You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Times Jazz Went Pop

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

Peter and Adam turn the tables on yesterday's episode as they list some jazz musicians who had pop crossover success.7 Times Jazz Went PopHerbie Hancock - "Rockit'Bobby McFerrin - "Don't Worry, Be Happy"Miles Davis - "Human Nature"Natalie Cole with Nat King Cole - "Unforgettable"Norah Jones - "Don't Know Why"Robert Glasper - Black RadioBONUSCalling all pianists - get the Piano Access Pass today! Save money with this bundle featuring every piano course ever from Open Studio, including teachers such as Peter Martin, Geoffrey Keezer, and Helio Alves.Want to add some Brazilian flair to your own playing? The Samba Pack is now available from Open Studio! Featuring 7 curated lessons from our roster of Brazilian artists (including Helio Alves, Edu Ribeiro, and Romero Lubambo), the Samba Pack is also our lowest-price course ever from Open Studio.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 Pete. Hey. All right, so pop went jazz. What happens when jazz goes pop? Jazz goes pop. Pop goes jazz? What? Bam!

I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the ULhair podcast. Daily music advice. Come in action. Now, if you want some real music advice, go to Open Studio Jazz.com and check out all of our courses. If you want to listen to...

Fun fact about Open... Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, I was going to say if you want to listen to two jazz buffoons just talk about pop music, you've come to the right place. That's right. And you know what? I love these. We're not on the YouTube today, but big shout out to you.

We will be back in a few days. We're doing selected episodes. I know. Keep on videoing. Keep on, man, what's their server charge like per month? But they, no, I love these audio ones because, I mean, I feel like we, I mean, it's not like we're in the studio, you know, just totally relaxed, but we're pretty relaxed. I mean, like right now you're checking your phone.

No, I got to pay my parking. You know these vultures out here will. That's right. I mean, we just get a little more relaxed when we go old school podcast only. I like it. I got my seat back. Yeah, we don't have a cameras on. I got my belly out.

Alex is not audibly laughing as he usually does as he records because he knows. He will be. We got to mention. Oh, come on. Not yet. No. It's the anticipation that really gets him going. Don't even say it.

See, wait until later. I want to see him suffer. He's kind of laughing and thinking about it now. I think, too, Alex, he tries to be very quiet. Like, some of our interns have not tried to be quiet. No. Alex tries to be very quiet. And I think it gets like when he starts trying to laugh, like he's trying not to laugh.

That makes it harder. I know. Get the giggles. All right. So, yes, we've talked about our sponsor. We've talked about the name of what we're doing today. You paid your parking. So good things are happening.

What is this meaning? How is this different from yesterday? Well, so yesterday we did the seven times pop-wind jazz, where we listed seven pop songs that were heavily influenced by jazz, if not, actually involving a lot of jazz musicians. Many of the tracks we played yesterday involved, like, jazz musicians playing with a world-famous pop group. But they were all. headlined or albums by

bonified pop groups. Yeah, by folks like Steely Dan and Michael Jackson and things like this. This is the flip of that. This is when a famous jazz musician actually crossed over into a little bit of pop success. You know what? We got two more episodes we could do like this. We could still do like

when seven times jazz went pop and it went wrong. Like unsuccessful jazz. And then unsuccessful the other way. I'm thinking like the 1970s called it. Rod Stewart standards. It was a decade back. Oh my God. Oh, the Rob Stewart Sanders.

Oh, yeah, we should do that. Seven times that pop musicians tried to go into the jazz thing, and there's a few. But you know what? We're all about the glass being half full here at the... Oh, I just thought of one, actually. Of the You'll Hear a podcast. We're not about preparation, but we're all about glass being half full. So we're going to stick positive today.

There's some great names on here, and really some hugely successful records, for sure. Wouldn't you say? For sure. You know what? I just thought of a really good one. Well, you got to make it a bonus, buddy, because we got seven already. So we're going to have a bonus today. There you go.

Okay. This is, I'm sorry. Getting it together. Getting it together. Okay. Kicking it off today, we have a gentleman who may, has only had sporadic mention on this podcast. We don't like to talk about them. No, because we don't like to drop the name, but what do you know about Herbie Hancock?

I wish we were on you too. I know. I see Peter's robots. Great. A little automation flow for you there. Listen to that. Yeah, I feel like me. What do you know about blue?

