You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 of Our Favorite Interviews with Jazz Musicians - #16

Episode Date: September 17, 2018

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And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. That's right. Good to be back. We're back. Back in the Podcave. New week.

We've been to the Pod Cave already this morning quite a bit. Just getting ready for this spectacular episode that's about to happen. That's right. Well, don't oversell it, but I like your optimism. What? Don't oversell long-winded jazz interviews? This is great. So this is, right, seven favorite interviews with jazz musicians.

Okay, I'm looking at the title. Is this seven? of our favorite interview? No, it's just seven favorite. Seven favorite interviews. It should say seven of our. No, that's okay. No, I'm changing it right here. It's global. Seven of our favorite interviews with jazz musicians. I was reminded of this great interview, really interesting interview with Keith Jarrett that was on the NPR, the National Public Radio program, Fresh Air with Terry Gross. It aired like in 2000, quite a while ago, but he had just got over his chronic fatigue syndrome that he was kind of dealing with in the 90s. CFS.

And I mean, he just talks about all this great stuff about pianos. Like there's a part in the interview where he talks about he's recording the solo piano album

at his home and he's got this Steinway. And he was working with a Steinway tech to try to take the break out of the action of the piano. So like, you know,

the break, for those of you who aren't pianist, is if you press down softly enough, slow enough, the key will reach it and the, the hammer won't strike.

And Keith hates that. Wait, hold on just a second. Nerd alert, nerd alert, nerd alert. Was he successful? He said they developed his systems of weights and pulleys for the piano action. It's very Keith Jared here. So we'll play just a little bit of the beginning,

just him talking about his childhood. You started taking lessons, piano lessons when you were three, which I think is uncommonly early. why did your parents get you a teacher at such a young age? Well, they discovered I had a perfect pitch. How did they discover that? Well, there was an old converted player piano was just in the house,

and I think no one really played it at all. And I ended up sitting at the piano picking out melodies that were coming out of the radio. Wow, yeah. It's pretty fascinating interview. It's only about 20 minutes long. It's not very long. I mean, Terry Gross, what an incredible interviewer.

Yeah. And Keith, Jared, I mean, I could just listen to him, talk about music. And I like, I like, there's already a little allusion to some piano privilege in his background, which is awesome. You know, perfect pitch of three player piano in the household. Yeah. You know, nurturing environment. But, you know, it's such an amazing, amazing interview. I haven't heard it since around that time.

So I'm so glad you brought it back. I'm going to dive back in. Yeah. And we'll actually put some links on here. on the you'll hear it.com. Let's set up some links for some folks. A little resource. A little resource, yeah.

That's good. So that's number one. Keep chair on fresh air. Okay, number two, this is one of my favorite interviews of all time, very controversial. And as we were talking about the subject and planning for this, I kind of dove back into it because I hadn't read it in a while.

And through the magic of the internet, you can find everything. And that's an interview in 1985. in a little periodical called Musician Magazine, which you may not know about. I do not know about it. Yes, this was the big thing in the 80s. But the whole thing was, it was not a jazz magazine.

It was just truly about music. So jazz would only occasionally get in. And my recollection, and I just found the text to the interview, I didn't even find the cover. But I can still remember, I probably have it somewhere at my mom's house. But the cover, it was like, you know, the part that goes above the title, like musician? It'll be like a headline up there, not the main headline in picture.

But above it, it was like, Winton versus Herbie. Come on. Yeah, no, that's what it was. I mean, super click. It was like clickbait, you know, clickbait 80 style, you know. Trying to sell some magazines by hitting two jazz greats against each other. Right. But it was sort of rare for jazz to appear in that magazine at all.

