You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Best Players of Odd Instruments - #114

Episode Date: May 23, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam discuss some great jazz musicians who like to play some odd instruments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Menace and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast Today we're going to talk about the seven best weird instrument players Wait what? There had to have been a better way for us to phrase this Yeah we shouldn't take more time to title this episode What are you talking about? The seven best weird instrument players

Yeah now we're not talking about weird people that play instruments We're talking about people who play weird instruments So how should we say that then? No I guess this makes sense Seven best players of weird instruments Oh, that's better. The seven best players. Why did we think of that?

Okay. Seven best players of weird instruments. That's better. So, but you get the gist of where we're going here, right? Yeah, yeah, I think so. So these are, you know, maybe famous players, and occasionally they step into playing some crazy weird instruments. Yeah, yeah, because I don't know if any of these are going to be their,

that's their exclusive instrument, because that would be weird. That would be weird. Then they're just weird people. Yeah. Which, now that I'm looking at this list, about half of them are. No, okay, so we're going to start with Steve Treve. Ray. And he is, you know, of course, an amazing trombonist for years. I first heard Steve Toree in like the early 80s, mid-80s in New York at the Village Vanguard. I'll never forget

to escape with Woody Shaw, who we should have mentioned yesterday in our trumpet episode. But we said we left plenty off. Steve Tore was with Woody Shaw and great trombonist. And I remember he came in after a trombone solo, Woody solo, and then he came back with something else in his mouth that was not a trombone. It was a giant seashell. That's odd. It was odd. Well, weird. Oh, maybe we should change the seven best players of odd instruments. Well, this is a work in progress. Sorry, whatever you see this title has, just know that that's what we eventually landed on. We learn. It takes us well. That's right. Yeah, so it was odd, but it sounded really good. I mean, it was, they worked it into the thing. Mulgrew Miller was playing piano, and, I mean, I couldn't

imagine it being pulled off any better. I know he's done it quite a bit over the years. And and really, you know, gets different sizes and stuff and knows how to use them. So way to go, Steve. That's awesome. Well, my first one, my number two, is an album of Hank Jones playing the electric harpsichord with Oliver Nelson. This is an album called Happenings, and it sounds exactly how you think it's going to sound. It's all like kind of mid-60s, groovy, kind of, you know, but actually Hank Jones is

killing on this electric harpsichord. Does it sound electric or does it just sound like out loud? No, no. I mean, it sounds like that monkey's electric harpsichord vibe. You know, the Partridge Family Electric Harpsich Club vibe. But it's Hank Jones playing it. It sounds great. Yeah.

But it's a very strange thing to hear. And he's such a great player and does such cool stuff on it that I think it's actually worth checking out. Hank Jones is so great. I'd love him, even if he was playing the Electric Harpsichord, which he apparently was. Here are some titles of songs from the album happenings that I think will tell you exactly how it sounds boardwalk samba you know how that's going to sound lullaby of jazz land cul-de-sac oh that was like a new concept that was oh guilty suburbs for your cul-de-sac

yeah and fug tune you know they kind of put a classical spin on that one well fusion that's right pre-fusion prusion uh good okay so number three i'm going to go with bobby hutcherson playing the marimba now we're not going to call the vibes a weird or odd instrument because, I mean, it is odd, but it's not that unusual and it's certainly a primary instrument. Maybe this should be seven best players of secondary instruments. See, we got a lot of different titles. Well, we can get way into that. But Bobby Hutcherson played the marimba. I don't know how much he did. I mean, he did it, I think, throughout his career, but I remember seeing him do it a lot of, okay, a lot of these stories are about the Village Vanguard. I'm thinking about

that, kind of mid-90s where he had the vibes lined up and the marimba, and he would play them both sometimes. I mean, he'd go back and forth, but sometimes he would, depending on where the solo was going, jump between him. And it seems like it would be such a novelty and a gimmick, but it wasn't. It was the most incredible musical experience. I mean, and the timbre would change, and it was just so appropriate and amazing. I'll never forget. It's some of the greatest music I've ever heard in my life. It's such a cool sound. It's a beautiful sound. It is. Yeah. Now, all night, just that, I don't know, maybe the vibes is a little more suited in terms of a mild thing. But if you know how to do it, like he did. It's like switching between a piano and

a Fender Roads, right? That's right. Exactly. So I'm going to go next. I'm going to go with something that's near and dear to my heart, and that's Jonathan Batiste playing the melodica. And that's because I often play a melodica, especially in my band, the 442s. I play melodica all the time because sometimes a piano is a little too thick

for all the string instruments, so I find that it kind of fits in there with it. And this is really fun. You don't think that instrument sucks a little bit? Yeah, it sucks a little bit, sure, yeah. But it is really, it is really, a fun thing to play. So I understand Jaybats'

affinity for it to play. Yeah, and I mean, he's really, you know, he's taken one of the best elements and I've seen you do this too and that you can physically move around a la'a the dukey stick with George Duke, you know, that you can use, get some little bit of mobility going on.

