You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Favorite NON-Jazz Solos

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Adam and Peter do a listening sesh and discuss their favorite "non-jazz" solos. Check out their spotify playlist here and take a more in depth dive to these classics. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Instagram

Yo, Adam. Yo. Guess what? What? Today, there's none of this. No jazz solos. Good. I'm Adam Annis.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Music advice coming at you. Oh, back to the original. I really like that one, though. Really? I like that one. I'm sticking with it.

If you like it, we're doing it. No, I react very positively to music advice coming at. First of all, the coming at you is a hallmark of the channel. It's a little aggressive, but it is. No, but it is. It's like a freight train. Like an out of control, musical, theoretical, conceptual train flying at you. Also, our original tagline of daily jazz advice coming at you.

It's too specific. It's too... Talk about coming at you every day. And jazz only? I mean, come on, man. No. We're bigger. We're people of the universe.

We're not... It's not limit ourselves through these arbitrary cartoonish labels. Exactly. And today, this is especially appropriate because we are focusing on... First of all, my name's Peter. Martin. This is Adam Maness. I already did that part, but okay. Oh, did we? That's right. We kind of did.

But we wanted to do a special welcome because we have a bunch of new listeners, it being the new year. Apparently, this podcast is, people are approaching it much as they do a gym membership. Okay. And that they like to sign up at the beginning of the year. It also sounds like we're in a dental office again, with some drilling up there. They probably can't even hear that, honestly. But yeah, so welcome into the new listeners. We're just here talking about music.

And we do often talk about jazz, but we don't always talk about jazz like today. We are specifically excluding jazz. Yeah. So this drilling up here, it kind of sounds like a, does it sound like a Roland synth base almost? Yeah, it does. It has like a very like square wave kind of vibe. Interesting. I think to a lot of people, kind of the drilling that you would feel or hear at the dentist office is the way a jazz solo feels to them.

So this is probably good. Well, I'll tell you what, Peter, another thing. We're going to drill down on some great solos today. Oh, come on now. How about that for a little transition there? We are going to start with one of my favorite solos of all time. Okay, let's start with one of yours. How about that?

Okay, this is the great Steve Piccaro. Yes. Of the band... I was Pekoro. I don't know. I think it's Piccaro, but it's of the band Toto. Toto. Like The Wizard of Oz Toto.

This is Africa. Everybody knows this solo, right? It's a synth cell. This is classic synth layering. But I think the drums on this is really... Well, this whole track is classic. Let's listen just a little bit of the... beginning because it's one of the greatest beginnings. Just to pull people back to the

this is Africa from Toto. I love this thin solo so much. It just, uh, I think it was one of the first solos I ever like learned by lit by being able to listen and sing along, you know. Of course, the soundscape is incredible. Here's the solo. First of all the key change going into it. Penitonic, huh? We're going to get a lot of pentatonic solace then. Oh. And that's it. And that's all you need in a big smash poppet. That's the whole solo. That's a it. But that's all you need. Let's listen to do it again. There's time to listen to it twice. It's a good setup here.

The little background marimba synth there is sort of setting things up, right? The verse changes. Yeah. And then the little back, yeah, the marimba comes in stronger the second phrase. A little bebop-esque. Chick-ish. It's chickish. Yeah. Chick-Ariam. Steve Piccaro, Africa, Toto.

Next up. Did we mention what we're doing? I guess they would have known from the title. Seven, our seven favorite non-jazz souls. We just jumped right in. Yeah, but we, these are our seven favorite solos that have nothing to do, well, not nothing. We have a bonus. We do have a bonus. Well, but all of, well, you have some these are some of these are, some of these are jazz adjacent. Well, definitely this one, this next one is, which is one of your picks, is jazz adjacent. This couldn't, and to your credit, but it's not a jazz solo. Definitely not. And to your credit, this, there's no way this couldn't have made this list. And this is, it is a famous one. It's a great one. This is Wayne Shorter on Steely Dan's, on the title

track for Asia, which is, you know. One of the great Steely Dan records. Great Steely Dan. And certainly, if you were to make a list of the greatest jazz adjacent records, just because of the collaborators or bands, Steely Dan would certainly be up there. Asia is one of the greatest records of all time, in my opinion. And I, you know, I'm just a sucker for this exact era of music of all kinds. But Steely Dan, at this time, Asia, every track is a banger, in my opinion.

