Covers and Arrangements

In the pop/rock world, musicians are constantly debating the art of the cover song. The act of performing someone else's song is widely disdained, except an occasional tribute to a musician you respect. But no more than one per album or set! The covers album is seen as the mark of a musician who is bankrupt of ideas, and the covers band? A true musician shudders at the thought - unless of course you are a hipster party band wearing outrageous costumes and playing music that is itself not respected, like disco or metal.

In jazz, the opposite is true- it is expected that you will play the music of the musicians who came before you, particularly from the pantheon of tunes known as "standards." Go over to the iTunes Store and type "Caravan" (a Duke Ellington tune) into the search bar. There are at least 300 versions available, including this one from Chet Atkins and Les Paul:




Interestingly,  if you go back to the 50s and 60s, pop/rock bands were covering each other like crazy. It was expected that other people wrote your music, and when something was a big hit, you'd suddenly find 5 different versions of the song on the airwaves performed by the hitmakers of the day. It's unimaginable today to think of hearing Beyonce, Lil' Wayne, and Taylor Swift all on the radio performing the Black Eyed Peas "I've Got A Feeling" at once! The story goes that Bob Dylan killed this practice single-handedly, bringing on the era of the singer-songwriter. Of course, history has a way of enshrining simple stories at the expense of complex ones, but it's a persuasive argument nonetheless.

But back to covers. In jazz as in rock, the success or failure of a cover lies in the arrangement.

I read an interview recently with Wynton Marsalis where he talked about the beauty of jazz in that you could get together with musicians you'd never met, call out one of the standards, and you'd instantly have music. I get it- it is a great experience as a musician to latch in to a group you've never played with and navigating the individual quirks and expressions of each person's playing. But as a listener, I often find myself bored to tears. Yes, the individual expression of a talented player can be magical, but it's not enough. I want to hear a carefully-crafted melody, thoughtful attention paid to tonal harmony and color, not just what one person can come up with off the top of their head. No other music except maybe bluegrass worships the soloist at the expense of musical structure and melody.

Much, much more on arrangement in upcoming posts...