What does the word cover mean to you? Does the genre matter?
To me: singing a jazz standard isn’t a cover. Unless it is.
I’ve been exploring the definition of cover, and why it feels wrong when someone says they’re “singing a “cover of ‘My Funny Valentine.'”
So, some examples. When Nat “King” Cole sings “Straighten Up & Fly Right” it isn’t a cover, because he wrote that song. But when he sings “Stardust” it isn’t a cover either, in my book. That’s because his version is distinct, unique to him. Frank Sinatra didn’t sing covers, and certainly more modern jazz singers can’t be said to sing covers – Nancy Wilson, Mark Murphy, Shirley Horn, Mel Tormé – their versions were all utterly unique to themselves.
Cover, to me, implies fidelity not just to the song, but to a previous interpretation of the song. So, with its emphasis on individual expression, jazz singing is not likely to have recordings that could be called covers. They are transformative, not retrospective.
On the other hand, if a young singer did an exact replica of another singer’s version of a song, I would be happy to call that recording a cover. You could argue that some of Michael Bublé’s early work was covers of Frank Sinatra, and I’ve certainly had plenty of student singers who did covers of great versions of jazz songs. I’ve done some myself.
On the third hand, this rule of thumb doesn’t seem to apply outside of jazz singing in my mind. The Beatles’ cover of the Broadway/jazz tune “Till There Was You” doesn’t sound like other versions – it’s original. But I still think of it as a cover. The same with Joe Cocker’s version of The Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends.” Maybe that’s because in the context of rock, the values of uniqueness, interpretive originality, improvisation, expression aren’t thought of in the same way, so I do think of those songs as covers.