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The State of Jazz

I was recently listening to "The Best of Diana Krall" LP. It is an amazing album. But later, I reflected on the fact that she sang almost entirely 'standards,' which means the songs are all at least 50 years old. Then, I thought, why hasn't the Jazz Community produced any more recent songs that have become standards. Then I thought: it is most likely, that the same standards (i.e., basin street blues; willow weep for me, etc.) will be sung for the next 50 years--and I wondered, are we producing any songs today that will become standards. I don't think so. Bu, why not?
elegal
czarivey
5,946 posts
 
Still still creativity should dominate standards.
Cover of "Man's World" by Residents is evident to it.
milan60
53 posts
 
well first of all the standards were pop tunes bag then, and actually lots of Jazz artist are still taking good recently composed pop tunes and rearrange and record them.
Brad Mehldau(Radiohead),Carmen Gomes(Bruce Springsteen)and Holy Cole(Tom Waits)comes to my mind immediately.
buconero117
2,311 posts
 
Miles is smiling.
Post removed 
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,460 posts
 
Like it or not, Diana Krall is generally categorized as a jazz artist and is one of the most popular and best selling as well I believe, so its hard to argue that she has nothing to do with the state of jazz.

Jazz light is still Jazz. SO what happens there does have something to do with Jazz, even if it may not be every jazz fans cup of tea.

Ella Fitzgerald sang "A Tisket A Tasket" and has sold a lot of records. Pretty light! Does that make her not a jazz artist?

Diana Krall plays piano as well. Ella just sang.

BTW, I consider Ella Fitzgerald to be one of the all time greats and my personal favorite female jazz vocalist, along with Dinah Washington (also pretty light at times) and Billy Holiday (not as light overall perhaps). I'm just pointing these things out to help balance out the argument.
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