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Modern, artsy, left field, lusher or whatever.....standards for singing?

T

Tombolino

Dec 28, 2012
326
17
#1
Hi all,

I learning to sing jazz tunes and it seems Im attracted to certain types tunes, looking around for more ideas. Heres the ones I like that I have been learning which are on the dark, impressionist, lush, modern.

Round Midnight
My Funny Valentine
Days of Wine & Roses
Adeus (Edu Lobo)
Come Rain or Shine (a la like Chet Baker)
Tokyo Blues
One Note Samba
Speak Low
 
#4
Tombolino said:
Hi all,

I learning to sing jazz tunes and it seems Im attracted to certain types tunes, looking around for more ideas. Heres the ones I like that I have been learning which are on the dark, impressionist, lush, modern.

Round Midnight
My Funny Valentine
Days of Wine & Roses
Adeus (Edu Lobo)
Come Rain or Shine (a la like Chet Baker)
Tokyo Blues
One Note Samba
Speak Low
Click to expand...

It's good that you're thinking about this stuff... And I think it's great question. Personally, I feel that the absolute LAST thing "jazz" (and I use the term loosely) needs is yet another standard version, of a standard song, sung in the standard way as it's been done for the last 50-60 or 70 years. It's so over done. No more Natalie Cole Route 66's. No more Ella, Sara, whoever versions of anything... I'm more into a Left Field vibe than anything else.

In my opinion, it's way past time to make jazz relevant again. Jazz is supposed to be relevant to the times in which it's created. Not some fossil to be dug up again and again to have that same old skin plastered on and stuck in a museum. I'm so done with that. This $hit has been the same $hit for way too long. So look at artists like Robert Glasper, bassist Derric Hodge and all those guys who run in those circles and take some cues from what they are doing. For example...




Or



Something I think I've realized and that a lot of old school jazz guys will never get is that Groove is the new Swing... It's not about just a bunch of ii-V's and rhythm changes anymore and I think it's gonna take a lot of deaths before the idea takes hold. Also, if "jazz" is planning to continue, it's gonna have to appeal to people who might not have been born before 1960.

Ok I'm off the soapbox now...
 
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#6
IamGroot said:
Jazz is still big. Its the peoples ears that got small.
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It's still popular with a fair number of people, but I certainly wouldn't call it "big". Music that's big is always music that people can dance to. Jazz was big when they were dancing to it and it wasn't so exclusive. (Bebop, I'm looking at you...)

But don't get me wrong... I'm not, in any way, going to stop studying the traditional jazz format. I love the intellectual puzzle that it creates as well as the sound of it. But, my thought is that if you plan to keep up, or even advance the music, then tradition can't be all you know. The people I mentioned above can play at the highest level in the traditional sense. It will always be the foundation.

I don't know if it's so much that peoples ears got small, as much as that people got tired of it when it became hard to move to. The takeaway here is that music moves on. But there are pockets of tradition in every genre of music.
 
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#10
Tombolino said:
Yes, more dark harmonies!

Check out how Chet Baker did Come Rain or Shine, a tune normally done with in a silly campy blues style that I cant stand.



Any Tom Waits tunes considered a standard?
Click to expand...


You can treat anything you want like a standard... Herbie Hancock did an album called The New Standard where he put a jazz spin on several pop tunes. Miles Davis (and others) did it ALL the time. The things we call standards now, were just contemporary tunes that Miles reharmonized.
 
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