Artist has the most unique approach to standards

[Hardbopjazz]

What artist has the most unique approach to playing standards? So unique that the standards so like new tunes when you hear them. I find ahmad Jamal does this. Can you think of any others?

[Chuck Nessa]

Louis Armstrong.

[Chuck Nessa]

Earl Hines.

[Don Brown]

Lester Young

[Harold_Z]

Monk

[BbM7]

Absolutely Monk. Also, Archie Shepp.

[B. Goren.]

Art Tatum, of course.

[rostasi]

[jlhoots]

Love him or hate him - Keith Jarrett.

I lean toward the former most of the time.

[brownie]

Bud Powell

and Monk, of course!

[JSngry]

What artist has the most unique approach to playing standards? So unique that the standards so like new tunes when you hear them.

Gil Evans w/the few Kurt Weil tunes he did.

[kinuta]

After listening to his versions of ' What's New?' and ' I'll Be Seeing You' on ' Les Trinitaires ', I'm inclined to add Andrew Hill to some of the other names mentioned.

Thelonious Monk for sure.

[Don Brown]

Pee Wee Russell

Sonny Rollins

[Д.Д.]

Paul Smoker on this disc.

[Alexander Hawkins]

I agree with Braxton, but in the context, mostly, of the Piano Quartet records. I enjoyed 23 Standards (haven't heard the box of 20), but didn't think they were necessarily that original.

[mikeweil]

Ahmad Jamal

Geoffrey Keezer

[Indestructible!]

Martial Solal

Cheers,

Shane

[BruceH]

Monk gets my vote.

[Kalo]

Monk. Like on his version of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," which is practically a new composition.

And what about Rollins?

[Kalo]

How could I have forgotten Tristano, Konitz, and Marsh?

[LAL]

For vocalists, I would nominate Betty Carter.

[Kalo]

LAL Posted Jun 1 2005, 07:48 PM

 

For vocalists, I would nominate Betty Carter.

Good call, LAL.

Years ago, when I saw Betty Carter at the Regattabar (in the era when Cyrus Chestnut was her pianist), I recalled having a mini-epiphany regarding her vis-a-vis Monk. It struck me that Carter's approach to standards was the exact feminine equivalent of Monk's very masculine approach; that is, they both had a similarly eccentric sense of time and spare approach to space, but where Monk was all angles and elbows, Carter swooped and curved.