[Dixielandjazz] "The Jazz Standards" reviewed

[Robert Ringwald]

Standard Fare
"The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire." By Ted Gioia, Oxford, 527 pages,
$39.95.
Toronto Globe and Mail, August 25, 2012
One man's repertoire may be another man's B-list, but when the man is Ted Gioia,
one tends to listen -- in both senses. Gioia, among the most lauded of jazz writers,
has chosen more than 250 songs. He tells the story behind each -- from "After You've
Gone" to "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" -- and then recommends a variety of the
best recorded versions. Take, for instance, the Gershwins' "I Got Rhythm," a standard
if there ever was one. Or is it? Gioia shows how the original has been desconstructed
and reassembled in different ways by the likes of Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker.
Or how the Rodgers and Hammerstein show hit "My Favorite Things" would never have
become a jazz standard without the inspirational interpretation by John Coltrane.
The book, full of similar apercus, is compulsively readable, and belongs on the shelves
of every jazz lover, or jazz-lover wannabe.
-30


-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Amateur (ham) Radio Operator K6YBV
916/ 806-9551

The crime of taxation is not in the taking of it. It's in the way it's spent.
--Will Rogers March 20, 1932