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

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Adam and Peter give you their 7 greatest silent generation pianists. In this episode, YHI features:Wynton KellyAhmad JamalBill EvansMcCoy TynerHerbie HancockShirley HornKeith JarrettHave 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. Shh. Silent generation. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you'll listen to the You'll Hear at Podcast. Jazz Explain.

Peter, explain to me this. Yes. What is the silent generation? Well, that is... I've heard of boomers. Right. This is the generation right before baby boomers. I've heard of millennials.

Right. Well, it's much before that. This is... Correct me if I'm wrong here. Because this is still confusing to me. but I believe 1998, birth year.

1928 to 1945. That's right. Which would apparently coincide with the end of WW2, the big one. WW2. World War II. World War II.

Right. And yeah, so this is a generation that we didn't really know, of course, these are some of the heavyweight. We knew it as far as the musicians and the pianists that we're going to be talking about today

in our list, but we didn't know. I wasn't familiar with this generation. I thought it went from the greatest generation to the baby boomers. That's what I thought too. Greatest generation babies and baby boomers and then when we did research for this and we've been, we're joking because we've been talking about our series here. We've been going through all the generations and our favorite pianists from each of those generations. Going backwards. Yeah, we started with millennials and then we're never going backwards. But every time we bring up the silent generation, people who are in the silent generation are like, what's that? Exactly. I'm looking at you, Bill Martin, my father. He was like, oh, really? I thought it was a boomer. He's barely. He's right on the cusp. He's right on the cusp. Yeah, well.

He didn't, he's like, ah, it's ridiculous. I don't know what it is. Which, all this is ridiculous. It is a little ridiculous. But not the pianists we're talking about or not ridiculous today.

Well, so this is what was so surprising is when we put together our grand list. People, we should put up a picture of the whiteboard in there because we have all of the generations. And we did a whole pool of all the pianists. Yeah. And I thought that everyone on this list was a boomer. Exactly. Honestly.

I mean, well, I guess some of the older silent generation, maybe not. But these are, this is the Mount Rush. This is the big time. This is kind of the big time.

Yeah. I mean, not that we didn't have that in the boot. I mean, we've had some great pianists. But it really, it kind of is interesting to see how these things break down. Of course, there's overlap in terms of influences. And to me, it's always interesting to see how these great artists influenced each other in the time. You know, it's not just about the greatest generation influenced the boomers or influenced Jan X and all that. Of course, that's there.

That's the lineage of the music that's so fun to explore and to hear, you know, these threads that go through, especially jazz piano specifically. But to hear the influences on each other, what they were doing at different times, it's just fun. It's just a lot of fun. And I think we have a solid list here. I'm sure, look, everybody's been saying

you left out such and such. We're saying seven, we're throwing in a couple more. It would be impossible to make this generation, and honestly, the greatest generation, which will be next week's episode, and not leave out dozens. And I would just say, please leave a comment below, and if you listen to this on the pod, the audio pod, come over

to YouTube because we're there what's up YouTube. And you can comment there joining the discussion. But as you put, you missed X, X, X, X, X. You forgot about such and such. First of all, we probably didn't forget about them. No, we did not. We might have. We have a big list in there. We had to whittle it down.

We did. But when you say, why didn't you have such and such? Make sure that you're prepared to remove or just understand that our thought process, are you ready to remove a gentleman by the name of McCoy Tyner? No, in fact, I'm ready to celebrate a gentleman by the name of. Or a woman by the name of Shirley Horn. No, of course. So you know what I mean?

So make it more of like, oh, you could have included them as well. Absolutely. And we're going to add on it. Can we do a couple bonuses at the end? We're going to have to. I think we're going to have at least nine or ten on this one. And just know that we're not ranking them. We're celebrating them.

Well, mine is number one. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. But you know what I'm saying? Like, this is not about these are the best seven or these are the seven in a row. This is just a celebration of the big seven as best we could come up with it. Departure point for discussion. Or 10 or 12.

Yeah, exactly. All right, so we're going to kick it off here with, speaking of McCoy Tyner. Yeah. With, there you go. With McCoy Tyner. Yes.

