Double Bass Why no new Jazz Standards?

[Steven Ayres]

As far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong Steven), he is not a university professor or renowned artist, in spite of his apparent virtuosity on upright bass. Yet he wrote a great song you said you would like to learn. You also requested the chart. I personally, would like to play it.

Wow, thanks!

The pianist on that recording, Matt Jackson, wrote a bunch of tunes before he died last year, and was able to record some of them, but they remain unpublished. To my thinking that means the end of the music, which seems like a shame. Is this neglect of publishing common everywhere?

My main concern is the extent to which the book would be used, so would inclusion of smooth and contemporary tunes hurt its useability/acceptance by other musicians given the fact that some are jazz purists?

It seems to me that "smooth" and "contemporary" describe style rather than content, and how can anyone be a purist in the art of change? But this idea does lead me back to my contention that we write songs and make them into jazz (or whatever), rather than write "jazz songs."

 

[hhalt]

I am saying a mix of a thorough study of tunes, researching original versions as well the iconic vocal version AND the Real Book/charts as a means to access more rep.

I agree. Remember there are 3 original Real Books plus 3 New Real Books from Sher, plus the Standards Real Book, The European Real Book, The Colorado Cookbook, 557 Standards-I could go on... Really important to find recordings-there's lots of mistakes especially in the earlier editions.

 

[hhalt]

What about smooth and contemporary jazz? Do you think these newer forms should be included? We have some smooth jazz in our local standards that keep popping up at gigs like Mr. Magic, Shaker Song, Morning Dance, and contemporary stuff like Pat Metheny's Bright Size Life, Phase Dance, James, Song for Bilbao....do you think these newer jazz styles are a good fit with a book like this? Or do they belong in a separate book?

This brings up another issue-what style of jazz is to be included? Free jazz, fusion, odd meter, latin-jazz....

 

[JohnDavisNYC]

I am going to go cleanse my ears with Simandl now after clicking on the video in @Sam Sherry's vile post!

I'm not sure there is anything worse than that Post Modern Jukebox poopie. It's really offensively terrible and in bad taste. I had the misfortune of recording a few of their earliest videos, and those were some depressing sessions.

John

 

[Sam Sherry]

I'm not sure there is anything worse than that Post Modern Jukebox poopie. It's really offensively terrible and in bad taste. I had the misfortune of recording a few of their earliest videos, and those were some depressing sessions.

John, everybody's entitled their their opinion. You, as a player in that band, sure as heck get to have yours, not that you need me to say so!

I think they're fun in small doses. I guess it's my kind of bad taste. (Their doo-wop take on Miley Cyrus has "Sam's Favorite Poopie" written all over it.)

And FWIW I think that their stuff is relevant to a discussion of 'new standards.'

 

[Jay Corwin]

I want to love Post Modern Jukebox but it just tends to come off as a novelty act. More interesting to watch than actually listen to.

I'm pretty sure it's meant to be a novelty act, which it is quite good at.

 

[Lee Moses]

John, everybody's entitled their their opinion. You, as a player in that band, sure as heck get to have yours, not that you need me to say so!

I think they're fun in small doses. I guess it's my kind of bad taste. (Their doo-wop take on Miley Cyrus has "Sam's Favorite Poopie" written all over it.)

And FWIW I think that their stuff is relevant to a discussion of 'new standards.'

I just listened to the Nirvana tune--it's interesting. I like their version a lot better than Nirvana's, but that's not saying much.

"Gateway jazz" has always served its purpose, and that's what I see this Postmodern Jukebox as. If people who were previously listening to Meghan Trainor, Nirvana, and Justin Bieber start getting their ears turned on to a more jazz sound, maybe they'll be digging Miles, Monk, and Bill Evans in a year.

 

[sean_on_bass]

I'm pretty sure it's meant to be a novelty act, which it is quite good at.

That i can agree with. Also i actually play with a fairly noveltyish group currently so i should probably shut my mouth.

 

[JohnDavisNYC]

one could say that I play in a novelty band too, so point taken. i have a few good friends who play in some of the touring bands for that group, and they are burning players... i just find it horrifyingly bad, and it bums me out that people are so into it, because it really is aimed at the lowest common denominator. back to lurk mode...

john

 

[Spin Doctor]

I'm sure this is gonna get a serious flame, but I honestly don't care. This is something that has bothered me for a very long time about the music and a lot of the musicians who play it.

