You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 3 Killin' Vibes Tracks (special guest Warren Wolf)

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

Adam and special guest Warren Wolf talk about Warren's musical roots and listen to three favorite tracks that feature the vibraphone.Listener offer: 50% off either of Warren's courses using THIS LINKListen: Warren's PlaylistHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Peter? Wait, you're not Peter. I'm Adam Manus, and Peter Martin is out of town today, but we've got a special guest. I would say an upgrade, actually. The great Warren Wolf is in the studio today. Warren, how you doing?

Everything's good. What's happening? I'm good, man. So we have you here. First of all, you're playing across the alley over at Jazz St. Louis. How the show is going this week? Shows are going great. I've been in town since Tuesday, but our shows on Wednesday and Thursday.

and Thursday were canceled because of the snow, but we finally got it in Friday and Saturday night. It's been great, playing some good music, and we have one more set tonight. Cool. Hopefully they put you up in a hotel that had stuff to do, man, because you were, like, snowed in the whole time. If it was baseball season, we would be great

because we'd ride across the tree from the ball park. We're kind of just hanging out, just eating a lot. So we're going to talk to you today about three of your favorite mallet tracks, but I know you're on the road for a little bit here. You're going to Minneapolis this week and tell the people where you're going to be. I will be at the Dakota Bar and Grill,

jazz bar and grillo in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Yeah. And then after that, this is going to be pretty busy between Christian McBride, Inside Strait, and the SF Jazz Collective. And still a little bit of my stuff, too. Oh, yeah, we're familiar with Inside Straight.

Pretty much the entire band is open studio artists at this point. So the Minneapolis gig, so this is airing on Monday. What days are you over there? What nights? So we'll be at the Dakota on Tuesday. We'll be playing two different shows. Tuesday will be the history of the vibraphone.

Cool. which is I play music pretty much from like the 40s all the way up until today. Man. Different vibes players to show how the instrument has evolved. And then on Wednesday we'll be playing more or less R&B infusion from my band called Reincarnation, which was my fourth release on the Mac Avenue label. Oh, congrats, man. Thank you.

That's great. That's great. Well, yeah, so Minneapolis folks know the Dakota is such a cool place. It's such a great stage to play on. It's such a great room to listen to music in. So don't miss that. Don't miss that band. And so we've got three tracks lined up.

Before we get into it though, if people aren't familiar with your history, like, I just saw this post you made on social media last week about like your childhood as a classical musician. You talk about that, like, because we have so many members here with Open Studio that started off playing one kind of music and now they want to learn more jazz and they want to be able to play that. But you started off like playing in concert halls, right, with like mallets in the classical repertoire. Yeah, my first tour, I look at my career honestly as in two different halves. my first tour I was six or seven years old. I went out with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Six or seven years old? Yeah.

Six or seven years old was my first tour. I went on a, I mean, I didn't know what I was really doing. I thought it was just going to be, I mean, I thought I was just hanging out in cool hotels with my mom. My mom came with me. Oh, man, that's great. But yeah, I went out on a tour with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra playing this piece called the Pop Hyper Fantasy featuring flotist James Galway. And I was one of the little percussionist that they had on stage.

Oh, man. But ever since that show, I had a, again, the first side of my career, I had a long association with the Boston's Symphony just playing like pieces that were made for violin and flute and piccolo, but on marimba because of the octave range. Yeah. You know, a lot of pieces were not made for vibraphone at that time. Now, this was around 1986, 87, somewhere around those years.

Wow. So, yeah, a lot of people thought I grew up in a jazz household and that totally was not the case, you know. My parents, they were brought up in the 60s and 70s, so they were used to hearing, you know, Motown and, you know, Slide Stone and, you know, all of that good stuff. And but my jazz was, I mean, I said my jazz, my father was just a huge fan of music.

And I think one of his earliest influences when it came to the vibraphone, which is an instrument that my dad actually played as well, but not professionally. You know, he had a little bit of, band that played around town around Baltimore and Washington, D.C. But, you know, he was a history teacher in school. Yeah, yeah.

So he was a huge fan of Bobby Hutchison and Rory Ayers. But, you know, again, we listen to everything around our household. You know, my mom, she loved, you know, all the same stuff that my dad, I love the Motown stuff. And then I have two older sisters. And that was kind of like my introduction to early, like, Def Jam, hip hop. Sure. So, you know, I've heard a lot.

