Modern Standards

TUNE IN EACH MONTH FOR NEW ADDITIONS TO OUR MODERN STANDARDS CATALOG! The Knight of Jazz - Niels Lan Doky - has for most of his career been a strong advocate for renewal of the jazz standard repertoire. Throughout his vast discography, he has experimented extensively with interpretations of contemporary pop songs, and arguably more so than any other jazz artist since the original jazz standards were conceived. As a showcase of his values in this heritage, NLD offers you this series of brand new jazz takes on current songs - top hits from the weeks that preceded this post. The repertoire commonly referred to as “Jazz Standards” consists mainly of pop songs from the 1930s and 40s reworked by jazz musicians at the time, to offer the general public a radically different perspective on widely popular songs. The jazz renditions eventually outlived the original versions and jazz musicians continued to play and record these same songs over and over and eventually began creating renditions of each other’s renditions, instead of embracing brand new songs. Ultimately everyone forgot about the original versions and decades later the songs became permanently identified as the classic repertoire of jazz.