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That\u2019s part of the fun of Ted Gioia<\/a>\u2019s new book, The Jazz Standards<\/i>, which looks at more than 250 songs –. He pays special attention to their origins, the varied way jazz artists have interpreted each one, and a handful of the finest versions of each. (There are a few technical descriptions, but this is not for musicians only.)<\/p>\n
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<\/a>This is one of the best browsing books I know, and I\u2019ve spent more time than intended wandering from Rodgers and Hart\u2019s \u201cMy Funny Valentine\u201d to Ornette Coleman\u2019s \u201cLonely Woman\u201d to the traditional \u201cSt. James Infirmary,\u201d and wondering what these numbers might have in common. Part of what\u2019s striking is how many great, enduring songs come from goofy movies or minor shows. <\/p>\n
<\/a>This is one of the best browsing books I know, and I\u2019ve spent more time than intended wandering from Rodgers and Hart\u2019s \u201cMy Funny Valentine\u201d to Ornette Coleman\u2019s \u201cLonely Woman\u201d to the traditional \u201cSt. James Infirmary,\u201d and wondering what these numbers might have in common. Part of what\u2019s striking is how many great, enduring songs come from goofy movies or minor shows. <\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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Of course, there are songs I would have loved to see in here: \u00a0<\/span>Where\u2019s \u201cDaydream\u201d? \u201cChitlins Con Carne\u201d? \u201cBorn To Be Blue\u201d? I\u2019ve got my fingers crossed for a second volume.<\/p>\n
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(Disclosure: Ted — who is the author of West Coast Jazz<\/i>, Delta Blues<\/i>, and a blogger on science-fiction and the detective novel — is a friend and confidante of sorts, and I am named in his acknowledgements.)<\/p>\n
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Here’s our exchange.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
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What were your criteria for these songs? Your favorite? The most performed or taught, or some mixture of factors?<\/i><\/p>\n
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When I started work on The Jazz Standards<\/i>, I knew that somewhere between 200 and 300 songs needed to be covered in the book.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>These are the core songs jazz musicians are expected to know, and fans are likely to hear.\u00a0 <\/span>I eventually settled on 252 songs for inclusion, and listed more than 2,000 tracks in my recommended listening guide.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n
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So this isn\u2019t a survey of my favorite standards\u2014although many of these songs are personal favorites.\u00a0 <\/span>Nor is it a look at the bestselling jazz performances or even the most frequently recorded.\u00a0 <\/span>Some older jazz songs\u2014such as \u201cFidgety Feet\u201d or \u201cSweet Sue\u201d\u2014have been recorded more often than \u201cGiant Steps\u201d or \u201cSo What,\u201d but aren\u2019t really part of today\u2019s standard repertoire.\u00a0 <\/span>Instead, I aimed to put together a guide to the songs that are the core of the standard repertoire in the present day. <\/p>\n
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The \u201830s was a rich period for Broadway shows, and the \u201840s saw the exploding creativity of bebop, the \u201850s great jazz songwriters like Monk, Mingus and Miles Davis.\u00a0 But looking at these songs that speak to us in the 21st century, did the lid close at some point? How and why? Any kind of song that seems to succeed since that heyday?<\/i><\/p>\n
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Popular music has grown simpler and simpler over the passing decades.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>You could even quantify it.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019d love to see a statistician measure the change in hits songs since the 1930s.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>You could chart the decline in chromaticism, the narrowing range of the melodies, the replacement of wide interval leaps with more predictable whole note steps and repeated notes, or the reduced pace of harmonic movement.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Music has gone on a starvation diet, and the songs often look weak and anemic as a result.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Given this state of affairs, who can be surprised that jazz musicians continue to play the old songs?\u00a0 <\/span>Certainly there are still interesting new songs and talented composers out there, but it\u2019s harder and harder to find them.\u00a0 <\/span>I listen to new music every day\u2014I\u2019ve listened to more than 500 new albums so far this year\u2014and I\u2019m struck by how well hidden the best recordings are.\u00a0 <\/span>The good stuff almost never appears on major labels anymore, and almost never on the radio either.\u00a0 <\/span>You need to be determined and persistent to find high quality new songs nowadays.