Updating the book

Time to rework the book for my events band again. It's been eight years, and I really don't want to see most of those tunes ever again. I always felt too obligated to make this some kind of oldies/swing band, but really, for the type of gigs we do, nobody cares. We can just do normal standards that are fun to play and the clients would be fine. We don't need to play Moon River any more. Satin Doll. Come Fly With Me. Forget it, I'm done.

We were also overloaded with too much stuff. Anybody foolish enough to bring a wire stand to the gig was in serious danger of dumping the thing. So I did a quick pass through my various real/fake books, and came up with this svelte collection of tunes:

Alice In Wonderland
All Of You
Beautiful Love
Black Narcissus
Chelsea Bridge
Dearly Beloved
Do Nothing Til You Hear From Me
Edda
Emily
Everything Happens To Me
Favela
From This Moment On
Gee Baby Ain't I Good To You
Gentle Rain
Gone With The Wind
Have You Met Miss Jones?
Heyoke
I Hear A Rhapsody
I Should Care
I Thought About You
If I Should Lose You
If You Never Come To Me
I'll Take Romance
Invitation
It Could Only Happen With You
It's You Or No One
Like Someone In Love
Long Ago And Far Away
Lover
Lullaby Of The Leaves
The Masquerade Is Over
Midnight Sun
My Little Suede Shoes
My Romance
My Shining Hour
Nardis
O Grande Amor
Sandu
Slow Hot Wind
The Song Is You
Soul Eyes
Spring Is Here
These Foolish Things
Things Ain't What They Used To Be
Up Jumped Spring
Very Early
Watch What Happens

Ten tunes: heavy standards

Ten more tunes. These are some standards that have kind of a serious aura, that are reasonably-to-very likely to get called. They're not necessarily very hard, but they demand to be approached with respect. It's a subjective thing. Several have unusual forms; I don't feel like any of them just play themselves. Maybe this category only has meaning to me, I don't know.


All or Nothing at All

Alone Together

Central Park West

Chelsea Bridge

I'll Remember April

Invitation

Mr. PC

The Night Has a Thousand Eyes

Old Devil Moon

Upper Manhattan Medical Group


For example: I'll Remember April is a commonplace tune with a deeper vibe happening. Alone Together has an odd form. There are several trio recordings of Joe Henderson playing long versions of Invitation that are very hardcore. Strayhorn ballads are very deep and always demand special treatment.

These tunes are most likely to come up with better players. I'll Remember April and Alone Together are the ones you'll mostly likely encounter first. The Night Has a Thousand Eyes also seems to be real popular these days.

Ten tunes: solid standards

Continuing our little ten tunes series of often-played tunes to learn— today's theme is solid standards; standards that are called a lot, that everyone still likes to play. Some things you play a thousand times and you want them permanently flushed (a list for another day?), but these are extremely durable— inherently pleasing and rewarding to play, for players of all levels.

There are multiple great recorded versions of all of these:


All the Things You Are

But Not For Me

Have You Met Miss Jones

I Could Write A Book

I Hear a Rhapsody

If I Should Lose You

If I Were a Bell

My Romance

The Song Is You

There Will Never Be Another You


There Will Never Be Another You may draw out a few whiners— it has to be one of the half dozen most played tunes ever— but it's still great. I get a little tired of playing All The Things You Are, but nobody else seems to.

Another list of standards

On George Colligan's Jazz Truth blog there is a group email sent out by a student who sounds nearly as dickish as I was in college, with the heading:

The George Colligan Standards List...LEARN THEM IN ALL 12 KEYS!

1. Stella By Starlight
2. All The Things You Are
3. Autumn Leaves
4. What Is This Thing Called Love
5. There Will Never Be Another You
6. Tune Up
7. Cherokee
8. Beautiful Love
9. Alone Together
10. Body and Soul
11. Confirmation
12. Someday My Prince Will Come
13. Footprints
14. Bye Bye Blackbird
15. On Green Dolphin Street
16. There Is No Greater Love
17. I Love You
18. How High The Moon
19. Just Friends
20. If I Were A Bell
21. Night and Day
22. Au Privave
23. Moose The Mooche


It's a fair college-level list. Traditionally in Portland we would substitute Scrapple From The Apple for Moose, and possibly Blues For Alice or Cheryl for Au Privave. I would get Softly As In A Morning Sunrise in there just because. And I guess they're assuming that everyone learned Blue Bossa, Recordame, Song For My Father, Stolen Moments, All Of Me, Billie's Bounce, Solar, Caravan, Take The A Train, and things of that ilk— only slightly more chestnut-y than the things they've included— in high school, because they still get played a lot, too. If you're plotting a move to Portland, you should also learn Milestones (old), Stablemates, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, Invitation, I'll Remember April... well, call me...

