The Great American Songbook is an unquestionable bedrock of pop, rock and jazz. But these days, many seem ready to close it for good.

For the sake of argument, let's define it as a venerated patchwork of jazz standards, popular songs and showtunes from the former half of the 20th century; one prominent author supposes that it met its commercial Waterloo as the 1940s met the '50s. 

After the rock 'n' roll revolution and the creative fireworks of the '60s, critics generally viewed Great American Songbook albums by pop and rock artists with a jaundiced eye. But jazz-influenced artists from Willie Nelson (1978's Stardust) to Dr. John (1989's In a Sentimental Mood) continued to embrace the form to transcendent effect.

The Songbook is one component of the jazz-standard repertoire; therein, showtunes mingle with instrumental classics by Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Clifford Brown, and other titans. In this sphere, which often prizes forging ahead over perceived inertia, the Songbook has haters.

A simple Google search for "reddit hate jazz standards" will reveal that peanut gallery — one ready to throw Songbook stalwarts such as "Come Rain or Come Shine" in the garbage. In 2021, jazz critic Phil Freeman set off a Jazz Twitter brushfire with this take: "F— standards. Ban them for 20 years, like a controlled burn in a forest, and see what sprouts in their place." 

Freeman made that proclamation through the lens of predatory business practices — a very real problem throughout jazz history. But to any number of musicians themselves, the notion of getting rid of them altogether inspires horror.

"In order to say that, you have to be disconnected from Hollywood cinema, disconnected from the history of Broadway shows, disconnected from artists like Duke Ellington and Fats Waller," jazz vocalist Catherine Russell, who has been nominated for two GRAMMYs, tells GRAMMY.com. Her colleague Jo Lawry seconds this: "You're listening to the wrong people, or you're listening through the wrong ears."

In this regard, perhaps the ultimate “right” person to listen to is Samara Joy. Reared on Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, the young vocalist climbed the ranks partly via "The Today Show" appearances to become nominated for a golden gramophone for Best New Artist at the 2023 GRAMMYs.

"I think the only reason [the Songbook's connotation is] negative is because that's where a lot of people stop when it comes to jazz," Joy tells GRAMMY.com. "It's like this is the greatest it's ever going to get, and that's not true." 

Granted, the lion's share of Joy's catalog is standards; as far as youngsters are concerned, she's perhaps the leading light of the Great American Songbook. But her attitude on the Songbook is innately progressive. For her, they comprise a launchpad to new expressions.

And despite what John Coltrane and Nina Simone's famous deconstructions of the Great American Songbook might tell you, making standards fresh, vital and exciting doesn't require reinventing the wheel. 

When Joy sings a 1927 chestnut like "Stardust", it, by definition, has never been done before — because it's her doing it. This applies to a spate of recent jazz releases, both archival and new.

While it’s impossible to address every talented jazz artist who weaves magic from extremely well-trod material, here are five releases from the past year — one archival, three new — that reinvigorate the Great American Songbook.

And they do so not through radical reinvention, but through sheer emotion, personality and intelligence.

Ella Fitzgerald's Hollywood Blues

Just before the pandemic, the Ella Fitzgerald Foundation tipped off Verve Records to some intriguing entries in the Concord vaults — dozens of previously unreleased tapes from the First Lady of Song.

The first to be unarchived was 2020's dynamite Ella: The Lost Berlin Tapes. In 2022, Verve followed it up with the lavish Ella at the Hollywood Bowl: The Irving Berlin Songbook.

"I never knew Ella had performed the arrangements from any Songbook album live," Ken Druker, the SVP of Jazz Development at Verve Records, tells GRAMMY.com. "And then I checked with all the extreme Ella nerds, and none of them had heard of it too."

Ella at the Hollywood Bowl documents the second half of a 1958 concert, while Ella: The Lost Berlin Tapes tackles the Cole Porter songbook. Her vocal genius charges Berlin ballads like "You're Laughing at Me" and "How Deep is the Ocean" with emotional electricity.