And this is a fun video, and you'll see why. How about that? Of Cois. Of Cois. McCoy. Tyner. Known for being in John Coltrane's band. Yeah.

Right? This is John Coltrane's Giant Steps. Yeah. And I don't think there's old footage of them playing Giant Steps when McCoy was in that band. Right. I never heard him play with him. But it probably happened. You want me to go back?

No, no, no. Oh, this one, this one. Okay, great. I want to see. So this is obviously later. This is from the year 1996. So this is in the 90s. Okay.

And obviously McCoy adding giant steps to his repertoire. And, I mean, one of the most, this whole list is influential pianists on everyone who's come after them, including all the generations who've already listed. and McCoy's touch and feel had really never been heard before. Like when he switched over, you can hear it in the early recordings. His touch was totally different. And he developed this, what is it, like portamento or I forget what it's called. But there's a specific...

Portimentario. Yeah, there's a specific Italian word for... I made that up. Thank you. For his very heavy-fingered touch that gets a very crisp, even sound across the piano. The Corinthian portimentario. Thank you. And, yeah, and Russian piano teachers all over the world right now are cringing.

But that pop that he gets is so hard to emulate and it creates such a specific tone. I think McCoy, along with, well, many of the other pianists on this list, but along with people like Thelonius Monk, for me are almost, especially after he developed this, like after like 60 or 61. Yeah. It's like an instant. That's McCoy. Right. You know what I mean? You just hear the pop and you know it's him.

And such a contribution to the technical and the really kind of spirit of the music for specifically jazz piano and what the piano can put into the solo piano or trio or quartet, of course, most celebrated with the John Coltrane quartet. But it's such a distinction of McCoy and such an influence on some of these other pianists and certainly the next generation's for sure. All right. Who we got next. Okay. So next up we have a gentleman by the name of Herbie Hancock, ever heard of him. and so Herbie and McCoy I think are kind of

I don't know Are Herbie and McCoy most associated with each other Or Herbie and Chick Yeah I think Herbie and Chick more so Yeah so I mean not that it really matters But I mean these you know They kind of all go hand in hand

I think the big four from that generation Are Herbie Chick McCoy and Keith Right Are they all on our list? They are on our list Yes they are okay So this I wanted to find something We talk about Herbie so much here

Something a little bit unusual And that maybe you hadn't heard I'm not sure but this is Ansan Sun Ki My apologies if I didn't say this correctly But this is a beautiful song that Herbie and Wayne wrote And they played on that great Verve duo record From the mid-90s

But this is from Jazz Baltica 2004 And it's like they've done They do amazing videos there Big shout out to the folks at Jazz Balby's going In Hamburg Germany He's got to be on the cusp here He's on the cusp but he's a couple years in Okay he's a couple years in

So here we go Dave Allen on bass Brian wait. This is timeless, man. Wayne Shorter is on the Cosmic list. Yes. Dave Holland, by the way, will be on our sister podcast,

Upright Citizens, next week. Yes, absolutely. I'm tuning for that. And might be here on the YouTube as well. But, you know, I encourage everyone to check this out. Herbie, you know, known for, I wanted to kind of, you know, highlight his collaborative spirit because he's so much known for that as well.

Yeah. But such a master of, so, I mean, you talk about the big four, the Mount Rushmore. Herbie Hancock, but can just do so many things. So many things. Absolutely. All right. Well, next on our list is another cusp.

But this person is on the other cusp. They just made it in from the greatest generation. It's, of course, Bill Evans. Can't have this list without Bill. Here's Waltz for Debbie. Check this out. One of my favorite all-time tunes, Waltz for Debbie. It's got a little far away.

I love what he... Yeah. Unbelievable. Transitions. I heard you like touch. I heard you like sound. All of those chords, the little whisper in the air chords. You know, just barely underneath.

Such good stuff. So would we say that Bill Evans would be, he'd probably be that a little bit older, but a little bit than, you know, Herbie, Chick, Keith, and McCoy. But probably an influence on all of them in a way that the opposite may not be true, right? Yeah, that's probably true. Although there was certainly cross-pollinization. But I think Bill Evans, you really hear that with Herbie, with Chick, with Keith a lot. Yeah, like direct.

