‘Trust Me, I’m the Singer’ is the diary of a singer from New Zealand with a background as a session vocalist in Americana, British rock, and indie, who now finds himself in Warsaw, Poland, learning to sing jazz. Click subscribe and come along for the ride.
The thing about familiar things is they take on an air of effortlessness.
You hear them often, see them often, know them well. They seem simple.
And then you try to do them.
A first step in my jazz journey is learning a set of jazz vocal standards. And I’m discovering they are a lot harder than they sound.
Here are my current top five (what would you change or add to the list?):
Nature Boy
My Funny Valentine
You Are Too Beautiful
Summertime
Save Your Love For Me
NPR’s ‘Jazz Night in America’ offers this definition of a standard:
“a song becomes a standard because many people record it…but a song has to be covered by a vocalist to become a standard, because people always connect with vocalists.”
What I’m told is the standards are a rite of passage. Every jazz musician knows them, the equivalent of learning ‘To Be Or Not To Be’ for actors or ‘Smoke on the Water’ for electric guitarists.
They are the songs that will teach you what great jazz singing is all about and the ones you’ll play at jam nights, unrehearsed, with a cast of strangers.
Some people argue the standards have no place in 2024. And I’m looking at the list of icons who have recorded these songs and thinking, ‘Why bother? Does the world really need another version? Does the world need MY version?’
No. The world doesn’t.
But I do.
And there’s the rub.
Right now, you do this for yourself, as education, as apprenticeship. We all learn from someone else. Picasso studied the Old Masters. Beethoven studied Haydn. My mate Dave studied his mate Chris.
Which bangs up against another raw, uncomfortable truth.
I’m a beginner again.
As I lurch around these standards, trying to find a way in, trying to navigate the melodic leaps, the odd intervals, my ego is punch-drunk, beaten by the blows of a beginner’s incompetence.
Rock suddenly seems so simple.
I’m also a perfectionist by nature, I like being good at things.
This is very imperfect and very not good.
‘What are you doing?!’, my ego says. ‘Go back to playing three chords and the truth.’
Too late. We’re here now.
It’ seven chords and the heartbreak, most of them sus4diminished.
Interpretation, not imitation.
The challenge with the standards is they come loaded with history. So much history - Chet’s version and Frank’s version and Ella’s version and Tony’s version.
On one hand, you have to be a student of the history. You have to know where the song comes from. You have to soak in and appreciate the masters.
Then you must forget it all and make the song yours.
Find a way in, find a place that is your own - offer an interpretation, not an imitation.
The greats are the greats because, as I read it described (link to the source sadly lost), they can:
“…take any song and make it sound like they wrote it themselves. Other people’s words become their words. Other people’s feelings become their feelings. They bring the music alive. They give it credibility and meaning. They make it real for the rest of us. In short, they make us believe.”
This is much harder than it sounds.
(One thing I want to better understand is how the greats approached the standards. What was their process for making it their own? Any resources on this would be much appreciated.)
Certain standards come more easily than others (note I use ‘easily’ as a relative term, in the same way that a marathon might come ‘easily’ to a casual runner)
Nature Boy, for example. I’m learning from the Nat King Cole recording, but Kurt Elling’s ‘Live In Sydney’ version is also a magnificent touchstone. The minor melody suits me. Something in the refrain of this song just clicks. There’s a hopeful melancholy in the words that feels right. I can find my place here.
But My Funny Valentine? Damn, I still can’t get there. It’s almost too simple. Possibly heard the Chet Baker version too often. His choirboy purity and whispered control are not in my repertoire.
I find this great video series from the Jazz at Lincoln Centre programme. Marion Cowings describes thinking of yourself as a ‘storyteller’, rather than a singer.
He suggests to go for a walk and speak the lyrics, conversationally, in your own natural manner, and remove them from the music.
I try it. It works, it helps.
It also helps to have a sense of your own musical identity, your natural vernacular.
One other thing I know is I prefer rough edges to smooth, hence a love for singers like David Bowie, Bono, or Nick Cave.
It’s probably why I shy away from Michael Buble and prefer darker, earthier jazz voices - Ray Charles, Tony Bennett (in his later years), Nina Simone.
I will never be any of these people. And it’s not required.
Their style and influence simply offer another doorway, another entry point, into finding my own interpretation.
Finally, I’m falling back on my belief that singing is about intention, not perfection.
Call it a motto, call it an excuse. But as Leonard Cohen famously sang, ‘there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’.
It’s not about being note-perfect. I must rough each standard up, metaphorically speaking.
Find my own truth in the lyrics.
Inject my own demons into the melody.
Sing it like I lived it.
What are your thoughts on the standards?
Which are the definitive versions, in your opinion?
Leave a comment and let me know!
There seems to me to be a set of the standard repertoire that withstands familiarity and is always ripe for new interpretations. In terms of how to approach singing them, all I can off is to watch how Sinatra sings 'Moonlight in Vermont' from 1966: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us0mUAGeps4
I have no problem with classic repertoire, it's a good reference point for audiences and artists. There's a good reason why so many of these songs have stood the test of time, and I like to hear new interpretations of music that already resonates emotionally.