When she kicks up the tempo, Fitzgerald is even more irresistible. You may have heard "Cheek to Cheek" and "Let's Face the Music and Dance" a trillion times, but when she belts it, any perceived corniness melts away. The heart jumps for joy.

Samara Joy. Photo: Courtesy of the artist

Samara Joy's Forward-Thinking Nostalgia

If you're wondering if the old standards still have any life in them, well, Recording Academy Membership thought so — more than 60 years since that Hollywood Bowl gig.

At the 2023 GRAMMYs, rising vocalist Samara Joy is nominated for a GRAMMY for Best New Artist alongside cutting-edge artists not only in jazz (the memeified DOMi & JD Beck), but in Brazilian pop (Anitta), genre-blending R&B (Omar Apollo) and hipster-adored indie (Wet Leg).

Her nomination arguably demonstrates that Joy is no relic of the days of yore.

Take some time with her 2022 album Linger Awhile, and you'll find she's more interested in the future than the past. Joy isn't afraid to go for well-worn material like "Someone to Watch Over Me," but she's also finding fresh corners of the Great American Songbook — like adding her own lyrics to Fats Navarro's trumpet solo on "Nostalgia," in a process called vocalese.

Ultimately, Joy maintains reverence for the Great American Songbook — it launched her career — but doesn't feel wholly beholden to it.

"OK, learn all of these standards. Is that the end of musical discovery?" she asks. "No, I have something to say too. I can use what I learned as far as harmony and form and interpretation from those standards to write my own songs."

Catherine Russell. Photo: Courtesy of the artist

Catherine Russell Makes It Last

Vocal master Catherine Russell exudes a powerful sense of ease and control with her instrument. It helps that she's part of a jazz lineage: the daughter of pianist, composer and arranger Luis Russell and bassist, guitarist and vocalist Carline Ray.

The music's clearly in Russell's DNA; it provides the glowing center of her 2022 album Send For Me. Regarding her version of "At the Swing Cats Ball," she said in a statement, "My mother had given me sheet music a long time ago, saying, 'your father co-wrote this tune, and Louis Jordan covered it.’"

On Send For Me, she returned to the well once more, immersing herself in material like "Did I Remember,’" "Blue and Sentimental" and "You Stepped Out of a Dream."

"They know how to say 'I love you' in a million different ways," Russell says of the core songwriting teams behind the Great American Songbook, like Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe. 

"The songs are reliable. They can be done in a variety of different ways," she says, her own crystalline vocals a statement in flexibility. "You can do them with a big band, with an orchestra. You can do them with just a piano and a vocal."

Jo Lawry. Photo: Erika Kapin

Jo Lawry Makes Courageous Bounds

In jazz, the trio format is innately thrilling because of the architecture of the thing: one player can summon some derring-do, make a daring leap, and it's incumbent on the next to catch them.

Vocalist Jo Lawry titled her next album Acrobats because she had to summon that gumption. 

"The trio is the format that melodic players explore when they want to push themselves," she explains. "I wonder if motherhood has had a part to play as well. It has made me a tiny bit braver, and a bit less inclined to try to fulfill anyone else's picture of what I should be as a jazz singer."

On Acrobats, Lawry tackles mostly standards ("Taking a Chance On Love," "Takes Two to Tango," "I've Never Been in Love") with the dynamic bassist Linda May Han Oh and heavily swinging drummer Allison Miller.

The enchanting result is like a jolt to the solar plexus. Lawry's glasslike voice perforates any baggage or stuffiness accrued by these tunes. This is partly because Lawry is able to map out the material on her own emotions.

"With 'I've Never Been In Love Before,' I wanted to just get completely swept away in the lack of safety of love, and what it feels like to not be in control of your emotions anymore, and somebody else has your whole destiny in their hands," she says.

And as for the ongoing vitality of the Great American Songbook as a whole?

"The melody and the harmony and the lyrics are this holy trinity of art that works so economically and perfectly together," Lawry states. "It's not dependent on anything other than those three raw materials."

