Tradition for Tradition's Sake

I got this email today,

let's add this tune to our list as a "just in case"

All Of Me, trad. jazz style, group improv on head, gutbucket bone, ect.. (everyone find Louis' versions)

and I was dismayed. I think we all have a few standards we really dislike playing and All Of Me in a "trad. jazz style" is 3-10 minutes of boredom for me. It's one of those songs where the ride cymbal sounds like Ben Stein at his worst. The tempo is bad. The melody is mad. The harmony is interesting, but the harmonic movement is pitiful. And no doubt the lyrics are worthy of a better tune. In short All of Me strikes me as a gray-haired octogenarian musician, 5 people in the club on a Tuesday night kind of tune.

But then I listened to Louis:



Aside from the obnoxious Freddie Green comping it amazed me how much they had figured out back then, that his recording was more interesting than recordings 50 years later. I think the tune still stinks, but what Louis did with it was great. He takes out all the boring stuff! It's genius. His trumpet playing is magnetic, so why bother focusing on anything else! It makes me think a ballad, block-chord solo piano method might be a good way of presenting this tune. Sometimes Louis made so much sense... and that's why tradition for tradition's sake makes young jazzers dread All of Me.