Double Bass Why no new Jazz Standards?

[PauFerro]

I was reflecting the other day that all of our jazz standards in our set list for my trio and quartet are old standards -- great stuff -- Miles, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Horace Silver, Charles Mingus, Errol Gardner, Jobim, if you go later, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Eddie Harris etcetera, but they are all really old songs. And the players in my town don't seem to have any new "standards" in the jazz genre that they play either.

My feeling is this is because of the Real Book series. Sure they are six books (or more) now by Hal Leonard, but I think most of them are old tunes. I asked one of my long-time musician friends (sax) why he thought the local jazz scene is full of old tunes, and no really new stuff from the last couple decades. And he said it was because the jazzers at one time were real purists and wouldn't accept much new material into the repertoire. Not sure if this is true, but these are possible reasons.

So, is it time for some new standards? New tunes that are up there with Autumn Leaves, Killer Joe, All The Things You Are, Green Dolphin Street, etcetera? But which are written by contemporary artists, but are still like traditional jazz? If so, which tunes and by whom? If not, why?

 

[StyleOverShow]

You’re not adding any Grover Washington or Josh Redman to your set lists.

Agree it is a long cycle to get tunes into the standards list.

Jazz is dying, right?

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Here's an old thread on the same subject that includes lots of opinions for and against the idea of new standards.

 

[lurk]

The definition of a standard is a tune that's been around for a while and lots of folks know it. Over time new ones will emerge, and old ones fade away. It's interesting. At a session I play, lots of 30ish jazz college guys like to call Ipanema; to them it's a cool tune with an interesting bridge. To guys my age, it's a corny pop tune we had to play on every corny gig. No right answer, of course.

 

[Josh Kneisel]

We do some stuff in my trio that we consider "new" standards... stuff by E.S.T. or The Bad Plus for example.

 

[Josh Kneisel]

Also, we cover a lot of pop and rock stuff as jazz (generally rearranged) when we want to play modern music instead of standards.

 

[Jim Dombrowski]

I think for some people, it's a matter of what's available in published books to learn the songs from.

 

[Sean Riddle]

For me and my groups, if we want to play something new we’ll write something.

 

[CryingBass]

WE, the players ( or in my case butchers ) of Talk Bass should set the new standards! And because I for one am getting up there in years, all that we have to do is get the young kids to do it for us!

That should be easy, right? Right?

 

[Carl Hillman]

I was reflecting the other day that all of our jazz standards in our set list for my trio and quartet are old standards -- great stuff -- Miles, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Horace Silver, Charles Mingus, Errol Gardner, Jobim, if you go later, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Eddie Harris etcetera, but they are all really old songs. And the players in my town don't seem to have any new "standards" in the jazz genre that they play either.

My feeling is this is because of the Real Book series. Sure they are six books (or more) now by Hal Leonard, but I think most of them are old tunes. I asked one of my long-time musician friends (sax) why he thought the local jazz scene is full of old tunes, and no really new stuff from the last couple decades. And he said it was because the jazzers at one time were real purists and wouldn't accept much new material into the repertoire. Not sure if this is true, but these are possible reasons.

So, is it time for some new standards? New tunes that are up there with Autumn Leaves, Killer Joe, All The Things You Are, Green Dolphin Street, etcetera? But which are written by contemporary artists, but are still like traditional jazz? If so, which tunes and by whom? If not, why?

Jazz musicians looking to improvise on a song are looking for interesting melodies and chord changes. The sad fact is that there are few recent popular tunes that meet those (ahem) standards.

You can definitely find some modern songs that have interesting and adaptable content, but they may not qualify as popular music (as the golden age standards certainly were). What made the old songs standards was, not only their popularity with the players, but their popularity with the audience.

The fact that a lot of what is now popular is generally poorly suited for improvisation is a function of the writers and consumers of pop music, and the music industry in general, rather than the musicians playing jazz, or the fake book publishers.

(Oh...and you kids get off my lawn.)

 

[dreamadream99]

Why no new jazz standards

Because new jazz tunes aren’t popular, and don’t chart like they used to. Aside from the odd Buble or Nora Jones tune, they don’t even crack the Top 40.

 

[damonsmith]

There is a pretty endless supply of straight a head jazz originals out there. Steve Swallow and Carla Bley were writing daily as reported a few years ago, I assume they are still at it. There so many bodies of work for anyone that wants fresh material. Take your pick of anyone from Elmo Hope to Dave Holland to Kenny Wheeler to Gary Burton and on and on. Anyone seriously engaged with jazz history knows the well is deep.
A lazy way out and a bad fit are just two of the many arguments against using contemporary pop.
It gets even deeper the more you are interested in the avant garde. Sun Ra, Ornette, Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Don Cherry, Albert Ayler and so many others have huge catalogs or originals. There is so much great music written we can never hear and play it all.
These are just the big names. People are writing music everyday.

