Fado standards

Every year our wonderful hometown of Kansas City births a fresh new crop of jazz musicians that magically materialize around the various jam sessions in town. For these young lions, one of their first steps to becoming a competent jazz musician is to have the jazz “standards” under your belt - memorized and confident in multiple keys. The standards are the set of songs that every jazz musician needs to know. These of course change over time but there are a hundred or so that remain at the core of the repertoire.

It has become evident that there is a parallel set of fado “standards” and we really need to know what they are. We ask all the fado enthusiasts out there to please help us by submitting recommendations for our fado standards list by either commenting on this blog post or writing us an email.

I’ll start the list with the contents of our most important recourse, Fado Portugues: Songs From the Soul of Portugal by Donald Cohen

1. Lisboa Antigua
2. Coimbra
3. Ai, Mouraria
4. Por Morrer uma Andorinha
5. O Embuçado
6. A Rosinha dos Limões
7. Vinte Anos
8. E Foi-se a Mocidade
9. Meu Bairro Alto
10. Valeu a Pena
11. Rosa Enjeitada
12. Fado Hilário
13. Da Janela do Meu Quarto
14. A Moda das Tranças Pretas
15. Júlia Florista
16. O Pagem
17. Bons Tempos
18. Fado da Defesa
19. Lisboa Não Sejas Francesa
20. Há muito quem Cante o Fado
21. Lisboa É Sempre Lisboa
22. Fado Trinta e Um
23. Tamanquinhas
24. Ah, Qunata melancholia
25. Maria Madalena
26. Minha Má foi Cigarreira