You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Greatest Gen X Pianists

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

Adam and Peter give you their top 7 greatest Gen-X pianists.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 Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Adam. Yeah, Peter. Are you feeling intergenerational? Yeah, what's going on? Are you feeling intragenerational? Very much so. Well, that's exactly where we're going today. Welcome to Gen X.

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Jazz Explain. Obviously, it's Jazz Explain. Oh, man, I forgot what we were doing here. I know. That smells like something.

It smells a little bit like teen spirit. It does. Yeah, kind of nasty. Back when I was a teenager when this, no, I can't say that. Shout out to Nerv. for my childhood. Thanks, guys. Great, great album. One of the best engineered,

great sound. I actually listened to it a couple weeks ago for the first time in years. Sounds great. We're, for us talking about Gen X, jazz pianists. It really has nothing to do with smells like Teen Spirit, although...

They're Gen X. Several of the jazz pianists that we're going to be talking about today have covered Nirvana songs because it's from their childhood as well, as it is from ours. And so it makes sense, actually, that we would start with that.

And several of these pianists aren't even in Gen X. We're gonna try to make some amends at the beginning. We got confused. We embarrassed ourselves. Well, no. I mean, we do that every episode. We got confused because it turns out this generation thing is a farce.

Well, it's not real. No, it's not real. It doesn't make any sense. And we got full disclosure. I don't know if we talked about this on the last episode. First of all, we did Gen Z. No, we did, what do we do? Millennials.

I don't even remember what the hell it is. Gen Y. Is that Gen Y? I think technically is Gen Y. Millennials. Okay. Yeah. Yet this is the crazy, this is what, you know, I'm going to tell you exactly what I'm confused.

Okay. Millennials, you would think, oh, somebody born in 2000 is a millennial. Some people say that's true. No, it's not true. My daughter's born in 2000. She's very adamant that she's not a millennial. She showed me various documentation. Gen Z?

Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, as are your children. Maybe they're a little more steep. My youngest might be this new one. I don't know. I'll see. This is how we go down the rabbit. Gen Alpha.

Gen Alpha. Gen Alpha. Gen Alpha. The whole thing, the only reason we are doing this is because we were going to do, you had an idea to do the seven greatest jazz pianists of all time. Nope. Not of all time. Of every generation. No, but before that, remember?

Oh, yeah. That's true. Yeah. Sorry. And we quickly realized there was no way that's going to work. So we said, why don't we break it down by decade or by generation? So it seemed like a good idea. But we got caught in a quagmire, a veritable rabbit hole.

Yeah. A, well, we made some assumptions, which, you know. A sticky wicket. We got stuck in the sticky wicket of just trying to figure out what the hell the generations were. Yeah, and then we made some assumptions about certain musicians. And when you assume, Peter, you know, you make an ass out of you. Out of you. It was me that assumed.

So we left off, I think, one of our favorite, I'll speak for you, one of our favorite millennial jazz pianist because we assumed he was Gen X and he's not. Because he plays so darn good. I know. We're going to start with him. Like, you know, I've known him for so long. I thought he was our, like, my age. In fairness to us, he is on the older side for the millennials.

But yeah, he's an older millennial, I guess, but still, Gerald Clayton, apologies. Let's listen to a little Gerald Clayton. This is my ideal. I mean, this is one of the most beautiful pianists. We've had him here at Open Studio, give masterclasses a couple of times. He's amazing musician. And check this out. The shoes were a dead millennial giveaway.

Yeah. This is my ideal. This is a video on YouTube of him ripping through this. It's so gorgeous. So that's our, we're making, I know, you can listen this. whole thing. That's we're making up for leaving the great Gerald Clayton off of our original list.

Yep. So, uh, but so that's our final millennial. We'll now move on to Gen X. Everyone else out of, from here on is, but Gerald could be the bridge. I like that. He is definitely the bridge. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So now we're going to get into, like can we just define the dates? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so this is

because this is debatable. So, um, so this is 65 did we say? I think we, we hammered it to 65 to 80. Born between 1965 and 1980. Okay, good. Gen X, it's a smaller generation. That's right. Given the length there.

