What Are the Most Recent Standards?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I agree with you TTK, people who knew those standards are dead or dying. But I think it's not a function of the succession of generations, it's because of the fragmentation of popular music into tinier and tinier compartments. It hasn't happened to classical music. Although some people like me have extremely limited or specialised taste in classical music (French chamber music forever!), the majority of people who like classical music like a very wide range of kinds of music and composers of different lands and eras, and they themselves live all over the world and the present lot are the umpteenth generation of their kind. And this was the case long before the emergence of 'marketing' as a tool of the recording industry.

So I don't think there was anything inevitable about the compartmentalisation of music and audiences; it's just the strategy that happened to be selected by the major companies, the radio industry and Uncle Tom Cobley. But it won't - and probably can't - be undone now. So we're left with a few people who remember those songs, plus a bunch of jazz musicians who've learned them and who seem to be happy to play them for a diminishing audience, larger and larger proportions of which aren't actually interested in those old songs, whether they're 'Nica's dream', 'Since I fell for you', 'After hours' or 'Hucklebuck' and I'm pretty sure I don't see why they keep playing them rather than something the audiences know and love.

But, as I said earlier, some songs keep coming back because something about them has the capacity to satisfy listeners' entertainment needs at different points in time and place. They're not necessarily very good, not very interesting, but there's just something there that people can make into something not necessarily anything like what's gone before but not necessarily unlike, either. And under the conditions in which popular music is run, those are the songs that seem to be the real standards. Being a 'standard part of the repertoire' that no one's interested in doesn't always seem to be a transfixing point of interest.

MG

[JSngry]

But, as I said earlier, some songs keep coming back because something about them has the capacity to satisfy listeners' entertainment needs at different points in time and place. They're not necessarily very good, not very interesting, but there's just something there that people can make into something not necessarily anything like what's gone before but not necessarily unlike, either. And under the conditions in which popular music is run, those are the songs that seem to be the real standards. Being a 'standard part of the repertoire' that no one's interested in doesn't always seem to be a transfixing point of interest.

MG

There's a whole industry of "cultural ownership" that has variously vested interests in keeping this general repertoire in some version of the public eye. You'll be hearing them in movies, commercials, "projects", reading about them in books, etc. for as long as the profit incentive is working. It often has nothing to do with the song itself, much more to do with "cache", "culture", etc. Plant the seed, water the dirt, reap the harvest. Lather, rinse, repeat.

As with most things, follow the money.

[AllenLowe]

I am determined, before I die, to have one major singer sing one of my neo-standards.  And - I just got a nice email from Cecile McLorin Salvant; sending her a lead sheet. More later.......

[Teasing the Korean]

I am determined, before I die, to have one major singer sing one of my neo-standards.  And - I just got a nice email from Cecile McLorin Salvant; sending her a lead sheet. More later.......

Having found over the years your posts to be very funny, I'm expecting lyrics of Cole Porter or Lorenz Hart quality.  Please don't disappoint me.  

Edited September 25, 2015 by Teasing

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

But, as I said earlier, some songs keep coming back because something about them has the capacity to satisfy listeners' entertainment needs at different points in time and place. They're not necessarily very good, not very interesting, but there's just something there that people can make into something not necessarily anything like what's gone before but not necessarily unlike, either. And under the conditions in which popular music is run, those are the songs that seem to be the real standards. Being a 'standard part of the repertoire' that no one's interested in doesn't always seem to be a transfixing point of interest.

MG

There's a whole industry of "cultural ownership" that has variously vested interests in keeping this general repertoire in some version of the public eye. You'll be hearing them in movies, commercials, "projects", reading about them in books, etc. for as long as the profit incentive is working. It often has nothing to do with the song itself, much more to do with "cache", "culture", etc. Plant the seed, water the dirt, reap the harvest. Lather, rinse, repeat.

As with most things, follow the money.

