I'm being a little grumpy and trollish, obv there are lots of jazz ballad performances I like. It also overlaps with my feeling about standards generally -- not that they shouldn't be played, but that they can take on the quality of the dead hands of composers past at times. Because when standards were played by bebop and post-bop groups, the audiences were still full of people who knew those songs as pop songs/showtunes. As Marc Ribot once said, a standard is like playing a duet with the audience's memory. Only modern audiences no longer have that memory, or else they have the memory primarily from hearing other jazz recordings of the standards rather than the standards themselves. And for that reason, they can come to feel very stale, and jazz standard ballads particularly so imo.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 15 January 2021 17:07 (three years ago) link
Like earlnash says above, I love them now just for ruminating on the textures and tone. Brushes, sizzle cymbals, nice breathy long tones...it's the jazz version of ambient music or asmr.
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 15 January 2021 17:15 (three years ago) link
Does this count?
https://img.discogs.com/epdO_h7rdg3s_KbSKaA9Z9Gt6Lc=/fit-in/500x500/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-510204-1375409025-3072.jpeg.jpg
― pomenitul, Friday, 15 January 2021 17:15 (three years ago) link
yes "I'm not jazz" fuck off del boy
I agree with most of man alive's post though and I like standards. but is playing e.g. i got rhythm really any less stale than playing e.g. body and soul
― as#d,.F:ddz;,c#,;;,;,;,sdf' (Left), Friday, 15 January 2021 17:18 (three years ago) link
Marc Ribot and man alive otm
― alpaca lips now (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 15 January 2021 17:41 (three years ago) link
what does this make those hugely popular old classical works which include homages to/parodies of long forgotten folk melodies, popular trends etc
part of me wants to rebel against the demand for popular relevance and celebrate these tunes or this style as a folk tradition and part of me sees this kind of traditionalism as irrelevant or potentially reactionary so idk
what do people think about the attempts to turn "smells like teen spirit" or some Radiohead song into standards? I have mixed feelings
― as#d,.F:ddz;,c#,;;,;,;,sdf' (Left), Friday, 15 January 2021 17:54 (three years ago) link
The idea of turning some Radiohead song into a standard does not exactly thrill me. Not sure how something becomes a standard though.
― Waterloo Subset (Tom D.), Friday, 15 January 2021 18:03 (three years ago) link
I have mixed feelings about those too. I mean this is kind of a central tension in modern jazz since at least the 90s (maybe earlier I just wasn't old enough to know) -- standards formed a lot of the harmonic language of jazz up to a certain point, but the originals are lost on modern audience and the harmonic vocabulary itself is also a bit more obscure today. So do you just abandon them? Try to make "new standards" out of songs that mostly don't lend themselves as well to jazz improv? I like what Mehldau has done with a lot of pop and rock songs, but I don't know that they lend themselves to being "standards" in the sense that lots of different people would record their takes.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 15 January 2021 18:13 (three years ago) link
I've heard way more jazz versions of the Beatles' "Blackbird" than I've heard interpretations of Nirvana and Radiohead combined, though I know the latter exist, obviously.
My take on standards is sort of mixed/bifurcated: I don't ever need to hear "What Is This Thing Called Love" or any of the other "standard standards" again. They've lost all their cultural relevance because, to put it crudely, most of the people who knew them as pop songs are dead now, so they exist only as re-interpreted jazz tunes, as discussed above. And players who spent the bulk of their careers just reinterpreting standards (the worst example, to me, is Lee Konitz) do absolutely nothing for me. So, you played the intro phrase to the bridge backwards, the 1001st time you played that song? Woo fucking hoo. Here's a dog biscuit.