And the fact that Wayne Shorter blows on this is... It's like a big, massive solo at the... really goes somewhere on a long track. You know, I know we got a lot of Steely Dan lovers. We got a lot of Steely Dan haters out there. There's always a handful. Oh, come on. You can't hate it on the Dan.

People don't. Only that you can hate on them is that the name is not an actual person, which I thought as a young lad. I was like, wow, that's, I was like, which one of those guys is Steely? I think it's a couple of things. You know, some people don't enjoy the pristine nature of Steely Dan's music. But then other people, I don't think they like Steely Dan because they don't like the other people that listen to Steely Dan's music.

Dam. Do you know what I mean? They don't consider their identity art ingesters and they don't want to be identified with people. Is there like a yeah is there like a slacker artistic loving pot head from the 70s aesthetic that might be associated erroneously? No no no no no I think it's more the I think it's more the prescription drug jazz fest commercial okay you know people sit laying in bathful dead crossover a little bit no grateful dead crossover at all no this is more just like people going to a jazz fest, wine fest, smooth jazz thing, right?

That they're like, I don't want to be with those. Oh, prescription drugs like diet pills, do you mean? No, no, no, no. I mean like heart medication drug. Like I'm talking to old people, essentially. Like, this is music. No, not at all. This is music like maybe you're...

You're talking about medicinal, not recreational drugs. Yeah, no, no, I'm talking about prescription drug commercials, right? Cialis commercial. And they're going to a jazz fest and they're wearing kind of like cargo shorts and hats. And people think of Steely Dan might think of that kind of crowd. Well, now, yeah. Yeah, but I'm saying, like, you know, if you're into the dance, say it loud and proud.

And, you know, other people will come come with. See, I'm going back, I'm old enough to remember not exactly when this was released, but close by. So I'm going back to more like the fans. It was like kind of a, of course. It was a big group. Yeah. There was some pop appeal, but there was also a No, there was definitely like some LSD

involved, for sure, even though it was so clean. Right. Yeah, I agree. Right. Here's, Incal. Asia. Where's the solo? It's at the end. Or towards the end. And I mean, honestly, in some people's defense of who aren't the biggest Dan fans, it is fairly slick for pop music.

It's very slick. And some people, there's a criticism that it's antiseptic, you know, that it's so clean and that it's like so to the grid. I mean, this is, I think it's a Steve Gat on here. So he is a grid. It is, yeah, yeah. Is this Steve Gatt? I believe it is, yeah.

Highly produced, you know. Detail oriented. I don't think it's voice. Lots of edits, of course. I mean, here it goes. Here it is, yeah. This is an amazing solo. He's soloing over the same band.

He's his dad, though. Ah. Damn. I mean, this had to be in here, but this is so close to, especially the jazz of the time. I know. If this was made. Well, it's like weather report.

It's weather report. Yeah, here he's on the Pee, keep you time. It's pretty amazing. That's a good solo. It's not a jazz solo. It's a non- jazz solo? Wayne Shore. We're going to say it's not.

I have one that's definitely not. Okay. Definitely not. Much from my next pick. So this is Allison Krauss in Union Station. So Allison Krauss, of course, Bluegrass, sort of Newgrass, country,

certainly. Newgrass. And this is the most beautiful song called Maybe. And I'll just play a little bit of the song. But the solo here is by Dobroist Jerry Douglas, one of the great instrumentalists in the world. my opinion. And this is like for me like an incredible amount of, you know, I mean, you, I know you've done soloing in like the context of like a pop song, right? Which is a little different than having it open. We're tipping, you know, we're interacting. And you got a shoot shot. Yes, right. This is a great example. And every note matters. Like I think Wayne, even though like that was a lot of notes he was playing. It felt like because this was Stevie. But actually he was very attentive to that in terms of. It was built. I mean, it's Wayne. I haven't. not yeah Jerry Douglas I think is on a world-class improviser level for sure and so this is maybe

we'll just listen to a little bit and then we'll go to the the Dubrow solo nice thoughts were stacked in favor of my head like in above the red ever falling from Tuesday came and maybe it's for the big thing about bluegrass musicians band is they're all playing this great stuff and then they're all singing yeah when you get to the chorus here everybody How good is that? You know what makes this not a jazz soul already? Is that he's not playing already. I know.