So it was like a big deal. And this was 85, a big year for like Winton and Herbie and sort of the jazz, Young Lions. Yeah. Winton was on the Grammys playing classical music and jazz. And he made some, that might have been in 84, but it was shortly before. this interview, he really made some ways because he said some disparaging things, some what could be considered as elitist things, imagine that wouldn't. No, but just, you know,

he said some things about pop music and after playing classical music and like a tuxedo and then like, you know, some killing jazz quintet stuff, you know, three minutes each, like a little excerpt. Yeah, it was crazy. So what, the magazine musician, what, what were they usually, it was like Michael Jackson or what? Yeah, it was just, it was pretty much just pop stuff. And I mean, really nothing ever classical, maybe very occasionally something jazz. Not a lot of musicians, really. Ooh, elite as much. I like it.

But no, but I was just looking back over it. I won't read the whole thing, but there was some funny things like, I mean, they definitely were trying to bait them. So the interview starts out. A musician says, we don't want to get you guys into an argument. That's the beginning of the article. And Herbie says, oh, we won't.

We never argue. And Marcellus, I would never argue with Herbie. But then they talk about, like, the first question is about, blah, blah, blah, something about Winton Marsalis and why was he so great and so much better than someone else. And Herbie says he was a better human being. And Winton says because Lewis Armstrong technique was better. So it was like a lot of stuff like that.

And then they asked him about the whole thing about what he said on the Grammys and stuff and kind of what he thought about Herbie dabbling. I mean, basically he says, Winton is just like, you know, it was pretty obvious what I was saying because he wasn't specific about what kind of music he was disparaging on the Grammys. And he's like, I wasn't really talking about pop music because everybody already knows pop music is way worse than jazz and classical. Yeah, I mean, this is the mid-80s, baby. Oh, shoulder pads for the ladies, shoulder pads for the men.

For the fellas, yeah. Yeah, it was a free, it was like the Wild West. Dang. All right, I definitely got to read that. Yeah. All right, for our number three, this is a great interview that was put out. I mean, it's been around for a while. It's an interview with John Coltrane from 1966.

This great PBS show called Blank on Blank made an animation of the interview. What happened was this, I believe he's a journalist named Frank Kovsky, took the train out to Long Island to spend the day with John Coltrane. He brought along a tape recorder. They're basically just driving around running errands talking about music and life and I'll play a little bit. And there's a really, you can't see this obviously here because this is an audio podcast. I don't know if you're aware of that. No, but big shout out to YouTube. But YouTube would even see it?

Oh, that's right, they won't see them. They'll see us reacting to it. There's a great animation that goes along with this, but the interview, even if it's just the audio, is unbelievable. Here's a little bit of that. Do you live far outside of wherever we are now? Well, I guess I'm about four or five miles down the road. You really sound like farmer John.

Yeah, man, when I come up here and I have to do all, get everything I'm going to get. I got to go to the store and do all that because I don't want to come back up here. It's just so cool to hear Train's voice to hear him talk about going to the store. You know what I mean? And then they end up talking about giant steps and getting into more musical things. But it's only five minutes long. It's definitely worth a look on YouTube. Wait, you're telling me John Coltrane went to the store?

I know, like a normal. Did he put on pants and put on shoes like a regular humor? Just like us. He didn't just appear out of the stars one day. Don't burst my bubble, buddy. And then just disappear into the stars after he was done playing. No. And then this, yeah, the animation is great that goes with it.

And wasn't this the inspiration for our little early You'll Hear It animation? Funny enough, this was the inspiration. You can go check out. We have one of our You Will Hear It episodes. We had our fabulous intern Clara animate our episode on how to become a better composer. That's right. We can link to that as well. Yeah, we'll link to that as well.

It's up on YouTube. It's not an interview. It's just us BSing as usual. But the animation is killing. Right. Yeah. It's fun stuff. Good.

So that's blank on blank. Blank on blank. Nice. All right. So number four, we've got, now you put this one in, but I'm happy to oblige. Yeah, man. A little self-serving.

