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You can't turn a doublewide trailer foundation into a mansion and still have the trailer be part of the final deal. I guess you COULD - but then you'd have a trailer in the middle of your mansion's courtyard.Yeah, you can add chords to something, but it doesn't change the bones. If it doesn't work in its simplest form, adding more chords won't necessarily make it work better - it just serves to make the jazz musician say 'look - I turned it into a jazz tune!' Now... how does it SOUND? Norwegian Wood isn't a great example because the Beatles' harmonic prowess was WAY more advanced in a lot of ways than most contemporary pop tunes. It was already a great song without adding anything else - but what Herbie added, tastefully and very specifically, works well. The Beatles were still rooted in a lot of traditional harmonic concepts, with some unique twists... which is why their material is perennially fruitful for improvisation. That's where the whole 'writing something that will last for 100+ years' part comes in.
I am not saying that fake books calcify HISTORY -- just the standards that musicians play. For example, there are a lot of bands that play Pat Metheny's music. This is probably because he has put so much effort into creating his Pat Metheny Songbook and Pat Metheny Fake Book. People will simply not put the effort into transcribing most songs and therefore, won't play songs that aren't charted -- unless they are easy.
Well, yes and no; while a reasonable effort was made to include a good number of standards, since Steve Swallow was one of the drivers behind it, we got all those essentially unplayable Steve Swallow tunes that no one's ever played a second time out of the RB. There are a considerable number of other such tunes, the ones everyone skips over.
Yeah, I have. Some do it well... some leave me flat. I prefer the original works of Mehldau, McBride, Redman, etc. They are themselves truly great contemporary JAZZ composers.
Well, the thing about Pat Metheny's stuff is that it's basically music for people who don't like music - the most advanced background ambient stuff there is. So it goes over real well in the restaurant gigs AND people enjoy playing it because it's got changes and stuff.
Tell us you have only listened to a certain slice of Pat Metheny Group 80s material, versus his entire discography, without actually telling us. I take it you haven't listened to the following Metheny albums:
Not saying it's not intricate, I'm just saying that most of it is perfectly suited for the dinner set. That's why it doesn't get you thrown out like playing, say, "Fables of Faubus" would; and yet there's enough interest there for the musicians, that they won't throw up in their bucket mutes like they would if you called "the all-Kenny-G set".
I stand by my original statement that you have not listened to most all of those specific records I mentioned, which are not 'smooth' in the derogatory definition you're lobbing out. Acknowledging the intricacy doesn't mean you've actually listened to the bulk of his discography. And those Group songs are very complex, and not likely to be done by someone playing 'the dinner set.' You're just displaying your ignorance of the bulk of Metheny's material. Some of it - the 80s Group work specifically - IS very much a bit 'smooth' even for my taste.... but the bulk of Metheny's 'real jazz' work is not that. The Group is its own thing, and a different vehicle than his trio/quartet work in general. But it sounds like you've got your mind all made up.
If by maybe 5-10% of the 'contemporary adaptations' 'working' fits your definitions of 'sometimes works', then sure. But for my ears and taste, that's 90-95% of it that doesn't. I'd say 'rarely' instead of 'sometimes.'
Fair. There are a lot of weird tunes in it along with the American songbook stuff. As you say, that’s the stuff nobody plays!