Like there's so many places he could have been filling already. Listen how beautiful that is. Harmony. The purity to it, it's like... All right, let's get ahead to the solo. It's a very detailed-oriented as well. If you'd sing it, got the blues in it, you know what I mean? A lot of blues.

I love when he went to the octaves just for like three notes only. Let's listen to that again. Again, it's just like shoot your shot. Jerry. You weren't worried about another extra chorus. You're looking for an extra chorus. Right at the right spot. Just a textual change right at the right space.

When you're playing a... In that last line, when you're playing a short solo, the form of it, everything that you play has an outsized effect on the form, which is the story of the solo, right? I think that's something that we need to... Well, I mean, if you think about it, who are the great jazz solos that actually kind of fit into this format, for sure.

Wayne, we heard that. Yeah. But Miles. Yeah. You know, like, it's an important thing that gets lost on a lot of jazz players because they think they have the ability in the facility to, like, just keep playing and throwing a bunch of stuff in there. I mean, Jerry Douglas, to me, and he has a, he's, I mean, this is decades of this kind

of thing, you just heard. He's got that, that melodic instinct that Wayne has. You know, I mean, it's a totally different context, and, of course, it's not as open as what Wayne was doing there, but like... Conceptually, though, it's kind of close. Conceptually, though, like, you can sing it, but it's not, it doesn't sound prescribed at all. You know, it doesn't sound pre-thought.

It sounds like human and in the moment, and then there's, like, these little textual things he does and little humanness that happens. Yeah. And that's, and like every great instrumentalist, like, he's super consistent with that across his career. Yeah, and it's a story. It's a story. You know, and it just shows you, like, a story doesn't have to be super complex,

but it does need some parts to it. And so, like, it's a lot hard. in a short story like that. It's way harder. To get the, you know, the idea and then some development, a little bit of conflict. Dude, doing what he just did? That is high-level stuff. That's high-level stuff.

Well, speaking of a high-level, Peter. What do we have next? Oh, okay, this one's my... Oh, I see what you're doing here. We're going back and forward. One of your all-time saves. Okay, so this is the meters. Yeah.

Like, this one, I was trying to... Because I was like, the meters never really... I mean, they do solo, but it's the little... little detailed things, kind of like what we just heard from Jerry Douglas, I think, that really do it for me. So this is Apaki Way, and we can just start it at the beginning. So there's, Zigabu Modest as a great drum solo. People think about this as an intro and a groove, which it is, and it's much copy. But I would call it a solo, you know, because he's playing by himself. So let's check it out. But then we're going to check out some Art Neville on the piano,

and it is a bunch of nice little... Would that be something you might be interested in? Yes. Yes. Here we go. Hey, Pockyway, from the meters. Yeah. Come on. Okay. So we can just pause it right there. Sorry.

Okay, so right there. There's two great solas already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Zigaboo. And then, you know, like, I'm kind of messing it up here. But those are like the important elements to it. It seems so simple. And so many people like myself just now kind of ate that, you know, want to imitate it.

But like, to be able to, and that was not planned out. I mean, I've heard them play it. Like, there's different versions of it, whatever. But this is the classic version. Yeah. Just do something up front. You know, but it's the same thing. Like, they're kind of together, both playing solos, but it's sort of an intro, but they're not also thinking, like, it's my time to shine.

