You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 6 Definitive Solos

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

Alright it's time to get dogmatic! We got the 6 most definitive solos in Jazz. Only one solo per instrument so you know its about to go down.Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey. You want to play a game? Sure. I'm going to play three chords. I'm going to start on an E-flat major. I want you to then play three chords, starting with my last chord. So let's call this three-card Monty.

Three-cord Monty. I'm going to play an E-flat major chord. Then I'm going to play an E-flat major chord. Then I'm going to play three chords starting with my last chord. Then I'm going to play three chords starting with your last chord. Okay. Ready? Yep.

With that? Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah, you got it. Yep. C-7. Yeah.

Altered. Okay, so I go. B7, yeah, sharp 11. Well, you know I like that, G-I do. How about this, though? Yeah, you got, you got. Yeah, A7, 13, flat nine. Okay, so.

See, how you did that pick one piece, listen to the root. G7, yeah, you got to find the root. G7, 13, flat nine. All right, one more, one more. That's an F. Oh, no, C. C, yeah, yeah. I'm Adam Maness.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hearer Podcast. Music advice coming at you. And games. That was kind of a fun game. That was fun. Three chord Monty. Three chord Monty.

This could become a thing. Yeah. I don't know how did I miss that last. It was like... Well, to be fair, we did have a pattern established. I got stuck in the pattern. That's a good thing for your training. Pattern recognition is important, but you have to know when the pattern is broken.

Yeah. And you couldn't get closer than C major and F major. So I hear you. there. I hear you there. We do have a speak pipe today that is going to be the basis of... We're playing a different kind of game. I love this question. This is from our friend, Zach.

Okay. Hey, Adam. It's your buddy, Zach from Houston. Long time, listener. More time adherent to the gentleman and ladies' agreement. Yes. Hey, I just saw a video posted by the great young Jackson Cormon from the Cusha Benjamin. She was playing John Coltrane's son.

solo on giant steps. And it got me thinking that's sort of like the definitive tenor-sac solo, the kind of signals, okay, you're a serious saxophone player. And I thought,

what are those definitive solos on each instrument? So, for example, on trumpet, my main instrument, I would say that Clifford Brown solo on Cherokee is like the solo. And for maybe

Alto Sax, maybe Charlie Parker on Coco, also on the Cherokee changes. We're going to have some disagreements on this one, and of course, train on Giant Step. I don't know what it is on piano.

I know what Peter's going to say. I'd be curious to hear what y'all think the definitive piano solo is, and by definitive, I mean to demonstrate that you've got the technique of the pro and maybe for other instruments too.

I don't know, maybe you can trombone. Would that be? Maybe for trombone? Probably not. It's a great idea, right? It's a little nice thought experiment. Yeah. And, Zach, honestly,

I'm feeling two of your artists, but I'm going to choose a couple of different solos from them. Right. So you came up with your own list of this. I have my own list of what I think is the definitive. And I'm judging. this, Zach, not by like any sort of technical aspects, but how often I hear young musicians play these solos, transcribe them, quote them in their solos. Just as you were talking about

Lakeisha Benjamin, who's amazing, by the way, I'm gauging by sort of what I see as popular solos. First of all, let's just say, here at the, you'll hear a podcast, it opens to you in general. Yeah. We never try to put our foot in the sand and put a foot in the sand, line in the sand. And say, we would never do something like, these are the 10 greatest albums. This is the most, we don't do that kind of thing. We would never, ever do that. No, so I'm just looking up definitive of a conclusion or our agreement done and reached decisively and with authority.

Well, we definitely got authority. We have trouble being decisive sometimes. Yeah, and some of these might be controversial, but I don't think so. I think a lot of these, you could make an argument for the definitive solo on their instruments, or at least extremely influential in most circles. Yeah, so influential and kind of... Modern circles. We'll say modern circles.

Kind of popular for players of that instrument. Yes. Not necessarily the definitive jazz album for the GP, general public. These are solos. If you play any of these instruments, you bet had no one. You definitely have at least check them out and probably transcribing. We'll start first with Zach's initial discovery of Giant Steps on the tenor sax at home. That's the definitive.

I mean, it doesn't get any more definitive than this solo. We can all sing it, right? Right. But if I were to say Sonny Rollins, on St. Thomas Live at the Vanguard is the definitive. Would you argue with me on that? Sunny Rollins live at the Vanguard, St. Thomas?

St. Thomas? Are you from Saxophone Colossus? Saxophone Colossus. I guess it's not the definitive because I forgot which album is off. Yeah. You could make an argument. You could make an argument.