God bless the older siblings, dad. Definitely. It's the same for me, man. My dad was, like, playing in, like, folk bands, but he was never, like, but he always had another job or whatever. But just, like, there was always music around. And it's crazy. Like, I think people underestimate how famous James Galway was in 1986, man.

Like, my parents were not classical music fans by any stretch, but they had all his albums. Like, he was, like, a big deal. He was a big deal. And I think one of the things that I really remember as a kid about him was that I think he had a gold flute. Yeah, that's right. That was the main thing. Wow, you have a flute that's gold.

Man, it's a baller. That's great. So I'm assuming that, you know, you discover jazz and took to it because you're such a prolific improviser. You're such an incredible improviser. And yeah, so tell us about that. When did you start, like, playing that music

and discovering that you can make your own stuff up? Well, my dad started giving me lessons at jazz when I was around five or six, or I should just say improv for the most part, but I totally just didn't understand it. I can't do this. This was hard. But he had me, you know, playing solos, written out solos that he had down in manuscript paper from Sunny Rylans and things like that.

And then I remember when I was a kid, we started working out of the Omni book for Charlie Parker. And I didn't really know what was happening. I was a good reader because of the classical side. Yeah. So my dad would, you know, pull out the cassette tapes and, you know, I would just play toward those Charlie Parker solos. and hopefully something would come out of it.

Yeah. And, you know, honestly, I thought I was going to be a great classical musician. My career was going to classical. I mean, my teachers were in the Baltimore Symphony. I was doing tours. I was doing shows. I had lessons. I was the principal timpiness for a band called the Peabody Sinfonia,

and we toured Europe twice around that time. So I thought, you know, jazz and R&B was just way in the back. background. But it sounded so nice because my dad with his band, they were rehearsing out basement every weekend. I was like, man, you got to sound great. And I think vividly one, one of the songs that they used to play in his band was Morning Dance by Spiro Jara. And, you know, I used to listen to them play that song, but then one day, you know, I just went and listened to the recording of that song. I was like, who is this dude on Marimba? Yeah. And, you know, back then we could all look at the line of notes

and check out who was on the records. And I saw this guy, Dave Samuels. And, you know, I started just checking him out a little bit more and realized he also played vibes. And, you know, he was probably like the highest played mallet player in the 80s. Yeah. To his association was Barrajaara.

And he was probably the main reason why I decided to attend Berkeley College of Music. Really? He was teaching there. He was teaching there. So a lot of people assumed that I studied with Gary Burton because he was there, but Gary wasn't teaching by the time I got to Berkeley. This is September of 1997.

Gary was the vice president of Berkeley. Yeah, so he wasn't in the, yeah. No, he was not in the classroom. That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that's another, the Spirogyra is another band, I think younger listeners might not understand that not only did every, all of our parents who are more our age have like James Galway, but they also, everybody had to tape a Spyrogyra. Yeah.

We had multiples, you know, and I think it's because my dad was, that was like the first wave of trying to replace his LP collection. And he's like, well, I got to get the Spiro Chira. So, yeah, I grew up with this too. So let's listen to a little bit of morning dance and check out Warren Wolf's early influence here. That's Dave Samuels on the Marimba. And you were just saying that's the first solo you learn. That's the first one you transcribed? Yeah, it's kind of like after hearing all of these different horn players.

And I love gravitating to a horn players because I never really listened to mallet players. but when I, you know, hearing Charlie Parker, Cannonball, Miles, I was just like, I don't get it. But then for some reason, maybe it was because of the rhythm that was going on in the band. And, you know, it was a major key. Yeah. I was like, this kind of makes sense.

Yeah. Like it kind of opens up a little bit. I hear what's going on because he's playing the chord changes, but at the same time, he's still playing a lot of blues. That's right. Which blues always makes it easier to understand. But you can kind of hear everything pretty easy. Yeah, very easy.

It's the mix of these are so clean that you can really pick it out. That's great. So next up we have some Milt Jackson, which I think everybody thinks of, you know, one of the first when they think of jazz vibes players. So this is from a Mill Jackson record. That's the way it is featuring Ray Brown. This Frankie and Johnny. What about this is up there for you?

To be honest, the first thing that really stood out when I used to listen to this recording back in the day, honestly, was the pianist. and that's Monty Alexander on piano. I just love the way he just kind of focused on the blues. And, you know, along with Ray Brown just digging on the bass so hard, is it just the G blues? But then when Mill came in and, you know, he just kind of, he didn't play a lot.

