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

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

Trombonists are people, too! Today, Peter and Adam make up for their past trombone hate by shining some love on their favorite trombone solos.7 Great Trombone SolosJ.J. Johnson - "Billie's Bounce"Curtis Fuller - "Blue Train"Fred Wesley - "Pass the Peas" (check out a great transcription of this solo here)Michael Dease - "Frenzy" (listen to it on Spotify)Jack Teagarden - "Stardust"Trombone Shorty - "St. James Infirmary" (for another excellent transcription, go here)Aubrey Logan - "Pistol"Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey Adam. Hey, what's up? Are you ready to give the trombone, the love, the adulation, the do, the respect, the props that it deserves? I'm ready to get my sackbut on. I'm Adam Ennis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily music advice coming at you. Coming at you. Do you even know what a sackbut is, Pete? I don't know. That's why I looked at you quit. Well, not only did I look at you quizzically, I forced you onto Wikipedia to expose what that is. That's very interesting. A sackbut is a type of trombone from the Renaissance and Baroque eras. characterized by a telescopic slide that is used to vary the length of the tube and change pitch. Sound familiar? Well, yeah, but sackbutt. I've never heard of that. But that was awesome. I only know, my high school band director was a trombone player, obviously. Yeah.

And his lice, he had a vanity plate that said sackbutt. Nice. Yeah. And it's also, that's an awesome name for anything. sackbutt. Hey, he's not being such a sackbutt. Andrew threatened to edit it out to deep it. but it's a real word.

Well, maybe they didn't hear it now. And it's relevant today's episode because we get emails. We hear from you. Mostly some really nice stuff. Right, we get emails and we get tweeted at, we get IGed at, we got stuff flying at us from all directions, and we love it.

Thank you guys so much. We get comments on YouTube, which we need to get back on those. For sure. But we got one, and this is going to be a little bit of a Mia Culpa. I don't even know what that means, but I feel like that's what it is.

But basically, well, this is cool anyway because we actually love the trombone. Yeah. And a lot of people, sometimes our humor doesn't quite cut through as accurately as we might think it does in that we make fun of some things that we really love. But we also make some fun of things that we don't love. So I can understand how it could be misconstrued. And apparently we made fun a couple of times in the previous weeks or months about the trombone. Yeah. Which is something that, you know, not only do I love, but I, there's.

some memorable performances and solos. That's why we decided to do the seven great trombone solos because it was brought to our attention that we need to stop punching down at the trombonists. And I totally agree. Should we read the email or should we just go on the... Let's read the email. It's a good one.

Yeah, that's a good one. Hey guys, another poke at the trombone and Thursday's podcast. It's not so long since you likened it to the ocarina as a weird instrument if memory serves. Enough already. Some of us are trying to make a living

and it's tough enough getting gigs as a trombone player without sniping from folks who are meant to be our friends. I know it's in jazz, but you know, people absorb this sort of stuff. Some budding future jazz star

who grew up on the podcast is going to be putting a band together in years, hence, and think to themselves. Sax, yes. Trumpet, okay. Trombone, ha. No, punch up.

Don't punch down. For Penance, how about an episode of seven great bone solos or seven great reasons to book a trombonist for your next gig? So, okay, thank you so much for this message.

And yeah, you know what? We, you know what? You know what it is? I think sometimes we think I think if people are regular listeners as in all the time which nobody is nor should they be but we're here all the time

they would kind of get the totality of our positive comments about the trombone along with a couple of little jokes but taking out of context or even taking in context I think that we did make a mistake with doing that especially with the ocarina because we definitely the ocarina

I'm not gonna lie I'm not a fan of but I actually love the trombone so when we group together it's like you know I don't know what do you think? Yeah I think I think we have been punching down a little bit. And, you know, it's a common thing amongst most musicians to kind of rib one instrument

or the other, especially if you don't play it. For me, like, I think we tease what we don't understand. Trombone is frigging hard. I tried to play the trombone in middle school, and I couldn't make a sound on it. So I switched to alto saxophone in the band program, right? And I don't understand how they do it. And then coupled with the fact that, And I don't think I'm speaking out of turn here,

but anybody who's ever played in a big band knows that trombonists are silly people with silly sense of humors. And if you play saxophone, you sit in front of them, you tend to get your own share of, you know, things like pranks pulled on you, spit valves being released under your seat,

that kind of thing. So I always... Which had nothing to do with why we made fun of trombonos. It's more of us, it's a little side journey. But it is, it is, I mean, you know, and we try to, you know, we try to make fun of drummer,

Yeah. Lord knows we try to make fun of singers. So we're going to, yeah, we're going to justify this by saying we make, we do mean things to all different people, not just. Yeah. And to be fair, there are no bigger nerds on the planet than jazz pianists ourselves. Right. You know what I mean? We are the king of the nerds. But I think that, you know, the writer brings up an important point in that, like, we do forget as pianists, like, you know, we get opportunities that other instruments don't get as much. And it is hard. Man, it's hard for any horn players, especially. Especially like, okay, maybe I'm going to have one horn, okay, trumpet or sax, or trombone. Maybe I'm going to have two.

