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When I listen back on my performance from 33 years ago, I sound like myself—just very unsophisticated. Here we play the great Gershwin standard, “But Not For Me.” I learned tunes like this by listening to recordings, playing them at gigs and jam sessions (usually with no chart), using Jamey Aebersold’s playalongs, and sometimes referring to fake book versions of the song. There are various ways to approach the chord changes of “But Not For Me,” and in this version we start on the dominant II chord.

But_Not_For_Me_DeFranco_Raney_Cotten_Goldsby

One of the recurring themes I encounter when I teach jazz is repertoire—which standard songs should players know? Is there a canon of must-know jazz tunes, and does an improvising musician need to have a large command of American-style jazz repertoire to effectively offer something new on the modern improvised music scene?

In contrast to learning tunes from records or other musicians, I’ve noticed another trend lately: I’ve experienced both student and professional players using iPhones or iPads to read tunes in lessons and even on gigs. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing, especially in a lesson—but it’s different than the way I learned to play standards. Using an iPad as a folio to carry original tunes to a gig is a great convenience, but it becomes a crutch if a player calls up every standard on the gadget just because he can’t remember “where the bridge goes.” I would contend that if a player is reading a tune chorus after chorus, he’s not learning the tune, rather just playing with the eyes and reading the chart—over and over.

It’s less work to pull out an iPad or phone and play a tune from the PDF fake book. But this means that the player is playing visually, and not using their ears as much as they could. Musicians should be learning tunes from recordings (as in, just put on the recording and learn to play along with it), but most of the time due to convenience, rehearsal time constraints, laziness, or fear of making a mistake, many musicians seem to prefer just reading a chart. Another issue for consideration is that some electronic fake books are legal (iReal Book), some are in a legal gray zone (a PDF copy of an illegal fake book) and some are downright illegal (PDF collections of Sher, Aebersold, Hal Leonard, etc. that you didn’t purchase). But this post is about repertoire rather than law.

I’ve recently read two books that deal with jazz repertoire: The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire by Ted Gioia, and The Story of Fake Books: Bootlegging Songs to Musicians by Barry Kernfeld. These books have also made me think about the state of jazz and whether young improvisers absolutely need to know standards to the extent that older generations knew them.

The Big Problems
Most jazz students I’ve encountered recently have thousands of songs stored on their phones, iPads or computers. But they only really know a handful of songs.

There are fewer chances now to learn standards on the bandstand compared to a few decades ago, and most tune-learning today is done through fake books (not through recordings or through live playing experience). Many young jazz students see standards in a historical perspective—the compositions exist mainly as versions on old recordings, or as versions in fake books. Many non-American jazz players see the canon of material that was recorded from the 1920′s to the ’60s as distinctly American, and dated from the start.

Many young jazz players are encouraged to write their own compositions long before they have a handle on how to improvise on classic standards. Being an improviser is hard; being a great songwriter is also hard. Not many players do both well. A lot of players do themselves a disservice because they always choose original compositions over some great standard compositions that might be better vehicles for their improvisational voice.

Books About Songs
In The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire, Gioia convincingly makes his case for just over 250 jazz standards and why he thinks they belong on top of his list. He cites over two thousand recorded examples of the tunes to point out that these are truly among the most important. The Jazz Standards highlights a lot of essential songs that a jazz player should know inside and out, but by its nature the book also highlights many great standards by omission. Gioia is a thoughtful writer and he makes a good case for the inclusion of each of his selections.

The Story of Fake Books: Bootlegging Songs to Musicians looks at the history of selling sheet music and fake books to musicians. Barry Kernfeld tells the whole history, from the Tune-Dex sheet music subscription service to the development of legal and illegal fakebooks. Pat Metheny and Steve Swallow weigh in on the development of the Real Book at Berklee in the ’70s. There are a couple of surprising points about the marketing of song sheets and the distribution of legal and illegal fake books, but I’ll let you read about those for yourself.

Lists Of Songs

When I did a workshop recently for the Monk Institute, I saw their list of 100 “must-know” jazz standards, which is available for download on their resource site here (bottom of page). This is a great list of basic should-know standards, compiled by Dr. J.B. Dyas at the Monk Institute.

Jamey Aebersold’s list of all the tunes on his playalongs is worth checking out. Not every tune can be considered a standard, but almost all of his playalong songs are good vehicles for improvisation. Download Jamey’s list here.

Jazzstandards.com has nice lists of songs in their own “most popular” ranking system, along with analysis plus recommendations for definitive recordings.

No discussion of fake books or tune lists would be complete without mentioning the great work and products that Chuck Sher has delivered over the years. I’ve especially enjoyed The European Real Book, which highlights hundreds of beautiful, contemporary jazz compositions from the pens of European composers. These tunes cover styles from very modern to completely straight-ahead.

How I Teach

I teach on the premise that I play in the tradition of American-style jazz, where there is a standard repertoire and everyone knows most of those tunes. That’s because I learned to play those tunes by playing them with other people, from recordings and also from fake books. Although I’ve named several fake books here, I still think the best way to thoroughly learn a song is by hearing it, and playing it over and over.

“Teach what you know” is a valuable tidbit of advice that I received from a jazz teacher when I first started teaching jazz in about 1980. At that time, I was worried that I didn’t have the goods to talk about and demonstrate good jazz techniques and practices. I could do a few things: I had a good sound on the bass, good time, a pretty good beat, and I understood the importance of learning tunes by ear and committing them to memory. I could remember standards because I listened to them on records a lot, and I played them every day at jam sessions and on gigs.