Gregory Hutchinson, this really was great, though. This was the interview I actually did with Greg Hutchinson for our other podcast. It's a little bit on hiatus called The Process. Yeah, the process got eaten up by the daily. By the, you'll hear it. It got pushed out like an angry. shark. The process was an interview podcast where you were interviewing great jazz musicians and then I would edit it with music and really kind of make a production out of it. Yeah. Almost like a this American

lifestyle interview process and getting stories and stuff like that. This, I picked this because I remember during the editing process of this, just your history together, you guys have known each other, you know, your whole adult lives. Yeah. And you've played so much with each other and played with a lot of the same people. And the storytelling was just at such a high level and just your rapport between each other, I thought was just amazing. I really do think it's worth checking out this interview. You can subscribe to the process, of course, anywhere you subscribe to, like, you'll hear it

or whatever, you know, and it's on iTunes, it's on Google, Google podcast, whatever. Stitcher? Oh, we don't know. We don't know if it's on Stitcher. Here's just a little snippet from this interview Peter Martin did with Gregory Hutchinson. Generation, but to see that that, that, that, level. I think you guys are talking about Ray Brown, by the way, a little context.

Of facility and just inspiration and just effortlessness and to think that, okay, maybe I'm not going to be Ray Brown, but to be able to be playing at that age, that was always inspiring. I mean, like I see Herbie and Chick-Korea and pianists, but any instrument, you know, it really inspires us, I think, to think that we can be doing that and having fun and making a living for quite some time. Exactly. And, you know, you touched on something that is like, this is not, we were talking about this the other day. his level of musicianship and the way that he was able to get around the base still at this time period that you're talking about was still by far, you know, top two. You know, like there was no letoff to me and that beat, you know, we talk about having a beat and just sometimes I felt like I was being, like I was like the sleigh and the dogs were pulling me.

Like, oh, and he just take a couple of beats for it. And if you weren't careful, you'd be lost. That's so great, man. I just love hearing you guys talk about, you know, some of the legends that you all played with and the stories are so great. Yeah, I highly recommend if you're a fan of this podcast, you'll probably like the process. It's a little bit longer for him. Well, and you did such a wonderful job on, you know, bringing the music in and bringing little stories to life because they're always about music, you know, in some way. Yeah, yeah.

And you did a wonderful, it's a whole multimedia extravaganza. That's a, it was a fun process to edit. I mean, it's not as fun as sitting here every day talking to you. And then having Brianna and Andrew edit. That's right. That's right. Good. So our next one is, you probably have seen this, if you've done any searching on YouTube for jazz interviews at all.

And this has made its way around social media all over the internet. This is Oscar Peterson talking to Mike Douglas, an old chat show. from what is this like 1975 I think that's Dick Cavett though actually is that Dick Cavett yeah I believe that's that's Mr. Cavett let me see oh my goodness that's okay no it is it's Dick Cavett dude see you're you are young you got I remember watching Dick Cavett well my dad and mom were watching it he was like the hip one right yeah yeah yeah yeah well they you know what it was it was a whole other thing 70s shows I mean you had Richard Pryor had a show a talk show for a while yeah

they let him have a talk show I know that was crazy like a big it was like a ABC or C I mean it was like you know Johnny Carson of course I mean used to have a bunch of hip jazz stuff on there the band I mean look at the band you know yeah yeah but yeah that was dick Abbott sorry apologies to Dick Cabot for for calling you out on as being Mike Douglas that's all good Mike Douglas was hip too all right well so here's a little bit a little snippet of that interview with Oscar Peterson it basically turns into a piano lesson in fact on YouTube it's called Oscar Peterson piano right hate him The stride piano of Tatum or people of that air is the ability to play the background for yourself and make it work like a rhythm section.

As opposed to when you play with the rhythm section where you would just hold a chord usually or punch you with a chord and play. It's great to watch this interview on video too because the ease at which Oscar is doing this at this period is so inspirational. I mean, he's just... It's just like the hippest professor and most accomplished professor ever and you're just sitting there with him. Exactly. Piano Jazz Piano 1-1 with Oscar Peterson, man. And I mean, Dick Havitton is great. And it's totally like long form and prime time.

