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10 fine Jazz Covers Of Bob Dylan Songs

“We all play folk music.”
– Thelonious Monk (to Dylan)

Jazz spans a period of over 100 years and encompasses a range of music from ragtime to the present day, and has proved to be very difficult to define. Jazz makes heavy use of improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation and the swung note, as well as aspects of European harmony, American popular music, the brass band tradition, and African musical elements such as blue notes and ragtime. The birth of Jazz in the multicultural society of America has led intellectuals from around the world to hail Jazz as “one of America’s original art forms”

Bob Dylan is Jazz at heart, what I mean is that he improvises, he elaborates on his own work. Sometimes his songs are unreckognisable to us. He goes with flow, he goes where the song takes him. He is very “jazzy”, but he does seldom sound like jazz.

I have had quite a few posts with Bob Dylan cover versions and today we are looking at Jazz artists doing their interpretations of his songs.

Cassandra Wilson – Lay Lady Lay (audio):

Paula West – Like a Rolling Stone:

Madeleine Peyroux – Your gonna make me lonesome when you go:

Radka Toneff – Just Like a Woman:

Bill Frisell – Masters of War:

Keith Jarrett Trio – My Back Pages:

Caroline Henderson – Ring Them Bells:

Willis White – All along the Watchtower:

Ben Sidran – Highway 61:

Stan Getz – Blowin’ in the wind:

– Hallgeir