Regarding the need for jazz musicians to be original, Phil Freeman tweeted today: “No rock artist could expect to be taken seriously releasing a covers album as their debut.” I wouldn’t normally respond to random tweets with a blog post, but there’s an important issue at stake here.
As much as they may continue to inform one another, and as much as we shouldn’t erect walls between genres, the fact is that rock and jazz are two vastly different disciplines. And the rock notion of “covers” is radically different from the jazz notion of covers, or standards. Improvising over the chord changes to a standard tune, or a modernist staple like “Giant Steps,” is an immense challenge, and an art handed down over many decades. There is scarcely any parallel to be found in rock. To be clear, I am not writing rock off as overly simple across the board — every form of music, in some way, poses unique challenges for the player. (I speak from experience.)
But getting back to Phil’s remark: There’s a reason a debut album of “covers” from a jazz musician is arguably viable, while a debut album of covers from a rock artist is probably not. The jazz musician working in the standards idiom is referencing a certain tradition and conveying, or trying to convey, a command of that tradition’s language. The best players can also arrive at originality even within that framework. But in what we call “mainstream” jazz, originality is only one of a number of factors that seasoned listeners take into account. Rock artists face a whole other set of historical expectations, and the relationship of songwriting and performing is configured totally differently in that world.
My point: Don’t assume that a guy like jazz guitarist Graham Dechter, who debuted last year with the thoroughly burning standards record Right On Time (Capri), is someone to be ignored. His playing reflects not only talent and an enormous amount of work, but also in my opinion a highly expressive quality. You have to know what to listen for.
Again and again it’s said that jazz will die if it doesn’t modernize, that newly emerging players must form vocabularies that reflect their time. Well, yes, that needs to happen, and it is happening. But too often, what accompanies this belief is a snide condescension toward those musicians who channel their energies in a “mainstream” direction, who learn the songbook cold and choose swing as their main priority. As if investing time in being able to play a decent chorus of blues and rhythm changes is somehow a waste. I sometimes feel that we’ve got it backwards: If young players stop trying to master these forms, then that is how an important and irreplaceable part of jazz will die.
Nels Cline recently confessed to JazzTimes that he can’t play bop to save his life. And that’s fine. I love Nels Cline’s music, and there are others I can go to for bebop. Artists should be empowered to find their own voices and not feel lesser for it. But that applies equally to a young straightahead guitarist like Graham Dechter. It’s a cavalier insult, and in some way a misapprehension of what jazz is, to write such people off as merely playing “covers.”
11 Comments
David,
I've only really become familiar with your writing since you joined Twitter (see, it's not all bad!) and I have to say that I very much enjoy your level-headed thinking. You continually impress me with your broad definitions of jazz and your reasoned approach to it's present and future.
I find it ironic that often times those who are the most modernist in their approach can be just as closed-minded as those they rail against.
It's all music. If there's heart and soul in it, how can it be bad?
Thanks!
Jason
Pardon my ignorance, but who's Phil Freeman?
Hi,
Just to be clear on my position, I wasn't addressing repertoire at all in my comments to Phil on Twitter. So, I'd like to clear up any confusion.
I enjoy Bill Charlap as much as I do Vijay Iyer and hardly would describe myself as a "modernist."
To my point, I never recommend Kind of Blue to friends who want to get into jazz. (I use it as an example, because it's common.) I ask what people already listen to – and then choose based on what may be most relevant to THEM and their tastes.
This isn't a top-down conversation anymore!
No doubt, highlighting seminal works in the genre is important – but I'm not going to relegate this music to a museum piece and hope after years of listening to old records by dead people, fans finally get to hear jazz played by live, breathing artists.
Start with what is now and work backwards – it can be Wynton or it can be William Parker. Don't matter so long as you can see it.
Unless you can see dead people.
– Garrett
That I agree with totally, Garrett.
I'm not reflexively anti-standards. But the jazz establishment (labels, festival bookers, and many critics) seems to place a higher value on a musician's ability to tweak a 70-year-old song (many standards were originally written for musicals in the 1930s) than on his or her ability to create something new. Witness the preponderance of, as I mentioned on Twitter, "[New Guy] Plays [Dead Guy]" albums, concerts paying tribute to dead performers (at which the wearing-dad's-clothes factor is doubled, because young performers will not only perform material by a predecessor, but sometimes perform that dead person's version of a standard!), etc., etc. This emphasis on the past doesn't just smother new work economically (this kind of thing gets booked more quickly and for better money than new performers playing new music), it creates the impression in the minds of young musicians that this is the path to follow, that writing songs isn't as important as learning the old ones. And that's bad, no matter how much pleasure can still be gotten from one more spin through "Body & Soul."
Oh, and Michael, I'm a jazz critic. I write for Jazziz, The Wire and the Village Voice, among other places. I have my own blog at http://runningthevoodoodown.blogspot.com.
If you talk to straightahead players, many feel they're the ones being marginalized in favor of the next hip thing. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Some of the biggest names right now are Esperanza Spalding, Lionel Loueke, Jason Moran – none of them play standards. And none of them are lacking for high-profile gigs.
Speaking of Body & Soul, here's George Garzone playing exactly that. He's not headlining any festivals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr9fsTSjAk0&feature=player_embedded
Hi Phil; I'm also a jazz critic (Washington City Paper, JazzTimes, Jazz.com, among other places).
Seems to me that it's reductive to place "playing standards" and "creating something new" at such odds with each other. It is an improvised music, after all, and the solos are what the fans show up for. So ideally the jazz musician is creating something new every night, even if he/she plays the same set of 70-year-old standards each time. I'd argue that it's constructive to couch that creation inside a familiar structure that audiences will recognize and relate to.
Does that leave no room for new work? Of course not. Think of The Bad Plus, who made their splash with rock covers but are just as likely (with the admitted exception of their last album) to write and perform original composition.
But yes, there are some musicians (Grant Stewart comes to mind) that aren't interested in composing their own music, just as surely as there are some who aren't interested in learning and playing the standard canon. And that's okay, isn't it?
Oh, and David — to be fair, Lionel, Jason, and Esperanza have been known to play and record standards and covers. In fact, every Esperanza gig I've seen except one has opened with…yep, "Body and Soul."
You're right, Mike, I was actually thinking of that Esperanza Body and Soul after I posted. Certainly no typical Body and Soul (partly in Spanish), but primarily she's known for original tunes. Jason too. They've negotiated their own relationship to standards, and that's another can of worms.
It is indeed, but idiosyncratic as they may be those standards are touchstones for the larger tradition. Particularly in Esperanza's case: Is it any coincidence that she so often performs not just a standard, but the world's most frequently performed one, before launching into the originals? It immediately aligns her with a 100-year legacy.
Bear in mind that, in some sense, most rock songs are covers in the same way that standards are: most rock songs conform to a 1-4-5 blues pattern or maybe a 1-6-4-5. Many melodies are re-workings of existing melodies. The distinction that makes rock fans deride covers in jazz is the lack of a sense of history in rock as there is in jazz.
Well, I think there is another sidestep in this discussion and that is that there is a paucity of really standout composers in this music. A lot of really invigorating soloists, sure, but in the pile of to-review discs by young(er) improvisers, it doesn't seem like writing memorable tunes is necessarily the modus operandi.
I can think of some really fantastic musicians who, when they are a side-person, shine brightly but when it's up to them to structure the music, it falls flat.
Sure, it's an improvisers' art, yadda yadda, but we all know that even in the supposed "freest" of ensembles, it's rare that players are actually starting from zero.