You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 17 Tunes You Gotta Know

Episode Date: July 31, 2019

On this episode, Peter and Adam list off 17 tunes that you need to know to be prepared for any jam session.17 Tunes You Gotta KnowAutumn LeavesSolarA Night in TunisiaAll of MeBody and SoulOn Green Dolphin StreetSoftly, as in a Morning SunriseAll the Things You AreSo WhatStella by StarlightImpressionsStraight, No ChaserSummertimeCherokeeSweet Georgia BrownGiant Steps'Round MidnightBONUSLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. What's up? How many tunes do you know? About 16. Okay, you got one more you need to learn, my friend. Shoot. Today is your day. I'm Adam Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hearer podcast. Daily jazz advice coming at you. Coming at you. Pete, today's a big day. Big day. Big day. Big day.

Big announcement. Big announcement. You're going to do that right now? Are we going to save it to the end? Everything you say, I'm going to say it twice. It makes it more impactful for sure, but it's very confusing. It's like a dopeio. It's like a double shot of espresso.

We're talking a lot about us. Press so lately. Man, I need some right now. I'm for it. Yeah, let's just talk about it a little bit now. We'll talk about it more at the end. We'll give them the details. We mentioned it yesterday.

It's you'll hear it premium. You'll hear it premium. It's for lovers of this podcast, not haters of it. Yeah, people who want to support the podcast, help us grow. We want to do more episodes of the piano. We don't we be able to do more transcriptions. Those things take a little more time than it just you and I sitting here in front of the mics talking about our favorite tunes, which is also very cool.

And by the way, we'll always have the, the regular old, you'll hear it that you've come to know and love, the free podcast. The free version for cheapscapes is what we're calling it from now. That don't shame. Don't shame them. But it is true. We want to be able to do more substantial things, more like really dig into some of these things. And to do that, we are, we're asking for help and we're hoping that we get some support.

Yeah, yeah. We're going next level. We're excited to announce this. It's actually available today. If you're super early burden, you jump on. it may not quite be, but go to you'll hear.com. You'll see it very shortly, and you can sign up as a charter member. So we'll tell you some more at the end of that.

But first, we are talking about what, sir? 17 tunes, you got to know. You got to know. Now, I wrestled with 7 or 17 or 77. Really, we could come up with 77, maybe even, I don't know, about 777, 117, 217, I could do 117, probably. But these are tunes... But I wouldn't know all of them.

Right, right. But these are tunes you got to know just to be... Maybe we should have qualified it. But we like the short of title. You know, 17 tunes you got to know to call yourself a jazz pianist, right? I would say, yeah. Yeah, I mean, these are the tunes

that you want to know going into a jam session. You want to have all these at your fingertips, as they like to say. Yeah. When you go to the session so that you can go up there, call it something that you know everybody else is going to know

and be confident in it. And, you know, a lot of these tunes are the tunes that other people who are just learning this music are getting into as well. Some of these are harder than others. Some of these are super easy. Some of these are really challenging, but they're all worth your time right now. And if you don't know all 17 of them, no. Shame on you.

No, no excuses. Fill in the gaps. Make sure that you don't get called out at the session. You know, I am not a tune hound. Like, there are some New York jazz pianists that know gobs and gobs of tune. Bill Charlap comes to mind. Oh, my gosh. Like some of these cats.

Hovering over me. Can play every tune in every verse and every intro. And you know what I mean? And every key. Yeah. Christian McBride? Yeah. I mean, and I have a lot of respect for those players.

But these are just, these are not even that. These are just like the bare minimum to get in there. And we tried to kind of hit tunes over, you know, sort of geographical boundaries for, as you said, like jam sessions. You want to know these going into a jam session. But we didn't want to do, you know, every city, which I love this, I love really. I love regionality. For sure. Every city kind of has its own jam session tunes.