\u00a0 <\/span>Most jazz musicians take the path of least resistance:\u00a0 <\/span>they play the old standards, and write new songs of their own, but rarely draw on the broader streams of modern popular music.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Given this state of affairs, who can be surprised that jazz musicians continue to play the old songs?\u00a0 <\/span>Certainly there are still interesting new songs and talented composers out there, but it\u2019s harder and harder to find them.\u00a0 <\/span>I listen to new music every day\u2014I\u2019ve listened to more than 500 new albums so far this year\u2014and I\u2019m struck by how well hidden the best recordings are.\u00a0 <\/span>The good stuff almost never appears on major labels anymore, and almost never on the radio either.\u00a0 <\/span>You need to be determined and persistent to find high quality new songs nowadays.\u00a0 <\/span>Most jazz musicians take the path of least resistance:\u00a0 <\/span>they play the old standards, and write new songs of their own, but rarely draw on the broader streams of modern popular music.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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This comes at a cost, however.\u00a0 <\/span>Jazz needs to maintain a vital dialogue with the popular music of the current day, otherwise it risks becoming a museum piece.\u00a0 <\/span>I applaud the jazz musicians who are trying to find a way of creating this kind of dialogue.\u00a0 <\/span>But can they convince others to join them in this endeavor?\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>And can they incorporate populist elements in their music without diluting the high standards that, even today, are the pride and joy of the jazz world? Time will tell.\u00a0 <\/span>I note with some concern that the list of jazz standards featured in my book isn\u2019t much different than the list someone might have compiled ten or twenty years ago.\u00a0 <\/span>That can\u2019t be healthy for the art form.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n
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Which composer shows up the most often? What musical quality could he summon better than anyone else?<\/i><\/p>\n
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I haven\u2019t done a count, but clearly the great American songwriters\u2014George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers\u2014are well represented, as are important jazz composers such as Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n
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Yet as I look at the range of the standard repertoire, I don\u2019t notice many stylistic similarities.\u00a0 <\/span>You can\u2019t study this material without marveling over the diversity of this body of work.\u00a0 <\/span>And even though I like some of these songs better than others, there are very few works in the standard repertoire that don\u2019t have some redeeming quality or noteworthy hook in their construction. Jazz musicians like smart songs, and the standard repertoire mostly consists of real gems, and only a few fake jewels.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n
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Is there a musician who seemed to have an individualistic and intuitive sense of the possibilities of a great song \u2013 even those that others had neglected or failed to transform? Maybe you could say a word about the way Chet Baker and Sonny Rollins \u2013 two very different artists \u2013 chose their material.<\/i><\/p>\n
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People who listen to the recommended tracks I list in my book\u2014and by the way, a great Spotify playlist compiled by Jim Higgins (http:\/\/www.jsonline.com\/blogs\/entertainment\/161618065.html<\/a>) makes it easy for them to do so\u2014will see the many different ways jazz musicians have put their own distinctive stamp on the music.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Sometimes their interpretation builds on the basic personality of the song, but in other instances a jazz performer will force a song to take on new, unexpected disguises.\u00a0 <\/span>Lester Young and Chet Baker might be considered masters of the former approach, building their own renditions on the lyrical ingredients inherent in the composition.\u00a0 <\/span>On the other hand, a Sonny Rollins or a Coleman Hawkins erect their own imposing superstructures on the original foundations, sometimes with such boldness and mastery that the original song is turned into something the composer might never have anticipated.\u00a0 <\/span>Both approaches are part of the jazz heritage.\u00a0 <\/span>In fact, part of the joy of studying this music comes from accepting that there is no one right way of playing it.<\/p>\n
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Do we learn anything technically by looking en mass at the best or most-played songs? That is, does there seem to be a key or tempo our ear likes best, or some hard-wired rule about not jumping more than a fifth in our favorite melodies, or something?<\/i><\/p>\n
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