Jazz Standards (Mark Murphy album)

Jazz Standards is a compilation album of American jazz vocalist Mark Murphy's Muse Records recordings. It was released by the 32 Jazz label in the United States in 1998. This album is a collection of jazz songs from his Muse years from 1972 to 1991.

Background
Muse Records was founded by Joe Fields in 1972. Fields sold the label in 1996 to Joel Dorn who released four compilation albums from Mark Murphy's Muse catalogue on the 32 Jazz label, Stolen...And Other Moments, Jazz Standards, Songbook, and Mark Murphy Sings Nat King Cole & More. Writer and broadcaster Michael Bourne was enlisted to put together the four collections.

Bourne writes in the liner notes to Mark Murphy Sings that Murphy, "is a jazz singer, which is a special art. What you can do with a song instrumentally, you can't do with a song vocally, or not as much, because a song is words and music, and improvising with lyrics isn't simply grunting and singing 'baby' a lot. It's the art of knowing what the song is about, the imagery of the lyrics, the feelings, within and without the music, which Mark Murphy is a master of."

Murphy told Bourne in 1997, "Miles' lesson to me is to dare and risk. I really am improvisational. I don't know where I'm going until I go there. That's why it's hard for me to sing the same thing over — because I can't remember what I did the night before." Discussing the importance of the melody and lyrics to Murphy's approach, Murphy says, "It depends on the song. There are certain songs where the melody might be stronger than the lyric, or the lyric might be a fascinating story. There are certain songs where you don't have to improvise, but just sing it as written. You can infer improvisation by not singing at all, or rhythmically pausing, or hitting a note so squarely in tune that you create overtones. Some singers now never touch the melody. That's not interesting to me — because the composer has written something. I like to hear the melody, or at least a reference to the melody — and then you take it away."

Will Friedwald says in his book A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, "Over the years Murphy has recorded dozens if not hundreds of songs that have originated within the world of jazz itself...There is literally no important writer of the modern and postmodern ages he doesn't include somewhere along the line". This release includes a large sampling of those composers and their songs. Friedwald writes, "He has been clever enough to find the great lyricists of the jazz song genre — Jazz Standards has three Lambert, Hendricks & Ross classics in a row ("Charleston Alley," "Farmer's Market," and "Bijou"), and he's also sung Abbey Lincoln's "Living Room". He's sung what few vocalese standards there are as well...". This release also includes two of Murphy's own vocalese with his lyrics to jazz instrumental improvisations on Wayne Shorter's "Effendi" and Lee Morgan's "Ceora". He added his own lyrics to John Coltrane's "Naima". One Murphy original song is included, "Come and Get Me".

Reception
Michael G. Nastos assigns 4 stars to the album at AllMusic. He said, "It's a good overview of his middle career, he's in fine voice, and the backup players are first-rate. There's only one of his originals, but many of his inventive lyrics to standards are here, along with other modern jazz pieces [...] there's plenty in this two-CD, 26-track collection to show how Murphy had matured, and how fertile his mind was. Recommended, if you can find it". He singles out the jazz compositions "Effendi", "Ceora", "Bijou", "Doxy", and "Ask Me Now".

Scott Yanow says Jazz Standards is "excellent" in his book The Jazz Singers: The Ultimate Guide.

Assessing Murphy's recorded legacy from Muse Records in his book A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, Will Friedwald points out the four Muse anthologies issued by Joel Dorn show "the astonishing range and scope, not to mention sheer size, of the singer's seventies and eighties output". Friedwald goes on to say the releases reveal, "his output has been so consistently excellent—that so many of these records deserve to be regarded, in retrospect, as classics of the jazz vocal genre—and that even his occasional missteps are instructive".

Friedwald desrcibes Murphy's voice as a high baritone in his twenties which developed "into a deeper, gray, wood-toned timbre" by his forties with a wide vocal range extending from a deep base to a high falsetto. He likened his tone to a less nasal Jack Teagarden, quite distinct from all of the other male Great American Songbook singers.

Personnel
Production


 * Michael Bourne – compilation producer, liner notes
 * Gene Paul – mastering
 * Page Simon – graphic design
 * Nancy Dwyer – graphic design, illustrations
 * Amy DiDonato – production coordinator
 * Joel Dorn – series producer
 * William Claxton – photography