Here’s why: Bill Evans had a more creative mind than I do and could see possibilities where I see dead ends. Why would anyone, especially a pianist at Bill Evans’ level, bother with stuff like “Witchcraft” and “Some Day My Prince Will Come?” I mean, we’re talking standardized standards written by people like Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Cy Coleman, Cole Porter and (gasp!) Rodgers & Hart. When I research a jazz album and see a track listing consisting primarily of standards, my modus operandi is to pass, and hope I can find something with original compositions.Īlthough Bill Evans hardly looked the type to shatter a lady’s resistance (until he grew a beard later in the ’60s), he took my defenses and smashed them into tiny shards with Portrait in Jazz. All save two of the tracks are standards, some of them songs that usually set my teeth to grinding mode. I certainly approve of Parker’s remodeling of “Embraceable You,” but I always skip “Bye Bye Blackbird” on Miles Davis’ ‘Round About Midnight and don’t get me started on Coltrane’s version of “My Favorite Things.” Trying to hold the images of John Coltrane and Julie Andrews in my little blonde brain at the same time is asking too much of me. Once Coleman Hawkins reconstructed “Body and Soul,” the practice became widespread, with mixed results. ![]() This bias means that despite my admiration for Charlie Parker’s reconstructive surgery on various standards, I tend to view with sour disfavor the various efforts by jazz musicians to translate the stuff you hear on the Easy Listening stations into jazz pieces. I don’t want the standard model of anything, especially music. The moniker, “standards,” is the ultimate turn-off. I despise musicals and find most standards from the Great American Songbook boring.
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