I mean, it was another era for like, you know, the length and depth that an interview could go into. I mean, it does still exist now, but not on network television, I don't believe. Although actually we don't get any of the network television networks at my home. So I couldn't really tell you what's going on now. Yeah. Netflix. Netflix got some good. Yeah.

Actually, Netflix, David Letterman has a long-form interview show. It's really good. And it's like old school. I mean, that's the way all these things used to be. Yeah. Yeah, but now every other interview show, you know, they're in a car, they're going to get coffee. They're on a horse. I kind of like the coffee car.

That was pretty good. All right. What do we got next? Okay. Next we have, this is kind of an interview, but it's a little bit more. It's Christian McBride, A Day in the Life. And I love this getting into sort of videos and what can be done. And, you know, anything Christian, like all his interviews on NPR, on his show on the, you know,

night in America the stuff that he moderates and when he's interviewed other musicians he is so good on either side of the mic yeah yeah um as the interviewer or the interviewee um because he's such a great storyteller and i got to tell you from like being around him and knowing him for a long time he is so authentic in an interview like he is himself yeah he does not change yeah and he's so interesting engaging um and then has all these great not only great experiences himself but has been around and is interested in so many different parts of music and pop culture and sports. I mean, you could, like, he's so into the Philadelphia, and he's Mr. Philadelphia, of course, and he loves the Eagles. I'm like not even, I'm kind of

anti- NFL football. We'll have another show on that. I've kind of turned my back on football, but go Saints. What's up? Where you at? Who'd at? I was going to say, if the Saints make the playoffs and turn your back? That's why I turn my back. What happened? No, no. But, but I mean, Christian, like, can talk about the Eagles, and it's so interesting that you get, like, pulled in and you want a root form and stuff. But this video on YouTube, do you have a little bit of this cute up the day and the life? Here's just the beginning of it. Yeah.

Wow, gang. That's so great. Welcome to Mr. Wood Drive's neighborhood. You are in Montclair, New Jersey at my humble home. Shut out, Montclair. And you guys are going to come in and we're going to show you around. He just gives like a tour of his house. But he goes through like his whole day.

Just a little bit. Can't show you everything. Yeah, I've seen this actually. He does go through his whole day. I could just listen to the guy talk about anything for a while. He's got one of those voices. those voices. Total radio.

Total radio voice. Like when he tries to be goofy like that, he's still cool. I know. And then, but he goes and like, it's really cool too because he goes, I think he does some of the radio program on there or I know he goes to the jazz museum at Harlem because I was during the period when he was curating up there and really, it almost, if you didn't know him or know what he's about, you'd think this was like a stage day because he does something.

But that's the way he is. Like he's always doing all these projects and he's doing them all super well. Yeah. And like he has, he's. so relaxed in everything that he does, like he never tenses up. Yeah. I mean, he says that he does, but you can't tell it. You can't tell.

I remember when he came in and he did lessons for us. Yeah. He did his great course for us called The Fundamentals of Jazz Base. And he just casually came in and just killed this course. Came right from the airport. He came right from the airport. He was just like, out of his base, wiped it down. He was like, all right, cameras are rolled.

Let's just go. And he didn't stop until like two days later. And we were like, everyone else is exhausted. I know. like, all right, on to the next thing. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, yeah, he's definitely someone. I mean, some jazz musicians, I'm like,

a whole day in the life might not be that worthwhile. But this is a... It wouldn't be legal to see. Exactly. This one's a nicely edited, and as I say, super authentic. All right. Well, okay, so this next one, I've got to set up a little bit. Okay, this is number seven, so this is a big one.

It's not necessarily an interview. This is from Ken Burns' jazz series. And actually, shout out to the entire series of Ken Burns, because there are a lot of great interviews throughout the whole series of a lot of great jazz musicians. Yeah. This one is one of my favorite clips of a jazz musician ever. It's sort of, I forget what episode it was. It might have been like seven or eight.