But it's so easy for one to get left out. And we want to foster a situation where there's more gigs and spreading things around, spreading the love around a lot. And a lot of times pianists are the first ones to get a gig. Maybe you had a duo, then you add a bass. But yeah, trombone is really too far down on the list because there's some amazing trombone players out there. And the reason, as you alluded to, I think that trombone does get made fun of is not. Well, it's interesting for me because I grew up, you know, my father who's a violas, primarily. And so I grew up around a lot of viola jokes, which is kind of the equivalent.

They're thrown around and adjusted to the trombone. But it's kind of a different thing. Actually, the trombone, maybe it became a humorous thing because it's so difficult to play that you don't have a lot of great players. Whereas the viola, the spin on the joke was a little bit like, oh, you shifted over from violin because it was going to be easier, which isn't true either, you know, and it's a beautiful instrument. Especially now. Like, now kids are starting on viola. Kids are starting on trombone. Right, right. So, shooting down. So. And I wanted to, and I want to, and to just tell a real quick thing that we're going to get into this list because this is where it really proves the point.

Yeah, we have a Spotify list of our favorite trombone songs. Yeah, yeah. And as we got into this, it was fun because we had so many, we were like, we had to pair it down, which just shows the breadth and depth of the tradition, just within the jazz. A little love to our trombone bros and sises today. Exactly. But I would just say

this too, and this is why this comment really cut hard with me, too, because I realized that one of my biggest influences and reasons that I'm playing jazz, I'd heard the music a lot from like my dad playing it and my mom growing up but there's a gentleman named Roger Davenport who was

the trombone one of the trombonists in the St. Louis Symphony for many many years. His son Jeremy Damboor was a great trumpet player in New Orleans. We grew up together, real good friends from a young age and Roger exposed us when we were in middle school. He's like, oh you guys think you like jazz, you want to put a group together and he helped us put a group together and we had a

trombone from the very beginning, Chris Vanderplum. I don't know if you're familiar with him. I don't know. Well, he's not playing trombone anymore, but he was a fine young trombononist and a friend of ours. And Roger, because he was a trombonist, you know, he came up listening to a lot of J.J. Johnson. Sure. You know, Kay Winding, Bill Watchers, all these great trombones, Jack Teegar, and some of whom are going to be on the list. So I was actually Winning, Bill Walsh, that I really listened to a lot because of Roger. And he loved this record so much. And that is J.J. Johnson and Stan Gets live at the opera house. This is with the Oscar Peterson Trio. It's an incredible record. I know a lot of people know about it. It's like one of those Norman Grants produced live concerts, but JJ Johnson playing on the Hulk record is just amazing, but on Billy's Bounce, I mean, his solo is just a tour to force. That's one of those solos that I recommend

people learn on any instrument, you know. It's probably, you know, a lot of the stuff he played is so difficult for trombonists because his technique was so amazing, but his improvisational imagination was really special. Just the best of the best. I was first. I was first, introduced him when I was really into Sonny Rollins and JJ gave Sonny his first record dates in 1949, 1950. That's right. Yeah. But then I fell in love with JJ's playing from those records. Just an amazingly lyrical, amazingly technical player, like the bebop language, the swing language, all mastered and just put into this incredibly soulful instrument. It's awesome. Yeah, I remember seeing I got a chance to see JJ Johnson live before he passed at the Village Vanguard and it was one of the

most inspiring nights of music. So JJ Johnson at the opera house, Billy's Bounces our first track on our playlist. Number two, Curtis Fuller Blue Train. Classic. That's a classic. Classic. That's a hit right there's a lot. This was a hard one because just to narrow down any Curtis Fuller.

This could have been a list of seven Curtis Fuller. We had a bunch that we had to take off from Caravan, you know, like things like that. But I think we went with the right choice here. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Awesome soul. Okay. Number three, we've got Fred Wesley on Pass the Pee.

Excuse me? Yeah, Fred Wesley, past the piece. Pass the piece. Now, this one, there's a bunch of different, like, I've heard him do this live. Like, he's amazing improviser, but this is kind of the classic solo,

and we found this little transcription of this that might be, so we're going to link to that on YouTube. You can see a nice transcription of a solo. Kind of cool to see the architecture of that. But, you know, within the funk world and the pop world, that's an area that, like, the trombone and the horn sections,

you know, and a lot of these horn sections were led by trombonists. and that whole tradition of how that section is put together and the lines are come up is a very deep thing but also some of the greatest solos on the James Brown stuff was from Fred Wesley himself. So next we have Michael Dease.