They're really setting up the tune at the same time, but it's not a specific thing. There's, yeah, it's a groove, and we know what's coming up. But then when George Porter comes in, the baseline is so specific, which I wouldn't say as a soul, but we got to keep listening just to hear it, because that's what really locks the thing in, and gives them the ability to sort of do these cool solos before that. Start from the beginning. Yeah. So now in the back of the mix, the piano. but it's just like you're in a swamp already. And so this is like comping.

It's not necessarily solo in what our Neville's doing, but... It's all about that change, man. That little chord changed that one little thing. So impactful. I mean, just like the little, like, the meters were like just... The mask of the little detailed mini solo, you know what I mean? 100%.

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some rating and reviews. We have been. Peter's going to read one at the end of the show. Because we read everyone when we remember. We do. Next up. Hold up. We got to just tell them about the agreement. What's the agreement? Oh, you don't know about the agreement? What's the agreement? Well, you kind of just outlined it. Okay, this is the deal. We provide you with two

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Retribution. It sounds negative. Retribute against us by going and liking and subscribing for us on YouTube. That's it. That's a good deal. It was a long way around to say what exactly I just said.

I know, but I wanted them to know that it's agreement. It's a gentleman's agreement that we're doing this, okay? So that means, like, it's not a contract. We're not making you sign it, but come on. You know what I'm saying? It's agreement. So we'll agree to disagree. No, we can agree on that.

Rating and reviews, like some subscribes. Okay. Next up is I had to put some Jimmy Hendricks on this list, and there could have been 20 tracks on this list. Of course. And I actually, we don't go really deep on. a lot of guitarists here, we could because obviously in like pop music, guitar solos

are like everywhere, you know. But I mean, Jimmy Hendricks has got to be as jazz adjacent of an improviser as anybody, but I think it's because he's so blues adjacent. We forget what we're going to listen to is just one of the greatest blues guitarists who ever lived, James Hendricks.

I don't even know if it's just a good one. Red House, of course, from our experience. Leadbelly Hendricks. And I know for most guitarists or whatever This is probably overplayed or whatever But

It's overplayed by every other guitar is for sure It's so amazing I mean if you listen to every Jimmy Hendricks solo Like getting back to about Like to me this interlinks perfectly With Jerry Douglas And the meters

In the fact that there's this like Like you said like There's precision But there's room for things to happen Like that opening 12 bar solo there Is not there's not perfection No You know there's like

sliding and finding stuff and like but it's like that's what makes it so great and that's what makes all of Jimmy's solos so amazing. It's why he's one of the greatest instrumental in all the time. He's telling a story. He's telling a story. Recurring theme here. Super confident in what he's doing. Yeah. Lighting his friggin' guitar on fire

on the state. You know what I mean? And in the recording studio as well. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Next up is one of yours. This is a double bonus at the end by the way. Is this your lunch order or is this? All right, we should definitely jump ahead. So this is just a fun thing that

you know, this is from radiant children. I don't know much about them, but I remember hearing this and I was like, this is a nice synth solo. That's all I have to say.

And it's not a jazz solo. And it made your top list of all time. Well, I mean, we didn't say top. We said, our seven favorite.

Yeah. I got a bonus for you. So I'm going to, I mean, this is good. But I mean, look, I like to go off the grid a little bit. Oh, so this is what we're doing. So we're doing.

That's what you want? B plus is an F. Okay. Okay. Can you jump to the solo? Sure. Let me just get a flavor for it Okay, this is kind of nice

A little backroom studio piano I'm feeling something Is this going to be like a lo-fi Kind of but not This is the Dillabit It's going to happen No, it's not a derivative Dillabita

Okay, it is a little bit I don't hate it though Yeah, it's nice You're gonna like the synth song Trust me Music you chill out and work remotely by Like an oatmeal cappuccino And a remote job.

Thank you very much. That's nice. It ain't easy being sensitive. I like her voice. All right, we're just going to head to this in solo. This is good, though, man. Do you know who this is? Yes, this is Radiant Children.

It's our hit Pokemon. All right, I'm going to put it out here. If this is you playing, let us know. No, no, no. Up to the listener. Or if you know who this is from Radiant Children. It's Radiant Children. Who's the player of the solo?

