Standards

Why do so many jazz musicians play what are known as “standards” – classic songs written for Broadway musicals in the 1920s and ‘30s? Songs like “Body and Soul” by Johnny Green, “Summertime” by George Gershwin, and “My Funny Valentine” by Rodgers and Hart have been performed and recorded by numerous jazz artists over the years since their composition. A great many more songs were written for Hollywood movies, like “The Bad and the Beautiful” by David Raksin, “One for My Baby” by Johnny Mercer, and “The Days of Wine and Roses” by Henry Mancini; and they, too, became standards for jazz artists. 

In an interview with Rick Beato that I watched recently on YouTube, jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton spoke about the state of jazz when he gave his first solo performances in the 1960s and why he wanted to go in a different direction: 

I felt jazz was in a straight jacket. We were all playing the same 150 standards over and over again. Ninety-nine per cent of it was syncopated time and all the harmonies were based on Broadway show tune compositions and it was beginning to feel repetitive to me. 

I am not a musician or a musicologist, but I am a discriminating listener, and I hate to say it, but even coming from a jazz musician as talented as Burton, his statement is more than a little obtuse. In the interview Burton went on to try and justify his adoption of rock chord progressions, even while conceding that rock music consists of only three chords. But as long as it was free from the straight jacket of the 150 standards that all follow a 2-5-1 chord progression, it was “cool.” 

Gary Burton wasn’t the first jazz musician who noticed that the audience for jazz was aging and dwindling in the 1960s. In the ‘70s jazz came perilously close to disappearing. Many musicians, wanting merely to survive, turned to jazz hybrids – the various “fusions” that incorporated funk or some other genre. Some turned to “smooth jazz” – a watered down, tepid hybrid that David Sanborn dubbed “instrumental pop.” This brand of jazz became so popular by the 1990s radio stations devoted exclusively to it sprang up in most of America’s bigger cities. The worst consequence of this awful trend was that many listeners, who had never been exposed to straight ahead jazz believed that it was actually jazz they were listening to. 

I understand Burton’s reasons for wanting to change jazz, for finding new challenges, and for wanting it to appeal to a younger audience. He knew that Be-Bop had changed to Hard Bop and then to Post Bop, and that jazz was, and still is, stuck in Bop. The only satisfying solution to the problem is discovering and nurturing talented musicians, since jazz has always had more to do with musicians than music. As I wrote on this blog in 2010, 'If you were to call in to a late night jazz radio request line and ask them to play "My Funny Valentine," they would ask you, "Whose?" Ben Webster's or Paul Desmond's? Ella Fitzgerald's or Tony Bennett's? Miles Davis's or Chet Baker's? The interpretation of the individual musician is what jazz is about, not whatever song they happen to be playing. In fact, the song is only a pretext for the musician's playing.' 

The reason why jazz musicians play standards is because of the songs’ widespread familiarity, both with musicians and their audiences. From the opening bars, audiences know the song the musician is playing and know where it is going. What they have no way of knowing is how the musician is going to get them there. What happens when a talented jazz musician improvises with a song like “Fascinating Rhythm” is the closest thing to genuine alchemy, the creation of gold from a mysterious combination of baser elements. It isn’t anything like theater, where the actors have to stick to a script. A jazz musician takes the notes of a standard and weaves a tapestry of notes out of thin air. Every great musician is a good listener, paying attention to every note he plays and following his creative instinct to every succeeding note. Elvin Jones, who was John Coltrane’s drummer, had to send him a signal during performances by tapping on the rim of a drum whenever Coltrane’s solo had gone on a little too long. Coltrane would then come back to earth and find his way back to the familiar notes of the standard song he had started with, and together with his bandmates would bring the song to a resolution.