Jazz musicians as a rule seem to be pretty myopic. If it doesn't come out of that post WW2/Korean War era of about 1948 - 1959, they don't see the music as valid. Hard bop died pretty much on the vine because it all basically sounded the same and could not remain relevant.

My observation is that there are no new standards because jazz guys won't allow it. They grab themselves by the throat and wonder why they can't breathe. They hate everything and are filled with intolerance. They are the worse kind of musical bigot. I see it all through this thread. There are some responses I read here that I found frankly disgusting.

To me jazz is all about relevance, not about how much you sound like PC or Evans or Miles. That's just museum s***. Miles never spent his life playing 60 or 70 year old songs... He never spent one single second of his life doing that.

 

[PauFerro]

I'm sure this is gonna get a serious flame, but I honestly don't care. This is something that has bothered me for a very long time about the music and a lot of the musicians who play it.

Jazz musicians as a rule seem to be pretty myopic. If it doesn't come out of that post WW2/Korean War era of about 1948 - 1959, they don't see the music as valid. Hard bop died pretty much on the vine because it all basically sounded the same and could not remain relevant.

My observation is that there are no new standards because jazz guys won't allow it. They grab themselves by the throat and wonder why they can't breathe. They hate everything and are filled with intolerance. They are the worse kind of musical bigot. I see it all through this thread. There are some responses I read here that I found frankly disgusting.

To me jazz is all about relevance, not about how much you sound like PC or Evans or Miles. That's just museum s***. Miles never spent his life playing 60 or 70 year old songs... He never spent one single second of his life doing that.

I have run into jazz snobs before, but most have deconverted and have become open minded. I like what one great artist said -- it's all music -- he doesn't compartmentalize styles. I think people who compartmentalize and revere one style over another are doing themselves out of a lot of musical fulfilment -- and creativity.

Also, the fact that new music stopped making it into the local repertoire in the town I lived has me working on a book of new, original material that i hope to be able to freely distribute after getting legal issues worked out.

Already have about 6 local players with original music willing to waive their print and public performance roylaties (under certain conditions) to be part of the book, and many asked if they could be part of the panel that juries songs into the book. Their reasons seem to be the age-old desire to make something about you live on, and the hope of a song becoming popular and generating royalties from recordings.

I have a guy who also does transcriptions and formatting on board as a volunteer as well....like I need another project. But I feel passionate about this one. Can't stop thinking about it. I bought the book @Chris Fitzgerald mentioned called the Story of Fakebooks to understand the lay of the land.

I have plans to see a lawyer about what kind of agreement people would have to agree to in order to be included in the book...tentatively named The Original Compositions Real Book. And of course, there is a non-profit structure in place that I already have going.

Part of what got the Real Book (the illegal one) started was two Berkley musicians/students approached Steve Swallow and Pat Metheny and asked if they would give them charts for inclusion in the book. They all agreed, apparently. And for the two reasons the top of scene local people I play with have agreed.

 

[Lee Moses]

I'm sure this is gonna get a serious flame, but I honestly don't care. This is something that has bothered me for a very long time about the music and a lot of the musicians who play it.

Jazz musicians as a rule seem to be pretty myopic. If it doesn't come out of that post WW2/Korean War era of about 1948 - 1959, they don't see the music as valid. Hard bop died pretty much on the vine because it all basically sounded the same and could not remain relevant.

My observation is that there are no new standards because jazz guys won't allow it. They grab themselves by the throat and wonder why they can't breathe. They hate everything and are filled with intolerance. They are the worse kind of musical bigot. I see it all through this thread. There are some responses I read here that I found frankly disgusting.

To me jazz is all about relevance, not about how much you sound like PC or Evans or Miles. That's just museum s***. Miles never spent his life playing 60 or 70 year old songs... He never spent one single second of his life doing that.

I think that is unnecessarily harsh. And your description of "jazz guys" seems, well, bigoted. Jazz fans/musicians all have their individual preferences. There is some jazz they like and some they don't. You could say the same thing about rock fans and rock music, rap fans and rap music, country fans and country music, etc.

But overall, jazz listeners tend to be some of the most open-minded listeners out there. They tend to be constantly looking for something new and inventive. So new music is pretty likely to be somewhere in their rotation. I honestly don't know any serious jazz aficionados who automatically reject jazz made outside the era of 1948-59. It might be an era when a lot of their favorite jazz was made, but is that such a crime? Jazz listeners will typically be found listening to music made covering at least a 60-year span, and right up to the present.