I think we have a solid list here. We're leaving off some people, so we apologize in advance. Please let us know in the comments who we left off, or just who you think should have been in here. Because this is a highly subjective list. Did you know that, Adam? I did know that. Even between us. This is tough, especially because this is our generation, especially my generation.

Well, you should be on this list. If we're being honest, you're not on our list. I should definitely be on this list. I'm not on this list. I'm not on it. I think if you weren't a part of this, anyone else I would be doing this with would put you on the list for sure.

Well, I love that. Our first up here for Gen X is, you're going to like this video. So this is, I think, quintessential Gen X pianist, Chris Davis. And Chris is always at the top of, like, the New York Times and the downbeat critic lists. For good reason.

For good reason. She pushes the envelope of what's going on. Check this out. This is diatome ribbons. I love this video. this band too. You don't know Chris this is a great entry point because of, well, Terry Lynn Carrington on drums, Esperanza Squalding. Oh yeah, recognize their voice. What? Love me some TLC. Chris. I was curious to see if I could create Chris Davis. That's Diatom

ribbons. Incredible pianist, like such a beautiful sound on the instrument. Anything you hear is like has I mean that level of dynamics and that level of control that I certainly wish I had but just gives space to the sound on the piano right absolutely beautiful to hear so thoughtful so intentional with her playing or writing the um the musicians that she assembles I mean fantastic musicians but the combination of them and I'm a fan I'm a fan too yeah let's see next up well this is classic jet let me just interject because when you get to I know you have some, some, um, a curated list. I do have a cured list.

Some of which is new to me, which is fantastic, which is what I requested. But there's a little noise going on outside. We're going to apologize for that. Although it's possible, oh, like nobody can hear it. So I'm going to, I'm going to withdraw my apology on that, both to the pod. No need to apologize. How can they not hear the night? I hear it so loud, though.

Is it as noisy as this sound clip? I'm not a fan of, that's probably the noise thing we have. Why is that so noisy? So I would just ask that when we get a sound clip. to our friend, friend of the pod, friend of the open studio friend of us, Jeffrey Kieser, oh, I just gave it away, that I might be able to protrude an opinion on what we should play and I have something pulled up. We don't have to go there yet. No, no, that's cool.

Just on that one. I have an open studio video of Keyser pulled up, but if you have, no, you can play yours of Jeffrey Kieser. Should we go there next? Let's go to Jeffrey Kiser. Let's go there next. Can we do that producer, Caleb? You want to go to Peter? Yeah, come to me. And the only reason is because it's been kind of a hectic day and whatever and I think I've shared this before but in case for some reason I haven't or

some of you hadn't seen it. This is just you know I mean Jeffrey Kieser my full screen I feel like I'm full screen assuming I'm not full screen I have a full screen mentality exactly oh hey before we watch this we have so we have Caleb on the mic we also got a Caleb

cam check this out for all of folks on YouTube here's our producer Caleb his face is blocked Caleb Kevin. There you go. Caleb Cahle Cah. Oh, look, I can point at him too.

That's Caleb. Producer Cater. Okay, that's enough, Caleb. Don't hog to it. Don't hog to it. Don't hog to the screen. You know what? This is gripping to our audio listeners.

Well, they should subscribe to the YouTube channel too then. I like that. You're getting dogmatic about that. You know, you'll hear it YouTube channel we're putting every single episode up on videos so you can look at these videos along with us. Shout out to YouTube right here. That's all.

What's up YouTube? Okay, so our number two officially, Gen X pianist, right? Mr. Jeffrey Kiser, who hails from, do you know where? Wisconsin. Wisconsin, I believe, O'Clair, I want to say. That sounds right. Is that sound right?

