[Dixielandjazz] Jazz Standards

[domitype .]

I often play in a group that covers a wide range of musical styles, from
"Trad Standards" to NOLA Hot Brass to "Post Swing Modern Jazz" - and also
some Pop Standards, R&B, Soul and Funk on occasion. As a bass tuba player
mostly experienced with the "Early Stuff" but growing up through the heart
of the Rock & Roll era, I still have some problems with playing some "Post
Swing Modern Jazz" without some rehearsal (which is not always available!)
The structure of many modern songs is not always clear to me, even if I
have heard (or even played) them many times. How many times will a chord
repeat until a change?  If there is a solo taking a lot of extended
choruses how do we know what to do when he is finished?
These questions may be elemental to most college trained or pro Modern Jazz
blowers, but I do get tripped up every once in a while in those situations.
But if the call is for a super fast version of "Indiana Changes" I know
exactly what to do!

David Richoux

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 7:44 PM, Charles Suhor <csuhor at zebra.net> wrote:

> 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
>
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