Nude by Radiohead

It's easy to forget that in the past, it was common practice for jazz musicians to perform and record cover versions of the popular pop songs of the day, in fact, you could argue that the jazz idiom defined itself by this practice to a certain degree.
Remember that many of the songs that we all know as jazz standards started out as Broadway show tunes.
In the era before fake books, jazz musicians who got together to jam were confined by the limitations of what repetoire they all had in common. Given that they all made their living playing popular songs for dance crowds, these songs were the ones that jammers could all be expected to know.
Freed from the confines of entertaining a room full of drunk squares at a wedding, these early pioneers could experiment with longer, more elaborate solos and faster tempos, all based on the framework of songs like 'All the Things You Are', 'I Got Rythym' or 'Cherokee'.
As a result, pop standards became jazz standards and the canonical list of jazz songs began to be established.
The emergence of the Real Book coincided with an elitist perspective among jazz musicians which held that as practicioners of a 'Serious American Artform', they should be excempt from having to debase themselves by playing the music of the common folk.
With their new guidebook in hand they didn't have to. And the working musician pool split between jazzers and players of popular music,(rock and/or R&B), the latter taking over most of the wedding/dance-club work and even to this day, learn their songs by ear,(to my knowledge, there are no universal pop/rock/R&B fake books out there).

Blah blah blah, to the point, every once in a rare while a popular band comes along that is so good that it transcends those barriers and jazz players are forced to take notice.
Radiohead is one of those bands.
Ever since Radiohead's brilliant OK Computer came out in 1997, Radiohead covers have been popping up in jazz recordings all over the place.
Brad Meldhau has covered at least four Radiohead tunes.
And Robert Glasper came up with this amazing arrangement, mashing together 'Everything in Its Right Place' with 'Maiden Voyage'.


Here is a chart for Radiohead's 'Nude' which was written in the late 90's but didn't make it onto a record until 2007's 'In Rainbows'.
Click on the picture, or download the .MUS file for the chart and a cool, spooky, dubby remix of Nude taken from a white-label vinyl of unknown origin originally posted by nodata.tv as well as the album version.
http://rapidshare.com/files/352084397/nude.rar


By the way, feel free to leave a comment, and check back later. Coming up next...a Britney Spears chart