Who's the instrumentals of the solo? I don't know. Well, check it out, Radiant Children. If you know, please leave it in the comments here. Who's playing the Sin Solo on the Radiant Children, Pokey Ball. That Pokey Ball. Pokemon Ball.

Sorry, it's in my head. We're going to link to the playlist, to the Spotify playlist. Caleb's going to put a link here in the show notes and in the description of the YouTube videos so that you can check this out. Another free part of our channel. Caleb, we've got a... Caleb, Peter, we've got an important part of my childhood coming up next. Now, we all know

who this is soloing. This is not a mystery. There's two solos that we're going to do. There's one right off the other. Guitar solo, key solo, same person. I never knew that. Do you do it? You have to do it in slow motion, Peter. You can't just jump. It has to be like a splits. Oh, back man, long hair. I remember this.

I'm Adam Madison. You've been great. Makeup, long hair. Van Halen jump. So, yeah, a lot of people might not know this. Eddie Van Halen started on the piano as the Lord goes and he's playing both the solos on this and this is

another instance of this was a mega pop hit right? Yeah. And it's got and you know mega pop hits... We did this in marching band. I don't know how we did it. I was playing this seems like, this seems correct. Those symbols were heavy. That's all I remember. But so mega pop hit there was still lots of instrumental solos back in the 80s on mega pop hits and this is

ridiculous. So you know the synth solo is good Not great, but the guitar is great, as you would imagine. What? Also, Eddie here. Some broken triads. Check it out. He does some casino lick stuff coming up, two-handed. That might be one-handed in the octave.

Sounds like some kind of core poly-61 situation. Thus cord. Big reveal. Jump Van Halen. Eddie Van Halen on the guitar solo. Dieter Tijuana TRIZE. Eddie Van Halen on both solos. Both solos kind of, I don't know how they pulled that off live.

I guess he would just walk over to the synth, or maybe they would just have the synth player play the solo. I don't know. Those are great solos. And, I mean, I always think about this era. I guess it was a little bit before, maybe. So, you know, his solo on beat it, which a lot of people didn't know because for the video,

he wasn't in the video or something. And I remember when I found out, I was like, wait, that's Eddie Van Halen playing the guitar solo. I mean, we could do a whole list of seven, our favorite Van Halen's solos. Hot for Teacher solo? Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Okay. Next up is our bonus Jonas. This is it, actually. This had to go on. This is number eight. I gave you some crap. This is number eight. I gave you crap about this because you were, when we first started discussing this list, our seven favorite non-jazz solos, you were like, oh, yeah, Herbie Hancock. And I was like, that's a jazz.

No, we didn't say jazz musicians solo. You're being very pedantic about the box. Well, we're going to listen to this. I don't think this is a jazz solo. I think it's a great solo. He lit up. He lit up. Anything Herbie Hancock does.

I love Herbie and Stevie. I love them together. He was going to go up to the night. Because this is where they would fade off on the radio on this song. Three minutes in, yeah. Yeah. Check out this next thing he does here. The next one is really him.

I mean, it's all him. Great stuff. Herbie Hancock. That is not a jazz solo. It's a great solo. All right. We got to wrap it up, Peter. Yeah.

That was nice. That was really good, man. So, again, just to recap here, Steve Piccaro, Africa, from Toto, Wayne Shorter, Asia, Steely Dan, Jerry Douglas, maybe Allison Krauss live. No, that's definitely Jerry Douglas. Oh, boy.

Hey, Pocky Way, the meters, various solos. Hey, Pocky Way. Pretty much anything Jimmy Hendrix recorded. Yeah. Anonymous, radiant children. Pokey Bowl. It's Radiant Children's solo. Radiant Children solo.

Eddie Van Halen. Eddie Van Halen. Jump. Jump. Synth. And guitar. Herbert Walker Hancock. It's definitely not Walker.

Herbert Hancock as Stevie Wonder. All right, Pete, that's fun, man. That was awesome. Until next time, you'll hear it.