And I'm always surprised how, like in New Orleans for like the modern jazz players when I was coming up there, minority was like a standard. And I remember going somewhere and cats were like, I don't really know my. I mean, like everybody. Yeah, yeah. You know, guys would know a minority before they knew so what. Like you had to know minority. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I think I came back here and I called like minority. I'm like, I don't know it. I was like, what? So that's kind of cool, those things. But we tried to avoid those kind of tunes. We really hit ones that are like international jam session tunes. Here in St. Louis, Beatrice is a popular entry-level tune. Right.

That you go to other places and not everybody really knows it that well. Yeah, New Orleans, people like, I mean. Yeah. It's funny how that works. You know what's not on our list just before we get super deep into it? But has been called a lot in the jam sessions I've been to this year is Strasbourg-Sand-in-ee. That's, yeah. The Roy Hargrove tune.

Right. That's pretty cool It is cool I think it's very cool Right but you couldn't really go in a jam session Anywhere and be like People have been calling it man They have been calling it

Yeah so I'm saying I think it's just easy enough That it's like People kind of know it That's cool But that's not gonna make this list No not at all Great tune

But not gonna make this This is really like That was an aside Yeah like let's say you can play jazz But you're like I don't know any tunes I don't know how that be possible I only know like five tunes

And or like say you want to know And we do get this question like how, what and how should I expand my repertoire. So there's so many different directions to go with that, but this would be like if you don't know, like say you know 15 out of these 70. Yeah. You know the next two that you've got to learn.

Plus you got a bonus to. By the way, I will say this too. If you don't know the melodies to this tune, piano players of bass players, you got to learn the melodies. You don't know it. It doesn't count if you don't know the melody. How?

So learn the melody. All right. Let's go. We got 17. We got to keep it moving. Okay. First, autumn leaves. Classic.

That's a classic. Look, just, you know it. And this one, you got to know in a couple different keys because the singers like to do it. I mean, you got to know it in every key. You got to know it in every key. Yeah, yeah. But. E minor and G minor to start.

Yeah, for sure. Those are big ones. And then, you know, you have to know it in French and English. No, you don't. If you're saying, you might. But yeah, not a hard tune, but definitely know it. All right. Number two is Miles Davis. It's Solar.

This is really a variation on a blues. Yeah. It's 12 bars. And it's super, super fun to blow on. Is it solar or solar? I don't know. Everybody says solar. Salar.

Written as solar. Right. And was it actually written by Miles Davis? That's what it says in the real book, so it must be true. There you go. We do not endorse the real book. All right. Number three?

Number three is a night in Tunisia. Now, this one I kind of put in, you wouldn't, you know, some people would sneer at this being called at a jam session. I don't know why. But if it is called, you got to know it. For sure. You got to know it, I would even say. Yeah. And learn them.

We're like in sync. Let's see if we can say it together. Learn the interlude. Yeah. Exactly. And if you're a pianist and a bass player, learn the part. Like learn the ba-d-d-dab-d-da-du-ba. And learn the-d-d-d-tob-d-tub.

So basically learn the tune. Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Number four is All of Me. Classic, again, some basic changes that are really hard actually to make sound good. All of me. Why don't you take all of me? I'm not my favorite tune.

I got to put it out of it. I got to know it. You got to know it. Absolutely. On number five, body and soul. I love this tune. I love this tune, too. Beautiful tune.

Overplayed, but... For sure. And not always played well, but yeah, you've got to know this one. I mean, if you were to get up at a jam session and somebody called this and you couldn't play it, you might get laughed off the stage. Isn't that right? It's true. And it's not a simple tune.

I mean, it's not hard, but it's not super simple. It's not for the pure beginner. It's in D flat. The bridge changes keys. The melody, there's some tricky. Like, if you do the changes kind of with the diminished stuff can be tricky. But, man, worth knowing, I think it's a beautiful tune. It's...

If you already kind of know it, you should probably learn, like, the train version, the coal train version of it, because that gets called sometimes. Yeah, well, let's say, like, let's do it like train. You know, know those changes, know those, how they made it their own. That's a good version.

