I implore you all to come up with a list of compositions by musicians that are under the age of 40 that you could see/hear as a future “standard” or “jazz classic” in the jazz canon. Here’s my list of tunes. I am basing this on these criteria:

1. Song has been recorded by an artist/s other than the composer and the composer doesn’t perform on the record.

2. Song is frequently performed by bands without the composer present.

Song #1-Benny’s Tune by Lionel Loueke
Song #2-Zhviago by Kurt Rosenwinkel

As you can see my list is pretty short. I wish I could make it longer but I just can’t think of anything right now if I abide by these two guidelines.

Back in the day, musicians would play each other’s tunes more often. I hear it every once in a while (most recent at a Terence Blanchard show, where they played a few tunes by their bassist Derrick Hodge, although he was out on the road with Maxwell). In my band we’ve had a long-standing tradition of performing originals and tunes written by composers who are still alive, preferably under the age of 50. So we play a lot of tunes by Kurt, Myron Walden, Mark Turner, E.J. Strickland, Nicholas Payton, etc.

So if you all have any recommendations, let me have them because I’m always in the business of learning new tunes.

J.P.