You're right, and I see some of this stuff when I pass through the lounge. Mostly, you'll find that it's not stuff that's out of copyright. You won't find Hot Fives tracks being played, or McKinney's Cotton Pickers. But you probably will find copyright songs which will carry on until 50 years after the composer's death. But every year, fewer and fewer.

Will they be finding things from the nineties? Hm, doubt it.

MG

[JSngry]

What I want to know is this - with all the money that Jazz @ Lincoln Center apparently has at their disposal, why aren't they spending some of it on obtaining publishing rights, recording rights, etc. The past dialogues of who "owns" this music still ring true, who gets the return on the capital expended in the jazz industry, I don't see anything changing.I see lavish salaries, opulent real estate, high budget performances, but I don't see any progress/evolution in who's getting the publishing, or the rights to the records, or anything like that. So, with the passage of time, as "jazz" becomes a cultural presentation rather than a daily lifestyle, those who own the products will be the ones incentivized to pimp'em out to get some more money back into their pockets. And I don't see where "jazz" is making an effort to become self-capitalized now that it has some resources at its disposal, npot too much past now being the owners of the minstral show. Yes, there are allteh educational programs, but when it comes time for that to come to fruition in terms of "product", where will the agents and managers and record comp[anies and promo people be? From inside jazz itself, or still from a "peripheral" industry?

In teh old days, the cry was that jazz did not have access to capital. Well, now jazz does. And they using it to pay salaries and buy real estate. Hmmmm....

And is it just jazz? No, it's not. It's Motown (vs. Stax). It's Tin Pan Alley vs Hillbilly, it's anybody who has motivated institutionalized investment vs less clear/less organized ownership.

Keep an eye on this - there seems to be a new trend in commercial radio developing - classic hip-hop. We have two such stations already here in the DFW area. Yes, the music has spanned enough time and spawned enough of a cross-generational audience that there's at least the aspirational possibility of monetizing that history into good old fashioned Oldies radio programming. Those of us who have seen the total revisionism of pop music history as the music of the 50s & 60s (I stopped caring when they started in on the70s and beyond) became narrowed and culled down into a convenient commercial narrative that spread across all kinds of social and artistic arenas, here we go again. Let's see how the ownership game plays out this time, let's see what songs get the juice to get the push, let's see if in 20 years the history of hip-hop looks any different than it does today.

Follow the money.

 

[AllenLowe]

Teasing - I have written a fairly 'straight' lyric, meant to evoke, I would say, a late '40s ballad.  Maybe I'll post it at some point.

Edited September 25, 2015 by AllenLowe

[duaneiac]

Standards aren't standards unless they're very well and broadly known by audiences.

 

Not to get off tops, but to address your original point, I would argue that many of the traditional standards are no longer known by broad audiences.  The people who know "All the Things You Are" and "Body and Soul" are dead or dying.  The songs are still considered standards among jazz musicians. 

I think there is still an audience for the "classic" standards.  One need only look at the millions of CDs Rod Stewart managed to sell "singing" that material.  At least going back to the 1970's when Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson each recorded albums of standards, rock stars have been recording  this material.  Linda Ronstadt had a period of success recording/performing it in the 1980s.  Paul McCartney, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, Willie Nelson, Crystal Gayle, Ronnie Milsap, Merle Haggard, -- these are just a few of many post rock and roll era performers who have recorded albums of "classic" standards.  So the songs must still have meaning both to the singers who choose to perform them and the audiences who choose to buy these out-of-the-ordinary CDs by their favorite performers.

It's quite likely that a broad audience is not overly familiar with the repertoire of "classic" standards, but I'm sure many people today would still be able to recognize the melody of say "My Funny Valentine" or "Over The Rainbow" or "September Song" even if they could not identify those songs by title.