"To me jazz is all about relevance." That's one of the beauties of jazz, that it is so individual. To me, it's not all about relevance. By the late 60's, early 70's, you're probably right that it had become Miles' focus. But historically, jazz has been about expression.

 

[koricancowboy]

The barrier, which others may have mentioned, is that too few people are manning/womaning up, putting down the book and doing their own arrangements of recent pop tunes to make them into something a jazz band can get away with playing.

Luckily there are people like Scott Bradlee who have made a career out of it.

This and that Prince cover, (unlike Damon I adore Prince) is the very reason that I'll have to side with Damon. This group not only makes bad arrangements of bad pop tunes but have done so with a really bland interpretation of jazz. This is on the same level as Katy Perry if you ask me. Putting jazz instruments to bad music doesn't make it good music, "jazzy" or not. This is a bad song, period. There is nothing good about it. One thing that seems to differentiate good standards, jazz or otherwise, is a strong melody. This is a crap melody. Schmaltz and truly horrible.

 

[koricancowboy]

I'm sure this is gonna get a serious flame, but I honestly don't care. This is something that has bothered me for a very long time about the music and a lot of the musicians who play it.

Jazz musicians as a rule seem to be pretty myopic. If it doesn't come out of that post WW2/Korean War era of about 1948 - 1959, they don't see the music as valid. Hard bop died pretty much on the vine because it all basically sounded the same and could not remain relevant.

My observation is that there are no new standards because jazz guys won't allow it. They grab themselves by the throat and wonder why they can't breathe. They hate everything and are filled with intolerance. They are the worse kind of musical bigot. I see it all through this thread. There are some responses I read here that I found frankly disgusting.

To me jazz is all about relevance, not about how much you sound like PC or Evans or Miles. That's just museum s***. Miles never spent his life playing 60 or 70 year old songs... He never spent one single second of his life doing that.

Man are you serious? Have you listened to much jazz being released nowadays? Mark Turner? Bobo Stenson? Kurt Rosenwinkel? Vijay Iyer? Or even anything post bop? I know you talk about hard bop but you are aware that there was a lot more going on then than hard bop, right? Ornette Coleman? Charlie Haden? Albert Ayler? Anthony Braxton? Cecil Taylor? Bill Dixon? AACM? John Coltrane beyond Giant Steps? Man, Lee Konitz is still innovative as all get out playing standards or not! I don't think the guy gives two $#!+$ about sounding like PC or Evans or Miles. Roswell Rudd? Granchan Moncur III?

I would go and do some listening and see how myopic jazz musicians are. Not all modern jazz players are Wynton. Just because playing a Taylor Swift song "all jazzy" is something I view as being jive doesn't mean that I wanna play rhythm changes or Ladybird all day long because I am myopic. Spend some time with Ken Vandermark or Roscoe Mitchell or Derek Bailey or Misha Mengelberg or Archie Shepp or Evan Parker or Monk or Mark Dresser or Tim Berne or Barre Philips or our own illustrious Damon Smith even and report back on their myopia. Sheesh. Myopic?! If that's being myopic, I'll side with them guys!

I think that there are no new standards because the age of standards has passed. We have a standard canon that is quite large as it is. I believe the future of jazz rests on the shoulders of new composition and adventurous improvisation rather than rehashing pop tunes. There will surely be new jazz standards but pop music doesn't have the same substance as it used to and will not find the same acceptance into the canon simply because it is bad music. On top of that, jazz musicians are nowhere near able to reach the levels of notoriety that they once were able to. This allows a level of explorative freedom that mitigates the need to look to pop music. Looking at new pop songs as potential standards is a schtick and I frankly find it a bit lazy.

We are not holding on to the standard as standard as much as before. Because of that, pop standards as jazz standards will always be a schtick. Why bother? Sit down and write a tune. Get out there and improvise without abandon and see what happens! Nada Brahma! Most artists of note are either doing that or accompanying those who are. For those who are playing society gigs I suppose it's different but on the rare occasion I do take those, I get more requests for My Funny Valentine than Roar even after I've played a horrible "jazzy" version of Viva la Vida and opened up that can of worms. IMHO. YMMV.

