You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Unbelievable Facts About Jazz

Episode Date: July 4, 2019

It's time for Peter & Adam's Believe It or Not with these 7 fun facts about jazz.7 Unbelievable Facts About JazzJazz musicians turn off part of their brain while improvising (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/this_is_your_brain_on_jazz_researchers_use_mri_to_study_spontaneity_creativity)No one knows the origin of the word "jazz"Jazz increases your immunity (https://www.bustle.com/p/can-music-help-you-get-over-a-cold-studies-suggest-it-can-boost-your-immune-system-13231417)"Hipster" came from jazz slangJohn Coltrane had a church named after himJames Reese Europe killed by his drummer in WWILouis Armstrong holds the record for oldest artist with #1 hit on Billboard Hot 100BONUS FACTWe're proud to present the new-and-improved platform for Open Studio: https://www.openstudiojazz.com! Head on over, check it out, and let us know what you like and what needs improvement. (We have over 1000 lessons to move to the new site, so check in over the following weeks as we update our courses)And if a new platform wasn't enough, we have a BRAND NEW course available: Jumpstart Jazz Piano! This is a course for very beginner-level pianists who want to learn the basic fundamentals of how to play jazz. And to celebrate, we're offering an early-bird discount of $10 off for THIS WEEK only! Just go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/jazz-piano-jumpstart and use the discount code JPJ10.Today's episode is sponsored by Soundslice. Soundslice is a web-based music-learning software that is a hybrid audio player and notation viewer that syncs music notation with real audio. To find out more about them, visit www.soundslice.com/transcribe. And check out our Slice of Emotion In Motion (the You'll Hear It Jingle)!Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, ma'am. Did you know that Bud Powell was the first jazz musician to walk on the moon? That is unbelievable. I'm Adam Mness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you are unbelievably listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily Jazz Advice, unbelievably coming after you.

Coming at you today from the unbelievably great SoundSlice. We're brought to you by our sponsor, SoundSlicing, incredible, unbelievable transcribing tool. Go to soundslice.com slash transcribe to check it out for yourself. We use it all the time. I use it on a daily basis for our work here. I'll be doing transcriptions. It's amazing. I mean, what it can do is truly unbelievable, actually.

People will not believe it until they go there. I know, well, let's put it this way. When I was learning transcribing, learning souls growing up, had this tool been available, I wouldn't have believed it. I would like, no, that's not possible. And it wasn't back then. That's why these kids are playing so great right now.

Exactly. Exactly. Like SoundSlics. Thanks a lot, SoundSlice. Yeah, thanks, soundslice. So what are we talking about today? Well, today we are talking about seven unbelievable facts about jazz. Now, you kind of shied away from, I came up with this on the airplane.

You would have known that from our foreshadowing, would you? Are we getting a little too corny up in? No, I thought this was fun because actually most of these things, I wasn't, well, some of these, I believe them all now. You are on the fence on some of these. I'm skeptical of most of these, honestly. And we briefly only just talked about this. I had this idea. I might have been a little bit oxygen deprived on my commuter jet earlier in the day that I was on.

Big shout out to Delta Connection. Keep on flying. You don't hear that in a podcast very often. They're a next month sponsor. Yeah, but this will be fun. So we're going to go with, now I lost them now. Oh, there they are. Seven unbelievable facts.

And I thought, okay, I put up number one. Usually it's like, and you're not going to believe number seven. We do have a bonus one, though. You're not going to believe any of these because they're unbelievable. Number eight, though, is truly the ultimate. Yeah, number eight is the one I'm the most skeptical of, to be honest. That's going to be at the end of the episode. Okay.

So number one, though, This one is truly, well, I'm going to put it out there. I'm going to say it and then you can say what you want, okay? Jazz musicians turn off part of their brain while improvising. Fact or fiction? Well, I mean, we've all, we've all intentionally with the use of some things turned off our brains in order to navigate through certain. Well, I'm not talking about that. We're talking about something else.

