Saxophone Colossus - The Life And Music Of Sonny Rollins

[Jack Pine]

1 hour ago, Gheorghe said:

All that yoga or zen stuff or how you call it. I don´t know nuthin´ about it, but great if he dug it, but I can´t understand that he states that it has also to do with the American Songbook, what has bein happy or sad or fallin in love or fallin out of love or selling a cottage when dreams didn´t come true, what has this to do with meditation ? Sure, he must know it, he knows everything....

I don’t recall the specific reference in the book and won’t speak to zen or meditation specifically, but to me the Great American Songbook is a highly spiritual catalog of human emotion; sort of a ‘Secular Hymnal’. I recently took a position as accompanist at a little country church and it’s been a crash course in traditional hymns. I think standards work on the same level as hymns, though to me are superior in their metaphysical effect.

[Gheorghe]

17 hours ago, Jack Pine said:

I don’t recall the specific reference in the book and won’t speak to zen or meditation specifically, but to me the Great American Songbook is a highly spiritual catalog of human emotion; sort of a ‘Secular Hymnal’. I recently took a position as accompanist at a little country church and it’s been a crash course in traditional hymns. I think standards work on the same level as hymns, though to me are superior in their metaphysical effect.

Hallo Jack, thank you for your worthful input. I had wondered where you have been. Lookin´ forward for further exchanges of thoughts and experiences again like we did before I couldn´t find you again. 

[Big Beat Steve]

On 4/6/2024 at 2:15 PM, Jack Pine said:

I don’t recall the specific reference in the book and won’t speak to zen or meditation specifically, but to me the Great American Songbook is a highly spiritual catalog of human emotion; sort of a ‘Secular Hymnal’. I recently took a position as accompanist at a little country church and it’s been a crash course in traditional hymns. I think standards work on the same level as hymns, though to me are superior in their metaphysical effect.

Just so I get a better grip on this ...

Where, by definition, would you draw a clear-cut line between "The Great American Song Book" and "Tin Pan Alley Standards"?
Aren't there fairly sizable overlaps?

 

[Jack Pine]

5 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Just so I get a better grip on this ...

Where, by definition, would you draw a clear-cut line between "The Great American Song Book" and "Tin Pan Alley Standards"?
Aren't there fairly sizable overlaps?

I wouldn't personally draw much of a line there at all, to me the are almost entirely overlapping.

[Gheorghe]

Maybe I don´t know or didn´t know the difference between Song Book and Tin Pan Alley Standards. Look, I pick up those tunes that sound interesting for me to play, maybe like almost all jazz musicians. If a tune has good chords and stuff to blow on it, it can be the greatest, even if it was not originally a tune intented by the composer to be a jazz impro vehicle. Take "Lover Come Back to Me", or "The Way You Look Tonight", they were otherwise meant than jazz, but for me as a jazzer to burn on them chord progressions at a brisk tempo is heaven on earth......