 

[hhalt]

There are jazz standards and there are "standard" standards-tin pan alley popular songs. Since the very beginning, jazz musicians have used popular songs as vehicles to improvise on. It becomes more of a challenge as pop music becomes less melodic and harmonic. Herbie came out with "The New Standard" in the late 90's including music of Prince, Don Henley, Stevie Wonder, Peter Gabriel, etc. The Bad Plus cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is ok but i prefer Sex Mob's treatment (deconstruction) of "La Macarena". Then you have Jason Moran's version of Soul Sonic Force's "Planet Rock" where he mimics Bambaataa's rap on the piano. Kind of cool if you know beforehand that that was his intention.

As Damon mentioned, there is a wealth of great music out there, including some rarely played Jobim tunes. Many of Carla Bley and Steve Swallow tunes are available for free download on her website.

 

[Lee Moses]

Because new jazz tunes aren’t popular, and don’t chart like they used to. Aside from the odd Buble or Nora Jones tune, they don’t even crack the Top 40.

I think this is the primary answer. Ken Burns' Jazz documentary gave a statistic saying that in 1950 over 70% of record sales were jazz records, but in 1970 only 3% of record sales were jazz records. There has been and continues to be a lot of good new tunes, but the "golden age of jazz" is long past as far as universally-known and loved tunes.

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

There are scads of young and middle aged people playing and writing great jazz, and, as others have noted, a bottomless well of underrecognized songs from the last 100 years to be reinterpreted.

No one gives a s*** about jazz or live, improvised creative music in general.

Look at what the Beiber clods did to Esperanza’s wiki page after she won the Grammy. Music is a rigged popularity contest among ably marketed hacks.

 

[Sam Dingle]

There are scads of young and middle aged people playing and writing great jazz, and, as others have noted, a bottomless well of underrecognized songs from the last 100 years to be reinterpreted.

No one gives a s*** about jazz or live, improvised creative music in general.

Look at what the Beiber clods did to Esperanza’s wiki page after she won the Grammy. Music is a rigged popularity contest among ably marketed hacks.

....Damn....

 

[Sean Riddle]

There is a pretty endless supply of straight a head jazz originals out there. Steve Swallow and Carla Bley were writing daily as reported a few years ago, I assume they are still at it. There so many bodies of work for anyone that wants fresh material. Take your pick of anyone from Elmo Hope to Dave Holland to Kenny Wheeler to Gary Burton and on and on. Anyone seriously engaged with jazz history knows the well is deep.
A lazy way out and a bad fit are just two of the many arguments against using contemporary pop.
It gets even deeper the more you are interested in the avant garde. Sun Ra, Ornette, Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Don Cherry, Albert Ayler and so many others have huge catalogs or originals. There is so much great music written we can never hear and play it all.
These are just the big names. People are writing music everyday.

Always spot on Damon. There’s great music out there that should be played more. And it’s music specifically written for improvisation, rather than modifying a piece for improvisation (not trying to dog on the great American songbook, just pointing out ways to think about the pieces). We either just have to start playing these new pieces and/or start writing them.

 

[sean_on_bass]

Not all standards were written to be played in a jazz context. Many being showtunes and pop hits of the time. The only thing holding tunes back from being a "standard" is whether jazz musicians choose to play it. Check out Brad Mehldau's Trio for examples of more so modern radio hits being played in a jazz context(Mehldau tends to choose alternative rock songs).

So there ya have it, you just need to pick up some newer music and bring it into the jazz context.

Also agree that there has been plenty of original jazz music written over the last 30 years and it hasn't ever stopped. Some of this stuff is just not in the Real Books, but that doesn't mean you can't do the leg work and start playing it.

Man, how lazy have the majority of jazz musicians gotten? Heard a quote recently in the vain of "some musicians just want to take from jazz and few want to put anything into it to make it grow."

 

[jthisdell]

Herbie Hancock did an album titled The New Standards a few years ago to take some more current pop rock songs and turn them into "standards". Nice album but he did not in fact create "new standards".

 

[brianrost]

The era of "American Songbook" standards is long gone, it died in the 1960s when rock and roll arrived. Modern pop music doesn't have the harmonic complexity of those older pop tunes, certainly not good bebop vehicles although I suppose you could perform many in a funky modal style.

It was also an era where the song was king, a popular song was performed by everybody, including jazz musicians. Nowadays we have this cockeyed approach to pop where it's no longer considered hip to do covers (go over to the BG side of TB to read endless slagging of cover bands), so you don't hear everyone covering the latest Beyonce hit.

In the 1960 and 70s when "soul jazz" was at it's height, there were lots of recordings made of current pop hits and most are just as embarassing to hear today as they were then. Ever heard Ella Fitzgerald singing "Sunshine Of Your Love"?



Actually it might have been cool to hear it sing it with Cream backing her up