My favorite popular jazz tunes

Here's a list of my top ten favorite popular jazz tunes and what I like about them. If you know jazz chances are you've heard all these tunes about a billion times. I feel that if you wanted to get into jazz and you listened to this list it would give you a great idea of what jazz is all about. This is essentially a straight ahead list.

Fly me to the moon
This is a an old jazz standard that goes back to the 50's. Not only is it a great jazz standard that a lot of straight ahead players play but its also been remixed a lot-like the version that's in a lot of Bayonetta (video game) videos that can be heard here. Sort of crass but satisfying all the same. I also dig saxophonist Jimmy Heath's rendition. 

Giant Steps
This will forever be one of my favorite heads of any jazz tune. That melody is pure scientific improvisational music composition. It sounds like a math equation, something mechanical turned biological-totally organic even though it's cool and calculated. Another way to put it is that it sounds like elevator music-because the saxophone lines are continuously going up and down the register of the instrument. I don't mean it in the smooth jazz sense. Thank god!

Straight, no chaser
The name reminds me of drinking at a bar and telling the barkeep,"Straight, no chaser." The melody is catchy and blues-influenced but still having a child-like playful originality. It's a great Monk tune. He wrote a ton of other tunes but this is probably his most well known tune other than Round 'Midnight.

Hat and Beard
This is an Eric Dolphy tune that I always seem to come back to. It isn't necessarily a popular jazz tune but if you know jazz from the sixties you would at least know Eric Dolphy. It opens the Out to Lunch album from 1964. It sounds like its definitely about a hat and beard sensibility. The melody is stuttered and calculated as Eric Dolphy blows out the entire register of his bass clarinet. Far out man.

The very thought of you
Billie Holiday was a great singer, probably the greatest jazz singer. I didn't like vocals in jazz until I heard her back in high-school. The way she delivers the song is akin to a folk musician telling a story-doing that in jazz is not easy. Its definitely my favorite love song.

There will never be another you
Another love song with vocals that goes way back. I love the way Billie Holiday sings this song but I also like Dewey Redman's tenor saxophone version as well. I'm a sucker for jazz standards about love.

Footprints
Wayne Shorter is a phenomenal soloist as well as composer. This tune is another must hear for any jazz listeners because it came out at such a turning point in jazz music-the late 60's when jazz was going towards a free jazz, fusion, and smooth jazz route. That was the last significant changes that came to jazz. The way that Tony Williams (drums) and Ron Carter (bass) play in the rhythm section gives the tune an Afro-Cuban vibe. The melody is a blues.

All the things you are
Another love song that I dig. The intro has this dark minor quality to it and then it goes into this beautiful melody that could make a grown man cry. Charlie Parker's version does it for me but there are a lot of great vocal performances that knock my socks off. I also like how this tune spawned a counter tune entitled All the things you aren't.

Donna Lee
Speaking of Charlie Parker....This is a great Charlie Parker tune that I like. The melody is fast, melodic, and heavily syncopated-everything a jazz head should be. Then Parker goes into a calculated alto solo that is the bees-knees. It's actually mistaken that Charlie Parker wrote this tune. It was Miles Davis who wrote the tune originally but Parker has gotten credit for it over the years. Jaco Pastorious' solo on his version is magnifique.

Body and soul
Another love song going back to the 30's that I love hearing and playing on the guitar when I play through my Fakebook. Check out this fantastic Charlie Parker rendition with Efferge Ware on guitar-here. The guitarist plays simple comping rhythms-stuff even I could play but he does it in such a commanding and musical manner it complements Parker's alto sax excursions well.

That version goes off from the main melody but a more stock version would be something like this. Here Coltrane plays the stock melody with some slight variations on the rhythms and timings. This tune is considered a challenging piece to solo over but the unusual nature of the chords provide a great deal of improvisational freedom.

I'm going to end the list here because I could go on and on about my favorites. That's my list. What are some of your favorite popular jazz tunes?

The picture is Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, and Max Roach in 1947. That's jazz history right there for ya. Thanks for reading and I will catch you all on the next post.