There's a couple of Wayne shorter solos you could probably make an argument for. But it seems like John Colt. It's probably John's steps. Yeah. So let's put a checkmark by that way. Now, Charlie Parker, he mentioned Coco, which is the changes to Cherokee.

All right, so it's not Coco, but it is Charlie Parker for the alpha saxophone. Great. This is the one, the version, too. There's a lot of it. Like, that's played a lot, you know. Sue me, I love Charlie Parker. Peter knows every note. Oh.

Okay. Is that chorus perhaps like the most definitive blues chorus? For sure, for certain. For everything? Yeah. For bebop? I don't know. For saxophone?

You want to start learning bebop you start with that first. Actually, that's a solo. The whole thing is so much you can learn on. Charlie Parker, now's the time. And I think that there's always a lot of confusion with this because it's been repackaged so much. I don't even know what original album this was on. Confusion for us, even. Yeah, yeah.

Well, this is the one where they play two chorus. He plays two choruses on the metal. There's a slower version that's really good that I wouldn't say is the definitive. Not because it's not as good. It's just not as definitive. I don't know. Like this one. people have coalesced around for all the right reasons.

I think there's so much that, like the way that he phrases on the melody, the temple, the slower one is good too, but it's just a different thing, you know? Yeah. The way he leaves the melody on that second chorus and starts like doing some sort of pre-improve foreshadowing. Yep. Just the swing factor. I mean, but I could see some people being like, well, why is that, why is this any

better than Coco? Why is this any better than his great, like on So on Just Friends from Bird with Strings? Also, it would have been a top choice. Yeah. too, actually. That's what's hard because Parker was very consistent and concise. I mean, part of it was like the recording length, but I mean like the amount of definitive bebop information, just music, blues information. He put in each solo that you could pick a bunch, but if you're going to pick one, I would say, I would agree. Yeah. And then I concur. Yeah, for trumpet, there's so many. We could have used West End blues or so what by Miles Davis. But I agree Clifford Brown has one of the most iconic solos. I don't agree it's Cherokee, although that is a great choice, Zach. We might have our first controversy here. Well, Cherokee's great, and it's a great song. It could be either one of these, but

I hear this one talked about a little bit more. Ah, boom. Talked about it because of its singability, because of how easy it is to learn and how iconic these ideas are. This is Sandhu, Clifford Brown, on the trumpet. The effortless

swinging blues. Max Roach. This is Harold Land or Sunny Rollins? I should know that. I want to say Harold Lamb. Yeah, probably. Uh-huh. Harold Lamb. It's such a perfect soul.

It's so fucking good. And it just continued. It's so good. It'll all the way through. Got a couple of blues on this list. The balance of the phrases. The harmonic, you know, little delving into some interesting harmonic things. And that's it.

Two choruses. Learn that. Learn that. It's such an easy one to learn, and you learn so much about music from transcribing that solo. I think it's a little more accessible than the Cherokee solo,

just because of the tempo, obviously. But he does go into those double-time phrases, which are not easy on, like, the piano. Some of those are tough to play. So I'm going to disagree. As great as I think that is, I think that what you,

because you mentioned West End Blues. Now, had I not, you had not put that on my mind in terms of being the definitive trumpet solo, because I feel like, if someone were to wake me up in the middle of that and say, what's the most definitive jazz soul ever played? I would probably blurt out Louis Armstrong, West End Blues.

Okay. Well, let's hear a little bit of that. Because it's just the intro, right? Yeah, and the whole thing. Yeah, I get it. This is up there for sure. They're both. Yeah, and I mean.

Also, like, I think so what. I'm talking about, like, when you hear that people being able to just recall every single note and nuance of a solo, that's what I'm sort of my criteria. Yeah, and maybe I get sucked into like a good story in terms of like I always thought about and sort of learned it and heard it describe from the elders as like really a defining like an opening up of modern jazz. For sure. There's no doubt about it. Yeah, I mean the influences, you know, King Oliver, of course and others in New Orleans and beyond on Lewis Armstrong. But like this being the first great.

And what is this like 1929 or something crazy? Yeah, it's ridiculous. So I mean, maybe it's not the definitive trouble. Maybe this is just the definitive jazz solo. It probably is the definitive jazz solo. We can do that. Then we can still have the Clifford Brown. People are going to be like, you don't have anything from the Otts or the 2020s? Well, not yet.

But I mean, there's plenty of, yeah, there's plenty we can go to there. But I can totally see it. All of these, by the way, are completely subjective. So speaking of the aughts. Although the definition of definitive is totally objective. It's true. I know. Well, that's impossible, though.

Here's one from the Oats. This is the guitar solo. And this might be a little controversial. You had mentioned a wild card might be making it. All the kids, I feel like, know this solo. Right. And my kids, you're talking about people in their 30s and 40s. People of millennials, mostly.