Edited September 26, 2015 by duaneiac

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

What I want to know is this - with all the money that Jazz @ Lincoln Center apparently has at their disposal, why aren't they spending some of it on obtaining publishing rights, recording rights, etc. The past dialogues of who "owns" this music still ring true, who gets the return on the capital expended in the jazz industry, I don't see anything changing.I see lavish salaries, opulent real estate, high budget performances, but I don't see any progress/evolution in who's getting the publishing, or the rights to the records, or anything like that. So, with the passage of time, as "jazz" becomes a cultural presentation rather than a daily lifestyle, those who own the products will be the ones incentivized to pimp'em out to get some more money back into their pockets. And I don't see where "jazz" is making an effort to become self-capitalized now that it has some resources at its disposal, npot too much past now being the owners of the minstral show. Yes, there are allteh educational programs, but when it comes time for that to come to fruition in terms of "product", where will the agents and managers and record comp[anies and promo people be? From inside jazz itself, or still from a "peripheral" industry?

In teh old days, the cry was that jazz did not have access to capital. Well, now jazz does. And they using it to pay salaries and buy real estate. Hmmmm....

And is it just jazz? No, it's not. It's Motown (vs. Stax). It's Tin Pan Alley vs Hillbilly, it's anybody who has motivated institutionalized investment vs less clear/less organized ownership.

Keep an eye on this - there seems to be a new trend in commercial radio developing - classic hip-hop. We have two such stations already here in the DFW area. Yes, the music has spanned enough time and spawned enough of a cross-generational audience that there's at least the aspirational possibility of monetizing that history into good old fashioned Oldies radio programming. Those of us who have seen the total revisionism of pop music history as the music of the 50s & 60s (I stopped caring when they started in on the70s and beyond) became narrowed and culled down into a convenient commercial narrative that spread across all kinds of social and artistic arenas, here we go again. Let's see how the ownership game plays out this time, let's see what songs get the juice to get the push, let's see if in 20 years the history of hip-hop looks any different than it does today.

Follow the money.

 

Yeah! That's the REAL thing, and it goes better with Coke.

In 20-30 years' time, see who owns Blue Note, Prestige, Chess, Atlantic, PJ, Contemporary etc. And more important, who owns Blue Horizon Music, Groove Music, Arc Music, Prestige Music, Ecaroh Music, the publishing for Benny Golson's songs, or Monk's etc.

MG

[jcam_44]

First song that comes to mind is Roy Hargrove's "Strasbourg/ St. Denis"

[Big Beat Steve]

 "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper is a perfectly good tune, yet how many people rolled their eyes when Miles Davis recorded it -- not necessarily because of his performance of the tune, but simply because it was a Cyndi Lauper tune?

"Time After Time" must have become some sort of standard beyond its original musical genre. It appeared in a rockabilly/rock'n'roll version (FIFTIES-style r'n'r - the real thing) in the UK close to 20 years ago.

Edited September 29, 2015 by Big Beat Steve

[Big Beat Steve]

But, as I said earlier, some songs keep coming back because something about them has the capacity to satisfy listeners' entertainment needs at different points in time and place. They're not necessarily very good, not very interesting, but there's just something there that people can make into something not necessarily anything like what's gone before but not necessarily unlike, either. And under the conditions in which popular music is run, those are the songs that seem to be the real standards. Being a 'standard part of the repertoire' that no one's interested in doesn't always seem to be a transfixing point of interest.

MG

There's a whole industry of "cultural ownership" that has variously vested interests in keeping this general repertoire in some version of the public eye. You'll be hearing them in movies, commercials, "projects", reading about them in books, etc. for as long as the profit incentive is working. It often has nothing to do with the song itself, much more to do with "cache", "culture", etc. Plant the seed, water the dirt, reap the harvest. Lather, rinse, repeat.

As with most things, follow the money.