Okay, number six is Green Dolphin Street. Again, you know, learn the intro. The Miles version is, you know, of course, the famous version. But pro tip on the Green Dolphin Street, those first eight bars, where it's the pedal, for pianists. stick to the triads. That's right.

See if you can stick to the triads. Don't try to do a fancy D, a fancy D flat. I want a D try it over C. I want a D flat try it over. Well, and especially if you know the melody, that's going to kind of be your clue there. This is another good one to learn at least, I'm learning all keys, of course.

For sure. But at least E flat in C, I'm saying. It's feeling like E flat is more common, right? Around here, it's C. It's C. Ooh, that's a real book error, I think. Because what recorded versions have been in C? I don't know.

It's a good question. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. Number seven, we have softly as in a morning sunrise. Now, I was on a kind of actually just sitting in on a gig once. I picked this one for it. And I didn't know it.

I didn't know it. You learned softly as in a morning sunrise. I learned it on the gig and then later shamefully went and learned it. But I was young. Yeah. I was four. Playing with one of Marcell? Four months.

No, I was like 15 years old, 14. But I mean, yeah, that's when you know. And I remember like when he called. called the tune. He didn't even turn, like, this is how bad it was that I didn't know it. Winton didn't even, like, turn to me and say, do you know this? He just started playing. Like, if he was going to do, do you know what it means to New Orleans?

You know, that great bad. You might turn and be like, do you know? This is like, all right, softly, this is one of those tunes. It's just called by, not a question, by an exclamation. So you got to know it. Number eight is all the things you are, one of my favorite of these tunes in this list, because it's so much fun to play.

Of these stale jam session tunes. Yeah, no, no. A lot of these are a little. But, Potentially stale. This one for me is never stale. I think I called it last week on a gig because I just like playing it. You know, it's helpful to learn that entire Brad Meldow extended solo piano intro

from Live at the Village Vanguard. But you don't have to. Yeah, yeah. But you should. I mean, if you want to be like Uncle Adam, go ahead. No, I'm just kidding. No, learn the intro. The famous intro made famous by Bird.

Yeah. Cool. That's bad. Oh, that's right. Of course it was Bird. Um, good. So that's number 10. Now we're on to number 11. Impressions. Now, you added this one. Explain yourself, sir. Wait, that was number, hold on. That was number eight.

Oh, number eight, sorry. And now we're on number nine. Oh, we're on number nine. Oh, we're on number nine. Oh, I gave away number, that was number 11. Number nine is so what. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking similar chord change. It's not exactly the same. A close. Number nine is so what. Um, off of the iconic kind of blue. Have we ever mentioned that album on this podcast? A couple of times. Have we built this house of cards based upon that album. It's possible. I think so. Again, this is another one. Don't just learn the real book version. If you're a piano player, learn that baseline. Everyone should learn the voicings that Bill Evans plays there.

It's a great opportunity to really teach yourself about some jazz theory in a tune. Yep. Good stuff. Number 10. Number 10, Stella by Starlight. Yeah. Beautiful. This is probably my number two favorite of all of these, like, standards anyway.

It's such a beautiful tune. It's tricky to play. Yeah. Try to go back as far as you can to get away from the real book. changes to know. Which are incorrect, I might add. Incorrect. And yeah, and have fun.

Yep, good one. Okay, number 11. Now we have impressions. This is actually good. Now I'm remembering, and this is definitely a St. Louis jam session tune. There's a lot of places this is frowned upon to call this. Is it?

On a jam session. Yeah, New Orleans would have been one of those places where you would have got a lot of rolled eyes. Nothing against the tune or John Coltrane. I don't know. It's part of the kind of culture there. It's like, why are you going to do it with just, you know, two chords.

But this one, but again, to your point of like, learn the original version. Yeah. And like kind of the interplay, yeah, it's D minor, but it's kind of G7 too. and like what you actually hear on that recording. I mean, there's a live at the Village Vanguard and live at Birdland. So many great versions of this with that iconic quartet. But piano plays, you got to, don't be like, well, I already know the change because I know, so what.

