You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Tracks to Help Your Funk Chops

Episode Date: February 27, 2020

Grow some funk of your own by checking out these tunes - guaranteed to build your funky vocabulary. Listen to 'em all right here.7 Tracks to Help Your Funk ChopsProfessor Longhair - "Big Chief"The Meters - "Look-Ka Py Py"Stevie Wonder - "As"Herbie Hancock - "Watermelon Man"Parliament - "Flash Light"Cannonball Adderley - "Mercy Mercy Mercy"Stevie Wonder - "I Wish"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, Adam. Yes. You like funk chops or pork chops? I like funky poke chops. Funky poke chops. Is that keto approved? Yeah, there are no carbs in funk. All right, let's do it.

I'm Adam Mazz. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Music Advice coming at you. Coming at you today, sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJazz.com to check out all of our jazz lessons from jazz legends. That's how we bill it. Is that a little cocky?

It's a little bit, and I noticed that, ow, it's still there. It's not going anywhere. Really? Do I have to get permanently used to that? Not for a minute. Not for a minute. I can tune out for that. It might evolve.

It's going to evolve. Good. Yeah. Awesome. So what are we talking about today? Today we're talking about seven tracks to help your funk chops. Now, I think we just did a funk episode. We did.

Like not too long ago. We did. And that was kind of spurring our thoughts to maybe pick out some other tracks. And there's only a little bit of overlap, I believe. Just unavoidable. Well, of course, it's always avoidable. but basically these are things

these are tracks that we think will specifically help your chops on keyboards really any instruments I mean this is highlighted sort of for some of the keyboard things happening

but like all great funk tracks there's gonna be a little something for everybody and it's really about getting the vibe right yeah funk is all about the vibe it's all about the vibe

so if you're a keyboardist if you're a bass player if you're a drummer if you're a trumpet player you want to listen for specific things but you really want to listen to everything that's happening

I'm always amazed when people say, what's a good, what's a good record to listen to how to comp as a pianist? And I'll tell them, like, Sunny Rollins Live is a village vanguard where there's no piano. Yeah, yeah, perfect. That's a great thing because a lot of times what we're listening for is what is not happening with us, what we could fit into. And then, or just listening to what everybody else is doing except for your instrument because that's what you're going to have to fit in.

That's right. And then, of course, there's some inspirational stuff on here, though, especially with starting with the first track, kind of going OG a little bit, New Orleans funk, of the roots there. Yeah, you know what? I have, I'm embarrassed to say, I have slept on Professor Longhair, this first track that we have here. Shame on me. Shame on you for sleeping on top of that gentleman back in the day. I know. He seems like a lovely person, and I've slept on top of them. No, I've really just, I haven't taken a deep dive. Of course, I've heard all this stuff, but I haven't really like gone on a deep listening, but that's changing this weekend, but I'll tell you

that much right now. This is about to change right now? Now, some might say, is that funk? Yeah. Look at my face right now. Apparently not you. My face is just my lips are turned down, my nose is crinkled. That's funk. Yeah, this is really, you know, and I mean there's going to be, there's a lot of New Orleans represented here. I could have done, we could have done just New Orleans, but really the lineage from, I mean, certainly before Professor Longhair, but then to James Booker, to Dr. John. You know, it's, you know, Ernie Kato. The whole thing is, especially on the piano side. Like we're going to get into some great keyboard and organ stuff, of course. but just on the piano side, you know, and the groove side,

this is just, you know, Professor Longhair is really where it all starts. I was going to say, it's very rare that I hear a style of piano or a piano being played in a way that I'm like, I don't think, I've heard a piano sound quite like that. Yes. You know, I've been around for a minute now. Right. And I've heard a lot of stuff.

But just as that started playing, I was like, you never hear a piano that sounds quite like this. Right. The way he's playing that is so unique. Yeah. And it's such a cool way to you. the instruments. Have you checked out James Booker before? No.

Okay, that's, or I should have had them on here. So, you know, maybe if we have time, we'll throw a bonus in there. Because a little junko partner wouldn't hurt anybody. But, but, yeah, man, it's, this stuff is great. And I always think about, like, you know, the way that rag time was, was primarily or customarily a solo piano situation at the beginning. And then was scaled out to really, you know, not the only influence, but a big influence, influence on early jazz.

is a similar way with funk, I think, with New Orleans pianists, with New Orleans groove-based stuff that pianists would do. That was so different than anywhere else. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, really, its own feel. Yeah.

