You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 of Our Favorite Piano Solos - #40

Episode Date: March 11, 2018

In this episode, Adam and Peter list some of their favorite piano solos of all time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Menace and I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Today we're going to talk about seven of our favorite piano solos. And are we going to do seven each or we're going to do seven total? Oh, seven each would be awesome, but I don't think people have enough time on their commute to work. That's right. 14 different piano solos. Short attention span podcast listeners.

That's how we do it. All right. We're going to start out with, and look, this is, this goes beyond highly subjective. This should be titled seven highly subjective. favorite piano solos that we thought of in the last 10 minutes exactly but but i mean favorite that's that's always fun so i'm gonna go with number one art tatum willow weep for me you're gonna go out on a limb there i'm gonna go out on a limb with that sad solo no but i'll tell you why it's my favorite i don't even know that it's the greatest although it who cares maybe it is but it's from a

record called piano starts here or that's the recording that i heard the LP that i right there's like six different yeah versions and i think it's probably was a re-release just i'm thinking about to the LP that my father had, and he used to like that record a lot. It was kind of always in our house, but when I started getting into jazz and listen to that, that particular track really, that introduction just was like magical to me, like the modernness of it, and then the way he goes through the whole tune, I love it. So that's probably my favorite piano solo solo piano ever. Probably the greatest jazz pianist of all time, would you say, Art Tatum?

I mean, how can you... He's right. He's right. He's right. So I'm going to go with, I'm going to kick my list off with pure pyrotechnics of Oscar Peterson playing How High the Moon on the Live at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival. This is with the Oscar Peterson trio of Ray Brown and Herb Ellis on guitar. This is an unbelievable solo. He goes into double time with block chords at one point.

And I remember the first time I heard it, I thought, well, that's just not physically possible to do. And the entire time, even when he's double-timing these thick block chords, he makes it swing so hard that it's hard not to get super amped. I mean, I've heard it a million times. I still get amped every time I listen to it. One of my all-time favorite piano solos. I think that's a key for any kind of favorite solo. It's something that you hear it yesterday, today, tomorrow, till the day you die. Every time it's like, yes, you're never going to get tired of it.

Okay. So for that, I'll go with a real song. sentimental favorite of mine, like the Art Tatum, but again, one that, you know, listened to, you know, probably every month, if not several times a month for the last, whatever, 30 years since it came out. That's Kenny Kirkland solo on Frisinnian Man on Witton Marsalis' Black Coats from the Underground. So that was 1985, so that's 30 years, right? Yeah.

Something like that. Kenny's playing, I mean, that, you know, he really, he really sort of just opened the door to another era of playing. jazz piano. And like you could almost feel it. Maybe I'm projecting back a little bit, but the way it worked out was like he influenced so many pianists after that point and he for, you know, for sure is influenced by Herbie very much who was still playing then, still playing now. But like Kenny was sort of the first one that came along with taking that Herbie influence but then putting his thing on it and then immediately influencing young pianists of his generation, you know.

but mainly just I love the way that the piano sounds I love how he's swinging on there I love the way he's interacting thematic and you know I mean I can I can still feel and hear the whole soul and then every time it comes on it's like I know every note that's coming but it's like the first time he played it I love Kenny Clarkman so much man

define that generation of piano players had a unique sound from the get-go I mean that's really hard to do an unbelievable solo yeah I'm gonna go my second one I'm gonna go with Bill Evans solo on Beautiful Love from the Explorations album. Now, I say solo, but really Bill's entire performance

on this, the way he plays the melody is so unique. At a certain point, he does these triads, up a melodic minor scale that are so smooth and they're so Bill Evansy. I don't know, the whole solo, it's like a such a quintessential Bill Evans' solo that I... It's a Bill Evans'

tour de force. It is a Bill Evans, no, I mean, he does, he goes through all the hits. He does the comping, you know, with the eighth notes, along with it. But it's so well done. It's so beautifully melodic and, you know, it's got all that melancholy and the sound and the touch that you want from Bill Evans. One of my all-time favorites. Nice. Nice. All right. Next, I'm going to go with an oldie, but a goodie. That's Whitney Kelly's solo on Freddie Freeloader. Oh, you like that one. I like that solo, you know. And I mean, it's kind of like, you know, obvious choice, you know, put a blindfold on and throw a dart at a great