Learn the melody. Yeah, on the original recorded version, listen to what notes the bassist is playing. Yeah. It's not always just D&E flat at all. Like there's a lot going on there. Number 12 is straight no chaser. Our first, like straight blues, F blues. It's a great blues had to know.

Originally in B-flat though. Oh, really? Yes, sir. Yeah, Miles Davis kind of changed. No, no, no. Miles Davis sort of, I don't know if it was because it was easier on the trumpet or whatever, sort of changed it there. But the original recording, and I think Monk always played it in B-flat, I believe.

It's all good. All right. It's okay. I need to need some. Where's the ruler? Andrew, where's the ruler? All good. So that was number 12.

Now number 13. Summertime. Summer time. Now, ooh, you got to know this one. This is great one. You got to know this one. I mean, if you, if a singer of any merit or not, a lack of merit, were to turn to you and say, summertime.

And this, you got to know in every key. For sure. For sure. Summertime. A flat. Yeah, for sure. The only question with that is, are they thinking the major key or the minor key? Because it starts in major.

Right. And the singers sometimes don't delineate. Oh, no. Sometimes, never. Often don't. You know what's great about summertime for this list? This is a really great example of, you know, try to learn that, like, you can get the sheet music for this and try to learn it as close to that as possible because it's not just a minor blues.

Like there's a ton of stuff, even just down to that. Yeah. Ooh, that sounds like from the original orchestration there. You know what I mean? How great is that, though, as opposed to just treating it like a Dorian minor blues or something? Well, it's not a minor blues at all, actually. Is it? Kind of is.

I mean, yeah. It's bluesy. It's bluesy for sure. Goes to the four. Yeah. Goes to a tense turnaround. I consider it a minor blues. That's true.

Good. That's 13. So number 14, we have. Cherokee. Cherokee. This is politically incorrect. It's culturally insensitive. Totally culturally insensitive.

So stay away from the lyrics, but you still got to know it. You know what I mean? You don't have to approve of it, but you got to know it. And this is one that, you know, like the changes. really okay if you if you don't approve of this song don't learn the melody this is the one tune we're going to let you do that the words or the melody but you got to learn the changes because there's other tunes based upon it dude i was at a jam session about two months ago yeah i was playing trombone player my friend jacobelia at juliar at julyard came home called

cherokee and e at about 325 and i was like bro you i never get back to new york sir never talked to you again take your trombone and go back to New York. That was really fun. You heard about the trombone. He killed it on trombone. Oh, I bet he did. You heard about the trombones who left.

Well, they went to New York and left his trombone in the back of the car in Times Square. He didn't realize about the crime problem there. Got broken into. Yeah. There was two trombones left. Okay. You like that one, Andrew? Wow.

Nope. Because you're not listening. Good. Wow. Okay. Number 15. Yep. Sweet Georgia Brown.

Classic. This is a classic. So this one I kind of added, like, not so much that maybe people are going to call it that often, but if they do, you. you really got to know it. Yeah. And then it's a foundation for like, you know, a series of different tunes

that are sort of based upon those chord changes. And it's just sort of iconic, and it's not like the blues, but it's an iconic form. Bright Mississippi. Bright Mississippi and a bunch more that I can't even think of now that you just have to kind of know.

Question. Yes. Do you have to learn how to twirl a basketball on your finger? Yes, you do. As you're playing in the left hand. Ruted voicing only. I think I just flipped off the cameras

that. That's okay. Mimic that. Love you. Finally, number 17. We do have a bonus. You're skipping. Number 16. Number 16.

We never go up this high on the numbers. I know. I can't count. Number 16 is giant steps. Okay. Now, yeah, I noticed you put this. This is one of the most challenging numbers on here. So it could be argued that do you really got to know it?

I think you got to know it at this point. You think you are right. I think this wouldn't be the first one you would learn, but at a certain point, everybody has to spend some time with giant steps. Just to be able to get cold train changes under your fingers. It's something that's going to come up again and again unless you have it. So just take the time.

