Cool take on “Sultans of Swing”

Perfect.

I always wondered why a tune about a jazz combo playing in a club didn't sound more like, y'know, a jazz combo playing in a club. Why it mentions horns and doesn't have any horns.

The answer, of course, is: Because it sounds like Dire Straits, which is awesome.

So, I wouldn't trade away the original, but it's cool to have this version, too.
 
Dr. Dipwad said:
Perfect.

I always wondered why a tune about a jazz combo playing in a club didn't sound more like, y'know, a jazz combo playing in a club. Why it mentions horns and doesn't have any horns.
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Sadly enough the live version does have horns. Not the one on Alchemy, which is perfection, but on subsequent tours Mark added a saxophone solo, and it annoys the shit out of me. Totally ruins the song for. Not because its a sax, cause a sax can be cool. Bluesbrothers fan for life! It just ruins the flow of the song and the awesome guitar end solo.[/QUOTE]
 
Muad'zin said:
Sadly enough the live version does have horns. Not the one on Alchemy, which is perfection, but on subsequent tours Mark added a saxophone solo, and it annoys the shit out of me. Totally ruins the song for. Not because its a sax, cause a sax can be cool. Bluesbrothers fan for life! It just ruins the flow of the song and the awesome guitar end solo.
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Interesting. I've never heard anything about that.

I can easily imagine a sax solo being unhelpful. The problem is that the feel of the existing tune just doesn't lend itself to that. Its feel is an utterly-wrong basis for the kind of jazz soloing described in its lyrics. "Sultans of Swing" is not, to put it in a nutshell, even a little bit similar to "Your Latest Trick" (where the sax solo is not merely fitting, but glorious).

By contrast, the "Sultans of Jazz" cover is a perfect foundation for sax soloing precisely because the feel of the tune is properly adapted.

I guess the lesson is:
You can make a song that lyrically talks about jazz while, ironically, not being jazzy;
or,
You can make a song that lyrically talks about jazz and which, fittingly, is also jazzy;
but,
You can't make a song that isn't jazzy, try to put the wrong solo over it, and somehow make it work merely because the lyrics mention jazz.
 
I do wonder why people obsess so much over the songs lyrics compared to the rock feel of the song. Because its about a bunch of jazz musicians doesn't mean it has to be a jazz song. Dire Straits was a rock band, Mark Knopfler, who used to be a journalist, writes lyrics about things he observes. He probably saw a band like the Sultans of Swing play for an empty room and wrote some lyrics about it. I reckon it doesn't go any deeper or more meta then that. We got a great song out of it. And now a cool jazz cover as well.

As for the different live versions, here's some vids. Alchemy version:


1992 version:


Now that I hear it its both the new piano and sax arrangements that just don't do it for me.
 
I guess if I could play that good I could justify a sweet guitar like that ;)o_O
That is such a great song Mark Knopfler is such an awesome artist.
 
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