Redman mixed American Songbook masters (Berlin, Gershwin, Kern, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein) with rock-era icons (Dylan, Lennon & McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Prince) on Timeless Tales for Changing Times (Warner Bros.). Don Byron recorded boogaloos by funk outfit Mandrill and played the Four Tops’ "Reach Out" in concert. Singer/pianist/composer Patricia Barber has done the Beatles’ "Blackbird," Bill Withers’s "Use Me," Sonny Bono’s "The Beat Goes On," and smatterings of Joni Mitchell. Singer Karrin Allyson has won approving reviews for her 2004 Wild for You (Concord), with its soft-rock mix of Cat Stevens, James Taylor, et al. Brad Mehldau keeps returning to Nick Drake and Radiohead. Bill Frisell has his C&W outings. And of course there’s the Bad Plus, with everything from Nirvana to Queen in their book.

In the wake of all this, Gold Sounds might represent a watershed moment. Right behind it is Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey’s The Sameness of Difference (Hyena), with Hendrix ("Have You Ever Been to Electricladyland") and the Beatles ("Happiness Is a Warm Gun"), among others. And Rolling Stones saxophonist Tim Ries has released The Rolling Stones Project (Concord).

The problem is that whereas earlier jazz masters subverted pop with their innovations, the current batch of covers tends to be conventional and tame. Miles’s "Bye Bye Blackbird" was an ultra-hip take on a 1926 hit for Eddie Cantor. Coltrane’s 1960 "My Favorite Things" (which, as Lees points out, was then being sung on Broadway by Mary Martin) was one of his boldest experiments. "The weird cover," as Don Byron once told me, is a radical "act of jazz." Even the accessibility of Coleman Hawkins’s 1939 "Body and Soul" was deceptive. Hawkins later recalled that he continued to get requests for something with "melody," like "Body and Soul," even though, as he was quick to point out, "We didn’t play the melody once" in that record. The "weird cover" may have been an "act of jazz," but subversion didn’t mean desecration. These musicians were, as the composer George Russell has said of his own music, trying to make "a classical music from the rhythms of our time."

So now we get a big band called the Björkestra, which to judge by the few recorded examples I’ve heard makes perfectly fine, perfectly conventional big-band jazz out of one of the most idiosyncratic singer-songwriters in pop. The most audacious appropriation of contemporary pop repertoire comes from Sinatra-protégé crooner Paul Anka. His Rock Swings on the Verve jazz imprint makes you sorry that the Chairman never lived to do his own lounge-lizard take of David Lee Roth’s "Jump." The album’s arrangements of big band and strings are state-of-the-art, and on the whole I think I prefer Anka’s version of "Black Hole Sun" to Soundgarden’s. Anka’s most notorious remake, though, is "Smells like Teen Spirit," which for a while you can almost believe. "I’m worst at what I do best/And for this I do feel blessed," he sings, nailing those sibilants in true Frank fashion. It almost makes you want to forgive him for mosquito and libido — but then, of course, he has to elide those final screams of "a denial!"

And there’s the rub. You can turn anything into "jazz," but will it still mean something when you’re done? David S. Ware’s "The Way We Were" is harrowing. The Bad Plus and Sex Mob (with their James Bond/Albert Ayler routines) are passing off novelty as relevance. Barber, on the other hand, knows how to adapt pop to her urbane irony, and to "smarten up" pop songs, as she once told me, in arrangements that work for jazz improvisers. Drake and Radiohead are perfectly suited to Mehldau’s dense, brooding romanticism. Ries, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, and the Gold Sounds gang at least for the most part make real jazz without going schlocky.

About Timeless Tales (which had its own little "Favorite Things" tribute in its soprano-sax waltz of "Eleanor Rigby"), Redman said, " I’m not trying to hold up these songs as standards that jazz musicians should play . . . I do believe that there is a lot of modern popular music out there — or at least a little modern popular music out there — that is completely valid for jazz interpretation. In that sense, the validity of the music is determined by the musician’s creativity and by the musician’s desires, not by any kind of artificial standard of what is or isn’t proper material."

But a "standard" after all, is something that gets played regularly, by a community of musicians. And I don’t know anyone who’s heard even Redman play "The Times They Are A-Changin’ " lately.

Issue Date: November 18 - 24, 2005

[Rosco]

But rock was not the stuff of jazz improvisation. The simple three- or even two-chord harmonic patterns just didn’t provide enough fodder for an improviser to dig into.