When Bill joined Miles's band and sort of tonally shifted Miles. his color palette. I mean, Miles was already heading there, but Bill was like an instrument for Miles to really help him, you know, harmonically get there. Because Miles was already there in that sort of French zone. Right. Melodically. Yep.

You know, in that impressionistic zone melodically. And I think Bill helps him harmonically get there in that band. Jazz shifted for 10 years, you know? Yeah, they're jazz shifters. They're jazz shifters. All right. So here we're going to check. We're going to move on to Keith Jarrett.

We've talked about them. and I think I found something that we will not get shut down for playing. What? But this is, okay, so there's a couple of things, a couple of solo concerts that he did in Molde, Norway. It's 1972 and 1973. Say it again? Molde. That's the way I say it. I'm not sure if it's correct. But this is a great solo piano.

We'll have a link to this below, but like an hour-long solo piano tour to force improv. And I kind of, this is a little ridiculous, because I sort of jumped at a place in the middle that I really like. You could kind of go anywhere and you really could listen to the whole thing and have a great time. But this is obviously relatively young Keith, early solo piano open improvisation. And I'm jumping in the middle. So just keep that in mind. Well, Plagocadens Geron. Yeah, exactly.

Well, this is something he was known to do. So, ever heard of the 1-4? Love a good old 1-4. It's so good, man, dynamically. Yeah. That's the thing with Keith. Jared is like he'll do these long vamps on two chords. Yeah, but his groove.

His groove is so accurate and he's got such precision. But also his touch and his dynamics are so precise. And he has such control and such expressiveness. Yeah. And just a lot of like fearlessness just going, you know, just back and form. But when you hear this in the context of the whole performance, it really just a little more to hear. Yeah, yeah.

My favorite playgo Kaden's Keith, I don't have a video. Okay. But this is, I heard this. I was watching the show. You know the show Atlanta? Donald Glover? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great show.

Oh, great show. Listen to this. And I was like... What's the name of his rapper friend that he was managing? Donald... Oh, uh... That's his name? It's been a minute.

No, the guy on the show. Paperboy. Paper boy. Paper boy. I love Paper boy. That guy's a great actor. No, this is plays in a scene. They're like leaving a frat house drunk and...

And I was like, is that freaking Keith Jerry? Wait, Keith Jarrett's on the ATL? Do you know this record, Treasure Island? Yeah. Oh, Treasure Island is fantastic. Playville Caden's Heaven. Yeah. Is it a Dewey Redmond on this?

Yeah. It's a great record. Anyway. Yeah, he's everywhere, man. During this time, too, he was making such eclectic music. All the records around what, like this is from... Wait, we can barely... This is from the same year of you were just showing.

We can barely play. I played eight seconds. No, I'm saying we can barely play Keith Jarrett, but they licensed it for the... For Atlanta. You're talking about this. Yeah. Treasure Island, yeah.

So good. All of the records from the early mid-70s, I mean, they're all good. Yeah. But, like, I encourage... Oh, yeah, this is such a great. If you only know, like, the standards trio, right.

Go back to the early 70s for Keith Jarrett. It's good, good stuff. Yeah, and I was looking... Yeah, Keith is playing some sacks on this. Yeah. Dewey. Yeah. Hayden, Palmot, yeah, yeah, great record.

Cool. Excellent, excellent. Okay. So who we got next? I'm up next. No, no, no. I think I'm up. Oh, no, you're up.

Okay, so this, gentleman, I was a little surprised, is in this generation. Why? I thought he'd be a little, well, he has a little bit on the older side compared with. No? I feel like he was young at this time. Yeah, he was young. He looks young. Oh, technique.

Oh, he is a little on the older side. Yeah, but still in there. Man, he's still around, too. Look at that. Ah. This is Ahmad Jamal, by the way. He might be the dean of this group. You know, we did a episode on him.

The provost. He's the most, I think he's the most unique pianist of this generation. Yeah. It's the greatest artist, man. It's like the history of jazz piano and like big band and then all his hip shit all combined with what he plays. Israel Crosby. You like to swing? You like swing?

