Your Favorite Standard & Why

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

What's your favorite standard and why do you like it so much? Who does the best version.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 18:35 (twenty-two years ago)

At the moment I would say "Some Other Time." I really love how Bill Evans plays this, particularly on Waltz for Debby, but then his version w/ Tony Bennett on the album they made together is wonderful.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 18:36 (twenty-two years ago)

"Summertime," probably. Mainly because of the melody.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 18:40 (twenty-two years ago)

"Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You"
some clown in a bad tux topped this numbah.

― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 16 June 2004 18:58 (twenty-two years ago)

"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (does that count as a standard?) I just love it. Dunno why. Bryan Ferry does a boffo version of it.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

this thread title would be a good name for a slo-core countryish band

― Huk-El (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Alex took mine.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:13 (twenty-two years ago)

i think it's a tie between Strange Fruit, Summertime, Goodbye Porkpie Hat or Django

― JaXoN (JasonD), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

aguas de marco by jobim, and i like the original duet with elis the best. it was years later i learned that she didn't like him, and the hilarious outtake version [on man from ipanema] was actually fraught with tension and not utter joy, as i had thought.

as to why...? i guess i have always thought the best standards are either really simple like "you are my sunshine", "je ne regrette rien", "satisfaction", or are outwardly simple but really rather complex, like "all the things you are". sort of like, the best toys are either simple objects like a ball or a frisbee, or more like a chinese finger trap or prism. and waters of march is a prism.

― mig (mig), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:22 (twenty-two years ago)

NATURE BOY!

It was written by Eden Ahbez.

"Eden Ahbez was one of the authentic fringe figures in space age pop, a one-shot wonder so dramatically different from anyone else that he became, perhaps, a greater legend than his accomplishments justify. Born a good Jewish boy in Brooklyn, he ended up cultivating a Christ-like appearance and reputation among the fruits and nuts of sunny southern California.

Just what brought him from Brooklyn in 1908 to Los Angeles in the mid-1940s awaits a better biographer's investigation. He claimed to have been raised in an orphanage, and have crossed the U.S. on foot eight times by the age of 35. He settled in L.A., married a woman named Anna Jacobsen, slept with her in a sleeping bag in Griffith Park, claimed to survive as a vegetarian on three dollars a week, and stood on street corners in Hollywood lecturing on various Oriental forms of mysticism.

He emerged to public attention around 1948, when Nat King Cole recorded his song, "Nature Boy," that told a fantasy of a "strange enchanted boy" "who wandered very far" only to learn that "the greatest gift" "was just to love and be loved in return." Having no job and no fixed residence, he had plenty of time to hang around places like the Lincoln Theater, where he accosted Cole's manager, Mort Ruby, insisting that Cole look at the soiled, rolled-up manuscript of "Nature Boy."

son was crazy

― Daniel DiMAGGIO (Daniel DiMAGGIO), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:25 (twenty-two years ago)

"Blue Skies" - b/c it was my wedding song (Willie Nelson)

― mcd (mcd), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:27 (twenty-two years ago)

oh yeah, i love "A Felicidade (Happiness)"

― JaXoN (JasonD), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:30 (twenty-two years ago)

"street of dreams." my sinatra tipping point. "love laughs at a king/kings don't mean a thing on the street of dreams."

― lovebug starski, Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:42 (twenty-two years ago)

"My Funny Valentine," despite of / because of the way in which the song's sentiment is expressed (depends on my mood), and also the "Greek / weak / speak" rhyme. Also, it's fun to sing in the shower. I like the stripped-down version that's available a bonus track on the recentish reissue of Elvis Costello & The Atractions' _Armed Forces_.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:49 (twenty-two years ago)

"Brazil" or whatever it's really supposed to be called. It's so versatile in terms of reinterpretability, but still very evocative of a similar voibe no matter how it's redone.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Nature Boy is a great song.