This is Kurt Rosenwinkel. Yeah. Javago. I can't think of a more influential instrumentalist of his generation on his instrument than Kurt Rosenwinkel. I mean, can you change the game? Big words you said? I mean, can you think of someone in the last 25 years who has, like, influenced more

guitarists? I mean, Pat Matheny book for him. And you have, of course, like, Mark Whitfield and Russell Malone and a handful of, like, amazing. Peter Bernstein, like so many great players. Obviously, Schofield, like, these legends. But, man, everybody...

Jimmy Hendricks. Everybody's trying to get their Kurt stuff together. And this is the original. Hugely influential. That's a great composition, too. I love this melody. So are you saying the definitiveness was the intro solo or what he's going to?

The intro solo, for sure. I think this composition also is... But the guitar solo. This is like a... I love this solo, too. Let's get a little bit so we can hear just a little bit of the solo. Let's start it. It's pretty killing, man.

Yeah, so obviously, this could be super controversial and argued that there's... I mean, I love Grant Green, too. You know, my favorite solos... West Montgomery. There's a ton of great ones, but I think you could put this up here. Yeah, so...

And I think it begs the greater question, which could be interesting fodder for a future episode, perhaps, which is, I think it's harder now, and by now I would even say back, going maybe back to this century, like to around 2000 or so, or maybe a little bit later up till now, to have a definitive solo. Yeah, like, because think about like Christian McBride, what's his definitive solo? What's the definitive great Christian McBride?

There's just a lot of great moments, aren't there? Yeah. But it's hard to say because it hasn't been. totally fleshed out. Yeah. He's still... Or Wintmarsau. What's the definitive? Like, why is it easier for us to say, like, with Clifford Brown, maybe there was two or three, but we are pretty... Closed on those folks, you know, from the way back, I think.

You know, I mean, for me... But are people coalescing around albums and particular, like, because there's so much more available, and you can go see Kurt Rosen Winkle and, like, you can see what he did last week on a Europe tour on YouTube. I think it depends on that. Your generation, right? So I know for a lot of people, Peter, like they mentioned your record with Joshua Redmond, the Live of the

Vanguard, your solo on St. Thomas. People mentioned Brad Meldow's solo on things like when it rains or all the things you are. That's going back away, though. It is going back. But I'm saying like, you kind of have to, right? Like, so if we think of... That's what I'm saying, like, did some, and we'll talk about the song in other episode because it'll be interesting.

More recently, Corey Henry's solo on Lingus, you could say is a definitive solo of... Which is a live thing, right? You could, I mean, there's a ton of things with Jacob Collier. or whatever, you know, the more modern players that you could talk about. Yeah. But it's harder.

It is a lot harder. Yeah. It's fun, though. And I don't think it's a right or wrong. Everything shouldn't, there's never going to be another, there's never going to be a need for another West and Blues solo. And there's never going to be another, which is great. Yeah.

You know, and Kurt Rosenwinkel, I think the influence that he has, we haven't talked about him enough because it's not that we love guitar here. But, I mean, something I really learned from, what? Was that a smirk? Will you be smirching the guitarist? No, I'm just, I'm second-guessing my pick of such a modern thing now that we've talked about it because it is so controversial. No, but this is- Because you can put tons of Pat Mathini solos up for grabs for this one as well. Right.

Which actually we have. And I think the guitar is such a great, like, guitars are like, it's such a rich tapestry within the jazz world, probably more diverse in terms of different stylistic directions than piano. Unless you talk about keyboards and stuff. It's almost like if you talk about greatest keyboard solo, definitive keyboard solo, that's something. hard because are you talking about some Joe Zavinal stuff on Weather Report? Are you talking about Chick, Chick, Carrillo? Yeah, or Keith Jarrett's solo piano or, you know, Willie the Lion Smith. So, I mean, it's like. There's a ton. And that's kind of with guitar. Like, you talk about Pat McNeany. You know, West Montgomery. Jimmy Hendricks. Yeah. I mean, you know,

a lot going on. All right, here's one, speaking of Pat Mathini, our most definitive bass solo also might be controversial. I was going to say, I thought you'd do a Pat Mathematheed, you're going to replace. This is Pat Mathemini recording, but it's Jaco. pastorius, bright-sized life. Is this the most definitive Papatini record? It might be. Probably.

It might be. And again, we're leaving out Ray Brown. Right. I love how we say, like, the definitive record, be like the definitive greatest record, definitive most popular.

Let's get that. Influential. To the bass over here. Oh, this is Jackal. Yeah, yeah. He knows how to craft a song that's fun to improvise over. Oh, man.