That's all it takes is time. Just spend some time with it. Yeah. It's not going to happen overnight, but if you start now, you know, within a couple months or so, you'll start to get a handle where you can at least kind of slop your way through it on a gym. But at least you know it. For sure. You might not be able to excel at it.

That's okay. And then you get to be the cool cat that calls it on the jam session. Exactly. Exactly. But yeah, you got to know it. That's right. You can be like, I'm laying out at first, but let me hear it. Yeah, yeah.

All right. All right, number 17, our final. Well, we do have a bonus that I'm excited about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. but number 17 is another tune that I think is really tricky but I kind of wrestled with but yeah you got to know it around midnight I think so also known as round about midnight by thelonious monk I I took too long to learn this one for sure and got caught out a couple times right right right were you were you bearded by the time no I don't think it was beard

sans beard sends a beard or song pre beard pre beard yeah that wasn't too long then no but it was long and I should have known it yeah you know what I mean I mean I mean it's It's a complicated tune. There's really two main versions of it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm such a purist. I always say, you know, learn the monk version. Which isn't B flat.

Yeah, no, no. It's the same key, but it's like very different. It's got the intro. The changes are different. You know, Miles really changed it up and, uh, ha, ha. But, you know, I used to be the one who, like, go to the jam session. If somebody called, even if I called it around night, I'd start forcing through the monk changes. The bass player's looking at me like, you're playing it wrong.

I'm like, no, I'm more dogmatic than you. I know the Craig. I'm writer. than anybody. And then I finally gave up on that. I'm like, okay, I pretty much assume, unless I hear somebody going with the correct, what I consider the correct change is, I don't force it on. If they don't know it, they don't know, but it's best to learn both of them. So you have that flexibility. Well, I love this, man. You know, it's great to kind of to codify this for us. Yeah, that's great because you know all these tunes. Of course it's

good for you. It feels good for me. It feels very validating. Mission accomplished. But like I said, like we said at the beginning, you know, you can, we could really expand this certainly to a hundred tunes that you got to know. So just start here. If there's a couple that you don't know, I mean, grade yourself, you know, grade on a curve, a self-curve. Think of it this way.

If you go to a jam session and someone calls a straight-no-chaser and F, you can shame them and be like, oh, you're not playing the original changes? That's right. I'm going to do that. What are you in Adam Maness's band or something? I'm going to do that tomorrow night.

I'm going to go call it. When they start playing an F, you're like, what up, man? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so before we get to our bonus, though, let's talk about our exciting Our exciting news today, you'll hear it premium. That's right.

And we have a very special, this is only for our listeners. Of course. So if there's anybody listening that's not a listener, please leave the room right now. Well, I guess you'd have to be a listener, right? I think everybody who's, yes. Okay. So we have a charter member special, highly discounted. And what we're looking to do is to kind of reward our longtime listeners, those that have been there for a very limited time, you know, to be able to join us at this very special rate.

And if you go to you'll hear it.com, you'll be able to see all that beautiful information and what it comes with. But what this is going to be is going to be kind of a recurring membership. And what we're going to be giving you is, yeah, all the regular episodes, but we're going with the bonus episodes. Why don't you tell them a little bit about those? So the bonus episodes will be episodes all recorded at the piano, all thoughtfully produced. I mean, they're essentially lessons. Like, they're essentially lessons on either very specific jazz piano things or very specific. specific jazz concepts, improvisational concepts,

voicing concepts, arranging concepts, things that we can actually, nuts and bolts things that we can actually document with things like notation, which we will have available on many of those. Yes. And worksheets and things like that so that you're actually getting something that you're able to take with you from this silly podcast.