Not that it ever was much of a standard even in its time, but I wonder to what extent this "keeping it in the public eye" played any role at all rather than this just being a gimmick by someone who stumbled across the tune when Fats Waller's 1937 recording "Spring Cleaning" recently made it into all the TV ads over here as the music for an ad for a manufacturer of cleaning equipment (for industry, garages and homes). But to anybody halfway in the know the artist was unmistakeable and I wonder what this will lead to.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

But, as I said earlier, some songs keep coming back because something about them has the capacity to satisfy listeners' entertainment needs at different points in time and place. They're not necessarily very good, not very interesting, but there's just something there that people can make into something not necessarily anything like what's gone before but not necessarily unlike, either. And under the conditions in which popular music is run, those are the songs that seem to be the real standards. Being a 'standard part of the repertoire' that no one's interested in doesn't always seem to be a transfixing point of interest.

MG

There's a whole industry of "cultural ownership" that has variously vested interests in keeping this general repertoire in some version of the public eye. You'll be hearing them in movies, commercials, "projects", reading about them in books, etc. for as long as the profit incentive is working. It often has nothing to do with the song itself, much more to do with "cache", "culture", etc. Plant the seed, water the dirt, reap the harvest. Lather, rinse, repeat.

As with most things, follow the money.

Not that it ever was much of a standard even in its time, but I wonder to what extent this "keeping it in the public eye" played any role at all rather than this just being a gimmick by someone who stumbled across the tune when Fats Waller's 1937 recording "Spring Cleaning" recently made it into all the TV ads over here as the music for an ad for a manufacturer of cleaning equipment (for industry, garages and homes). But to anybody halfway in the know the artist was unmistakeable and I wonder what this will lead to.

I wonder, too. Would the song have been in copyright anyway? Seems like one of Fats' own titles and he's been dead for a very long time. Do you know who wrote it?

They're still putting sixties jazz tracks into TV gardening, cooking and home DIY programmes. Heard one the other day. Can't remember what, though, but glad someone's getting paid.

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

@MG:

About the authors of "Spring Cleaning":

On the reissue LP where I have that song it says "Samuels-Powell-Whitcup" (whoever those may have been).

[JSngry]

http://www.bournemusic.com/bournemusic/search.php

This is why you always own the publishing.

Title/Writer(s)	Artist

	Spring Cleaning Leonard Whitcup, Teddy Powell, Walter G. Samuels	Fats Waller Girls From Mars

 

Spring Cleaning

 

License This Song

 

	Fats Waller( 1937 - Victor) Genre: Standard, Jazz Mood: Bouncy, Happy Topic: Affection, Clean
	Girls From Mars( 1999 - Girls From Mars) Genre: Standard, Jazz Vocal Mood: Hopeful, Laid Back Topic: Wash, Life

[Big Beat Steve]

Google still is your friend ...

So it was THAT Teddy Powell (before his big band-leading days) ...

 

Edited September 29, 2015 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

Yeah, and that's the thing, "Spring Cleaning" is hardly on the level of ""Ain't Misbehavin'" in terms of popular culture, but Fats Waller did make that record, (as did some group named Girls From Mars?), so as long as Fats Waller stays in circulation, somebody is at some point come across this one and think oh yeah, let's use Fats to sell our stuff, and next thing you know, money in the pocket for the publisher, and if they get a license for the record itself, more money, mo money mo money mo money.

I guarandamtee you that we'll be seeing road torus and revivals and whatnots of the Ain't Misbehavin' musical for many years hence. It's not about Fats anymore, it's about the brand, and continuing to find ways to monetize the brand. "Culture" is a selling point first, and a genuine concern second, if at all.

Not saying that's bad, really, it's simply business. But we need to keep that in mind going forth, as we keep seeing all the literature and articles and presentations and such that take these ever-receding real lives and careers and begin framing them as...mascots, easily identified identities that people can recognize without any real effort (Miles is pretty much already there), and what better tool to use for commercial marketing than something that everybody knows and everybody likes, especially one that doesn't present the complications of being living?

History may reveal greater complexities of a life past, but time simplifies them lest they diffuse into invisibility. History will be for art, time for commerce. The battle eternal!