Okay. Jeffrey Kiser, he needs no introduction. Everybody knows who he is, but I'll just say that, you know, the many different people he's played with, I would highlight his tenure with Ray Brown as one of the most illustrious and valuable for himself, as well as for Ray Brown. I got a chance to play with Ray Brown right after or kind of right in between Jeff Keiser just a little bit, and I can tell you that Ray Brown love Keeser's playing, loved Keeser.

Fun fact. That trio with Greg Hutchinson. Jeffrey Keeser was the last pianist in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers fan. Is that true? Okay, I was going to say that. Is that amazing? Wow. There you go. Okay, so this is a tune that I've just in love with. I've actually learned and have the sheet music. This is Jeff Keeser in and the composition is called. Oh, this is the one with Joe Locke.

Yeah. Yeah. Hanu. So this is a beautiful just a beautiful composition. It's a kind of long composition with different sections. It goes a lot of great places. It's just fantastic stuff. That's Jeffrey Kieser. I'm so happy he's on our team.

I know. I wanted to play this too because he's so well known for like a number of different ways of playing like certainly within the tradition. You know, he has incredible technique, two-handed stuff, left hand.

I mean, he's got so much different stuff happening. But I think that introduction kind of illustrates his like connection and I think you know in terms of being a Gen X pianist it's important his connection with the tradition but then he's just kind of extreme pianism yeah

but being very connected to the piano masters just in how they played the instrument you know what I mean? Totally like he's got all this great harmonic stuff and so it's very forward thinking and it's very like I don't know almost like Yoman's work I would look at like Gen Xers and jazz sometimes it's like

we're taking this stuff and trying to push it forward doing the work, but at a high level, like for the masters like that. Yeah, really, this was the last generation to have that, well, not totally last. Some of the older millennials, for sure, had a connection to those you know, bebop masters.

But like I said, Jeffrey Keeser, last pianist in Arnakey's band has a direct connection to that, knows what it feels like to play in Arnke's shuffle. Yeah. You know, has that connection, but very much pushing the music forward as those musicians he learned from. I mean, I would have to say that truly the Gen X is,

for jazz is the greatest generation. I totally agree. That's confusing. It's not the greatest generation. That's confusing, isn't it? Next up, Caleb, I'll take this one. Next up is, I think, when most people think of this generation of pianists, they think of this guy.

Bobby Glasper. I picked this because he's playing an acoustic piano. Acoustic trio. Vicente Archer, Damienari. Kind of a classic Glasper trio. One of them, but... The acoustic trio, yeah. So influential.

Yeah. It's such a fantastic touch, such a great pianist. I mean, very comfortable the same cloth as Keiser, you know. Had a connection to the master's played in Betty Carter's now. So all of those millennial pianists that we listen to, pretty much all of them, have some influence from Robert Glassberg. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, like the bridge there.

And I mean, Glassman's probably, well, Glassmer, maybe the next person you're going to have all these, but there's two in particular that are super, super, influential on the current generation, the millennials, or whatever, after Gen X, for sure. But none or more so than Glassford. Let's couch the other super super, we'll save him for last. Let's get to another actually pretty influential pianist here. I think this is, you know, one of the most fun examples we have on the list.

This is someone we get asked about all the time. I'm so glad we could finally get her on the show. Peter, it's Haromi. Oh, yeah. Let's listen. Let's listen and watch. Awesome. Is she millennial, though?

We might be screwing up in the other direction. Yeah, this might have to go down one. Well, you know, we're not perfect. We're just doing a big list. She might be younger than Gerald Clayton. Huh. She's born in 79, so right there. Okay.

Born in 79? 78. It's so effortless, man. Marciac? Ah. Caleb, we're cut off quite a bit at the top here. The great Haromi is in the house. Heromi is another big influence on some of the artists we were talking about, some of the IG.

Absolutely. You know, just in terms of like technical mastery. She might be the OG IG. She might be OG IG for some of these. Don't me, I'm looking at you. Jesus, I'm looking at you, right? Yeah, definitely. But, no, Haromi, I'm a big fan.