And I mean, Jonathan coming from New Orleans and with his band he loves getting almost like a street parade kind of vibe on some of his gigs. And that's a cool thing you can do what that is. It's true. So I'm going to go now with one that I actually have, I remember hearing the record, but I forgot what it was, and we do very little research on the Eurohero podcast. Yeah, sure.

But that's Ron Carter playing the cello. I heard this. I saw him do it live one time at Sweet Basels years ago, not the Village Fanger. And he was amazingly accomplished cell and he had a bass player playing with him. So I know he'll go over. I think he also did some kind of like soprano bass thing or some kind of a piccolo bass maybe it was. Oh, cool.

But he also definitely did cello. And his cello was tuned in fifth, right? It wasn't tuned like a bass. I don't know. I wasn't that adept. It has to be. Yeah, you would think so. Yeah, it would sound super weird if it wasn't.

Wow. It sounded super weird, actually. You know, it was just kind of shocking because you see Ron Carter, you're thinking about those bass lines. I'm surprised there. Maybe we should do, you know, if we do another episode like this, we should do classical instruments on jazz recordings. don't really hear a lot of jazz cello.

I was thinking I've actually saw this video on YouTube randomly the other day of this player in Europe who was like burning jazz musician that plays the French horn. Yeah. And I was like, that is such a cool sound. Why don't you hear that? It must be super hard to do. Right.

That's kind of interesting thing. Actually, I'm just looking here now. He did some cello on... Nope, sorry, that was a different record. I don't want to give it away until the next one. I guess I could jump to the next one, even though it's not my turn. That was going to be McCoy Tyner on harpsichord. Go ahead.

And so that, I remember, I was like, yeah, I know Ron was on there, but he's not doing Chiloh. But McCoy played harpsichord, and I think he played Chaleste. Is it Chalester? Chalester as well. And Piano, and Trident is a great record. It is not like a gimmick thing. And, you know, you would think that McCoy

Tyner would just like bruise up. I mean, you wouldn't want to pull like a dainty old Baroque harpsichord out. It's going to need to have a little bit of strength for McCoy, but he's going at it. Well, since you just mentioned the Chalesta, I'm going to call him. audible here and I'm going to throw a bonus. Okay.

This will be like number 6.5. What? And this is Thelonious Monk on the Chalesta. That's one of my favorite auxiliary I mean, because he's so childlike in his approach and like this

you know, and so you add the Chalesta, which is if you don't know what Chalesta is, it's the Dance of the Sugar Plum Ferry's instrument. It's the Harry Potter instrument. It's a keyboard instrument that is basically a keyboard glockin-spiel. It's orchestra bells that you have. And it's got to have hammers that It has hammers that hit these tone bars, these metal tone bars.

Beautiful instrument. And so Monk, what is it? I think it's Brilliant Corners. He does Ruby My Deer solo piano with the Chalesta. It's just gorgeous. But he still sounds like Monk, which is so interesting. I know. Yeah, his voicings and everything.

He fits them on there. So I guess we're up to number seven. That's right. And so we talked about this one. We wanted to go a little bit, a different kind of weird. This is Mike Brecker, Michael Brecker, the great Michael Brecker, on the Iwi. Yeah, I like that actually. I love it.

And actually, it's not that weird, but the name is weird. It is weird, though. The Iwi is weird. It's a little weird. It looks weird. It sounds great. It sounds good, but it sounds weird. It does sound weird.

But it really, the name is weird. The ewee. It's like, you. I actually love it, man. There's a great saxophonist who's in Kansas City named Matt Otto, who comes over here to St. Louis and we'll hang out and sit in on some stuff. And he plays in Iwi occasionally and he can do the bass on it. And he like he really makes that thing sing.

It's a fun thing to play with. It's a mini controller as well. Yeah, it's basically just like a wind. I mean, it's an electronic wind instrument. Right, right. I mean, Bob Mincer, I love the way he plays it. And, yeah. Did Brantford ever do one with when he was with?

I think he did with Sting or something. I remember seeing him with one. Yeah, it's a different kind of thing. I mean, but you know, it's the same kind of, like if you're a great saxophone play. I mean, look, Mike Brecker was amazing. And, you know, you could kind of stick a recorder in his hands, it probably would have been pretty good. That would be a weird

instrument. That would be a weird instrument. I'm sure it's been done. You know what? I was, I don't want to shoot my own horn, but often at the end of these lists we do, I somehow throw myself onto him. Maybe I'll go number eight Peter Martin on the recorder. Back in the day, I was kind of known as, I mean, my chops are still up, too. Come on.

No, I'm serious. I can play that bad boy in tune. My fingers are really good. I'm pretty good. Really? Yeah. All right, that's the next episode of You'll Hear It, seven minutes of Peter Martin playing the recorder. Hello. We can come back tomorrow and... You hopefully won't hear that.

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