Yes. Or Michael Dees, isn't it? Or is it Dease? I've heard both, but I'm going to say Dees. Yeah, we just heard both. We said them both. We just said them both. But I've been listening to a lot of Michael Dease.

So we're about to release this Keiser, Jeffrey Keeser, composition course. Michael plays on that and I got to hang with them as they were recording in New York and we just saw him, I think we were both at the gig at the David Sandborn gig. He plays in David Sandborn's man. He's a youngish trombonist. I think he's in his 30s still. That's young. That's young. He is a complete badass. I mean, he really is. On any stage that he's on, he's possibly the best improviser on the stage. Yeah, absolutely. You know, in contention, at least. And so I've been listening a lot to his, this whole year, his, his, latest record from 2019, Nevermore Here.

And there's a track Frenzy. The record features Randy Brecker, Rini Rosness, Gerald Cannon, and Lewis Nash. And it's just unbelievable. Yeah, and you mentioned David Sammore. Now, he's someone that in recent, well, for a while now, it's been very good about hiring.

If he hires another horn, it's usually trombone. I've seen Whitecliffe Gordon play with him a bunch. He's got a great sound with the alto, especially when he's doing kind of more jazzed, or really any of his stuff is great with the alto and trombone. Okay, number five of our seven great trombone solos we have, okay, this is a classic. We had to go back and we were talking about like, what are we going to do really sort of more old school? Jack T. Garden on Star Dast.

This is such a, I mean, I think a lot of, this probably is one of the most iconic, but also just sort of most heard trombone solos and renditions of one of the most beloved songs. And so like even people that don't realize they're listening to trombone or think about it, this has probably been heard, listened to and love more than probably any other trombone solo ever. And rightfully so, I would say. All right, number six, you have trombone shorty. Yes, okay. So this, St. James Infirmary, I love... Guys are a fireball of trombone shorty. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So Tramone Shorty, you know, I've known... Troy, Troy, I've known him since he was about, I don't know, eight or nine years old in New Orleans. Talk about a town full of trombone players. Exactly. And, you know, his older brother, James, who played, you know, Trump. I used to work with him a lot. But, I mean, I've just, I've seen Troy since he, you know, Troy Andrews, which is trumbo and Shorty, that's his nickname, obviously.

No one's last name is Shorty, and their first name's not Trumbo. That's Nolan's. That's Nolan. But he's such a special. I always think about him, I say a special kid. He's like 30 or whatever now. But, you know, I had a combo. I coached a combo.

This was such a special thing for me. When they were in high school at New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, I did some coaching and teaching there for a while. It was Sullivan Fortner on piano. James had Trombone Shorty on Trombone and trumpet. But he was actually playing more trumpet than. I mean, he's amazing trumpet player and trombonist. And Christian Scott on trumpet.

And then a bunch of other musicians that people probably hadn't heard of because they didn't end up like pursuing music. But we're really just amazing too. That's not. That's not. It was so much fun. But I love this solo in his rendition of St. James Infirmary. There's also another one. Maybe we'll link to it.

There's some good transcriptions I found. But he did this at the White House. I remember in one of the Michelle Obama kind of curated sessions where he just got up there and killed it. you know. So, super proud of him too. All right. I'm running out the list

number seven with trombonists and vocalist that I actually just played with and I just fell in love with her style and her energy. Aubrey Logan,

she's probably most well known for the work she's done with this band postmodern jukebox that takes modern pop songs and turns them into like puts them kind of in the roots music vibe.

Yeah. And she is just a nuclear ball of energy. She's in, first of all, incredible vocalist, but she's an amazing trombonist, too, like a great improviser, a great soloist. I included her track Pistol,

which is actually more of like a pop track. I mean, it's a real pop song, but she takes a trombone solo that's just like fire right in the middle of the track. So link there for Aubrey Logan. If you don't know her, go check her out. Yeah, and I don't, so I'm looking forward to checking her out. Good stuff.

Well, we hope that we sent some much, much deserved and beloved love to the trombone community, the music community. Sack butts. Yeah, the sagbutt community. Sackbutt or sagbutt? Sack. How is that spelled? There's a couple ways, but usually

SACB-B-U-T. That's how it fit all the license. It could be French. I don't know. Yeah, the way you give it that high ridge Twang-But. Yeah, you're such a sack-butt. No, that's a trombone. Come on. Man, that guy's a sack-butt. It sounds way dirty when you

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