You know, his stuff was just very simple. And it was just in the pocket. You know, I just, you know, going from Dave to hearing this, I started kind of to relate the two. Yeah. Okay, let's hear what Mill is doing. now over the swing feel. And, you know, he didn't add a lot of alternate chords and alternate notes and things

like that. He just played everything that just seemed to be like right there. And it just felt great, you know, sounded good. Let's check it out. This is Frankie and Johnny from Milt Jackson's. That's the way it is record. Featuring Ray Brown. Skip ahead a little bit.

That's Milt Jackson, Frankie and Johnny from Milt's record with Ray Brown. That's the way it is. And by the way, we'll have a Spotify playlist here linked in the show notes if you want to go check out these. three tracks and that's swinging. That's great. That's great. I love the, I could just imagine, you know, like

that walking baseline under Ray Brown, like no pressure there. But Monty Alexander up to the task for sure. And I think that was Monty's first recording with Ray. Oh, really? Like first time playing at that time, so. Yeah, I'd be terrified. All right.

So next up is, this is a solo from Roy Ayers, and this is from a Buster Williams record. Although Roy is recorded this himself. This is from Buster Williams' Crystal Reflections album, 1976, and this is Vibrations.

What is it about Royer's playing that you love so much? Because he brought like, again, mixed in. Still, that combination is like you hear the blues, you hear a soul in this playing. And a lot of people, you know, they don't really, especially today, they don't really hear Boree playing like the actual instrument.

like the vibes because he's always playing like the Malacat. And that could be probably because of a few reasons. Maybe he's getting older. It's hard to find vibes everywhere. And with the Malacat, you don't really, those who don't know what the Malacat is, is like an electric version of the Vibrephone. Yeah.

You don't have to work as hard to play it. You know, you just, it's kind of like a drum pad. You just turn it up, like a keyboard almost, except with its vibes. But here he's playing the actual instrument. And he just, he's playing with so much aggression. and power, you know, he sounds great. He's just flowing over.

It just kind of, you kind of learn how to just really get, like, the, all of the good notes when you're just playing a nice little simple groove. Again, it's the same combination, like going from Dave Samuels to Milk to Borier's, and many others, you know. Yeah. So my thing about practicing and playing has always been to take parts of all of these different players, even horn players and drummers and things like that and put them into my own ideas and then I will come a particular sound.

Well, and straight to Warren Wolf. So what is your latest release that you like people to be checking out right now? Album-wise. Are you working on something new? I'm not working on anything new at the moment, but we'll see. I mean, the plan is hopefully to record an album of just me playing everything. Cool. You know, I might have some little added extras, like, you know, horn players,

but as far as like the meat of the record, like the rather than, section, myself and vibes. That's the plan for me. Well, you did that on your open studio course. So for those of you who don't know, Warren has two courses with us, improvisation for all, and then jazz vibes voicings for beginners,

a little mini course. But on your improvisation for all, you're playing drums, you're playing upright bass, you're playing piano, and you made backing tracks for the students on all those instruments. It's pretty incredible, man.

So I'm so excited you're making a whole album, like just you style. Yeah, that's the plan. So we'll see when that happens. Stevie style. Exactly. Oh, man, that's great. So I like to talk.

I mean, all the records on Mac Avenue are a big deal for me. Yeah. But the last record, the reincarnation, which is kind of, we kind of went away from like the swing feel of the music, but it's still jazz. You know, we still had like complex harmonies and things like that. Totally. That album came out like right before the pandemic,

so it kind of got washed away. It was a good album, though. We talked about it here. I think we played a little bit on the show. I'm very happy with that record. And the last record is my Christmas Bob's record So I'd like people to get that

You know Those Christmas records can always be recycled Every year So pick one up Absolutely Come November and Listen folks It's only the same 20 tunes

So you gotta get a different version in there Exactly cool Well we'll put a link here Warren to all of your open studio courses So if you're interested in learning from Warren You should really check those out They're so good man You're such a inspired musician

It's always great to hear talk about it Always, of course, great to hear you play. And then if you're in the Minneapolis area, this Tuesday, Tuesday and Wednesday? Tuesday and Wednesday, check out Warren at the Dakota. And we'll go out on this Buster Williams, Crystal Reflections, Vibrations is the track. Roy Ayers is the vibraphonous.

Warren, well, thank you so much, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right.