Is it okay to swing? Is it all right to swing? I do enjoy it. You like brushes? Look at those little brushes. Just barely poking out there. You like perfect brush technique? Is that all right with you?

You like Ben Webster? I do like Ben Webster. I do. He's like, yeah, Trio's okay. He'll jump up with some saxophone. Amadamol, just one of the most creative artists of this entire generation. I remember this, man. One of the most incredible pianists.

Again, you want to talk about all of that feel, touch, dynamics. control, but I think more than that, man, he's Picasso. He's taken a form that we all know. Yeah. And playing it in a way that is almost no one else emulate. Is that Joe Jones? It's Papa Joe Jones, maybe there. I mean, he's got some great, some heavyweights sitting there listening to him too.

Yeah, that's from, this is from that one TV show. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, jazz casual? It wasn't jazz casual. It was like the, it was like the 50. Jazz formal. No, no, no, it was like the, it was like one of those things. You know, where like Billy Holiday,

sings to Lester Young and it was like this big this big moment right right that was from that great stuff man we're so blessed that that this was documented shout out to YouTube too yeah I know I mean of course the recordings but to have the um this footage is really priceless I'll never forget those like early days of YouTube like 2005 and 2006 it's just been oh man I wonder if this thing is I know you know or you just like Google someone's name who you'd never seen play before and you'd be like oh my gosh yeah okay so next up we're moving along here We don't even know what number wrong. We don't care because we're rolling.

We're going to go into a gentleman by the name of Chick-Haria. We've mentioned Chick-Ria already. I don't know this one. And, you know, I mean, what more can we say? But this track that I wanted to play, of course, is well-known because it's Spain, one of his most famous. Maybe this is his most famous composition. I know this video. Yeah, I think it is. But to me, in terms of videos that I've seen, and look, I've seen a lot of this.

This is amazing. Because I sit here and watch it. This is, like, incredible. This kind of encapsulates, I think, the spirit of Chick, his freedom. There's other versions with, like, with, you know, like the acoustic band, the electric band, whatever playing. A lot of different situations.

Of course, the return to forever version is not bad. But to me, this is kind of like the culmination of what everything that Chick's about, kind of like we talk about Herbie in terms of collaboration. Chick could just played his whole life solo piano or trio and would have been an amazing thing. That's true. But his, I wouldn't even say unusual collaborators.

His fruitful. collaborations like he had with Bobby McFerrin over the years and some things that might seem unusual until you hear him and you're like, oh my God, what a gift to all of us. But the way he starts this out, I love this place too where they're playing. It says in Spain, but I actually think that's incorrect. I think this is Vienn France. But anyway, enjoy. Yeah, this is Vienn-Franese.

Man, I can listen to this all day. And then when they go into the group, move it's uh yeah anyway we'll link to that below here on the on the youtube and in the description but truly some extraordinary playing there and i love like barbara and chikara and chikara kind of are dressed and sort of look like if they were standing like backstage before the gig they'd like they were like the sound men or something they're just so like humble and unassuming and i got a little chance on this actual tour to you know hang around with them played at some of these same festivals i mean by the way it's not like we're going to be suiting it up here

for this podcast. I know. I know what I'm saying. Because we're trying to be like Bobby and Faron and Chickaria, you know. But I mean, they're just so like, we're so relaxed. Like, I think because like the spirit of Chickoria was so kind and relaxed, but like focused and nuanced. Like I don't know that I've ever heard a pianist, a master pianist.

And look, I just, I got to just show sort of this still. He's just like a dude sitting at the piano. But if you think about, you know, the application of a very, very high level. of piano ability, you know, one of a group of what, maybe 10 or 20 people alive at this time that could play the piano in any style, you know, at the top level. But to be able to apply it like being so like relaxed, so human and so like in the moment in terms of collaborating with someone and bringing out. And look, big shout out to Yamaha pianos too. I'm not always the biggest fan of some of their pianos, but this one,

and I got to play on this actual instrument a couple of times, was extraordinary. And they had it set up for, for Chick-Korea in a way. you know, that he was truly deserving of. But I mean, in terms of what you can do with the instrument, it doesn't get any better than that. It's so, so good. Assumee. I love that.