I like Softly as in a Morning Sunrise a lot. It's always fun to play, there are a million great versions, and I like the minor to majorish shift in the bridge.

Runner-up: It's Alright With Me. It's got to be my favorite Cole Porter tune, and I really like the Harry Connick, Brad Mehldau, and Tom Waits versions.

Second runner-up: Corcovado, for the surprisingly nihilistic lyrics.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

"All Of Me", which killed me when I heard the Lenny Tristano version.

― southern lights (southern lights), Thursday, 17 June 2004 00:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Er, I meant "All The Things You Are".

― southern lights (southern lights), Thursday, 17 June 2004 00:59 (twenty-two years ago)

"i've got you under my skin"

― the surface noise and the analogue warmth (electricsound), Thursday, 17 June 2004 01:01 (twenty-two years ago)

"the waters of march", becuase it has the best lyrics ever. "summertime" and "brazil" are worthy runnerups.

― Sym (shmuel), Thursday, 17 June 2004 01:50 (twenty-two years ago)

"the girl from ipanema" or "wichita lineman," both for the way they express an incredibly deep feeling of longing (perhaps the root emotion of all pop music) with deceptively simple lyrics, not to mention the gorgeous changes.

(wait a minute, did that sentence just ring five alarms at pitchformula.com?)

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 17 June 2004 03:19 (twenty-two years ago)

oh, and the best versions of those would be the obvious ones: getz/gilberto and glen campbell.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 17 June 2004 03:21 (twenty-two years ago)

"autumn leaves". it's our song. ok and the coltrane one with johnny hartman singing is amazing and immortal, and the way coldcut use it in one their dj mixes was breathtaking (at the time).

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 17 June 2004 03:22 (twenty-two years ago)

(x-post with myself)
oh, and also because the line "but each day when she walks to the sea, she looks straight ahead not at me" boils down virtually all modern pop music to 16 words, 15 of then one-syllable words.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 17 June 2004 03:25 (twenty-two years ago)

the mixmaster morris version vahid!

― gaz (gaz), Thursday, 17 June 2004 03:25 (twenty-two years ago)

mine's "you don't know what love is". almost any version will do.

― gaz (gaz), Thursday, 17 June 2004 03:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Is "Danny Boy" a standard? I always liked that song, but I didn't LOVE it until those wacky Coen Brothers used it in the amazing tommy-gun sequence in "Miller's Crossing."

"My Favourite Things", great version by Barbra Streisand, umpteen more from Coltrane, and even a blink-and-you'll-miss-it parody within Alice Cooper's "Halo Of Flies"! (Best AC track EVAH.) Something about the tune - always struck me as a vague yearning for childhood nostalgia thing.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Thursday, 17 June 2004 07:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Kuume (Fever) by Laila Kinnunen. French horn with a slinky groove.

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Thursday, 17 June 2004 09:08 (twenty-two years ago)

gloomy sunday.

I have a comp. I made of about 18 different covers of that one song. It's pretty awesome, however the diamanda galas version is a little hard on the ears.

― E.S.P (ipsofacto), Thursday, 17 June 2004 10:18 (twenty-two years ago)

oops, i forgot to say why...

because it's so fucking miserable, and fun to sing along to.

― E.S.P (ipsofacto), Thursday, 17 June 2004 10:18 (twenty-two years ago)

"My Funny Valentine" .. Ever since I heard Nico do it.. although I love just about any version of it now ...

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 17 June 2004 11:29 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

Revive.

― Mark (MarkR), Saturday, 23 September 2006 13:12 (nineteen years ago)

I'm a sucker for every version of "Mack the Knife" and "Chinatown, My Chinatown" that I've heard. "Summertime" is fun 'cause it's so flexible to rock and other post-jazz genres, but that leads to some crummy versions.

― bendy (bendy), Saturday, 23 September 2006 13:44 (nineteen years ago)

"My Kind of Town": I was about four years old, and it was playing on my aunt's hi-fi behemoth, and I was floored; it's the first time I was cognisant (however slightly) of the notion of standards and of Ol' Blue Eyes being something special. I'm a sucker for all that "Great American Song" stuff based on that one moment in time.