It was one of the later ones because they're talking about avant-garde jazz. And they are specifically talking about Cecil Taylor, who actually likes Cecil Taylor and his whole vision for things. But there's a point where they talk about his approach to how he approaches his audiences, and then they cut to Bramford Marcellus. And it's just so satisfying. I'll just let it speak for itself here. Here it is Cecil Taylor.

Cecil Taylor once said that since he prepared for his concerts, the audience should prepare too. That's total self-indulgent bullshit is for a lot of concern. I love baseball. I mean, I'm not going to go and catch a hundred grounders before I go to a game. I mean, that's what we pay to see them do what they do and to appreciate them. That was Bradford's take on on Cecil asking him. his audience to prepare because he prepares. And I think that's so, such a great Bramford Marcellus

answered to a question. It's so logical, too. Just the baseball analogy. The baseball analogy, because you know he loves baseball too, so it's perfect. Oh, Bramford. I mean, as long as we're on the Brantford, the Brantford train. Getting a little controversial. I see where you're going with this. You know, you know, the famous one I'm talking about, right? Well, I mean, it's famous around here. I don't know how, you know, how, how famous. We love Brantford around here. We love Bramford. No, big shout out to Bramford. And I'll tell you, I met Bramford when I was 14 years old. And he was so, like for all the different stories. And I know there's that other interview that we didn't put on there where about the current state of jazz education where he's just going off. Oh, I have it

queued up. Oh, you do? Where he's just blasting educators, students, like other players, like everybody, you know. I love it, man. Bring it on. I love it. But, you know, Bramford was like such a generous person with me. I mean, to this day, but especially when I was younger. I remember he came and played. I met him when he was playing with Winton, Kenny Kirkland, with that original group, and I was just a punk kid. And then he came back, like, the next year, or maybe two years later. It was shortly thereafter with Sting. Sting had that great band, you know, with Omar Hakeem and Brannford, Kenny Kirkland, Daryl Jones on bass. And when he broke up, it was a big deal because he broke up with the police and went out solo. Is that legal even?

He broke up with the, not the jazz police, just the regular police, the British police. but when Bramford came back I don't know how some I must have had his number I mean there's no cell phone something I guess I called him at the hotel and he was like yeah yeah I remember you come out of the hotel

and I came down and brought a couple of musicians friends he got us all tickets to the show it was at the Muni at the Muni at the Muni when they used to have shows still outdoors big amphitheater and like backstage passes and we're back there

you know got to meet Sting and stuff who I would work with years later don't know if he remembered me though but you know Bramford's always been But then he's always, he loves to be controvert. Like, he's a master market. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, he loves it. He knows what he's doing. But, I mean, he says stuff that he believes in. Yeah, no, he's real. That's the problem. He's completely real. No filter.

No filter. But it works for him. It really does. I'm just going to just a little bit. What I've learned from my students is that students today are completely full of shit. Thank you, Brantford. Mike drop. Thank you, Brantford, for just being you, man.

Yeah, yeah. So that's good. The best. Well, I think that's good. I think we covered some good ones. We hit a little controversy. We hit a little education. I think that Keith Jarrett one that we started with. I guess we can do it. I can do a quick run through here. I know we're going to have links on the site. Actually, maybe not on the site. You know what we should do. We should do what we should do. We should have for our newsletter. Right. Then you can get some links to these interviews. That's right. So in order to sign up for a newsletter, just go to you'll hear it.com. That's right. Nice little link there. We won't spam you. Well, we'll spam you with a weekly newsletter if you consider that spam. Yeah. You're interested. Good. So yeah, I'm definitely going to go back to that Keith Jarrett.

Super interesting then. Just hear him talk about his piano is really, really fascinating. Good, good. So we've got, I think tomorrow we'll go over some of our ratings and reviews, just to kind of let people think about that between now and tomorrow. Yeah, you know, so if you want to be a part of it, maybe go leave our reading your review right now. Why are we getting so quiet and intimate? Well, I don't know. Podcast just got a little bit. Podcast closing it on us. All right, well, you'll hear it.