Amos Lee. Photo: Scott Dudelson/Getty Images

Amos Lee Walks Into A Record, Lives In It

Interpreting the interpreter: it can be done, and done well. Bob Dylan did it with three Frank Sinatra-focused cover albums in a row — one of them a triple. And Amos Lee, who is also not a jazz singer, just did it with Chet Baker.

If you're unfamiliar with the Great American Songbook on a granular, lyric-by-lyric level, Baker's first vocal album, 1954's Chet Baker Sings, is a magnificent gateway. 

Therein, a young Baker barely scats and uses very little vibrato. He delivers the lyrics to tunes like "That Old Feeling," "Like Someone in Love" and "My Ideal" plain as day, cracking open all the pain and euphoria and rumination and humor through zero ornamentation.

Chet Baker Sings came to singer/songwriter Amos Lee during the nadir of the pandemic. "I was drawn to the aching and the tenderness," he reflected in a statement. "To the way it expressed sadness with levity, to the way it explored sorrow without becoming beleaguered by the depths of it."

Lee's resulting 2022 album My Ideal: A Tribute To Chet Baker Sings works because Lee never puts on airs as his equal, or successor; he simply loves this probing, innovative jazz classic so much that he wants to see what it's like to be Chet for a moment.

That record date, all those decades ago, rings forth brilliantly into 2023. Why? To borrow a phrase: “It's all about the tunes, man.”

Black Gold At 50: How Nina Simone Refracted The Black Experience Through Reinterpreted Songs

When young jazz luminary Samara Joy accepted a golden gramophone for Best New Artist at the 2023 GRAMMYs, the sequence of expressions that flitted across her visage seemed to cover the entire spectrum of feeling.

The 23-year-old vocalist born Samara Joy McLendon had already won a GRAMMY for Best Jazz Vocal Album at the Premiere Ceremony, for her acclaimed second album and Verve debut, Linger Awhile. This win during the CBS telecast was an entirely different beast. 

The artist who just a few years ago had been a promising undergrad and audibly nervous on the phone now stood onstage at the Crypto.com arena before global megastars from Taylor Swift to Lizzo to Adele — not to mention 12.55 million people at home.

Speaking to GRAMMY.com in its wake, Joy likened the experience to living "in a parallel universe or a movie."

"I'm still in shock and disbelief because I truly didn't think that I would be in the position to receive such an honor," Joy said of the Best New Artist win, where she forged ahead of fellow nominees like Brazilian star Anitta, genre-blending singer/songwriter Omar Apollo, British indie oddballs Wet Leg, and her fellow rising jazzers DOMi & JD Beck.

"I am, however, grateful for the honor, because it reassures me of the fact that I want to continue pursuing music and growth as a musician," Joy continued. "This signifies the beginning of a musical journey that I'm nervous but excited to embark on."

While Joy's  post-show comments focused on her continued development as an artist, the effect of her win quickly became conspicuous. Less than two weeks after the Feb. 5 ceremony, she appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" to perform the recitative standard and Linger Awhile cut "Guess Who I Saw Today."

But it's worth considering what this General Field win means not only for Joy, but the jazz community writ large. Like other genres that appear deeper down the GRAMMY nominees list — from classical to reggae to spoken word — jazz can be treated as a little niche, partitioned off into a corner of the music landscape. Even the most heralded rising talents seldom rocket to celebrity status.

It's only once in a while that jazz completely and utterly perforates the mainstream — like in 2020, when Pixar's Soul was released, featuring consulting work from real-deal musicians from deep in the NYC scene, like Jon Batiste and Terri Lyne Carrington.

Some of these breakthroughs have happened at the GRAMMYs. In 2003, the charismatic and versatile Norah Jones swept the General Field, winning GRAMMYs for Best New Artist, Album Of The Year (for Come Away With Me) and Record Of The Year (for "Don't Know Why"), on top of wins for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Pop Vocal Performance.

Five years later, Herbie Hancock — one of the most brilliant harmonic thinkers of the 20th century, and 21st — won Album Of The Year for River: The Joni Letters, his tribute to his old collaborator and fellow game-changing genius Joni Mitchell. In that category, the album beat out Kanye West's Graduation and Amy Winehouse's Back to Black.