We're talking about an actual, like, changing. I mean, John, okay, this comes from John Hopkins University. I'm not sure if you're, I'm sorry, John Hopkins Medicine. You know what? I do believe this because I turn off part of my brain whenever you're talking. Yeah, this is about jazz improvising, buddy, smarty pants. It appears they conclude, and I quote. John Hopkins, is that a good school?

That's a pretty good school. Hopkins Medicine.org. Anything that ends with dot org is legit. You know that, right? Yeah, that's questionable too. So there's the whole article. We'll link to it here because it's actually super interesting. But they studied, they did some joint research and studied using MRI magnetic resonance imaging and musician volunteers from Peabody Institute where our friends Sean Jones is the head of jazz.

Did I see this? There was like they had like keyboards in the MRI and they were playing some stuff like mini controllers. It appears they conclude that jazz musicians create their unique improvised riffs by turning off inhibition and turning up creativity. And then it goes on to explain the different parts of our brain that they kind of control those areas. obviously there's not an area that's labeled inhibition, but it's like prefrontal lobe or whatever. But if you think about this, this kind of makes sense, right? I mean, how do we improvise?

You have to turn off your inhibition. You know, just like when you're speaking, if you're going to improvise and get up, if you're inhibited, it's going to come out contrived. You're going to freeze up. Fear is going to take over. Well, we've all had that experience, too, where you feel a little bit inhibited.

Maybe it's like you're, you know, you're just starting to play out or you're nervous or there's a killing jazz musician that just walked room, and maybe you feel a little nervous. that inhibition comes out in your playing. You've got to get over that hump for sure. It's not hump day, by the way. It's July 4th.

Oh, I was getting excited there. Yeah, yeah. Wait, today's July 4th? Is it July 4th or 5th today, Andrew? It's the 4th, July. That's an unbelievable fact about this show that we missed that. Happy birthday, happy birthday, everybody. Okay, so that was number one.

Did you believe it now? I'm going to send you the link. I do. Actually, I saw some, I believe it was like one of those 60 minutes or date line or something on it. Yeah. Number two. No one knows the origin of the word jazz.

Now, we are going to get some entomologists writing in. Right, right. But actually, but I think that they're going to be conflicting. And that's the whole thing. From what I was reading and what I've always heard, people that have researched this, there's various different, and I guess this is true with other words, too. There's kind of divergent views on how these words came to be used and even how they were formed and spelled and all these things. But as far as we could tell with the research department of the you'll hear it, podcast,

which is very limited and underfunded, I might add. For sure. There is no consensus among the entomologists on the origins. There's some very unsavory versions, of course. I could only imagine. Now, didn't it come from the word, like, jazz, the two S's? And because I love this, because jazz musicians will make fun of jazz, you know, like it's any less weird than jazz is. Like it's, like the Z's made it classier or something.

Right. Well, that, I think there is agreement that it came from that word, but then no one really knows even originally where that came from, too, as I believe what it is. And then there's some whole thing. I was reading this whole kind of, you know, sub-situation about where it came from some kind of play in baseball in the 1880s. Really? I used to say jazz the ball or something. Yeah, I don't know. Huh.

Yeah, there you go. All right. I mean, I kind of buy that. Okay. It's such an ambiguous, weird word. Yep. Now, number three is Jazz increases your immunity

Of our seven unbelievable facts about jazz Yeah, this one is not to be believed Yeah, well, well this, okay, this one, I don't know I mean, I have the article up right here Yeah, and there are a bunch of stock photos Of like attractive people with headphones on Yeah, and I'm like this And it's from a, it's from bustle.com

Bustle.com, it's not bustle.org, so that does scare me a little bit But look at those attractive people in there. None of them look like they're listening to jazz. I'll tell you that much right now. None of those people are listening. But they also look like their immune system is boost. The title of this. Oh, yeah.

She's definitely checking out Dave Douglas right here. Come on, man. And then the next is Cecil Taylor, for sure, for sure. Okay, so should we link to this one too or are we given out? Yeah, you know what? We're going to link to both these. So the idea of this, the headline is, can music help you get over a cold? Studies suggest it can boost your immune system.