The problem is, those tunes are objectively better than the tunes most jazz artists these days are writing themselves. Because they're whole songs, not just heads or a complex little melodic math problem you and your three buddies spent a week figuring out. So until jazz artists can figure out a way to write memorable, crowd-pleasing songs, we're probably gonna be stuck hearing "All The Things You Are" for another eighty years.
xpost with others
― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, 15 January 2021 18:15 (three years ago) link
Does anyone actually intend those to become standards as such? I thought they were just trying to interpret newer songs. xp
― Inside there's a box and that box has another box within (Sund4r), Friday, 15 January 2021 18:18 (three years ago) link
Beatles songs otoh yeah, some are even in the Real Book.
― Inside there's a box and that box has another box within (Sund4r), Friday, 15 January 2021 18:19 (three years ago) link
"The people don't come because you grandiose motherfuckers don't play shit that they like."
(i agree)
― Dan I., Friday, 15 January 2021 18:21 (three years ago) link
The only thing that saps the energy worse are bass solos.
I've thought about posting this in 'controversial music opinions' a few times.
― jmm, Friday, 15 January 2021 18:22 (three years ago) link
I don't see the preservation of standards as that different from the preservation in the repertoire of classical and folk pieces. A Bach mass doesn't mean the same thing to people today that it meant to a Lutheran congregation in 18th century Germany but that doesn't mean it is not still great music worth preserving or that what it means to people now is less valuable. Even "Stairway to Heaven" probably hit people differently in 1971 than it does today. If artists really wanted to be 'relevant' in the nonsense way that music critics use the term, they would make pop records and wouldn't be playing classical or jazz at all.
― Inside there's a box and that box has another box within (Sund4r), Friday, 15 January 2021 18:23 (three years ago) link
Bill Dixon on his (and the new music's) development, as musicians moved away from standards:
It's very simple. I no longer felt the need to be playing the standard literature within the vernacular. I felt that you can't improve on that, so there must be something else. Because how many times can you play "'Round Midnight" or any of those beautiful tunes? All the pieces that we liked were already heavily identified with someone else's rendition anyway. What are you going to do? Change a key every eight bars? We tried all of that. We did a lot of crazy things in those days, trying to formulate a way of thinking for yourself. We listened, we analyzed. It didn't just happen with people standing up and blowing their brains out. This is what a lot of people don't understand.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 15 January 2021 18:24 (three years ago) link
xpost
I would be fine if "no bass solos on uptempo tunes" became Jazz Law. On ballads (which I'm fine with!), sure, go for it. But when the band's slamming along and all of a sudden the drummer has to stop so the bassist can whip his bow out? Fuuuuuck that.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, 15 January 2021 18:25 (three years ago) link
The only bassist allowed to take a solo is Tim Bogert, RIP.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 15 January 2021 18:28 (three years ago) link
what about mingus
― as#d,.F:ddz;,c#,;;,;,;,sdf' (Left), Friday, 15 January 2021 18:29 (three years ago) link
RIP too
Unperson otm. And there was discussion on the 2020 jazz thread (also mostly unperson I believe) about how the culture and marketplace around contemporary jazz is much more about creating your own identity, so even when someone does write a fantastic original, it's relatively rare for that to be recorded by another jazz artist. Although those standout tunes are still probably performed by university ensembles, which after all is where a lot of jazz lives these days.
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 15 January 2021 18:49 (three years ago) link
If this is just standard jazz pet peeves, i'm going to open myself to the firing squad and say 'death to all saxophones'. I'll take an entire album of nothing but tippy-tappy ride cymbals over a single bleat from a saxophone.
― brotherlovesdub, Friday, 15 January 2021 18:52 (three years ago) link
The problem is, those tunes are objectively better than the tunes most jazz artists these days are writing themselves. Because they're whole songs, not just heads or a complex little melodic math problem you and your three buddies spent a week figuring out.
this is painfully otm. only thing worse than a contemporary jazz album thats all hoary old standards is one that is all hoary old standards plus one lone original, extra demerits if the title includes the name of a band member, "danny's riff" or w/e. sends a chill up my spine when i see a tracklisting like that.
