"Jazz standards"

[Dorsetmike]

What are your favourite standards?

What makes a standard? (Can this really be defined?)

Which is the most recorded standard that you know of?

One of my favourites is "What's New", I've so far tracked down 16 recordings on Last FM ranging from (probably the first version I recall hearing), Stan Kenton featuring Maynard Ferguson, through Mel Powell, Milt Jackson, Wes Montgomery to McCoy Tyner.

Avalon is another favourite of mine, I've yet to trawl through Last.FM for versions of that.

[Mat]

http://www.magle.dk/music-forums/410...-standard.html

[Dorsetmike]

OOps, but that was almost a year before I joined!!

[intet_at_tabe]

What are your favourite standards?

What makes a standard? (Can this really be defined?)

Which is the most recorded standard that you know of?)

Well Dorsetmike

You raise a good question on standards in jazz. I can´t give you a precise answear to your question, because I am not the God of jazz.

However, I will state that a jazz standard is a tune/song that more people thruoghout the world - musician wise - enjoy playing, for the simple matter that it sounds familiar and it feels great and good to play.

One of my own particular jazz standards is the tune/song - The Song Is You, by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, which the Standards Trio performed in such overwhelmingly act on the album "Still Live", from the ECM Records 1988.

Of course as you already know The Standards Trio was and is Keith Jarrett (piano) Gary Peacock (double bass) and Brother Jack DeJohnette (drums).

This tune/song has been performed by vocalists like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett as well, equally great with a trio, a quartet or a Big Band.

Take for instance the Antonio Carlos Jobim tune/song - The Girl From Ipanema, which has been recorded throughout the past 30 years by hundreds of jazz musicians - Truely a jazz standard, though it was composed by a Brasialian composer and poet.

My best to you Dorsetmike - which could be translated into Mike from Dorset, England.

[Dorsetmike]

Well Intet, I've had a quick look at Kieth Jarrett and co and added a few of their albums to my Last.fm library, I will pass verdict when they've had a bit of time to influence me.

[intet_at_tabe]

Well Intet, I've had a quick look at Kieth Jarrett and co and added a few of their albums to my Last.fm library, I will pass verdict when they've had a bit of time to influence me.

Well Mike, I will wait excitedly however as always patiently for your suitable verdict!!

[Vintage]

My favourites are probably 'Lazy River', 'All of Me', and 'Anything Goes'. Pretty hard to choose though!

I also like Avalon! I have a recording that I will upload for you once I have reached 10 posts. At the moment I have exceeded the maximum attachment allowance, and for some reason I can't get into my posts to remove old attachments.

Sorry I can't help with the other questions.


M

[Vintage]

Ok, I put up that track for you in Can you please help to identify this Piano music?

Enjoy!

[John Watt]

Jazz standards! Yeah, what a dangerous subject. You can cause heart attacks
and get pacemakers defibulating with this topic.
The songs I played that I thought were jazzy always created a controversy with someone.
I still think if I'm jamming it out and riffing away with my Coltrane to Hendrix influences,
it's jazz, for me.
When I visited the big band jazzers who rehearsed once a week at the local high school,
they'd ask me to sing a song or two, and that was jazz for me too.

The one "jazz standard" I've heard played and jammed out at matinees, by far,
is "Summertime", by George and Ira Gershwin.
Even though Moe Kaufmann was local, for a while,
and the brother of my keyboardist friend bought his flute when he upgraded,
the one he recorded "Swinging Shepherd Blues" on,
I've never heard anyone jamming that one.

The one thing I noticed right away about jazz was how international it is.
So my local opinion about standards is just local.
And as far as people singing from their hearts, or at least by memory,
as a descendant of Scottish Highlanders it is very gratifying, and reassuring,
to hear "Auld Lang Syne" and "Amazing Grace" being sung around the world.
For my family, as a Canadian, not clan, "Amazing Grace" is only funereal.
I get tears by the second verse every time I sing or hear this music.
That's okay, the price I pay.
as always, John Watt

[Corno Dolce]

Jazz standards eh? Tyner and Jarrett - no one else comes close imnsho...

[OLDUDE]

My favourite Louis track is "I've got the right to sing the blues"
I dont know if it qualifies as a standard but I've heard it by quite a few others.

[JHC]

I think to become standard means it is so very popular and is in every ones repertoire and just does not fade away, that’s my view anyway.
Some of which I concider standards:

Lady be good, Birdland, Bags groove, Bei mir bist du schone, It don’t mean a thing,
Softly as in a morning sunrise, Sweet Sue, Willow weep for me, All the things you are, Tea for two, Small Hotel, S’Wonderful, Autumn Leaves, Perdido, Summer time, Lover, I could go on and on I love em all.
Not to mention: Moma don’t alow, The Saints go marching in, St James infirmary, Sweet Georgia Brown etc.

[OLDUDE]

Hi Mike'
The intrinsic nature of a standard is that it is an attractive and popular piece of music, and therein lies a problem.
Those purchasing a CD may unconsciously check tracklists for recognisable material
and finish up with a somewhat repetitious musical library.
Of course many may say ,why not?
Having just, (once again), enjoyed my copy of "Gold" by Ella which has 39 tracks. all undoubtedly standards, perhaps I should keep quiet on this matter.

[JHC]

The intrinsic nature of a standard is that it is an attractive and popular piece of music, and therein lies a problem.
Those purchasing a CD may unconsciously check tracklists for recognisable material
and finish up with a somewhat repetitious musical library.
Of course many may say ,why not?

Well in a way I must fall into that category as my main likes are
definitely from the 1950 jazz scene which comprised mainly of standards (because they were fantastic tunes mostly from Broadway Musicals) from the 30s & 40s plus a smattering of tunes composed by the Musicians around at the time. In the classical genre I must have 8 - 10 different sets of Beethoven’s late St Qts, just as a side comment: I did hear some of this “Free Style Jazz” about a month ago and to me it sounded absolutely terrible, a complete, unrelated mess.

[Dorsetmike]

I agree with you there, but then it's the same in most of "the arts", in classical music you have the likes of Gorecki, Einaudi and other providers of tuneless or atonal output, in other forms there have been some to my mind insults to the intellect like a stack of bricks and other mundane and/or shapeless works, meaningless daubs of colour, I wonder what next?

A few of the media rave about it and the sheep follow.