When I first started teaching, that’s what I tried to teach: good sound, good time, and playing jazz standards—the repertoire. Although I’m a much better teacher now, I still encourage my students to work on the exact same things: sound, time, and repertoire.

How I Learned Lots Of Tunes

When I began learning to play jazz, I also had the good fortune of steadily working five or six nights a week playing jazz standards in clubs. As I remember, almost no musician at that time was using a fake book on the bandstand.

In 1977, I got a call to work a steady trio gig five nights a week at the Jefferson Club, on top of the Citizens Fidelity building. It was a private club, visited by business people. I’m not going to mention the piano player’s name because I think he was either on the lam, or in the witness protection program. The gig paid union scale, which at the time was $6.20 per hour, 4 hours a night, 5 nights a week—good money at the time for an 18 year-old bass player who only knew a few tunes, but who claimed to be able to fake his way through anything.

That trio gig led to other, better gigs in hotels and jazz clubs. In ’79, I was working in the house rhythm section of a Louisville jazz club called Stanley J’s, along with pianist David Leonhardt and Daryl Cotten. We backed up all kinds of famous and not-so-famous jazz players who would join us for a one-week or two-week engagement. I was thrilled, but also scared to death because every week, a new guest soloist was coming with their own list of favorite tunes—Johnny Hartman, Jimmy Raney, Helen Humes. I remember learning “Airmail Special” with Barney Kessel showing me the bass line. When I couldn’t quite figure out “Stompin’ At The Savoy,” Buddy Tate honked out the roots through the whole tune until I got it. I was learning on the spot with the pressure of having to “do it right” at least the second pass through the tune, if not the first.

If I didn’t know a tune that was called, I would generally just say I knew it, ask what key it was in, and then listen like a maniac to the other players to hear the harmonic movement, melody and form. Since this was the way that I liked to learn tunes (put on a record and play along with it), I could get pretty far playing standard repertoire—even if I was learning the tune under pressure on the spot.

This is a fine way to learn standards. Of course, for more complicated songs—Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Keith Jarrett—it’s practical to read a chart (at least for a few choruses) if there’s no chance to learn the song by ear.

Towards A Better Grasp Of Jazz Standards

Improvising musicians need to have a repertoire of standards that they understand deeply. The typical list of tunes—at least in an American college jazz program—would look like the Monk Institute’s list. The list of Aebersold play-along tunes is much more expansive, but it’s also a mainstream list.

A list of standards could also come from a different place than the Great American Songbook—like Chuck Sher’s European Real Book—but it would have to be a list of tunes that are often played and that the musician has worked on alone and in groups for years. I run into lots of  ‘modern’ players who don’t want to learn old American-style standards.

Musicians who only play their original music have double duty—they have to be composers and improvisers at the same time. Lots of modern players are taking this approach—composing their own material and playing that with their close-knit inner circle of like-minded colleagues. Some players do actually reach a high level on both counts—great composing and incredible improvising. At best, they figure out a way to compose a framework where they and their band mates can shine through on the improvisational level.

I maintain that every improvising player needs to have a cache of musical material that they and their musical colleagues can play on the spot with no written music. In my opinion, that does not mean they have to play Jerome Kern, Charlie Parker, or Thelonius Monk. But when I play with a player, I can almost immediately tell if we share the same listening history and knowledge of standards. If a student tells me that their standard repertoire ranges from Kenny Wheeler to Dave Holland to Vijay Iyer to Coldplay to their own compositions, that’s cool with me. But they must have a repertoire under their fingers and in their ears to be able to effectively function as improvisers. They have to intimately know a large body of song-form material in order to freely improvise. Always reading everything does not encourage musicality and spontaneity.

During another college workshop recently, some of the students were supposed to play for me. Since they couldn’t decide on a tune, they all pulled out their iPhones and played “There Will Never Be Another You” (all of them except the horn player who was playing the melody, and the drummer). After letting them read from their phones for two choruses, I went over and took the phones away in the middle of the tune. At that moment, they started listening to each other—for the first time in that performance.

There are lists everywhere that suggest a canon of jazz standards that every player should know. My conclusion is that yes, a jazz musician must have a repertoire and repository of hundreds—or thousands—of tunes that are played over the course of weeks, months and years.

What do you say?

What are the most effective ways for musicians to learn tunes? Of the thousands that are considered standards, which tunes should be on the list? Feel free to chime in with your thoughts about iPads with gigabytes of fake books, the ultimate jazz standards list, or the best way to help students learn tunes.

The plucking hand determines tone and timing on both instruments. The sound of the bass guitar is produced mainly with small finger movements, enhanced by the electronics of the bass and amp. On upright bass, the pizzicato (plucked) technique demands larger arm and wrist movements to support the plucking finger. The upright bassist needs to use extra muscle to produce a good acoustic tone, which can then be amplified—or not. (Note that we’re assuming “right handed” playing in this article. If you are a lefty, please reverse the left- and right-hand descriptions.)

Here are some general rules of thumb—or fingers—for right-hand techniques on each instrument:

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“Clockwise” is from the album Space for the Bass, recorded on May 17, 2009 in Cologne, Germany at Topaz Studio.

John Goldsby (bass), Francesco Cafiso (alto), Martin Sasse (piano)

‘Ligeti Split’ is from the album “The Innkeeper’s Gun” [Bass Lion, 2010] with Jacob Duncan (alto), John Goldsby (bass), and Jason Tiemann (drums). Recorded on Nov. 12, 2009 in the middle of their European tour, the Nachbar Trio (as they are also called), made a day trip to Topaz Studio, Cologne to work with engineer Reinhard Kobialka and document some of their original music. ‘Ligeti Split’ is a free-wheeling melody composed by Jacob Duncan.