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Friday, 15 January 2021 19:15 (three years ago) link
I love this album full of ballads and bass solos:https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71ssWfclzfL._SL1400_.jpg
― brimstead, Friday, 15 January 2021 21:08 (three years ago) link
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Friday, January 15, 2021 2:15 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
lol, jazz sucks doesn't it
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 15 January 2021 21:15 (three years ago) link
Song for Jeremy [the bass player]
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 15 January 2021 21:16 (three years ago) link
It does seem like there was a brief era, from roughly bebop through maybe mid 60s, where there was a focus on writing *new standards* and a bunch of those are in the real book and get played on gigs. All the main Charlie Parker tunes come to mind, Herbie tunes like Cantaloupe Island, various Coltrane compositions, Footprints, etc. There are even a few from later, like Chick Corea's Spain. I wonder if there are any original jazz tunes from, like, the 80s onward that get played with any regularity by others.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 15 January 2021 21:23 (three years ago) link
I think I said this on the other thread, but there definitely are. When I was in college in the early '00s, it was stuff like Kenny Garrett's 'Sing a Song of Song', Mo' Betta Blues, and a bunch more that maybe you couldn't call at a jam session, but young groups would play at school and on gigs (thinking tunes by Joshua Redman, John Scofield, Leon Parker, etc).
I don't know to what degree that's happening now exactly, but you do see it a fair amount on youtube with people doing drum covers, breaking down licks, etc.
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 15 January 2021 22:25 (three years ago) link
Is there an updated version of the real book that has more recent tunes in it? Would be really curious to see what's in it.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 15 January 2021 22:31 (three years ago) link
Prob also bears noting that the 60s was a time when jazz composers were very deliberately trying to create a repertoire outside of standards, in part for reasons that I guess you would call black empowerment or something along those lines.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, January 15, 2021 1:25 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
The only kind of uptempo bass solo I like is one based around walking with the drummer still comping. I guess that's a little more like a rhythm section break than a solo, but I enjoy those.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 15 January 2021 22:33 (three years ago) link
I think it generally smells like novelty, but the likes of Brad Mehldau or Bad Plus and Bill Frisell before them have done some incredible stuff in this vein.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 16 January 2021 00:12 (three years ago) link
I've been more annoyed when jazz groups have recorded versions of Aphex Twin pieces, but that's at least partly because I hate his stuff to begin with.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Saturday, 16 January 2021 01:14 (three years ago) link
all for this tbh
― Looking for Cape Penis house (Neanderthal), Saturday, 16 January 2021 03:34 (three years ago) link
I would be fine if "no bass solos on uptempo tunes" became Jazz Law. On ballads (which I'm fine with!), sure, go for it. But when the band's slamming along and all of a sudden the drummer has to stop so the bassist can whip his bow out? Fuuuuuck that.― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, January 15, 2021 1:25 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglinkThe only kind of uptempo bass solo I like is one based around walking with the drummer still comping. I guess that's a little more like a rhythm section break than a solo, but I enjoy those.
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 16 January 2021 03:44 (three years ago) link
There have been so many jazz recordings of "Black Hole Sun," and I know I've seen several jazz groups perform it live, that it seems as if it has become a "contemporary" jazz standard. I wonder what it is about that song that draws the attention of jazzers. Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme recorded it back in 1997!
― Josefa, Saturday, 16 January 2021 05:11 (three years ago) link
brotherlovesdub at 12:52 15 Jan 21If this is just standard jazz pet peeves, i'm going to open myself to the firing squad and say 'death to all saxophones'. I'll take an entire album of nothing but tippy-tappy ride cymbals over a single bleat from a saxophone.
there are a number of the most demented opinions on this thread
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 16 January 2021 16:02 (three years ago) link
That opinion was clearly coming from a jazz lover trying to work out a genre convention that puzzles them in their regular listening, though.
I can see why Radiohead and Sting/Police songs work in a jazz context but "Smells Like Teen Spirit" doesn't really seem like it offers that much to work with, although I love it (and like the Bad Plus version)? Maybe "Lithium"?