In 2011, bassist, composer and vocalist Esperanza Spalding won Best New Artist and has been a steady presence at the GRAMMYs ever since, winning right up to the 2022 GRAMMYs (Best Jazz Vocal Album, for SONGWRIGHTS APOTHECARY LAB) and landing a nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for her work with Wayne Shorter, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Leo Genovese on that year's Live at the Detroit Jazz Festival.

Additionally, at the 2022 GRAMMYs, Lady Gaga paid tribute to her collaborator, Tony Bennett, with a performance of "Love for Sale" and "Do I Love You" — both from their final duets album, which won Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at that year's ceremony. (Previously, their album Cheek to Cheek won in the same category, at the 2015 GRAMMYs.)

On top of all that, other crossover artists with jazz connections, from Jacob Collier to Robert Glasper to Thundercat, have made big splashes at Music’s Biggest Night.

Despite operating under the "jazz" umbrella, all these artists are wildly divergent in almost every possible way. Joy is connected to a jazz-vocal tradition that snakes way back in history, back to when her heroes like Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Carmen McRae were dropping jaws.

"I'm overjoyed at Samara's success. But not surprised," Lisa Goich-Andreadis, the Director of Awards and Jazz Genre Manager at the Recording Academy, tells GRAMMY.com. "The first time I heard her voice, I couldn't believe that it was coming out of a 22-year-old. It has the richness and depth of the legends that came before her. She channels something out of another era. Her rise is well-deserved."

What makes Joy fresh is that it's her doing this music, channeling it through her vibrant abilities and irresistibly vivacious spirit. There are a lot of singers doing standards, but there's only one Joy. 

"She f—ing deserves it, man," pianist Geoffrey Keezer, who took home a GRAMMY for Best Instrumental Composition at the same ceremony, tells GRAMMY.com. "She can sing her butt off, and I don't know her personally, but from everything I see, she seems like a really nice person, and really humble and down-to-earth. I think it's fantastic."

Keezer sees Joy's triumph at the 2023 GRAMMYs as a reminder, loud and clear, that jazz is no antiquated or peripheral artform. Rather, it is a vibrant and alive genre very much in the now. 

"The whole umbrella genre is Black American Music, and jazz is the branch of it that has a swing beat," he explains. "So, it's just as current and relevant as anything else. There's all these different branches of the same tree. When the one that swings wins, it's just nice to have that recognized as: Yes, we're still here. This is still part of it, and it's important, and it's where it all came from."

To Goich-Andreadis, Joy's win is significant because it shows that she's being noticed by a wide audience far afield from the jazz community — including that of such esteem as the pre-GRAMMYs MusiCares Persons Of The Year event, which honored Motown titans Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson.

"She received a rousing standing ovation by the crowd, with honorees Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson leading the way," Goich-Andreadis remembers of her performance. "It's great to see a representative from this genre touching so many with her talent."

Keezer views Joy's ascent as part of a greater mass of acknowledgement, including that of Spalding, Hancock, and five-time GRAMMY winner Billy Childs — a rising tide that lifts all boats. "I think cumulatively, it opens doors," he says. "It gives the general public, I almost want to say, permission to like this music and think it's cool.

"Audiences are smart, man. People want to hear good musicianship," he continues. "You watch the Olympics to see Simone Biles, or tennis to see Serena Williams, or whatever. You want to see human excellence in real time, in front of your eyes. So, that's what we're seeing with Samara Joy. She's the real deal, and she's doing it right in front of you with no gimmickry and no Auto-Tune."

As to the wider impact of her big wins, Joy can't prognosticate. She only hopes to move the needle.

"I hope that this win means that jazz musicians will be paid a bit more attention and respect for their contributions to music as a whole," Joy says. "It really is a wonderful community that deserves some more shine than it's been given. It's a small step but a step nonetheless."

No matter what happens, perhaps the essence of this victory is simply that the flame is proudly preserved and bore by a worthy ambassador. "Samara is carrying on this very treasured and important musical tradition," Goich-Andreadis says. "Jazz is America's gift to the world."

