Around 1915United States

Standards

A repertoire tag for songs that became durable fixtures of jazz and popular music, especially through Broadway and the Great American Songbook.

Origins and context

The repertoire grew out of early- and mid-20th-century American popular song, especially Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, and Hollywood material that was repeatedly performed, recorded, and reinterpreted by jazz musicians and singers.

United States

History

In music writing, “standards” usually refers to songs that earned a lasting place in the jazz and popular repertory, especially during the golden age of American popular song from roughly 1915 to 1960. AllMusic points to composers such as Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and Hoagy Carmichael as central to that repertoire, while the Library of Congress notes that jazz singers have long drawn standards from Broadway, film, Tin Pan Alley, and the Great American Songbook. The label is less a separate sound than a living songbook. As jazz players and vocalists kept returning to pieces like “My Funny Valentine,” “Body and Soul,” and “All the Things You Are,” the songs became a common set of reference points — familiar enough to recognize, flexible enough to reshape. That is why the category still feels porous: it names a repertoire, a tradition of interpretation, and a history of songs outlasting the fashions around them.