Is This Jazz? Reclaiming The Standard

Last article I briefly dove into the concept of the “standard,” one of the foundations of jazz heritage and education. They represent one of the core principles that has defined this music, that jazz is a direct reflection — and reinterpretation — of both popular and personal culture. This repertoire that was taken from tunes that were defining the eras in which they existed has given musicians around the world a vehicle through which they can communicate with each other, trade ideas, formulate their unique sound and form instant bonds between players based on their shared knowledge of a set of melodies and harmonic progressions. Without this shape shifting songbook and its many interpretations, it’s easy to imagine an early waning of interest in this music and an eventual fade from the spotlight if the repertoire hadn’t evolved and taken on new material as society changed.

By the above description it may be possible to misconstrue the “standard” as being a “cover” of a song, which is to say that it’s when a group is playing a direct re-performance of a particular song — think when you go hear a bar band play “More Than A Feeling” — but this is not that. Where the two diverge is that jazz musicians transcribe the tune they wish to reinterpret and distill it down to its essential qualities such as melody and harmony, then take that blueprint and add stylistic or theoretical flourishes by re-harmonizing (changing the chords behind the melody) or syncopating the melodic rhythms differently. The relation between a “standard” and a “blueprint” is a more applicable association in that the blueprint provides you with the knowledge you need in order to build and craft a new form from the materials at hand, but doesn’t necessarily give you a step by step guide to installation of parts and labor.

Our blueprints in jazz come in the form of a lead sheet, which is a document that contains a world of knowledge in the simplest means possible. At their most basic, lead sheets provide you a notated melody with the chord changes written above the notes to indicate their placement within the progression and help provide a framework for improvisation over the form (the totality of the chord progression) that typically takes place after the main melody is performed once through. Sometimes you may get more detailed instructions such as when there is a shift in feel (stylistic approach) or if there are multiple sections that are repeated, moved around or performed at varying times. This vast assortment has been collected and published in volumes of lead sheets known as “The Real Book.” The universality of this system has made it easy to share songs across language and ethnic barriers and has been one of the ways in which jazz has become a music for people world-wide.

The problem with the “standard,” though, is that there seems to have been a cutoff where after a certain period there stopped being additions to the canon and all the standards that exist are the only acceptable options for that designation. Not to say that these aren’t bad tunes, but to stop the accumulation of new material has perhaps added to the growing sense that jazz became stale and is the music of the past. There have been attempts at adding to the established core such as the production of a “New Real Book” that contains material of the late 20th century, but those collections haven’t appeared to take hold in mainstream formal jazz education — arguably the leading pushers of this practice. However, certain modern artists have begun to reclaim the standard and are pushing to add to the canon and expand it with songs that they grew up with and are central to their lives, experience and musical growth.

One of my earliest interactions with this was through my college professor Eric Hofbauer who, on his trio of solo guitar albums, would include covers of tunes that were meaningful to him or represented some part of his musical evolution. In these recordings and performances he exhibits the melody but then breaks it down to it’s defining characteristics, imbues it with his voice, and reshapes the tune into a Frankenstein monstrosity complete with the internal beauty found inside the musical beast but also with the external fire of his town of influences. His interpretations of “Hot For Teacher,” “Take On Me” and “Dear Prudence” are prime examples. We have had many discussions on his approach and concept, which helped reshape my understanding of the standard into how I define it above. From there I’ve been on the lookout for artists looking to dig into the songs that have shaped popular culture from their childhoods or in the present.

Brad Mehldau is a world renowned pianist who has over his career taken on an innumerable amount of popular songs and has sought to possess them for the wider jazz world. From tunes that are so ubiquitous to our collective tastes that they feel as if they are already standards such as the Beatles’ “Blackbird” and “Wonderwall” by Oasis, to b-side repertoire from known artists including Radiohead’s “Knives Out” and Sufjan Stevens’s “Holland,” Mehldau has been a long time collector and interpreter. Although sometimes they can be a bit more direct performances than other artists, they provide a look at the transformative ability of jazz without alienating the core themes associated with the piece, which is probably more in line with the original intent of musicians grabbing tunes for use as standards.

Recently, in talking with my buddy Dylan about all this, my attention was pointed to Robert Glasper and his 2015 album Covered, which encapsulates a lot of what has been discussed in this article.  This release marks not only his return to an acoustic trio format but also finds him almost exclusively playing other artists’ music — selections he chose for his appreciation of them. In this wide ranging collection that moves from Radiohead and John  Legend to Jhene Aiko and Joni Mitchell, Glasper gives you what you need out of the melodic material but then is quick to step back into the groove and let those motifs and themes blend into the trio’s swirling improvisation and feel. Having just purchased this and begun my dive in, I don’t want to rush to any conclusions about what this album has in store. But upon writing this article I can say that I am enjoying listening for where the song’s former identity begins and where it falls off to become a vehicle for the group’s refined collective voice.

This is partially what has made the “standard” such an important part of jazz in that it not only gives us a deeper connection to the music we love, but also allows us to use our own experience to evolve it and to hopefully bridge the generational gap and spread this affection to the next class. In this way they too may find these songs, learn their secrets and spread this material around so we can all enjoy. Standards persist because they are undeniably good, they contain multitudes that stand up over decades and even centuries, and allow us to connect to our shared musical heritage. Even Glasper shows this by including the immortal Victor Young standard “Stella By Starlight,” and reigniting it for the next batch of musicians.

Happening Around Town:

The John Allmark Jazz Orchestra; Mondays @ The Met (Pawtucket)

Is This Jazz?; First Friday, bimonthly @ AS220 (Providence) isthisjazz.tumblr.com

Joe Potenza; Fridays @ Rosmarin (Providence)

Groove Merchants; Mondays @ Fifth Element (Newport)

Jazz Jam; Tuesdays @ Ten Rocks (Pawtucket)

Groove E Tuesday; Tuesdays @ Murphy’s Law (Pawtucket)

Parlour Jazz Jam; Third Sunday each month @ The Parlour (Providence)

Matunuck Beach Hot Jazz Party; Mondays @ The Ocean Mist (Matunuck)

To add your listing please email isthisjazzri@gmail.com.

Ben Shaw is a local composer, performer, writer, and podcaster. Dig into his works at ahueofshaw.tumblr.com or find him on Twitter @ahueofshaw.