That's a very good call, yeah. Big fan. All right. Next up is one of my favorite musicians of any generation, but specifically my generation. This is, I've seen him play, I don't know, maybe more than anybody on this list, except for maybe one other person. But this is Jason Moran. And talk about a connection to the past. Yeah.

And then, but also very much, I mean, pushing things forward, wearing a horsehead to play your jazz. Right. That's right. You know what I mean? Doing art installations is a jazz pianist. Yeah. Really forward thinking. But with an incredibly accessible connection to things like the loniest monk, which we hear him play.

Fats Waller. Fats Waller, yeah. So I love here. Jackie and Byard. You know, he studied with, we were talking about this this summer because we got to work together on the once again on the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Project. You bring them on the podcast, please.

Yeah, absolutely. We're bringing them on. Jason, we're calling you out. We're calling you out. Please join us on the pot. But yeah, he started with Fred Hirsch, as did actually many of these pianists here. And with Jackie Byard, was kind of his big influence. We should mention maybe half of the list of millennials, half of the list of Gen X.

I know. And maybe some of the boomers also study with Fred. Babeba Boomer. Baby Boomer. Open Studio's own. You're going to learn what that is. I've done it three episodes. So let's check out Jason Moran playing Thelonius.

Monxelonius. Yes. You're going to like this people. Yep. That's what I said. He has great, great theatrics that are just so interesting and connected with the music. It's phrasing to write. Correctly, I mean.

Solo piano. I got to see him so many times playing solo sets, playing with his, I think his original trio, Torres Matine and the Sheid Waits. Yeah, that still is trio. It's still there. That still is true. Yeah, I was going to say, like, he's one of the, one of the masters of our generation for sure at piano, but he's also one of the hardest working, most connected with the tradition and forward looking. I mean, not only, you know, for his work with the Kennedy Center, I mean, he's basically the, I mean, he is the jazz artistic director. and, you know, move into a very honored and, but difficult role in that he's following in the footsteps of

Dr. Billy Taylor, you know, and, but I mean, he's just, he's one of really, I would say, fantastic pianist, absolutely should be on this list, and also sort of a thought leader for our generation of pianists, you know, in terms of just speaking about the music. He's got a huge amount of integrity in terms of the music, and he's a fantastic teacher. So big shout out to Jason Yeah and again please Peter If you have any personal connections Burn them and bring them

I know well we've been known to do that We've been known to do that All right How do you think you got here? Yeah totally Our last millennial pianist Oh We have one more after this a bonus

So final Yes we do have a bonus Who's not technically a pianist but deserves to be honest Is of course Quintessential Melaniel I said millennial quintessential Gen X pianists.

Brad Melon. Have we been saying millennial? We've been saying both. Listen, this is a scattershot operation. We got screwed up with old Gerald Clay's and straveling. Caleb, how many times if I said millennium? Yeah, see, Caleb's questioning it. This is the Gen Xers.

What are you? What am I? We're both technically Gen XX. I think I started calling myself a millennial. But I'm like Xenial. You should know, you should. Don't confuse it. No, Google and Xenial, it's a real thing.

77 to 83. Dude, we already said the actual generations aren't a real thing. It's a microgeneration. We're a little bit... You know what? You're putting a microaggression at me every time you say that word. It's Heromey.

It's Robert Glasper. It's Gerald Clayton. We're all exenials. All right. I know one thing. This dude's Gen X. That's this much we know. But I love how you were like,

if anything says millennial, it's Brad Meldow. I know. Well, yeah, sorry. Okay. Oh, what a farce. How many more of these do we have? Like four?

You just play the right. No. That's what I said. Here's Brad Meldellell. You're like this. Look at that. You know about that. Shout out to Bernie's bootlegs.

Shout up to Chris McBride playing louder and up in the mix. He's not playing louder. He's just up in the mix. Ah. Classic Brad Profile. Oh. He doesn't do that as much anymore. Imagine he's getting older his neck.