Yeah, and that's, yeah, exactly. And we'd had a lot of requests from those and we've only been able to do them intermittently, but we're gonna be able to do more of those for you. That's gonna be at the pre- level and then full access to the archive so you know it's kind of limited in terms of the apple and some of the other podcast systems in terms of how many episodes going back and we'd had a lot of questions about certain episodes and when we went back and realized we're like wow

that's already before the last 300 yeah that's there yeah we're creeping up on 500 exactly so the so coming in at the premium member level you'll be able to get full access yeah to the entire archive and so that's coming like very soon like not there already The ongoing archive. The ongoing archive. So as you only get access to 300, the latest 300, which is, you know, less than a year. Yeah. We've been around already for, you know, over that.

Yep. So as we make more and more episodes and the archive gets bigger and bigger, you'll have constant upgraded access to that archive. Yeah, yeah. And there's a bunch of other things. You know, we're starting, we already have a great community thanks to you guys, to our listeners and our viewers. So we're going to kind of just tighten that up or not even tighten it up, just sort of have a place for everybody, all the fans of the show. show to be able to interact with us and maybe even Andrew, our wonderful producer as well. On our community side, we're going to have some exclusive Q&As that'll be a lot easier

to manage with a smaller number, some early access to episodes behind the scene stuff. We're going to do some random giveaways. I'm excited about those. I got some good ideas there. There's also the private Facebook group, which we've had for years, the Jazz Piano Studio. And it's really popular. I'm posting in there all the time. You post on there sometimes where we post like videos of, we,

We answer video questions. It's a really popular thing. This would be by far the most affordable way that you would get access to that Facebook group. Yes, exactly. And that's instant access, right? As soon as they sign up for you'll hear premium. There's a button right there. And then, oh, and then speak pipe hotline.

If you want to ask a question, this is going to be the way to do it. Because we're kind of getting inundated. Not in a bad way. No, no, we love the speak pipes. Yeah, but we don't want to only do speak pipe. And so we're going to kind of limit that to the premium people. So if you want to do that, definitely consider signing up. And, you know, it's $10 a month.

month, it's the charter member special. It's super exciting because it's just $5. So if you sign up, you know, within the next few days, you'll be able to come in at that level and stay there forever. You'll be grandfathered. I've always want to do this. Five dollars is less than I spend on my cappuccino every morning. And that's the truth. Yeah, it actually is. So anyway, we hope you'll join us. And we're really excited for this next stage. And as we said, if you want to stay on just as a regular listener or a viewer on YouTube, no problem. We're not going anywhere. But if you want to step it up a little bit, support us and what we're doing here and also get some, oh, you get a discount on swag. We're going to have some swag giveaways, too,

for the, you'll hear at premium. That's what I'm really excited about. We have some new things that you don't even know about that you might not even own. So you might want to be part of that giveaway, my friend. Yeah, I don't get swag for just being a co-host of the podcast. Oh, you know, you will see what happens. All right. So let's get to our bonus. Oh, so go to you'll hear at.com to sign up. You'll hear it.com. Sign up for you'll hear it premium. And not only you, supporting this podcast, making sure that we can keep going, keep doing better and better things, but you get access to all this great stuff.

I'm excited, man. Yeah, me too. It's exciting. Me too. So, we have a bonus of our 17 tunes. So this is actually number 18. And the reason I wanted to do this one, the bonus is I got rhythm.

Now, this is a funny kind of bonus because normally people don't call this. No, almost never. And when it is, this is another one that would raise some eyebrows. But the reason I said it's a tune that you've got to know is that you just learned 35 tunes, right? How many? Are you going to go through all 35?

We don't have that kind of time, man. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, you're learning a bunch of tunes, and it's just like learning a blues or whatever. Wait, that was straight. No Chaser and B-flat? Oh, that was good. That's what I said.

It's a blues. Ignore that. Do you know what I got rhythm? It's got the little funny tag thing. I mean, I could sing it. I can honestly say I've never played it. Yeah. Yeah, but it's, so this is the only one on here that you've got to know it.

You're probably never going to play it, because it's not going to get called, but it's going to be good that you do know it. You've learned a whole bunch of other tunes and you understand a big sort of faction that's needed to be known. Yeah, cool. Until tomorrow.

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