No Accreditation? No Problem! 10 Potential Routes To Get Into Jazz As A Beginner

The 2023 GRAMMYs weren't just historic, they were iconic — and the numbers show it.

The telecast itself saw a 30% increase in viewership, with more than 12.4 million viewers tuning into the Feb. 5 ceremony, the best ratings since 2020 per Nielsen data. In turn, several of the night's winners and performers saw major spikes in sales and streams.

Album Of The Year winner Harry Styles returned to the top 10 of the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart, as Harry's House — which also took home the GRAMMY for Best Pop Vocal Album — earned 38,000 equivalent album units in the U.S., a 51% gain. His previous two albums, 2019's Fine Line and his 2017 self-titled debut also made gains, the former up 15% and the latter up 11%.

Kendrick Lamar and Adele also enjoyed increases in sales and streams on several albums. Lamar — who won three GRAMMYs this year, including Best Rap Album for Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers — had a 20% gain for his fifth LP, as well as a 26% gain for 2015's To Pimp a Butterfly, 11% for 2017's DAMN., and 6% for 2012's good kid, m.A.A.d city. 

Adele's 30 had a 25% increase in equivalent album units, while her 2015 album 25 went up 14% and 2011 release 21 went up 10%. (30's lead single, "Easy On Me," earned Adele her fifth GRAMMY for Best Pop Solo Performance — a record in the category.)

After Beyoncé made GRAMMY history at the 2023 ceremony with her 32nd win, her Best Dance/Electronic Music Album-winning RENAISSANCE made a huge jump. The album earned 37,000 equivalent album units, up 109%, helping Bey move from No. 24 to No. 11 on the Billboard 200.

Rising jazz star Samara Joy also had a monumental night, scoring the coveted GRAMMY for Best New Artist. As a result, her 2022 album, Linger Awhile, made its debut on the Billboard 200, with an equivalent album units gain of 319% and a 5,800% increase in Spotify streams in the U.S. The project also hit No. 1 on the Jazz Albums, Traditional Jazz Albums and Heatseekers Albums charts for the first time, as well as the top 10 of the Top Album Sales and Top Current Album Sales charts.

Blues great Bonnie Raitt's win for Song Of The Year (for her 2022 track "Just Like That") served as one of the night's biggest surprises, but also served as a catalyst for some serious streams and sales success. The song spiked from about 10,000 daily on-demand streams in the U.S. on Feb. 3 to 697,000 the day after the GRAMMYs (Feb. 6) — a gain of around 6,700% — according to Luminate. The song's sales were even better, gaining more than 10,000% on Feb. 6; the rest of Raitt's discography also climbed 161%, from 333,000 on-demand U.S. streams on Feb. 3 to 869,000 on Feb. 6. 

Most of the 2023 GRAMMYs performers also celebrated sales and streams increases post-telecast. Show opener Bad Bunny saw gains on his GRAMMY-winning albumUn Verano Sin Ti (up 16%), as well as his 2020 albums YHLQMDLG (up 11%) and El Ultimo Tour del Mundo (up 8%). One of the songs Bad Bunny performed, Un Verano Sin Ti single "Despues de la Playa," also saw a 100% increase in Spotify streams in the U.S. in the hour following the telecast.

Lizzo delivered a soaring medley of her Record Of The Year-winning smash "About Damn Time" and the title track from her AOTY-nominated LP Special, the latter of which saw a 260% increase in Spotify streams in the U.S. after the show. Special also moved 11,000 equivalent album units, up 52%.

Steve Lacy won his first GRAMMY in the Premiere Ceremony, Best Progressive R&B Album for his album Gemini Rights. He also took the GRAMMYs stage for a sultry rendition of his hit "Bad Habit," all helping Lacy see a 16% increase in equivalent album units for Gemini Rights.

Sam Smith and Kim Petras also celebrated a historic win at the 2023 GRAMMYs, taking home Best Pop Duo/Group performance for their viral hit "Unholy" — marking the first win in the category by a trans woman. That moment, combined with the pair's risqué performance, helped the song see an almost 80% increase in Spotify streams in the U.S.