― Inside there's a box and that box has another box within (Sund4r), Saturday, 16 January 2021 16:13 (three years ago) link
Man, y'all would be furious about the acoustic / folkie scene, in which the standards are currently "Wagon Wheel," "City of New Orleans," and "Hallelujah."
― alpaca lips now (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 16 January 2021 17:01 (three years ago) link
There's a (or, you know, there was) a bluegrass circle at the farmer's market every Saturday, with like 20 people or so with everything from fiddle to upright bass and then a few other more exotic things. I asked my guitar teacher if he's ever felt like sitting in, and he rolled his eyes and complained that it's basically just 30 minutes of "Wagon Wheel."
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 16 January 2021 17:05 (three years ago) link
Yep, I have spent many an open mic night placing bets with my drunken friends on whether the next song would be "Country Roads," "Hurt," or, alas, "Wagon Wheel."
That said, I miss those nights. And every once in a while you'd get an unexpected gem. I once heard a 14-year-old kid play an exquisite fingerstyle version of "Desafinado" and my heart grew three sizes.
― alpaca lips now (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 16 January 2021 17:22 (three years ago) link
Flabbergasted unperson doesn’t like Lee Konitz. I have some calzino-like thoughts going through my head for that one.
― Boring United Methodist Church (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, 16 January 2021 17:24 (three years ago) link
I remember a 20something student wanted to learn "Don't Dream It's Over" so I pulled up the Crowded House video and started demonstrating the sus chords in the intro. She stopped me and said she preferred the 'other version', which, apparently, consists of strumming open-position triads with the campfire rhythm.
― Inside there's a box and that box has another box within (Sund4r), Saturday, 16 January 2021 17:26 (three years ago) link
(It's the version she was familiar with from open mics.)
― Inside there's a box and that box has another box within (Sund4r), Saturday, 16 January 2021 17:28 (three years ago) link
Why do u hate fun, sund4r?
― alpaca lips now (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 16 January 2021 17:29 (three years ago) link
The Bad Plus version of Lithium is also fantastic.
― change display name (Jordan), Saturday, 16 January 2021 17:59 (three years ago) link
the funny thing is whenever I see this thread title I think of the beginning of “pharoah’s dance”
― brimstead, Saturday, 16 January 2021 19:12 (three years ago) link
I just hate that the bad plus or whoever it was chose “flim” as the afx song to cover because that song sucks and he has way more songs with more “jazzy” chords to play with
― brimstead, Saturday, 16 January 2021 19:13 (three years ago) link
So many wild opinions in this thread!
― change display name (Jordan), Saturday, 16 January 2021 20:07 (three years ago) link
A whole lot of pop music now does not really have that much harmonic information to really use it for something to improvise over. Some stuff is just a 4 bar beat loop, a sustained pad sound (maybe not even a chord) and then multi tracked vocal melody and a sample sound of some sort. Chord progression...eh, maybe kinda. Bassline...sometimes not even used. Vocal melody...lots are pretty childrens song like, which is often catchy, but not exactly some great leaps in intervals and the music juice that jazz musicians like, which is often a bit more obscure than the usual listener (at least now).
― earlnash, Saturday, 16 January 2021 20:47 (three years ago) link
There have been so many jazz recordings of "Black Hole Sun," and I know I've seen several jazz groups perform it live, that it seems as if it has become a "contemporary" jazz standard. I wonder what it is about that song that draws the attention of jazzers.
I didn't know that but going over it rn, it makes sense. The harmony and melody are filled with modal mixture, with a lot of bIII and bVI, and both major and minor versions of the 3rd and 7th scale degrees in the melody, and that weird bII at the ends of cadences in the verse, while the chorus ends with a good proper V chord. The melody is also syncopated and lends itself well to jazz rhythm.
― Inside there's a box and that box has another box within (Sund4r), Saturday, 16 January 2021 21:11 (three years ago) link