I had a hard time reviewing the concert of John Pizzarelli and Jane Monheit that opened the JVC Jazz Festival-Newport on Aug. 11.

On one hand, Pizzarelli and Monheit are skilled performers, and Pizzarelli adds to that a warm geniality. Ultimately, that’s what I based my review on.

On the other hand, they were introduced by MC Ron Della Chiesa as two talented young interpreters of the Great American Songbook. And that stirred up a long-simmering resentment that pulled at me for the entire concert and the whole time I wrote the review.

To wit: I am sick and tired of the Great American Songbook. Throw it in the garbage. Run it through a shredder. Or at least put it in the attic for a couple of decades.

I shouldn’t put all the blame on Pizzarelli and Monheit. But that’s where the feeling came to a head. They both do what they do very well. But come on: “Witchcraft”? “You Make Me Feel So Young”?

Pizzarelli’s set list wrote itself, particularly since he was promoting his Dear Mr. Sinatra album. Why is he doing this? Is there a danger we will forget Frank Sinatra? Is there nothing else Pizzarelli could be doing musically?

And while Monheit mixed it up a little, most of her songs, such as “September in the Rain,” “You’re Sensational” and “Why Can’t You Behave?” were simply weak imitations of the classics.

But this isn’t just about them. The problem goes way deeper.

The problem starts with Rod Stewart.

Sure, Linda Ronstadt was recording with Nelson Riddle in the early ’80s, but that was a different kettle of fish. Ronstadt’s records with Riddle didn’t sell enough to inspire legions of singers to imitate her. And as one of the great singers of our age, she set an imposing-enough vocal bar to dissuade copycats.

Stewart, on the other hand, has now put out four big-selling albums of standards under the Great American Songbook banner, in his rough-and-ready, lived-in voice. And while standards albums from singers such as Bette Midler make sense, if you don’t think Stewart’s success has something to do with the sudden embrace of standards by, oh I don’t know, Ronnie Milsap, Joni Mitchell, Boz Scaggs, John Stevens and dozens more in very recent years, you are in fact getting a kick from champagne.

Now, sure, I’ll pause to genuflect: Some of these songs are great. “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” “The Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” — wonderful songs, and still relevant today.

Now, let’s talk about some others. “Let’s Fall in Love”? Gee, what a wonderfully clear-eyed look at what’s supposed to be an uncontrollable passion. “My Funny Valentine”? You’re not too bright, your looks are laughable, but I love you anyway. “Cheek to Cheek”? Flat-out awful. “I love to climb a mountain/ And to reach the highest peak/ But it doesn’t thrill me half as much as dancing cheek to cheek.” Gee, Irv, reaching for a rhyme just a little bit?

When you talk to, or read about, anyone making an album of standards, the refrain is the same: “These songs will never die.” “These songs are eternal.” “This is real music.”

There are two problems with this viewpoint. The first is that it isn’t true. Rock ’n’ roll killed the Great American Songbook deader than a doornail from roughly the late ’60s to the late ’90s.

The second is that it’s backward. Songs are not living, breathing entities, though they may seem that way: They’re collections of directions to players and singers. People don’t record certain songs because they’re eternal; songs are eternal because people won’t stop recording them. And with the standards album becoming as ubiquitous as the Christmas album, there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight.

(There’s a third problem – the concept of “real music,” which implies that some music is not real, which is baseless. But that’s another subject.)

If the songs themselves are dated, the arrangements are, if anything, even more so. Start with the piano, or maybe the bass (once per record). Cue the horns for the swing tunes and add strings for the ballads. Throw in a few cries of “hey!” and let the sales roll in.

I didn’t hear from Pizzarelli or Monheit last week (or their top-notch bands), and I don’t hear on virtually any of these standards tributes, one note delivered with any intention other than “See? We can stand right next to the idealized performers of your memories.”

Is that all we can aspire to?

(I should stop for a moment to address something that may seem inconsistent: I gave both Pizzarelli and Monheit generally positive reviews. I considered writing a review that was close in tone and content to this column, but I figure that the goal of a review is to describe what the performer does and judge how well they do it, on their own terms. That’s what I do for Chamillionaire, for System of a Down, for Big and Rich, so I figured I should do the same for Pizzarelli and Monheit.)

Apostles of the Songbook aesthetic often claim that today’s music doesn’t speak to them. But have male-female relations really not progressed past “My Funny Valentine”? “Cheek to Cheek”? “Tea for Two”? Do these songs really address the reality of your life? Of anyone’s?

It’s nostalgia. In some cases, it’s escapist nostalgia – other people’s memories that today’s listeners wish they had. “Memories” of a supposedly simpler time and place.

And there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with nostalgia. Personally, my favorite music of all time is the ’70s pop and soul I grew up with, and some of my favorite current records are by artists (such as Ron Sexsmith and Van Hunt) who emulate those sounds.

But that’s personal preference, and I know it. I don’t claim for a moment that there’s something objectively superior about that music. I don’t claim that that music will never die. I know that someone who grew up in a different time and place will feel differently about it.

Virtually every artist aims to create a world that’s slightly different from the one we inhabit. One that’s a little more exciting, or a little more peaceful, or a little more fun. Jimmy Buffett does it; 50 Cent does it; in the David Lee Roth era, Van Halen were the kings (Aerosmith comes close now).

The apostles of the Great American Songbook are doing nothing less than that. But also nothing more.

Pop music writer Rick Massimo and other Journal arts writers share the At Large column.