[Dixielandjazz] Jazz Standards

[Charles Suhor]

Stan and all--

There are of course dozens of popular songs from the 20s through the 40s that were taken up by swing and modern jazzmen--mostly Broadway Show tunes that we now call the Great American Songbook. A smaller set of those, like Sweet Georgia and Bye Bye Blackbird were also perpetuated by Trad/Dixieland (T/D) bands. Here's my crude understanding of what happened. The standards that T/D bands didn't take up weren't easily adaptable to the T/D contrapuntal ensemble style, and most T/D players weren't at ease doing solo improvisation on many of the songs--I'm thinking of All the Things You Are, Cherokee, Love for Sale, and the like. If T/D bands played them, they stuck close to the melody on solos, lacking the tools that modern jazz players had on hand because of more complex chords that suggested a wider range of improvisational lines. In short, the evolved vocabulary of musical conventions was expanded, harmonically and rhythmically. 

Fast forward--the young modernists from the Wynton Marsalis generation till today still play some of the standards but rely greatly on original materials. Overwhelmingly, the former followed an aaba pattern (or were based on 12-bar blues), which provided comfortable benchmarks for improvisation. But that became facile over the years. Jazz originals and pop tunes today rarely have the aaba structure. That makes me work harder to sense the underlying form during jazz solos, but that's my problem. And maybe a problem for attempted "popularization" of modern jazz.

I've tried to stay clear of making value statements here. I personally enjoy all jazz styles. My last CDS purchase was a Condon collection. My main concern is that the music be emotionally or intellectually compelling. 

Charlie Suhor

On Oct 13, 2014, at 12:20 PM, Stan Brager 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