But, for standards as a vehicle for improvisation, I'd pick "On Green Dolphin Street". There are a lot of things like "Stolen Moments" and various pieces from the more-recently-canonized Wayne Shorter that I love, but I wanted to restrict my choice to something that was originally conceived with lyrics.

― mark 0 (mark 0), Saturday, 23 September 2006 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

Almost any Hart era Rodgers for the delightfully torturous mix of affection and put-downs... If I had to chose one, perhaps 'You Are Too Beautiful' with Dick Haymes.

― le hague (le hague), Saturday, 23 September 2006 16:07 (nineteen years ago)

For me it's a tie between "Mack The Knife" and "Fly Me To The Moon". Julie London's version of the latter is sublime.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Saturday, 23 September 2006 16:10 (nineteen years ago)

I love "It Was a Very Good Year", particularly the way the melody and orchestration (of the classic Sinatra version) lend an undercurrent of melancholy the largely positive lyrics.

I'm a little unclear as to what counts as a standard. Are Beatles songs now standards? Is "I Will Survive" a standard?

― chap who would dare to contain two ingredients. Tea and bags. (chap), Saturday, 23 September 2006 16:18 (nineteen years ago)

"Fly Me To The Moon": the sinatra/count basie at the sands version/arrangement is huge and great.

Nobody has said "Moon River." Kid Koala does a version live where he just tweeks the Audrey Hepburn version a bit, to nice effect.

― A Giant Mechanical Ant (The Giant Mechanical Ant), Saturday, 23 September 2006 16:30 (nineteen years ago)

I'm a little unclear as to what counts as a standard. Are Beatles songs now standards? Is "I Will Survive" a standard?

I've been asking myself exactly this as I read the thread. Anyone here know the criteria?

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Saturday, 23 September 2006 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

Don't think there is an official definition of standard, but it seems to me it has to recorded many, many times in an array of contexts to qualify. I imagine there'd have to be at least 100 different versions for a song to obtain "standard" status. Does "I Will Survive" qualify? "Yesterday" is certainly a standard, "Here Comes The Sun" too, probably.

― Mark (MarkR), Saturday, 23 September 2006 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" -- Bessie Smith's, Sam Cooke's, and Dave van Ronk's versions being my faves.

― a|ex (Pareene), Saturday, 23 September 2006 18:24 (nineteen years ago)

"Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most"

― Iago Galdston (Iago), Saturday, 23 September 2006 18:27 (nineteen years ago)

they can't take that away from me

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 23 September 2006 18:29 (nineteen years ago)

Charlie Chaplin's Theme Music for 'Modern Times'
Lyrics by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons

Smile

I'm a sap for those slow ones. Nat King Cole's version is very touching.

― jim wentworth (wench), Sunday, 24 September 2006 01:02 (nineteen years ago)

In the Pines. Great old bluegrass train song.
so catchy and shadowy

my favourites are Leadbelly, Bill Monroe & his Bluegrass boys, and the Louvin brothers.

― spectra (spectra), Thursday, 28 September 2006 10:45 (nineteen years ago)

five months pass...

*revive*

Yeah, "Nature Boy," pretty much all the Jobim songs, although to me sometimes it kills me to hear a version of say, "Corcovado," where the singer doesn't 'float' over the time, but instead sings with the herky-jerky rhythm of a bad piano teacher rocking his bench.

For years I only knew "Since I Fell For You" from the Lenny Welch version, but over the past week I keep hearing jazzbo versions of it, including one on a Red Garland record I just bought in the discount pile at J&R which has a great solo by Paul Chambers and is cool all around so I'll nominate that.

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 05:28 (nineteen years ago)

All the Things You Are. I've done a bunch of arrangements of it, and I've always admired the chords and melody.