Its own cadence. All right, number two. Number two is one we did have on our other funk list. That's right. But it's worth revisiting. Yeah, let's do it. This is Looka Pi-Pi.

Especially for a piano thing. Okay, right there. That's a great thing. fill there. So for you keyboard players, you're on Oregon, if you're on the... I mean, yeah. But it's just so simple. And then it's bad that we're fading out there. I mean, we can listen to all this all day.

But... And we're back. It's our podcast, man. That's right. No, it is... It's really, really great. I mean, it just goes to show you that, like, you know, we think we need to work on all these 16-note runs or whatever. No. That's what the funk is. And so... Also, if you're a comping instrument,

if you can really check out the way Leo is playing, is competent like very precise very humane like there's Ziggibu the drum track is so is the busiest part there and so everybody else is really

just locked in locked and loaded ready to go it's amazing too drop down and give me some authentic New Orleans funk no it's amazing too is how funky that is and how straight out of just like a New Orleans jazz tradition

you can hear it coming straight from the same place you know what I mean like it has a very similar pocket It's great. It's straight out of Metery Country Club. That's where it sounds like, right? Yeah, exactly. All right. Next is, this is a lesser-known artist called Stevie Wonder. So I was thinking, could we jump just to, because on this, I mean, the whole track is so great, but this is about Herbie's solo.

He has, Herbies has such a great solo, and I think he gets into some stuff that's really informative, and then we're going to go to some actual. Where do you think that is? Two-thirds of the way in, maybe three-fourths of the way in? Oh, right on it, good. Yeah, it's kind of floating above, but still funky, right? Man, I've stolen that lick somebody else. Here, right here. Okay, when you sounded good, keep repeating it.

So that, that's the type of lick that can really help your funk chops. Because, you know, it's really like, it's a rhythmic theme is what it is. I mean, there's dunk to gink, gink, gink, gink, but it's really bunk. The gank, gank, gang, gank, stack. Gink, gink, the dang, and he keeps repeating it. Like I said, because it sounds so darn good. Can we hear when Stevie comes back in, though, the little, like, mm-that happens right before?

Right. Goes down with the alternate voice. I love that little moment. Yeah, and on Stevie stuff, you can really, like, everybody, even if you're not a singer, like, check out the way he phrases. Yeah, the way he syncopates to, obviously, Herbie's doing some killer syncopates. Oh, he does these awesome triplets coming up here. I mean, out of a.

Out of the career full of nothing but bang and banging tracks, that stands up there as one of his best. It's incredible. You know, and it's funny because I remember when this, I believe I remember when this record, maybe I'm thinking of Musicquarium. But, I mean, like, I was young, but when they'd play this stuff on the radio

or you'd have the album, it would be like the other side, the B side, it would be extended. So, like, on the radio, it never even would get to this place. They would have faded out at the beginning of Herbie solo. Same thing on, like, Sir Duke, you know, Dizzy Gillespie solo. That wasn't, I remember my sister had. had the album in it was like,

she's like, I think some trumpet jazz guy you might want to hear on here. I was like, oh, come on now. Okay, so why don't we move to number four, which is some actual, well, I mean, that was actually Herbie, of course. But, well, let's just play. This really speaks for itself.

I was thinking we could play the beginning and then jump to like 135. Cool. So, of course, this is iconic watermelon man. I'm headhunters. A little Fair Life Farfisa or something. Look out. Oh.

Mike Clark, Paul Jackson What? I mean, you could just You could live in there for a minute. Yeah, yeah, they're living in there. And then this, this, this, this, this comping when they go to the, it's the four quarter or something,

it's about to go. So that clav, I think that's a clab, right? The way he's laying back on that, you know, a lot of guys copied that years later for that, like, it's the clav with a mute on. Yeah.

I mean, he's laying back on that. In the groove, though. And then when the roads come serious. A lot of influence. from the meters too, and just a similar way of like that really precision. Yeah.

But like not afraid to lay back and push it different times. But space. I think this is the golden era for the bass drum in music. Yeah.