Yes, we much prefer tunes like 'So What' or 'A Love Supreme'

Edited November 29, 2005 by Rosco

[king ubu]

But rock was not the stuff of jazz improvisation. The simple three- or even two-chord harmonic patterns just didn’t provide enough fodder for an improviser to dig into.

Yes, we much prefer tunes like 'So What' or 'A Love Supreme'

I'll catch Michael Moore's "Jewels and Binocchulars" tonight... seems to be a great project (all Bob Dylan tunes, played by as/cl-b-d trio, for those who would not have gotten the link to this topic).

[Jim Alfredson]

People don't play cool, different tunes because there are no bands anymore. Just thrown together sets of sidemen whores.

Which is something I never wanted to do (again) after college. That's why we formed organissimo. It's been hard keeping a band together like that for five years (ok, not that hard... we love each other... but its has been hard finding work...) but it's worth it.

Joe and I made the bold move of not only not playing that many standards and instead focusing on the organ reportoire while at college, but actually playing ORIGINALS while there! Oh, horror of horrors! I'll never forget one evening while rehearsing Larry Young's "Luny Tune" (which is just rhythm changes with a cool head), our instructor popped his head in and said, "Why do you want to play that?! That's cornball!" Uh, because we'd rather not play "I've Got Rhythm" for the umpteenth time, thanks.

The gratification came when Ron Blake came to the school to give a master class and we got to play in front of him. After doing a version of "Sara's Dance" (I think) he asked if we had any originals. We had a new tune, without a name, that we had been working on so we pulled that out. He started dancing around the room, grooving on it, suggesting call and response fills, etc. That just confirmed to me that we were doing the right thing. That tune eventually became "Blake's Shake" on our first CD.

My experiences with various Jazz gigs, and the protagonists in that theater of absurdity, have lead me to the unscientific conclusion that many current day standards have become standards because of the fact that many musicians are simply lazy mmmmmfffff-ers. Trilok Gurtu has said much the same thing : he avoids Jazz musicians now cuz so many of them "think of these outrageous & complex harmonies but are frozen when confronted with rhytmic phrasings not encountered in Music Rhythms 101").We can all think of those "jazz" gigs where the players just "show up"..."we're just gonna get thru the gig, therefore here's our repertoire : Satin Doll, Green Dolphin, Caravan, Well You Needn't, etc etc, SOS". It's like a default mentality. Considering the amount of material and the fact that this is a creative music par excellence, the defaulting to a mere handful of moldy figs is a curious anomaly. Or maybe we're not as succulently magnifique as we think we are...

This, imo, is precisely why "jazz" has a bad rap among the public. People might be "unsophisticated" but they can spot a band dialing it in from a mile away. If you don't play with passion, and with AUTHORITY, people won't listen. It's as simple as that.

[Guest]

No one plays "Peaches En Regalia" or any of the Corea tunes or Steve Swallow tunes in the Fake Books. Why not? Cuz most of us are lazy mmmmmfffff-ers!!!

Bite your tongue. Organissimo plays Peaches on their lastest CD.

...and this is exactly why the terrorist will NOT win. I'm extremely jealous : played the tune in High School and haven't been able to play it since. Yeah, I'm jealous...I'm a pretty good woodblock player, own a pair of black shoes, and have been innoculated for most diseases so, can I join your band? I'm sure I can find a 3" snare drum somewhere so's I can do that lil' snare drum part...

[7/4]

No one plays "Peaches En Regalia" or any of the Corea tunes or Steve Swallow tunes in the Fake Books. Why not? Cuz most of us are lazy mmmmmfffff-ers!!!

Bite your tongue. Organissimo plays Peaches on their lastest CD.

...and this is exactly why the terrorist will NOT win. I'm extremely jealous : played the tune in High School and haven't been able to play it since. Yeah, I'm jealous...I'm a pretty good woodblock player, own a pair of black shoes, and have been innoculated for most diseases so, can I join your band? I'm sure I can find a 3" snare drum somewhere so's I can do that lil' snare drum part...

[Jim Alfredson]

No one plays "Peaches En Regalia" or any of the Corea tunes or Steve Swallow tunes in the Fake Books. Why not? Cuz most of us are lazy mmmmmfffff-ers!!!

Bite your tongue. Organissimo plays Peaches on their lastest CD.

