From: mjs@fc.hp.com (Marc Sabatella)
Subject: Re: Standards from today (was Re: "Shakil's Warrior", standards)
Reply-To: marc@hpmonk.fc.hp.com
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1.4 PL6]
Distribution: world, rec, usa
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 23:42:50 GMT

Joe Hellerstein (hellers@cs.wisc.edu) wrote:
: 
: Personally, I don't think that any of today's tunes will be "standards"
: the way that "Body and Soul" is, for example.

I wasn't talking about "Body And Soul" types of standards.  That was a pop
tune.  I'm talking about things like "Oleo" or "Footprints" - songs written by
jazz musicians and for jazz musicians.

: Consider all those
: Steve Swallow and Carla Bley tunes in the Real Book.  How often do you
: hear them performed?  Maybe more often than some of their other tunes,
: but you don't go to a jam session and call "Hotel Hello".  And those
: tunes are 20 years old!

True, and they were *never* popular - they are there simply because the
original editors were pretty tight with Steve and Carla, as the story goes...

BTW, I think "House Of Jade" got the short end of the stick in "Hotel Hello"
deal - it is sort of hidden in there in the section everyone thumbs past, but
it is actually a wonderful classic Blue Note Wayne Shorter tune.  I finally
played through it for the first time last week; it's going to get called a lot
more in the near future.

: How many of Mingus' or Ornette's tunes would you
: consider to be standards, in the sense that the average jazz musician
: could play them right off?

Not many, but there are a couple: "Goodbye Porkpie Hat", "Nostalgia In Times
Square", "Lonely Woman", "Turnaround", ...

: Stretch out and consider Cecil, or Anthony Braxton, or the AEC, or
: even a lot of the "younger" generation who get a lot of mention here:
: David Murray, Don Pullen, Don Byron, Bill Frisell, etc. etc.  These
: people are not writing "standards" material.

But that is my whole point: Pullen's "Song From The Old Country" *is*
"standards" material, I think, and there aren't very many recent tunes I can
say that about.  The few that are standards material may stick out and cause
you to notice them all the more.

The real problem is the multitude of directions the music is taking.  Back when
"Oleo" was written, probably 90% of the "jazz" audience heard it within a year.
The diversity these days makes that less likely.

: So I guess I'd answer your question by saying : none of today's tunes
: will be standards in the way I use the term.  As far as I'm concerned,
: a standard is a tune you can call at a jam session and expect both
: players and audience to know.

Well, depends on your audience.  Rethink now in terms of "jazz standards" and
not "pop standards".  After 10 years, do as many people know "Sister Cheryl"
as knew "Oleo" after its first ten years?  Probably not, except here in
Northern Colorado where you have to know it to get a gig, but it's not out of
the question that this can still happen.

: PS -- regarding Charlie Haden and "First Song", you're absolutely
: right that he's "pushing" it.  When he visited Berkeley last year he
: was passing the sheet music out to students (I lost mine, alas.)

Very interesting...

--
Amendment 2 - Shame On You, Colorado
--
Marc Sabatella
marc@hpmonk.fc.hp.com
--
a disgusted resident of the first state in history of the union
to enact a constitutional amendment that explicitly legalizes discrimination
against a particular minority
--
All opinions expressed herein are my personal ones
and do not necessarily reflect those of HP or anyone else.