[Dixielandjazz] Jazz Standards

[Paul Kurtz Jr]

Stan, you have an interesting question here and if we could conclusively answer it and solve this, whoever did would be a millionaire. 

Some commonalities are: 

1. It has a catchy melody. Melody, a lot of times, makes people want to play the tune and then they adapt off of that. 

2. It has potential for real interesting licks such as percussion stuff. The alternative to adapt a piece of music can make it adapt well to future situations. 

3. The melody and its parts can be adapted to other worlds. i.e. Sweet Georgia Brown and the Globe Trotters basketball team That goes back again to that catchy melody that allows it to be adapted to another function. 

4. There’s a positive message in the song. You either have to have a very positive message or a very negative one like St. James Infirmary to have a song get caught up for a long time. 

These are just some suggestions although not by any means exhaustive. 

Paul Kurtz Jacksonville, FL
On Oct 13, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Stan Brager <sbrager at verizon.net> wrote:

> I've often wondered why some tunes seemed to be interpreted and played by
> legions of jazz groups from early jazz to modern jazz. Case in point: "Sweet
> Georgia Brown". It was written in 1922 or 1923 by Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard
> and Kenneth Casey. Bernie and his band made at least 3 recordings between
> 1923 and 1925. It sounds like a typical '20s pop tune. Yet, it was also
> recorded by J. J. Johnson, Bud Powell, Count Basie, Andre Previn (with a
> jazz trio), Anita O'Day and many others. Lord's Jazz Discography shows 1308
> recordings of "Sweet Georgia Brown" which ignores the jazz versions which
> have other names such as, "Sweet Georgia Gillespie", "Sweet Clifford", and
> so on.
> 
> 
> 
> What is it that attracts jazz musicians to these tunes?
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks;
> 
> 
> 
> Stan
> 
> _______________________________________________
> To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:
> 
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
> 
> 
> 
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com