The heartfelt In Memoriam segment catalyzed stream increases, the biggest coming from Quavo's "Without U," which he sang in tribute to his late Migos bandmate and nephew Takeoff; the song jumped 890% in U.S. streams following the show. Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird," which Mick Fleetwood, Bonnie Raitt, and Sheryl Crow sang in honor of late Fleetwood Mac member Christine McVie, experienced an almost 100% increase in U.S. streams. 

In other U.S. Spotify stream gains for performers, Harry Styles' "As It Was," saw a more than 75% increase; Brandi Carlile's "Broken Horses" saw a more than 2,700% increase; DJ Khaled's star-studded "God Did" (featuring Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, and John Legend) saw a more than 650% increase; Mary J. Blige's "Good Morning Gorgeous" saw a more than 390% increase.

Streaming numbers are from DKC News, a PR representative of Spotify.

12 Classic Moments From The 2023 GRAMMYs, From The Heartwarming To The Surreal

Many first-time GRAMMY-nominees struck gold at the 2023 GRAMMYs on Sunday, Feb. 5, where they received their very first golden gramophones. 

Among the first-time nominees to become GRAMMY-winners were Samara Joy, winner of two GRAMMYs for Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal Album; Steve Lacy, who secured the GRAMMY for Best Progressive R&B Album for Gemini Rights;  Kim Petras winning alongside Sam Smith for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance with "Unholy", and Germaine Franco of Encanto. Hear what these winners and many more had to say when they spoke with The Recording Academy and press after their GRAMMY-winning moments. 

Head to live.GRAMMY.com all year long to watch all the GRAMMY performances, acceptance speeches, the GRAMMY Live From The Red Carpet livestream special, the full Premiere Ceremony livestream, and even more exclusive, never-before-seen content from the 2023 GRAMMYs.

Samara Joy

Samara Joy, GRAMMY-winner for Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal Album - Linger Awhile

Steve Lacy

Steve Lacy, GRAMMY-winner for Best Progressive R&B Album - Gemini Rights

Muni Long

Muni Long, GRAMMY-winner for Best R&B Performance - "Hrs & Hrs"

Kim Petras

Kim Petras, GRAMMY-winner for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance - "Unholy" with Sam Smith

Ashley McBryde

Ashley McBryde, GRAMMY-winner for Best Country Duo/Group Performance - "Never Wanted To Be That Girl"

Carly Pearce

Carly Pearce, GRAMMY-winner for Best Country Duo/Group Performance - "Never Wanted To Be That Girl"

Masa Takumi

Masa Takumi, GRAMMY-winner for Best Global Music Album - Sakura

Kabaka Pyramid

Kabaka Pyramid, GRAMMY-winner for Best Reggae Album - The Kalling

Stephanie Economou

Stephanie Economou, GRAMMY-winner for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media - Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn Of Ragnarok

White Sun

White Sun, GRAMMY-winner for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album - Mystic Mirror 

Samara Joy won the GRAMMY for Best New Artist at the 2023 GRAMMYs, marking her second win of the night.

“I’ve been singing all my life,” Joy said in her acceptance speech, offering special thanks to her family and nodding to her childhood in the Bronx. “Thank you so much for this honor.”

She also extended gratitude directly to the artists in the arena, thanking them for their authenticity that helped inspire her down-to-earth artistry.

During the 2023 GRAMMYs Premiere Ceremony, Joy took home GRAMMY gold for her album Linger Awhile, which was awarded Best Jazz Vocal Album. She also offered a stunning performance of "Can't Get Out Of This Mood" during the Premiere Ceremony.

Anitta, Omar Apollo, DOMi & JD Beck, Muni Long, Latto, Måneskin, Tobe Nwigwe, Molly Tuttle, and Wet Leg were the other nominees in the prestigious category of Best New Artist.

Watch Joy's full acceptance speech below.

Check out the complete list of winners and nominees at the 2023 GRAMMYs.