Standard. In the dictionary this word means something set up as a rule for a measuring or as a model to be followed. According to a different meaning it stands for a figure adopted as an emblem by a people, or the flag. In jazz this means a well-proven repertory coming from the outside, mainly from the realm of popular music. Jazz musicians use this material since the first initiations of Louis Armstrong in the twenties. The list starts from Cole Porter with the Gershwin brothers, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, through the composers of the prevailing superstars like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, to the pop music of these days.

Hungarian light music is also in possession of this musical layer, although our jazz musicians used it rather infrequently, preferring American composers. These five Hungarian musicians have chosen the standards of Iván Szenes, Szabolcs Fényes, István Mihály, Jenô Horváth, András Bágya, the elité of Hungarian light music as basis of their performance; proving that Hungarian composers created music equal in value to that of their world famous American contemporaries; although these pieces were written some decades ago, they still have something to tell today.

Károly Friedrich