He probably got sick of people imitating him. Ah. I love his crazy. See, this is what I'm saying, JetX. We know how to get in there. You know what I'm saying? Come on, we're here to work. What do you think about Brad?

Plays Incredible Flurries, and they can take care of your investment baking needs after the gig. No problem. Let's write him a check. Oh, the bride. Stop swinging. Stop swinging. Is that Blade? Yeah, Blade.

Oh, this is young. He's catching Young. And it's touring here. Josh Jeremy. I haven't seen Blaze wear a seat, best, the ties. He probably owns that best still, but he wears it. What year is it? I can't hear it's false.

He still wears that vest, but probably with corduroys and a denim shirt. And not a tie jacket, I can tell you that. Yeah, that's from something. Okay, can we name some honorable mentions? And by honorable mention, these people should have been in here. I think, I know you have one that's, you know, I'm in total agreement with as well, but I got four other ones. Four others.

That's just, and that's what I'm thinking about as we're listening that could easily should be in this list. Okay. are ridiculous millennial slash exennial slash gen X slash silent generation. I'm going to do my own entire podcast on the exenial generation. You know what? It's just going to be called exenial. It's going to be about the history of it. No one will ever listen or download that because nobody cares.

There's going to be a swath of people that are going to be interested in that. Okay. All born between 1977 and 1983. So our main addition to this list is the late grade Mr. Joey D. Francesco. Yeah. You know, not technically known for his. piano playing, although he could tread on the piano. I heard of play piano.

For being an organist, a trumpeter, a tenor saxonist. But definitely, I mean, born in 1971, 1971 or 71. Yeah, and so square in the Gen X list here. So this is Joey D. Caleb, if you want to come to me here. Check this out. Look where they go here. Oh, I think... They're going in groove, right?

What's that? They're going into a blue group. There's so much joy. Set up. Gen Xers know how to set it up. You know what I'm saying? Gen Xers can play the blues. That is not in dispute.

I just realized why we have Gerald Clayton in the wrong group. We haven't been the right group. He's one of us. I know. I'm claiming him. I mean, if you think about kind of the, well, spiritually. Yeah. He's got, actually, he's got kind of got the whole thing happen.

I'm telling you, it's exennial. It's exennial. It's exennial. This guy's so excited. I love it. Look at it. Look at it. excited he is, man. Shout out to all my exenials. You know who you are. Good. Shout out to the Smurfs.

Okay. I got a couple of other honorable mention additions. Ed Simon. 100%. Ed Simon. How did he not get in? And he's born, I think the same year I am 1970. Yeah, this episode should be two hours long for sure. Another one from, I believe, 1970 was a strong year. I'm going to tell you some people that were born in 1970. Ed Simon, I couldn't be wrong. He may be he's, I think he's 70. Peter Martin. Oh, yeah. Gregory Hutchinson. Oh, yeah. Born in 1970. Christopher Thomas. Who? Born in 1970.

Brian Blade, born in 1970. Hello. Jackie Tereson, I believe, born in 1970. Maybe 69. Yeah. So he was another one I had in here. Eric Reed, born in 1970. Big shout out to Eric Reed, one of the great pianists,

Gen X pianist, you know, and love that dude. And now my last one, since we came in screwing up the generations, I might be screwing this up. You can tell me if I'm wrong. but I think we need an audible mention should be on here too for Marcus Roberts but am I in the wrong

is look I'm sending him to his MacBook he will be Googling this I feel like he's a you don't even know who I'm talking about to you he's not Marcus Roberts huge inspiration 63 so that makes him a millennial no makes him a boomer a boomer

We got a boomer baby boomer baby baby boomer baby boomer baby boomer baby boomer baby boomer Thanks everybody for watching. This is super fun. It was good. And yeah, I agree with your honorable reasons. Next up is...

The boomers. The boomers. Go ahead. Boomer. Yeah. All right, cool. Until boomers, you'll hear it. All right.