But the studies seem kind of legit. Don't you think? I haven't read all the studies, to be honest. You can't get over the bustle.com. It's from Sussex University. Researchers from Sussex University. You know, everything with a British accent means it's legit. And the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

My grandfather actually did research with Max Planck, Fritz London. That's for real. So he's legit. It was conducting in 2008 study of the impact of music on the immune system. 300 participants listened to either 50 minutes of upbeat dance music. or in the control group, a random collection of tones. The participants who listened to dance music saw significant declining their levels of cortisol in comparison with the control group.

Now, I don't know why that said dance music as opposed to jazz. That's kind of throwing. Oh, both jazz music and dance music have been shown to increase the level of antibodies in listeners' bodies. In other words, they boost the efficacy of the immune system. I'm seriously skeptical. Bustle.com. There you go. Come on now.

And random tones, they're just causing stress in people making them sick. You know what I mean? Maybe they gave them the brown tone. Or the, was this is a puk tone, maybe? I don't know. There you go. Okay.

All right. Number four of seven unbelievable facts about jazz is that the word hipster came from jazz musicians slang. I believe this because jazz musicians came up with a lot of cool. Nomenclature. Hot. Yeah. Happened in nomenclature as I just demonstrated.

Like hip. So apparently hipster, but this was kind of unbelievable to me because I thought my local barista came up with the word hipster. That was the lifestyle, I guess. That's just how you describe your local barista. Right. But isn't that cool that it's like... I don't know that some hipsters working for us here now,

so we sure do. We sure do. We got a couple of them. Yeah. But isn't that cool that jazz musicians came up with that? Coming from the hip, hep, hep cat, that became hip cat. Hipster. Hepster. Exactly. All right.

So you believe it. Finally, we find what we both believe. That's good. I do believe that, yeah. Okay. Number five. Tell me if you believe this or not. John Coltrane has a church named after him.

in San Francisco in the Western Edition District. I do believe it because I read, I think it was last year, two years ago, that it finally closed. Yeah, I believe it did. The church closed. So I guess this shouldn't be as it had. But it is unbelievable in the fact that, you know,

John Coltrane, who had a very short time on this earth, really, made such unbelievably memorable and spiritual-sounding music that... Oh, so would you say that it's unbelievable that he made incredible music to? Are you adding that to the list? No, it's totally believable. It's genius. but yeah i love this i wish i could have gone to that church i actually went in i never went for a service but i bopped in there one day when i was in that that neighborhood in san francisco and they

had a big it was like a painting i think or maybe it was a photograph big above the altar i mean some people might see it as a little sacrilegious but not if you love train he was right in the right position yeah i'm down so that's uh man we got five down five of our seven unbelievable facts about jazz how you feel i feel i feel skeptical okay mostly yeah number six now this is yeah this is Yeah, this is like verifiable. Yeah, this, I don't know if you know about this. I just got hip to this. James Reese Europe, who I'm ashamed to say I did not know who that was.

What a great name. He, well, he did a bunch of unbelievable things. He had a huge, like, orchestra of early jazz band called the Hell Fighters. It was kind of like a brass band slash orchestra that entirely African American that like performed and fought valiantly in World War I. Not World War II, buddy. World War I in Europe. Another unbelievable part of this is his name was James Europe. And they fought in Europe.

And then the most unbelievable and tragic part of this is that he was killed by his drummer. Not surprising. And the drummer owed him money when he died. You don't say. That's the believable part. Anyway, it's an amazing story. I just learned about this recently. I mean, he was like a big force in very, very early.

jazz, I mean, even before jazz or jazz or whatever we call it, I believe. I feel like should we write an opera about this guy? I mean, it could be done. It could be done, yeah. But he was amazing innovator. And then he's like, he's buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Right on. Right there in Virginia, across from. It's dope.