What do you know about Blue Herbie? Blue Herbie. What are you talking? He was very. blue in this video. Oh my god. He was barely in it until later though. Like me, yeah, very, very Miami vice, right? Yeah,

that's great. Look, pants with no bodies on. With legs. That was a great video, man. This just happened to like, boogie A.F. You know, Herbie several times, it's super smoothies. Herbie several times throughout his entire career from the 60s onward, you know,

delved into the pop field. I mean, the sunlight record that was just a couple years before this in the disco era. was very poppy by nature. But there was a combination of MTV in this video and this track that just made this one pop-off. That's Rocket from Future Shock, and it's just awesome. Oh, I love reading the comments. Sorry, I diverge, but the number one comment on the Rocket video on the Herbie Hancock Vivo YouTube channel on this is this video used to scare the living piss out of me as a child.

All right, we're going to move ahead to the... Same here. Same here. Scared you? Come all, man, LOL. Sit your average 4 or 5-year-old in front of this video and see if they like it. It's fun in games now, but as a child, this video was haunting. That's true.

Yeah. We're going to skip ahead to the late 80s here. This is, I remember this song from childhood big time. This is from Bobby McFerrin, Robert. Robert McFerran. And just famously, this is all vocal percussion, and he did everything. You multi-track this. And I remember, you know, this was such a.

pop that my mom was like, can you believe he's making all of those sounds with his mouth? Yeah, I know. Was it a movie or something? Was it Rain Man, maybe? Maybe. I know there was some reference to it in Forest Gum, but that was later. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Here's a little song I wrote. Oh, Rolty. You might want to sing it note for note. Don't worry to be happy. In every life we have some. trouble but when you worry you make it

double don't worry I don't care what anybody says I like this track I know no it's great I just like Bobby man he's such a

brilliant musician yeah this was a huge hit it was a huge hit everybody was talking about this and the thing with Bobby McFerrin the little bit of

actually got the pleasure of playing with him a couple times and he is a musical genius he on like a number of different levels and I mean this is just like a very tightly produced,

uplifting, poppy, kind of topical thing. But this dude, and also actually, so playing with him, it's like his ears are just, it's insane, like you play something,

and he's known for being able to do a cappella stuff, mainly because it's like no one can keep up with him and he can pull it off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But another side to him, you know,

when my dad was playing down the street here with the St. Louis Symphony, he came in a couple times to do shows with them pop shows, but one of the things he did that my dad was so impressed. I remember him telling me the story. he came and conducted

he's a very good conductor he conducted like a Mozart symphony as part of his show no way but what he did was there was a whole movement where he had everybody sing their part oh that's so cool and at first you know the classical musicians were like we don't but he got everybody motivated

my dad was like I don't think anyone else could have got us to do that and then like the sections were competing with each other and he said it sounded amazing and like he was singing everybody's part he would jump around because he knew the piece so well Oh man, I would love to see that Yeah And you know his dad was from St. Louis, I believe No way

Yeah, Robert Robert McFair He was a big time opera singer Oh, that's so cool You know, his son Taylor is a really killing Usher's some too We were at the new school at the same time Oh, right

All right Next is not quite as big of a hit As the first two But we're going to count this As some times where Jazz musicians went pop This is Miles's version of MJ's human nature

Let's play baseball Miles always got a Miles, man. He's gun on Miles. I remember seeing Miles live on Long Island right around during this period with this band, man. It was like... That's Dale Jones. That's Miles, human nature.

I like that. What's that on? That is from... You're under arrest. Yeah, you're under arrest. I was going to say. That was that album covers was scary AF. I remember that one. I had the LP.

I was with a gun coming from East St. Louis. Let's move ahead to another disturbing trend that happened in the 90s duets with dead people musicians that have passed away this one got a pass because it was the daughter

of the musician but there were some she had an end with the yeah there were some suspect ones if you remember oh come on man this is unforgettable but there was some unforgivable

versions of duets there were a couple of duets oh man what happened on that were definitely unforgivable but this is Natalie Cole's duet with her deceased father

Natickin Cole unforgettable this was a huge hit too yeah the video whatever was like yeah I think people were excited because they're like oh Nackie Cole's still alive you know no he does not David Foster Ska

Unforgetable that's what you are I mean Natalie had the voice She's awesome Sounds really good actually I haven't heard this since it was out I just googled duets with dead singers Susan Boyle and Elvis Presley

Oh, man. Barry Manelow and Whitney Houston. Oh, that happened before. Which one of them is? Scarlet Johansson and Dean Martin. Come on. Jeez. This guy, he's not even trying to...

Eight duets with that. Man, the internet is a dark, dark place. I know. Well, then you've got, I mean, from this same kind of period, you've got Millie Vanilli, two singers who weren't dead, but might as well been, because they weren't actually singing in that duet.

Oh, man. All right. We're going to skip ahead to the early 2000s. This is a gray... Hashtag Millie Vanilli. I'll see if Andrew's paying attention. This is a gray area for me. This is Nora Jones.