Here's someone who can make pretty much any piano sound great as well. Frequent of this show, Nina Simone always made. Man, we come up with some heavy hitters today. She always makes our best of lists. Check this out, dude. You're going to like this. Montreux, 1976.

Oh, this was such a legendary performance. Her right-hand harmony is so relaxed and like these little counter melodies pop out. You ever transcribed anything she's done? It's so, it seems, it's one of these things

that seems easy, not easy. Yeah, well just her touch, the voicing's, the volume between the hands, not to speak about, you know, the time and the groove. And that's before she even sings. This is Bose in 1976.

You know what I'm saying? Oh. I think this might be later than 76. Oh. Oh. Yeah, you know, She's almost like, because she was such a prolific vocalist and songwriter and singer and had literal hit records, I equivocate her almost to Nat Cole in that she was such a star and this cultural figure. Yeah.

Because she's like bigger than the piano. Right. And yet, like Nat King Cole, could just slay on the piano. Yeah, and that's her origins, you know. And that's why she's on this list. Incredible. In the same way that a lot of people don't think of neck and Cole as a jazz pianist, I think a lot of people overlook Nina because of her other contributions,

but do not sleep. Yeah, and apparently was an incredible classical pianist that went to Juilliard, and actually her dream. She was so good, she was crushed that she didn't get into the Curtis Institute and had to go to Juilliard for classical piano. Yeah, you know. And there's a whole story behind that. Check out the Netflix incredible documentary on her, which is.

It's very good. And like a lot of these artists are kind of a sad story, too. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I mean, Nina's, it deserves to be on this list. Even Nina Simone, even with her output being severely limited by mental health, undiagnosed or less, you know, and a lot of crazy family stuff. The fact that her artistic output was what it was was just amazing. Next up we have, oh, this is me. Okay, so this is another one of my favorite pianist who happens to be a vocalist as well.

Oh, we've seen this video before. Yeah, and this thing I love because I'll take it back. back just a little bit. No, we're going to start right here. This is live at Newport, and it was kind of 1992. No, you don't say. Oh, it does say that day. No, you don't say 1992. Just like everything. Yeah, exactly. What's so great about this is the level of piano playing that she comes in with, but the fact, like, she's just kind of like was messing. Well, you'll see, she messed with it. But just feel like the groove. It's like a switch is turned on. It's kind of crazy. I'm going to get the volume up first. All right, here we go. I love watching you watch

Shirley Horn. She's just like... And then it's just... You know how many Gack notes I would have hit by now with white gloves on? I can't play that accurately without gloves.

So for this kind of like just, right the middle groove. Nobody can do it better than her. It's not fair. It's not fair. It's too much talent. And everybody always speaks. I mean, of course, her incredible ball.

She's so swinging. When she's digging, when she digs in, equally great, so. Shirley Horn. Yeah, there's a lot of singers that accompany themselves, a couple of really famous ones that probably owes Shirley Horn a great debt. Yeah.

Apologies for playing some of these shorter than they should. We're going to have links to everything below, though, so. This is, we're going on 30 minutes here. They're getting their money's worth. We played some of the stuff early. We've got one more. We could have 10 more from this. Wait, we've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

That's number eight already. Yeah, we have one more. We have one more. Like I said, we could have 10 more with this generation. That's true. Shout out to the silent generation. They don't get talked about, I think, which is why people call them the silent generation. They're not silent.

But they are not silent. And we'll end here with... This is our best group, the best generation so far? Yeah, it is the best generation. I think it's going to be... Mulgooks could have been in this generation. He was off by like a year. Yeah.

I mean, just spiritually in terms of his point. Spiritually, yeah, it's true. Winn Kelly. Winning Kelly. Enjoy You're welcome You'll hear it Well Peter

This has been a lot of fun Silent generation Not so silent anymore And great And great yeah Check out a link in our description To our YouTube channel If you're listening

Not to muddle things further But this may be the greatest generation I'm not talking about the greatest generation That just got way more confused You know what I'm saying This might be the greatest of the generations That we've listened to Well, and next week, the greatest generation.

So enjoy that. Until then. You'll hear it.