solo, it's going to land on this, but I think there's a reason for that. There is. And for me, I actually went a fair amount of time not listening to it longer than some of these other solos, not just because I didn't want to, and just for whatever reason. And then I came back to it, you know, working on the transcription and that project and stuff, and it just reignited in me what depth and beauty and simplicity there is in that solo. And it's such a favorite for me because I both simultaneously learned so much from it, learned so much, and continued to, but also just enjoy.

enjoy it so much. So I love those kind of things that are like you get so many specific tangible things to apply to your playing and it just sounds so good. Totally. And this is a great... Win and win I guess we call that, right? No, this is a great example of what you were talking about. I mean, how many times have you heard this? You know, it's on in restaurants and every jazz club you walk into. Yeah. And even though you know exactly what's going to happen in every note and every sound, it's still such a joy to listen to this solo. It feels so great. It's so well done. So my next entry into this very subjective list is Herbie Hancock's solo in actual proof from the thrust record.

This is during his headhunters era in the mid-70s. And this is, I think, the greatest Fender Road solo I can think of besides, well, there's some Chick-Korean ones that are really, really good. Maybe that's a whole other list, seven of our favorite Chick-Korean solos. No, but this solo, I mean, it's an iconic solo from an iconic record thrust. and if you haven't heard him play this, I mean, I think I saw a chart of like a transcription of this once, and you're just like, how does he get so much out of so little? And it's a, it's so wonderful.

Inspired. It's really inspired. Inspired playing. That whole band on that recording. It's amazing. Yep. All right, well, I think we're at number seven, and so I'm going to go, and I'll just say that, yeah,

we're being highly subjective, but what we said, and what we're going to title this, seven of our favorite piano souls. We're not saying seven greatest solo or our only favorites. These are just seven amongst them. We could do future episodes where we say seven more of our favorite piano solos. Yeah, I mean, we're hedging a little bit for sure. Yeah, I mean, the fact that you just mentioned Chick-Korea,

and I realized we didn't have a Chick-Korea solo. What's up, Chick? Yeah. But I'm going to go for number seven with Oscar Peterson on Tintin-Dale. Oh, man. And shame on me now. I'm forgetting the album that it's on. But, I mean, I can, I remember the,

the exact solo and part of the thing that I think is so great about the soul this is not like you know the how high the moon that you mentioned where he's just going crazy technically and swing wise I mean he's swinging hard but this is a more laid back and restrained solo for Oscar Peterson but there's a moment when they go from that groove into the swing and it's as much Ray Brown and Ed Thickpan as it is Oscar but they go immediately into a swing that is so hard and precise And just beautiful. Did I always use that as an example when students ask, how do you swing? I say, listen to that, and I give them the exact time in the solo,

which I'm not organized enough to have in my mind right now. But you'll hear it when you get there. But it just goes to just instant. It's like you flipped a switch, and all the lights just came on. And, I mean, I never get enough of that. Now, I remember we were sitting around talking about the most swinging moments in recorded music history. Yeah.

And that moment won for all the things we put up. That has... We had a scientific test we did. I think we did. That was science. That wasn't just what we thought. Yeah, you don't have to believe us. That is scientifically the most swinging moment in jazz history.

I forget. It's like four minutes and 15 seconds or something. Four minutes and three seconds or something like that. Yeah, it's like right when he goes, it's during the piano solo, he's staying on the groove, and then when it goes to the bridge and they first go into the swing on the solo. But I mean, I think it's not like, oh, that's the hardest he ever swung. He swung like that every night. I know, right?

But it was just the way it was set up within the arrangement and the way he was playing real restraint before that. And it's effortless, too. It's not like a really, I said hard swing. I mean, it's actually kind of restrained. They're just like, it's an effortless yet hard swing. Scientifically proven. Hey, if you go check it out, you will hear it. With that and all these, you'll hear it.

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