― St3ve Go1db3rg, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 16:37 (nineteen years ago)

childrens story

― and what, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

"Some Other Time," mentioned above, is a good call.

As for the definition of "standard," I think it's not just about having been covered a lot, but being the kind of song that musicians within a certain context might be expected to know. I assume it comes from a time when a singer could just call out "All of Me" to a band she had never worked with and they would play it, hence "standard."

― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 16:46 (nineteen years ago)

Does "I Will Survive" qualify? "Yesterday" is certainly a standard, "Here Comes The Sun" too, probably.

Yesterday, yes. I wouldn't consider the others standards. Wikipedia on jazz standards.

― St3ve Go1db3rg, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 17:31 (nineteen years ago)

I never knew until this week that the name of the mountain Corcovado means "humpbacked."

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 17:39 (nineteen years ago)

I never knew that until just this second.

― Mark Rich@rdson, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 17:52 (nineteen years ago)

for a moment I read that wrong and was starting to imagine Corcovado in the original Portuguese is actually a tragic song about a person with a humped back.

― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 18:25 (nineteen years ago)

I'm currently a big fan of Duke Ellington's "Solitude"--everybody's done it! OK not everybody, but a lot of people. I keep coming across new versions. My latest fave is Nina Simone's--she nails it, in spite of terribly lame backup singers.

― tylerw, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 18:37 (nineteen years ago)

send in the clowns

― M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 18:38 (nineteen years ago)

for a moment I read that wrong and was starting to imagine Corcovado in the original Portuguese is actually a tragic song about a person with a humped back.
it is, like a bossa nova rigoletto! don't you know they watered down a lot of those lyrics for English language consumption?

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 18:55 (nineteen years ago)

Possibly Satisfied Mind

― Killwhitey, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 19:02 (nineteen years ago)

In fact, the original lyrics translates roughly as follows
Just Like Rigoletto did
I try to keep my hunchback hid
Now there's some sad things known to man
Ain't too much sadder than

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 19:03 (nineteen years ago)

"Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most"
Betty Carter's take on that on "The Audience With Betty Carter" is just about the greatest thing ever.
I think I'm still going to have to go with "A Night in Tunisia" as my favorite standard. I blame Dexter Gordon, as I was completely hooked to his recording of it on "Our Man in Paris" for a few months. I've not actually heard the classic Gillespie & Parker recording of it though. For shame. Have a pretty swell live recording of them ruling it though. I always brighten up when I hear that bass-line start.

― Øystein, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 19:04 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

Reviving upon listening to Bill Evans trio playing "Some Other Time" at the Village Vanguard.

― Mark, Thursday, 16 July 2009 03:32 (sixteen years ago)

still love they can't take that away from me

― Cowardly G. Soundgarden (s1ocki), Thursday, 16 July 2009 03:35 (sixteen years ago)

Memories of You b/c 1) Louis Armstrong version and 2) Charles Mingus version

― the kid is crying because did sharks died? (Hurting 2), Thursday, 16 July 2009 04:09 (sixteen years ago)

I really love "You Make Me Feel So Young" - maybe because Frank Sinatra does such a great version of it on "Songs For Swinging Lovers". For me, to an even bigger extent than "I've Got You Under My Skin", that one is the highlight of that album.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 16 July 2009 04:39 (sixteen years ago)

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (does that count as a standard?) I just love it.

Could a song composed by the famous Tin Pan Alley composer Jerome Kern not possibly count as a standard? :)

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 16 July 2009 04:40 (sixteen years ago)

Sooo many here but just to pick one:

"It Never Entered My Mind" (Rodgers/Hart)

And "Old Man River" as a runner-up

― prosciutto-wrapped Hot Pocket (los blue jeans), Thursday, 16 July 2009 05:25 (sixteen years ago)

moonlight in vermont is a nice one

― why is Barack Obama rarely seen dancing (hmmmm), Thursday, 16 July 2009 05:35 (sixteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.