...and this is exactly why the terrorist will NOT win. I'm extremely jealous : played the tune in High School and haven't been able to play it since. Yeah, I'm jealous...I'm a pretty good woodblock player, own a pair of black shoes, and have been innoculated for most diseases so, can I join your band? I'm sure I can find a 3" snare drum somewhere so's I can do that lil' snare drum part...

Sounds like a good time to be had by all!

[CJ Shearn]

I wonder why after listening to "Stepping Stones" why "In a Capricornian Way" is not a standard. Same for Pat Metheny tunes, there are plenty that he wrote that would work in a blowing context "Song For Bilbao" the beautiful ballad "As I Am", "Its Just Talk", "Double Guatemala"(just a blues, but its Pat!), "H&H", "Never Too Far Away", "Change of Heart", "Say the Brother's Name". Joe G. whatcha think?

[Rooster_Ties]

For the life of me, I can't understand why "Little Wing" isn't more of a standard (well, other than the fact Hendrix wrote it).

Seriously, IMHO, LW is a stunningly beautiful ballad, and one that's also harmonically interesting – and without being the least bit off-putting about it either. As beautiful as any ballad I can think of written after the mid-60's. Right up there with Beatrice, as but one other example.

Edited November 30, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[Spontooneous]

Several folks around Kansas City play Pat Metheny's "Always and Forever," but maybe that's just a KC thing.

[Rosco]

I play with a couple of guys occasionally who have an all-Metheny band although I've not heard them yet.

They play alto and trumpet and I'm sure some of Metheny's things would be very interesting with horns. There's a couple I'd like to get together myself.

[CJ Shearn]

yeah "Always and Forever" is a popular Metheny ballad

[Jazzmoose]

Well, frankly, it seems to me that you guys need a nonmusician here to figure this out. What makes a song a standard is more than just musicians playing it a lot, it's got to be well known by much of the public. The listening public is not just divided between "race music" and popular adaptions thereof anymore. The music has been split along generational lines ever since Rock and Roll became big, and the fractures have continued, until even the bland "top ten" pop we all love to ridicule is only heard by a minority of the public. Fittingly enough, the only songs that are considered "standards" reached that status prior to the splintering. There simply can't be any "standards" any more on the level of Porter, Rodgers & Hart, etc. tunes, because no music reaches a wide enough audience to become a standard.

In other words, it ain't you guys; it's us...

[CJ Shearn]

I'm a non musician too!!!

[Jazzmoose]

Darn...so much for that theory!

[Free For All]

Trilok Gurtu has said much the same thing : he avoids Jazz musicians now cuz so many of them "think of these outrageous & complex harmonies but are frozen when confronted with rhytmic phrasings not encountered in Music Rhythms 101

That Trilok is such a nut! He sure swings his ass off though!

I tend to avoid jazz musicians myself, but mostly because they always want to borrow money. Plus they tend to smell funny, like chicken soup or onions, you know.

Just kidding, ben, I do get your point.

[Rosco]

Well, frankly, it seems to me that you guys need a nonmusician here to figure this out. What makes a song a standard is more than just musicians playing it a lot, it's got to be well known by much of the public. The listening public is not just divided between "race music" and popular adaptions thereof anymore. The music has been split along generational lines ever since Rock and Roll became big, and the fractures have continued, until even the bland "top ten" pop we all love to ridicule is only heard by a minority of the public. Fittingly enough, the only songs that are considered "standards" reached that status prior to the splintering. There simply can't be any "standards" any more on the level of Porter, Rodgers & Hart, etc. tunes, because no music reaches a wide enough audience to become a standard.

In other words, it ain't you guys; it's us...

Oh, all fair points Mr. Moose.

But most of us tend to play two types of gig:

The ones where we're playing to 'jazz audiences' (as distinct from 'the listening public') who, it's not unreasonable to expect, should be able to recognise a Duke Pearson or Chick Corea tune when they hear one.

The ones where we are playing to 'the listening public' who by this point in time are so distanced from the era of 'the standard' that most of them wouldn't know 'All the Things You Are' from Anthony Braxton's 'Composition 110A (+108B + 69J)'. Rodgers & Hart are as foreign to most general agudiences as just about anything you can play. So... why not push the envelope a litte?