Don't know why. Now, you know, Brian Blade is on this. Like, there's a ton of hats on this recording on this album. It was a blue note record. But Nora Jones never, I mean, she can sing some jazz sometimes, but she's more of a pop musician. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like nearness of you is great, but still in a pop thing. Yeah. You can sing her. Nice piano show. I like her piano show. I like what she's tasty for sure. It's written by Jesse Harris This song

It's a great song This sold a lot of records This is like when CDs were She was the last Every Starbucks Hurrah of CD sales Yeah Do you like a little Nora Jones

With your latte Suburban White Mother? Yes That he said All of them said this But man I love the playing on this All the musicians

Just kill it for the pop Simplicity And I love the pianos I love her bills All this It's so tasty And her voice is incredible Yeah

I remember when there was a bit of a bit of, I want to say, over-exposure or backlash to this record. And I remember defending it saying, like, what else do you want from a big pop record? Like, how much better can the music be on a big pop record than, you know, Brian Blade and these players doing their thing? Yeah, and I think the sound on it, too, is like it was such a, you know, it was a time, like many different times within pop music where simplicity was not celebrated. So this was a very, like just sort of melody, you know, no auto-tuned or this apparently none, and just some good sounding stuff. And that was, I think, what really propelled it. Like, it was during a time when there was a lot of just cacophony and just random stuff going on.

And just a really well-engineered project as well. All right, Peter, I got a question for you. Yes, sir. When was the last time a jazz pianist had a number one record on iTunes? When was the last time you were ever on iTunes? Does that still exist? Not really. You know what?

After this, I'm going to go download some 99-cent tracks and put them on my iPod. This record was the number one album for iTunes for a while. And then not on the jazz charts. On the entire charts. And this was Robert Glasper experiment, Black Radio, and I just love this track. This is a classic at this morning.

Compression much? Seemingly effortless. It's just beautiful. Chades of delight. This Erica Badoo is. Queen of Beosol and Beyond. And she's. I don't know if I'm going to sort of vibe to that for five or six minutes.

Dude, you just fired up a blunt over there, didn't you, man? Crazy. In the pod suite. Come on, man. No ventilation. Man, Alex, can I have a Manhattan, please? I'll take Manhattan. All right, that was number six.

That was Afro-Blue from Robert Glassburg Experiment, Black Radio. Certainly one of the great records of the 2000s for sure. We're going to skip ahead to 2014. This is one I thought of when we just, first start of the show. This was when Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga made a record together. What do you know about this?

What's my computer know about this? Speaking of the early 2000s, they want their computer that history. Ooh, jazz. In olden days, a glimpse of stalking was looked down as something shocking now heaven knows. When we say Lady Gaga, we really sing Jazz when Popper should that have been on the

Pop went jazz. Yeah, I'm just nixing that one. I don't know why I had that idea. And especially coming off of AfroBlue, I just feel like that was a huge dud. Yeah. That was fun. That was a huge dud. Can we just go back to...

Hashtag epic fail. Hold on. I just got to get this back in my mind for a second. Fire it up again. That compression going into that snare sound is dope a. All right. I feel better. I just had to wash that clean.

Thank you, everybody, for listening to today's podcast of seven times. We got a bonus, though. We do have a bonus, but before we do our bonus, I'm just going to let this roll in the background, just to get my mojo back. Dude, you love this, man. Oh, man, I'm feeling it today. You're all about Glasper.

Go to openstudiojazz.com to check out all of our courses. We have the Piano Access Pass. What do you know about that? I know that it is our most popular product of all time, what we say? Indeed, it is. You know, what we say in the business product market fit is high, possibly 11 on that thing. But the reason is because it gives you,

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That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so join us over there. Jazz.com and check things out. Oh, we have the Samba Pack. That's our $17. Are we going to keep that up? Even though Carnival's over. No, let's take it down. Let's take it down.

We don't want to sell it. That's it. It's our lowest price product. Enrollment is closed. It's like Obama. If you're cheap or broke or both, like me, you can jump up on that. All right. Well, we're going to go out with the granddadie of all jazz going on.

Yeah, and you almost didn't want to put this on there because you felt like it wasn't. I mean, this was a big hit. This was a huge hit. You made the note about its chart position. That year, 64, 65, whatever it was, it was the number three hit of the whole year behind two Beatles hit. Yeah. Number three. Yeah.

So here we go. Hello, Dolly, Louis Armstrong. Until tomorrow, you'll hear it. This is Louis, Dolly. It's so nice to have you back where you belong. You look and swell, dolly. I can tell, dolly. You're still growing, you're still growing, you're still going strong.

I feel the groomed sway.