Jazz "cover versions" of modern rock/pop tunes...

[Jazz Kat]

I frown on them.

[.:.impossible]

This was posted in another Bjork thread, and I thought I'd also post it here too...

SOURCE

Travis Sullivan's Bjorkestra

By Christopher Muther, Globe staff  |  March 24, 2005

What is the reason why I chose Björk?" Travis Sullivan ponders. ''Maybe her music chose me."

It's easy to see how such a thing could happen, given that Björk's music drowsily extends its exquisite and ornate tentacles, unfolding layer after layer, until it grabs hold of listeners with a banshee-like urgency. For New York-based Sullivan, the idea of turning Björk's art pop into avant-garde jazz for an 18-piece band -- brilliantly dubbed the ''Björkestra" -- manifested itself seven years ago when he began reinterpreting the Icelandic songstress's tune ''Hyper-ballad."

''I started listening to her music around the time that I was first getting into arranging for big bands," Sullivan says. ''And Björk's music is really the perfect vehicle for that because it's in the cracks between a lot of different genres. It's melodic and rich and deals with a lot of modality."

Sullivan reworks Björk's music through an ensemble that primarily consists of brass and woodwind instruments but also includes piano and electronic percussion. He refers to his arrangements as ''big band," but it's not the kind of big band music that Glenn Miller played for the USO. This is the hippest of New York's downtown jazz scene, spun into a context that can be easily digested by younger fans with an appetite for pop music.

Sullivan uses Björk's ideas and melodies as a springboard to launch into his own visions of the music. The songs are deconstructed and then reconstructed and given over to much improvisation.

''The other night, someone in the group said, 'This isn't like a big band, it's just a large group of guys who get together and plays music,"' Sullivan says. ''But what I've been discovering lately is that the sound of that is beautiful in itself."

Björk's fans have reacted positively to the revised interpretations, an enthusiasm Sullivan attributes to his ability to maintain the original tone and sensation of the songs.

''There's a density to Björk's music, but there's also an openness to it," he says. ''There's that open Icelandic vibe you get with her music. I wanted to see how I could write that into my arrangements using musical colors that are much more opaque. I was thinking about it in terms of painting with layers as I was trying to make these very long brush stokes with the music. "

I just found out last night that my friend Steve Welsh (tenor, baritone saxophone) plays in Bjorkestra. He was leaving for the Boston gig this morning. Has anyone heard this group?

[Patrick]

Don't forget Joanne Brackeen's cover of the Wham! tune "Everything She Wants" on Havin' Fun (Concord). On an album of Arlen, Mercer, Porter, Cahn, etc., nice to see JB has a bit of a sense of humor,...or that she's havin' fun. Too bad the tune has one of those irritating fadeouts.

[Guy Berger]

Charles Lloyd recorded Bacharach and Costello's "God Give Me Strength" a while back.

Guy

[Chrome]

Charlie Hunter does a nice version of Nirvana's "Come as you are" on the disc Bing, Bing, Bing!

... and although it's a little before the 1980 cutoff, Hunter covers the entire Bob Marley album Natty Dread, and that's great.

[randyhersom]

Anybody heard Alex Skolnick? I haven't but I'm intrigued by the descriptions I've heard.

[Joe]

Just saw this at Alan Lankin's Jazzmatazz (http://jazzmatazz.home.att.net/upcomingcds.html):

19 April 2005 -- James Carter, Cyrus Chestnut, Reginald Veal and Ali Jackson - Gold Sounds (Brown Brothers) -- instrumental versions of songs by Pavement

Not a project I thought I'd ever see...

[.:.impossible]

Imagine "Hit the Plane Down." And shouldn't that be Gold Soundz?

[mikeweil]

Recently contemplated about starting a thread asking "Who's your favourite jazz srtaist doing pop tunes?", but this fits in here:

Bobby Broom!!!

He did verrrry nice covers of pop tunes on several CDs:

Bobby Broom Trio, Stand! (Premonition, 2001)

Bobby Broom Quartet (w. Dr. Lonnie Smith, Ronnie Cuber & Idris Muhammad!), Modern Man (Delmark, 2001)

Deep Blue Organ Trio, Deep Blue Bruise (Delmark, 2004)

He covers older tunes from the 1960's and 1970's, but makes me like even those I hated back then ...

Edited March 28, 2005 by mikeweil

[ghost of miles]

A bit outside this thread's parameters, but I can't find any other "new standards" threads at the moment: Eric Alexander & Harold Mabern do a great cover of the Roberta Flack-Donnie Hathaway hit "Where Is the Love?" on Alexander's 2006 cd IT'S ALL IN THE GAME.

[Shawn]

Anybody heard Alex Skolnick? I haven't but I'm intrigued by the descriptions I've heard.

Alex Skolnick is a very progressive guitarist who used to play in a thrash metal band called Testament. He's technically gifted and always sounded "constrained" by playing in a metal band. I heard a cover version he did of So What years ago, it was very good although he didn't stay strictly "modal" with the solo. I'd be curious to hear what he's up to these days.