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Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be standards changes over time. Songs included in major fake book publications (lead sheet collections of popular tunes) and jazz reference works offer a rough guide to which songs are considered standards.
Not all jazz standards were written by jazz composers. Many are originally Tin Pan Alley , Broadway theatre or songs from Hollywood musical film – the Great American Songbook. "What Types of Compositions Become Jazz Standards?" jazzstandards.com. Retrieved March 20, 2009. In Europe, jazz standards and "" may even include some traditional folk songs (such as in Scandinavia) or pieces of a minority ethnic group's music (such as Romani music) that have been played with a jazz feel by well known jazz players. A commonly played song can only be considered a jazz standard if it is widely played among jazz musicians. The jazz standard repertoire has some overlap with blues standard and .
The most recorded standard composed by a jazz musician, and one of the most covered songs of all time, is Duke Ellington's and Juan Tizol's "Caravan" with over 500 uses. Originally, the most recorded jazz standard was W. C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" for over 20 years from the 1930s onward, after which Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" replaced it. St. Louis Blues at jazzstandards.com - retrieved on February 20, 2009. Following this, the place was held by "Body and Soul" by Johnny Green. "Body and Soul". jazzstandards.com. Retrieved February 20, 2009.
The origins of jazz are in the musical traditions of early twentieth-century New Orleans, including brass band music, the blues, ragtime and spirituals, and some of the most popular early standards come from these influences. Ragtime songs "Twelfth Street Rag" and "Tiger Rag" have become popular numbers for jazz artists, as have blues tunes "St. Louis Blues" and "St. James Infirmary". Tin Pan Alley songwriters contributed several songs to the jazz standard repertoire, including "Indiana" and "After You've Gone". Others, such as "Some of These Days" and "Darktown Strutters' Ball", were introduced by vaudeville performers. The most often recorded standards of this period are W. C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues", Turner Layton and Henry Creamer's "After You've Gone" and James Hanley and Ballard MacDonald's "Indiana".
In the early years of jazz, record companies were often eager to decide what songs were to be recorded by their artists. Popular numbers in the 1920s were pop hits such as "Sweet Georgia Brown", "Dinah" and "Bye Bye Blackbird". The first jazz artist to be given some liberty in choosing his material was Louis Armstrong, whose band helped popularize many of the early standards in the 1920s and 1930s.
Some compositions written by jazz artists have endured as standards, including Fats Waller's "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Ain't Misbehavin'". The most recorded 1920s standard is Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish's "Stardust". Several songs written by Broadway theatre composers in the 1920s have become standards, such as George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin's "The Man I Love" (1924), Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" (1927) and Cole Porter's "What Is This Thing Called Love?" (1929). However, it was not until the 1930s that musicians became comfortable with the harmonic and melodic sophistication of Broadway tunes and started including them regularly in their repertoire.
1930s saw the rise of swing jazz as a dominant form in American music. Duke Ellington and his band members composed numerous swing era hits that have later become standards: "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (1932), "Sophisticated Lady" (1933) and "Caravan" (1936), among others. Other influential band leaders of this period were Benny Goodman and Count Basie.
Bebop emerged in the early 1940s, with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk leading the way. It appealed to a more specialized audiences than earlier forms of jazz, with sophisticated harmony, fast and often virtuoso musicianship. Bebop musicians often used 1930s standards, especially those from Broadway musicals, as part of their repertoire. Jazz History: The Standards (1940s) on jazzstandards.com - retrieved on May 18, 2009 Among standards written by bebop musicians are Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts" (1941) and "A Night in Tunisia" (1942), Parker's "Anthropology" (1946), "Yardbird Suite" (1946) and "Scrapple from the Apple" (1947), and Monk's "'Round Midnight" (1944), which is currently one of the most recorded jazz standards composed by a jazz musician.
In Brazil, a new style of music called bossa nova evolved in the late 1950s. Based on the Brazilian samba as well as jazz, bossa nova was championed by João Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfá. Gilberto and Stan Getz started a bossa nova craze in the United States with their 1963 album Getz/Gilberto. Among the genre's songs that are now considered standards are Bonfá's "Manhã de Carnaval" (1959), Marcos Valle's "Summer Samba" (1966), and numerous Jobim's songs, including "Desafinado" (1959), "The Girl from Ipanema" (1962) and "Corcovado" (1962).
The jazz fusion movement fused jazz with other musical styles such as rock music and classical music. Its golden age was 1970s. Famous fusion artists, such as Weather Report, Chick Corea and Return to Forever, Herbie Hancock and The Headhunters, The Manhattan Transfer, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, achieved cross-over popularity, although public interest in the genre faded at the turn of the 1980s. Fusion's hits were Eumir Deodato's "Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)" (1973), Deodato allmusic.com Retrieved 10 January 2024 and Bob James's "Night on Bald Mountain" (1974), and Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" (1973). Weather Report and The Manhattan Transfer covered Joe Zawinul's jazz standard "Birdland". Linda Ronstadt's What's New, Chaka Kahn's Echoes of an Era, and Carly Simon's Torch were 80s jazz standard albums. Torch allmusic.com Retrieved 8 January 2024
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