Thanks, Mario.

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I agree with Matt, try playing the songs in a different style, especially if you are doing a jazz gig.

I have a lot of jazz recordings where the artists have completely re-interpreted the song, and some of the new ways I like better than the original. Some so different and both so good that I can't pick a favorite. Mark Murphy and Frank Sinatra did an entirely different treatment to “You Go To My Head” and I like them both for different reasons, and if you asked me which one I liked better, I couldn't answer.

Latin American and Reggae artists have done this for years, molding the jazz standard to their favorite rhythms.

When I was young, I used to hang out in music stores and made friends with a lot of musicians who were much older than me. I went to some of their gigs. On one, they did “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” as the “Chattanooga Cha-Cha”. That was probably my first experience with radically changing a song. It sounded like something Tito Puente might have done. The audience loved it, BTW.

And it doesn't have to be the jazz genre. Here in South Florida, there is a big demand for Jimmy Buffett songs. Being tired of doing them stock, we changed “Volcano” and “Son Of A Sailor” to reggae, and “A Pirate Looks At 40” as a gentle bolero. We've never had a complaint, and a regular customer who told me “Pirate” was her favorite Buffett song says she likes it the way we do it even better than Buffett. Of course, I'm sure others disagree.

Being a commercial band, other songs we do, we try to reproduce them close to the famous recording.

It depends on the song. We've had successes and failures in changing them. The successes outnumber the failures, so with the ones that don't work radically changed, we just re-do them straight.

One of the beauties of BiaB is that you get to try different styles with just a couple of clicks. You can try dozens until you find one that is just right.


Notes ♫

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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