More after the break...

Putting some things in

This is me at my most masochistic.

I'm back in updating my events band's book again- it's a long, tedious process- and thought I would continue to share the gory "thought" process with you. Previously I made lists of tunes I was pulling, for various reasons, and things I added to keep the band from mutinying right on stage, and things I wanted never to darken my tunelist again. After that great purging I'm now ready to do something constructive and add fresh material to the book. Fresh may not be the right word for 80 year old tunes we just haven't played in a while, but I think it's going feel great not having to lash another mile out of some of these old dray-horses.

So, here we go:

Allright, Okay, You Win - Crowd-pleasing blues tune a level or two of hell above Blues In The Night. Shares a page with the truly abhorrent Always, which people also love, and we'll probably have to play again. Maybe if we play this we won't have to play Night Train.

Blue And Sentimental - Easy 30's tune. Pleasant.

The Breeze And I -  A little "exotic" number, an alternative rhumba so I don't get beaten up for calling Frenesi again...

Canadian Sunset - Yah! Why??? It's pure Nelson Eddie schlock, the long, static form bores the crap out of saxophonists- ok, everyone- and we've played it to death. But, like a favorite old threadbare, reeking, rapidly-perishing sweater I just can't give it up...

Close Your Eyes - "Cool" jazz a la Doris Day. I love those '50's white lady singers... words you never think you're going to say.



More after the break:

Keeping the band happy.

More notes from revamping my book (my events band's performing repertoire, that is). Here I thought I would share some of the tunes I use to keep the band from going nuts over the more crass Moon River/Fascination/Makin' Whoopee-level of stuff we also perform.
 
A Sleepin' Bee, Look for the Silver Lining, There's a Small Hotel, This Can't Be Love, The Way You Look Tonight, Lullaby of the Leaves are good for establishing a mood before people are dancing, without wearing the band down with stuff like All of Me.

You Are Too Beautiful, Dedicated to You, I Loves You Porgy, Nancy with the Laughing Face, Stairway to the Stars are set-piece ballads that everyone loves- the band, listeners, slow dancers.

Beautiful Love, I Hear a Rhapsody, If I Should Lose You, You and the Night and the Music are regular blowing tunes for when you can get away with them. We try to get a couple of these in every night.  

More tunes after the break:

Updating my book

In preparation for a benefit gig this evening, I'm adding some new tunes my group's book, and more importantly clearing some of the ample dead wood. In case you're curious about the "thought" process that goes into such things, here are some of the things I'm pulling, and why.

Ain't Misbehavin' - I'm so sick to death of this song from playing it with singers, that I've never called it on a gig. Dead weight.

Autumn in New York - I like the tune, but I and the guys have played it behind one magician act too many. We used to play this a lot on the boats, until some staff thought it would be too traumatic for people to hear, because of 9/11. I didn't understand it, either.

Bernie's Tune - Something to keep the band from going nuts from playing too much Moon River and such, but I'm a little bored with it.

Blues in the Night - Show number which we never play. Miserable theater-person blues.

Chelsea Bridge - One of the greatest tunes ever, but too dark for this group, or rather, for the events we play.

Come Fly With Me - Not that well suited to an instrumental rendition. I've been keeping it around for Sinatra requests that never come.

Confessin' That I Love You - Good, small tune, but I call Look for the Silver Lining or There's a Small Hotel when I need something light like this.

The Continental - Chipper set-piece cha cha, with a little too-involved form for us to mess with. We'd rather just slog through Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White one more time than wade through this thing.

Cotton Tail - Great tune, we just haven't found a place for it.

Cry Me A River - Singer tune. Do you really want to hear this at your wedding? 

Don't Get Around Much Any More - We play this a lot, but nobody I would hire should ever need a chart for this.

Many more after the break.

Solo transcription: Jack Dejohnette - God Bless The Child

Another example of that ECM gospel feel with my original transcription of Jack Dejohnette's famous solo on God Bless The Child, from Keith Jarrett's Standards Volume 1:

 Keith Jarrett - Standards, Vol. 1
ECM B000VAKNLK

Keith Jarrett - piano
Gary Peacock - bass
Jack Dejohnette - drums

Get the pdf