Yeah. I believe that. Oh, this one you believe. Well, I mean, he's killed by his drummer, totally believable. All right. Well, there you go. That's one, two, three, four, five. Six.

I have to count it because I don't believe that we have six. Yeah, it was six. Okay, so number seven, our last one. Well, we got bonus coming up the end. So at age 62. Louis Armstrong, you have Louis Armstrong oldest with a number one hit. It's a note. It's not like a script buddy. I mean, just some kind of grammar

and that would be very helpful to decipher. He's the oldest person ever to have a number one hit. With Hello Dolly. Yeah. Now, I don't know if that means just up until that point, but I believe it's ever. But now I'm thinking, didn't did somebody else like Nat King Cole, but he wasn't yeah, I don't know if he had a number one hit with his daughter when they did the, but anyway, yeah.

I mean, he wasn't. But he was already passed away by that point. He was passed away but he was part of the thing yeah but yeah Lewis Armstrong had a number one hit with hello dolly yeah and it like knocked out um you know several Beatles songs wow like in their heyday at that time that's great like on the pop charts bill war pop charts and he was age 62 he's the oldest up until that point maybe ever yeah to have a number one hit good for him that's unbelievable it is kind of unbelievable and you do you believe that yeah he believes oh he believes me he believes everything we say he looks it up though beforehand you know it cool so that was our seven unbelievable facts about general that's

think we nailed those. We do, and we have one bonus one. But before we get there, don't forget to visit SoundSlice.com slash transcribe for our YouTube watchers, too. We're going to put the link there so that you go check it out. Amazing tool for transcription. And then don't forget, it's America's birthday.

Yes. But we're celebrating around here with that. Our new course to learn jazz piano. If you don't know anything about jazz piano, learn America's Greatest Start for them. That's what we're selling here today. That's going to be the promotion. We just came up with it.

Jazz Piano Jump Start. Go to OpenStart. Studio Jazz.com. Open Studio Jazz.com. The brand new site. Brand new site. We have a brand new platform. Lightning Fest.

Unbelievably fast. Unbelievable. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That should have been our seven facts. And for the first hundred customers that sign up for the jazz piano jump start at $77. Yes.

You get a free physical bound workbook that we're going to ship to you for free. That's right. And it accompanies. It's got the practice routines, the wonderful practice routines. The guided practice routines. We tell you what to play exactly. Yeah, we give it to you. And you practice with me.

Yeah. And look, this is not one of those courses where it's just like, this is a C-7-sharp 9. I mean, you're going to learn a little bit of that, but you're going to learn what the music feels like. I mean, you're a neophyte, you're a novice-level ultra-beginter. That's where we come to meet you, but we don't treat you like an idiot, right? No, we don't. We treat each other like idiots. All the time.

But that's just for your amusement. All right. What's our, I mean, this is so unbelievable. Well, yeah, and you push this one down because you're like, this is truly ultimate bonus. I mean, you've played concerts. Yeah, I know. As a jazz musician. More as a jazz musician, I think.

Okay, so this is that the fact, this number eight, our bonus of our unbelievable facts about jazz. Miles Davis played for 600,000 people in 1970, the year of my birth, the summer of my birth, the same month. You know what we're going to say on my birthday. I'm not sure about that. Can you look that up, Andrew? I love white concert in 1970. See what date that was. So Miles Davis played for 600,000 people.

at Isle of White Festival in the UK. Now, I'm not talking about he did seven sets. He played seven nights, two sets a night, and they added all the people up, and it came to 600,000. One setting. I'm talking about at one concert. There's a wonderful,

there's a bunch of pictures from it. There's some video. Actually, I think they did a documentary that he's part of. But it was this big kind of rock festival. And Miles Davis, new jazz musician, a pretty good one. I legit played for 600,000 people.

And he was not booed, asked to leave. That's the most unbelievable part of it. This whole thing seems preposterous. I know. I know. I mean, did he make a Facebook event for it? Or what? How did you market that? He did. He did. Exactly. We'll talk about that tomorrow. Yeah. Well, tomorrow, you'll hear it.