It would be fun to play in Pat Mathematine's band doing all this stuff. It would be amazing. This would be unicorns. dancing through a metal. Yeah, for sure. That's a great solo.

So are we saying this is the definitive tackle solo? No, we're not saying anything. We're not saying anything. We're taking it all back. This is the definitive electric solo? This is the problem when we go with, Zach, when you go with like,

this is the definitive anything, it's so hard to nail one down because now I've got about a million like Paul Chambers, Ray Brown, Oscar Peders, Charles Mingus Solo's going through my brain. Scott LaFaro's solos that, you know, I mean, hell

there's like, even like Christian McBride, Larry Grenadier, like Ruben Rogers, there's a ton of folks who I have, there's solos that I love that we're leaving out. It's tough. Right. But I mean, definitive, so I would say, I don't even know if this is the most

definitive greatest or most influential jaco solo because isn't like for basses, isn't Donna Lee? Is that a solo? Is that just a head? Well, it's him solo. Yeah, play it.

Yeah, exactly. I thought about Donnelly, honestly. All right, here's for drums. None of this matters. We're ditching this episode. None of this map. None of it's definitive. It's all subjective.

Zach is our buddy, and he said y'all in his question. That gets you onto the pod just with that, because that takes me back down south. All right, here we go. Drums. Billy Joe Jones, two-base hit. Okay. Now I'm with it. Definitive.

Jazz drum solo. This is a jazz drum solo. You've got to know. He's already soloing, too. I think, actually, I take it all back. He's our definitive. You've got to know all these solos. This one is, yeah.

Oh. Snare drum, hello. All the playing here, man. Hey! This is very influential solo. Yeah, it really is. Greg, there's a couple of... Brian Blade, I'm looking at you.

A couple of R. Blakey solos, I think you could say, could be up here on this list for sure. But it's hard to argue with this one. You've done good on this. Yeah. Defensive Jazzol. Short and sweet, too. On top of everything else.

You play some more. Hey. Snair chop as much. You could argue maybe Tony Williams playing all throughout Nefertiti could be up here as influential. Yeah, but if somebody said, I don't really know much about jazz, but play me the most, a definitive jazz. If you threw that on it, it would be killing. It would be some kind of Philly Joe art play key, something. Yeah.

Yeah. It would be something. Good call. Let's go out on the most definitive piano solo. I think if you're a long-time listener and a long-time open studio person, you probably know what this is going to be. Yeah. If someone says, play a jazz piano solo that is digestible, singable,

easy to learn a bunch from, what would you say, Peter? Well, before we say that, I've got some business we have to attend to. Sorry, do you know about something called the gala. The gentleman-l-l-l-de-per-to-up. I think you're going to start talking about numbers. No, no, no. This is important because we've seen away from this. I don't want to.

No, no. We swayed away from this. We gave you a little break on this, but that does not mean that the agreement has not continued. I don't know if you've been checking out in the comments. Folks have been agreeing with just a simple gala. Now you might ask, what does gala stand for? Well, it stands for a beautiful celebration in an uptight hotel ballroom, usually.

We don't like that too. With business casualty tile and a pressure to raise money. No, this is G-A-L-A. Side note, Adam and I have been auctioned. off at Gala's many times. Several times. Super embarrassing. Okay, Gala stands for the gentlemen and ladies agreement. Well, you might say, I am neither a gentleman nor a lady. Yes, you are. If you listen to this podcast, you are one of those or something else. It doesn't matter. You choose what you want, but you just have to agree, right? You do. And what are they agreeing to? Wait, I don't know.

Explain it to me again? Okay, the agreement is that we will provide you with a beautiful high quality podcast, which obviously you made it all the way to this point. So you agree. Was it beautiful in high quality though? But unlike most podcasts, there's a fallacy. There's a, there's a misunderstanding out there in the world that podcasts are free. They are not free. Your payment is to go to the YouTube channel right now, even if you're listening to somewhere else, and subscribe. And then maybe even put in the comments if you want to go next level, gala, or agreement adhered to. Or if you want to get more flowery with your verbiage, you may do that. But that is what the agreement is. What the agreement is.

is that is your payment. We give you the pod. You subscribe to us, which feeds our egos. It feeds the algorithm. It really makes the world go round. It makes the world go round. Anything else we need on the gallery?

No, that's pretty much. So go subscribe to the YouTube channel. Just search. You'll hear it. And we will come up, our beautiful faces and our beautiful channel. You might want to check us out there. Now, for the most definitive piano solo of all time.

We're going out on this. Softball. Until next time. You'll hear. It.