 

[Drgonzonm]

One of the reasons why tunes stopped becoming standards is there isn't really a 'centre' to jazz any more. I don't mean New York, I mean a central group of musicians who were clearly seen by everyone as the most vital musicians the ones who everyone was listening too. The pop/broadway tunes that became standards did so because they were played by Ellington/Basie/Bird/Monk/Rollins/Miles/Coltrane/Dexter Gordon etc - nobody has that undisputed role any more, there are so many musicians, so many different streams in the music. Books could and have been written about why that is, but until the early 60s the most important innovators were also the most respected carriers of tradition, they were mostly still alive and came up playing in the previous generation of most important innovators groups. That isn't the case any more.

That said, there are great bodies of work that are gradually becoming far more widely played - I reckon a lot more people play the music of Paul Motian, Andrew Hill, Herbie Nicholls than did 20 years ago. You even hear covers of Julius Hemphill, that wasn't happening until recently.

Recently I caught a PBS piece about jazz's new center being in Denmark. I felt a twinge of anger, since the genre came from the US. I guess I'm a jazz snob and I know little about the music.

 

[oliebrice]

Recently I caught a PBS piece about jazz's new center being in Denmark. I felt a twinge of anger, since the genre came from the US. I guess I'm a jazz snob and I know little about the music.

thats just journalists looking for a story, I wouldn't worry about it

 

[ctrlzjones]

Man are you serious? Have you listened to much jazz being released nowadays? Mark Turner?

[...]

I would go and do some listening and see how myopic jazz musicians are. Not all modern jazz players are Wynton.

Most of those who are talking that way suffer from an inability of listening to and understanding of what's really happening in the music. Therefore they must built their opinions upon the status that is grown around the (well, let's say "pure") music. This status is infected with a lot of details that seem to be connected with the music itself but in reality are far from it. A lot of what people understand when they say "I like/hate that" is not really refering to the phenomenon itself but to the values that have gathered around it. It is anymore about the musical piece itself but about its significance that it has been given because of attributions sticked onto its surface. Lifestyle is expressed by decisions in cosumption. I shop and therefore I am.

It happens in popular music and in serious music (ay, those distinctions alone ...) Mostly when people are talking about music they are not talking about "the thing itself". But rather about "what it stands for". And if its only about their own feelings it is just the same.

Most of the controversy about jazz versions of pop tunes is about status. It is not about musical quality (yes, there is such thing; its the measurement for how good the intention of playing something has been met with the result) instead it is about approval and therefore, to say it again, about status.

The message would be "I am better than you are because my taste is superior" vs. "Go f*ck yourself, you snob don't know what you're talking about". All this is not so much about the actual music (also most of it is shaped for the use with certain aims) but about social status ...

Then there is also the field of "mass culture" and "art" and how objectified items are dealt with on the market place based on there "added values" but going into that seems to be unessesary here ... Just only little thing: I really wonder why people from the marketing departments are fighting so hard to pin the label "jazz" on musical undertakings that clearly show scarse features of what this genre is about ... Some additional value maybe? Something that people who are not listening closely will buy into so that they can feel superior too.

This whole debate seems to be so stupid and a waste of time ...

 

[Sam Sherry]

Recently I caught a PBS piece about jazz's new center being in Denmark. I felt a twinge of anger, since the genre came from the US.

Fear not: They were talking about Denmark, Maine.

It's near pretty close to Norway, China, Mexico and Peru.

 

[Drgonzonm]

thats just journalists looking for a story, I wouldn't worry about it

I guess you are right. When I looked up the story, it was dated July 2017, and I saw it in late November. Talk about recycling.
Apparently, A jazz festival had just be completed.
I know that some sort of jazz was alive in central NM, when I was seeing ads for about a month describing jazz venues in Santa Fe, and Albuquerque. There may have been some jazz in Socorro NM at the Macey Center.
Locally, from 12n to 1:30 pm on mon-fri, KUNM, a local public station plays jazz, and has guest artists.

 

[sean_on_bass]

Spin Doctor has some good points, but can't be definitive for all jazz musicians. But he is right about a large group of jazz musicians who are doing nothing to reinvent the style or the standard rep. Some guys truly do play in the same style popular in the 50's and have never really changed. They are playing the same tunes they were playing then and playing them exactly the same way. No progress, just nostalgia. I'm not gonna say there is anything inherently wrong with that, but it wouldn't define it as exciting or groundbreaking. I'd still enjoy listening to it if played well.

For me, while i do spend some time learning to play like those old recordings, i fully embrace modern jazz and modern styles of music in general and like to freely incorporate that into jazz to create something new.