This mid-70s, early mid-70s era, the way the bass drum sounded. You know what I'm saying, Alex? Man, listen to that bass drum. It was fat with an F and a P. It was dead and fat and just and a Z at the end.

The tape recordings of these bass drums, you know? Oh, it's just sad. Is that a bunch of pillows? in there or pillows on the ceiling. No, man, but that just sounds so amazing. Like, if we back it up to when that

floor time, when that Rhodes comes back in? Yeah. Like, listen to the kick drum again. If only we had some better speakers in here, I can really feel them. Oh, come on, man. Man, textures. You know, grooves, syncopation, of course. I know you're not feeling the new

Pod Suite speakers, but you've got to admit. The setup is better than the Pod Cave. Oh, it's getting better all right. It's better than the Sony headphones. We're doing all right. For sure. The next one is one that I love. You know, my son, who is eight years old, has recently learned how to roll his ours, which I still can't do.

I'm the last one of my family that can do it. Can't do it yet. He's never coming for you. By accident, we were playing this song. So this song is on the kids over the summer were obsessed with the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack. You know, it's just like this mixtape of songs from the 70s. Yeah. And this was his favorite song off of it.

And he would, in the middle of this song, there's a part that goes, da da da da da da da da da da da da da da he started on accident in the car one day so it's not relevant to this piece fun got your sons ours in shape see that's what I'm talking about it's not relevant to this podcast but totally relevant to this track that's how I'm going to remember this track from now I used to actually be in a band where I got to play the bass line to this which was super fun so this is this is Bernie Worell on the move just going crazy I mean Bernie Warl, one of the greatest ever.

Yeah. And I love, I mean, of course, he's known as, you know, credible keyboardist, great organs, solos, piano, every row. But he's just going crazy on this bass. I love it. And it gets more and more, like, complex. And he just takes over. And in the mix, when you're like, listen to what?

I mean, it's just going, it's literally taking over the drums and everything. Yeah, it's like a, it's like a, it's like a perist. He finally be without Bernie Warre. All the textures that he put on here. But I feel like this is, I was saying that whatever you're feeling, we could jump ahead to where I. I have marked on the 320 because you don't have to do it whenever you're feeling it. But to me, that's what he really, I mean, I mean, he's just, he's just like, I'm solo.

LFO. That's the lick on this song. It's like you can feel just like playing with like discovering it. Ooh, going down there. I mean, you know, many speakers and cars and like high five systems in the 70s are blown out over this. They're like, woo, he's killing, turn it up, and then he goes down low. And it's like, just imagine a little eight-year-old blonde kid missing his two front teeth going, Blah, la la, la, la.

But when he goes up, I mean, he's phrasing on the line, man. It's so, whoo. He's like, you get you good. If you're going to go busy AF, you better do it like this. You know this was like, this was like one take. He was just in there going crazy. They were like, all right, we got it. Let's go.

Smell the studio And I love like You play so much It'll build up And then he'll just like leave space Yeah Everybody would be And you know

Nowadays they try to do this kind of stuff With these produce I mean I don't want to Throw shade on any one But they try to get this sound And like everything is so You know I don't know

Now the looseness of this is It's a solo He's solo and on the bay On the mood you know But the looseness of all the P-Funk stuff Is so not happening anymore In almost any music I mean I am not in old fogy

when it comes to like, music used to be better back in the day. Like, I think there's so much good music being made right now. But this particular vibe, and maybe I'm just ignorant to, if anybody knows of any kind of band that's like doing it like Parliament, as loose as that, let us know because we want to hear it. Yeah. Fun fact about Kelly Martin, aka Mrs. Peter Martin, actually not ever known as that.

She, first time she got high was at a P-Funk concert. I'm going to put that out there, but this is the thing. She didn't smoke anything. Little thing we used to call it Contact High at the Checkerdome in St. Louis. I've been to several P-Funk concerts. I opened for George Clinton once with this band I was in. We were like a P-Funk, like not a tribute band, but we were definitely influenced called Son and Star-Thoff. And this girl I was seen at the time, we like introduce ourselves to George Clinton, and he just like takes her hand and licks her from her hand up to her shoulder.

