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Book: Keith Jarrett

Chapter: America's Songbook

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.41559

Blurb:

Keith Jarrett never gave up on jazz standards, which remained in his repertoire all his life,
but the birth of the 'Standards Trio' was a project dedicated to transforming them.
It was Jarrett’s idea to work exclusively with standards from the 'Great American
Songbook,' a vaguely defined smorgasbord of chorus-line hits, Hollywood movie music
and Broadway musicals, mainly from the twenties, thirties and forties. These songs had
always made up an important part of the usual jazz musicians’ repertory. The avant-garde
of the sixties, however, in their revolutionary taste for tabula rasa, would have preferred to
see them sent to the moon, or, at least, placed on an 'index.'

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