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'Jazzing Up' music
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Bill Evans Trio, 1965
What defines jazz? What makes one piece of music a jazz composition, while another does not qualify for that designation? At its most basic, a tune that qualifies as a jazz piece contains rhythmic and improvisational aspects not found in a non-jazz piece. However, the boundaries are very fluid- there are pieces not written as jazz compositions that have become standards.
One such example is the Larry Morey- Frank Churchill piece Someday My Prince Will Come. Written for the 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it was written in waltz time, and Adriana Caselotti (the voice of Snow White) sang it as a ballad, taking no liberties with the melody. However, over the years the tune has become a jazz standard- the simplicity of the piece, coupled with its chord structure has made it a piece that is often performed as an extended exercise in improvisation.
Dave Brubeck was perhaps the first jazz musician to see the song as a jazz piece, and he recorded it in 1957 on his album Dave Digs Disney. Bill Evans performed it in 1965 with his trio, and Herbie Hancock has made it into one of his signature numbers.
However, other pieces that are not often thought of as jazz have also been given a jazz format. In 1927, the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, featuring trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke, recorded the standard In My Merry Oldsmobile, adding a jazz flavor. Although the orchestration was mostly very standard, Goldkette added an improvisational chorus for Bix, thus successfully 'jazzing up' the 1905 standard.
Ultimately, it is possible to successfully add jazz accents to almost any piece- it has been done for songs as wildly disparate as 'Three Blind Mice' and excerpts from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It simply depends on a successful amalgamation of rhythm and improvisation with the original piece.
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