Oh, come on now. Hashtag him too. Yeah, this was mid-90s. Oh, boy. I was like, oh, this was back in the 70s. No, no, no, this was not that long ago. I mean, it was long ago. Man.

Wow. Times were changed. There you go. There you go. Anyway, next we have, all right, so this is interesting choice, Pete. Okay, so this, I wanted to show some more of the roots in a different direction because, look, we're trying to help. These are not our favorite. I mean, this is one of my favorite.

This is awesome. This is awesome. But it's interesting that follows flashlight. I know. That's why I wanted to mix it up. But this is the thing. We're not talking about our favorite funk tracks or the greatest funk. These are tracks to help your funk shops.

So this one is probably not even a funk, what you would consider a funk track, although it is funky. That is early soul. Yeah, just kind of soul funk, R&B kind of stuff. And I was thinking about some of the blue note sort of, but that's going in another direction. But this is really good for keyboard players, too.

For sure. Just get the vibe. You know, sometimes we're not prepared for adversity. When it happens, sometimes we've caught short. We don't know exactly how to handle it. plus there's nothing like introduce a little gospel funk

from an Austria from a young 22-year-old Austrian named Joe Zavidu. Joe Zavidun. Joe Zavidu. I got it from our piano. Joe Zavidu. Zavidu. When you have that kind of problem.

It's called mercy. Oh, yeah. But if you transcribe something of his stuff which I remember doing, that's kind of an entree into some of the funnier stuff actually I like to play Is Osby and Jerusalem? Yeah

What do you think he was from Brooklyn? Yeah Were you serious? Yeah. You never heard him talk? No. Oh man, it spoke great English

but with like the thickest Austro-German German... The more you know Because you heard him play And you're like The last place you thought he was from was from Austria, right?

Yeah, he's so funky This is nothing against our Austrian brothers and sisters of it. No, no, no. And the fill that... I mean, all his fills are great, right? And he's a lot like a lot of restraint and vibe you know

Yeah, I just assume he was like some hardened guy from like Philly or something. Italian Philly, yeah, yeah. His family had like three generations of Philly Cheese Steak, uh, stands. Yeah. What a great sounding live record, this one. Cannonball Addery was funk. He was pre-Funk. Yeah, like even before a funk was a thing.

That Adderick. The way they phrased this very simple melody is great. You know, Cannonball was like, we got a hit on our hands here. Exactly. You got to keep it simple. He's like, we got to keep the Austrian guy. So, yeah, that's my one little little side. That's a little side hustle on here for y'all, number six.

So, yeah, well, what was the number eight bonus? And we know, we're not going to have time for that because we got to do number seven. We've got number seven still. We're all, we're all, we're good chunk into this already. Okay, so let's hit number seven. So now we're going to come back. I know we had Stevie one or four, but, you know, look, we love Stevie one. and you know I think a lot of people don't

his career which is still going on is such a I mean so much based upon like pop songwriting at the highest level but as an instrumentalist and as a band as having bands and great records and stuff and really because of the time he came up in like that was the funk thing was such a big part of what he did you know there's a lot of like church

influence in a lot of the stuff we've chose today like as Steve's as definitely is a gospel influence mercy mercy mercy mercy even flashlight you know you know the most When he's going on that continuous baseline, that's certainly churchworthy. This is, I think, Stevie's probably most gospel-influenced piano part. Yeah. That laid-back counter melody?

I think this is Stevie. So, comping. I love the way he comes on. Ooh, that's a good bass drum on this one, too. It's all, man. All this mid-70s, early 70s stuff. The parliament, too. Unbelievable.

It was cool with the baster pattern on here, and this is really important for keyboards and, of course, basses. to know what the baster and pattern you're playing in funk, that's how you get your funk chops together. Because there is variation, but it's not like in jazz when they're dropping bombs and stuff. The bombs are pattern-based. Right. So the keyboard play, you've got to know how that fits in.

If you check it out, it's like, and then he goes syncopated with it. It's a good point, though. You have to pay attention to the bass time first. Boom, bump, bump. A little Bernie Welle, will, Bernie Ruell jump up in there. Well

Yeah, exactly Well, there's seven tracks to help your funk chops Oh, you can keep it rolling if you want We can roll it all out of here Going out on a party You know what I'm saying? Until tomorrow You'll hear it