[Alexander Hawkins]

Well, frankly, it seems to me that you guys need a nonmusician here to figure this out. What makes a song a standard is more than just musicians playing it a lot, it's got to be well known by much of the public. The listening public is not just divided between "race music" and popular adaptions thereof anymore. The music has been split along generational lines ever since Rock and Roll became big, and the fractures have continued, until even the bland "top ten" pop we all love to ridicule is only heard by a minority of the public. Fittingly enough, the only songs that are considered "standards" reached that status prior to the splintering. There simply can't be any "standards" any more on the level of Porter, Rodgers & Hart, etc. tunes, because no music reaches a wide enough audience to become a standard.

In other words, it ain't you guys; it's us...

The ones where we are playing to 'the listening public' who by this point in time are so distanced from the era of 'the standard' that most of them wouldn't know 'All the Things You Are' from Anthony Braxton's 'Composition 110A (+108B + 69J)'. Rodgers & Hart are as foreign to most general agudiences as just about anything you can play. So... why not push the envelope a litte?

I know what you mean about AATYA, but...

[Guest]

People don't play cool, different tunes because there are no bands anymore. Just thrown together sets of sidemen whores.

Which is exactly why the masses must rise up and smash the State and their apologist running dog lackeys and...uh...uhm, oops, sorry....I think I'm at the wrong party. This isn't the 3rd floor? Oh my. Please excuse me, I must've not been paying attention...funny elevators they have here. Oh my, must be going....

[7/4]

For the life of me, I can't understand why "Little Wing" isn't more of a standard (well, other than the fact Hendrix wrote it).

Seriously, IMHO, LW is a stunningly beautiful ballad, and one that's also harmonically interesting – and without being the least bit off-putting about it either. As beautiful as any ballad I can think of written after the mid-60's. Right up there with Beatrice, as but one other example.

It is, but in the rock world it's played out. As soon as a transcription got published, everyone was playing Little Wing. Open mikes, guitar shows, guitar stores and so on.

Maybe a creative Jazz arranger could breathe some new life into it.

[Rooster_Ties]

Re: Little Wing... Played-out on guitar, I'll grant you. But in acoustic jazz settings?? Particularly with piano -- sure not played-out there.

And certainly not played-out with jazz audiences either, I wouldn't think. Many of them probably never even heard it. And those that have, probably haven't heard it in years (or not much anyway).

Edited December 1, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[brownie]

Gil Evans worked 'Little Wing' to death. He had his musicians play this at practically every concerts.

The tune is considered a Gil Evans classic by now!

[Soul Stream]

After all is said and done, I'm a firm believer that it's not what is played but how. I saw a trio back up dewey redman. they were a very avant group and played 3 songs of their own to begin with. pretty 'out' stuff. then dewey came up and made them do a med-down version of 'lester leaps in' (the most worn out standard ever of course)....but it was the hippest song of the 4 simply because dewey is such a master that he made that song happen. it was awesome.

so yeah, it's the song, but it's also how it's played. do I want to hear "satin doll" again?...not really by a bunch of college students with no feel (saw that recently at a jam, pretty excruciating)...but if james moody played it, it'd be great no doubt.

[JSngry]

Here's a thought - how many players today can play a melody, as opposed to playing a head?

Any piece, any piece, can be approached either way.

And think about it - are there any "standards", jazz originals, show tunes, whatever, that people don't know the melody to?

I think there's a general loss of interest in melody. The mathematics of harmony, characteristic rhythms and readily identifiable yet generalized tonal pallates per se have taken precedence, which is all well and good, but if all audiences want is a beat and/or energy and/or a certain "sound, and if all players are interested in is a good set of changes to blow on and/or a good groove to do it over and/or a certain "sound to do it with, is it any wonder that the same old same old keeps getting trotted out? After all, a ii-V is a ii-V, and if you're going to alter it every which way any way, what difference does it make what order they come in? And if everybody is looking for that good groove, what difference does it make waht you put on top of it? And if everybody's looking for certain sets of timbral qualities, what difference does it make what they're in the service of? Most players today don't sing (metaphorically), they play instruments. It's the difference between specific, personalized interaction and the operation of a machine for general public use.

One thing I've noticed - players who have an appreciation of pure melody tend to have a braoder repertoire than those who don't. And those who have a broad repertoire seem to have a better appreciation of melody than those who don't.

Not sure what, if anything, all this means, but hey.

Edited December 1, 2005 by JSngry

[Jim Alfredson]

Word.