You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Understated Ballads (*with playlist)

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

Speakpipe Wednesday: Peter and Adam discuss their top 7 "understated ballads":Speak Low - Roy HargroveFlamenco Sketches - Miles DavisNever Let Me Go - Keith Jarrett TrioNot Just the Wind - Shirley HornMood Indigo - Duke EllingtonI Get Along Without You Very Well - Chet BakerThe Peacocks - Cecile McLorin SalvantListen: Understated Ballads PlaylistHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Yep. We're back. We are back. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Jazz advice, inspiration, and other musical endeavors flowing at you.

I love it, man. I used to be frustrated by the taglines. Now I'm just waiting to see what happens every time. I was even going to do it. I looked over to you. You had this anticipatory look. So I said, I got to give him something new. So I had to improvise.

A little snappy. I had to go quick. Like I'm cowboy bebop or something. Real fast. Yeah, we're never going to practice that. Ever. Listen, we're talking about practice. No, we're not talking about.

We're not going to practice that. No, we're not going to. Yeah. So, Peter, it's going to have you back, man. It's good to be back. On Monday's show, we had a special guest. Warren Wolf was sitting right over there. Yeah, full disclosure.

The reason this came about was we had a mono-e-mono fight, Warren and I, a physical brawl in which he won, surprise, surprise, and wrestled away the host chair from me. No, that's not true. Now, you made that up, and you could have taken that opportunity when you make it up to be like, loser, had to sit in the chair and you could have claimed that. That would have been a tough one. He does take up a bit more space than either one of us. That's right. Yeah. But he meant he was, he did a great job. He had a really nice list there of mallet tracks that he finds inspirational. He had a good time. Nice. And then he was in town too recording a new lesson for our new Rhythm Anthology course, which, uh, watch out for that, folks coming soon. That's good. Yeah, we're getting lessons from all kinds of people for this. Right. So it's going to be.

Sting. I heard it. Well, I don't know if we can announce that yet. No. John Mayer. Peter. Peter Gabriel, yes. Peter Gabriel, right. The entire original steely Dan. That's going to be kind of hard. That'll be hard. No, it's not. But, yeah, we're very excited about that.

That's probably going to be, like, more in the summer because we still have people to record who are coming through. But look for that. That's going to be great. So today is Speak Pipe Wednesday. We've got a pipe to speak. Wait, we've got a pipe that someone's spoken into. Yeah.

Not smoking into, spoken into. This is Mark. Hi, Peter and Adam. This is Mark from Vink. Vancouver. I love the album Ear Food by Roy Hargrove and I'd like to thank you for introducing me to that.

The track Speak Low on that album, I think, falls into a special category of ballad. From start to finish, it's so understated. I was wondering if you could provide your listeners with your top seven understated

ballads of all time. Thank you. Well, Mark, ask, and you shall receive. I'm going to fix that for you right now. We really are. We got both got really excited when we heard this. I love an understated valid. Yeah. And we came up with the list of about 40 and we paired it down to the requested seven. We do have seven and number one on our list here is Mark's inspiration. Wait, why are we doing number one? Are we going to count down? Are we going to count down? I don't know. Well, okay, well then number seven. It's confusing. We usually count up, don't we? So, so we start with

the best? Number one, listen. Don't we always do that? Yeah, that's the most important. Okay. No, we could start with it. But then I feel like people will be like, oh, I got the top three. I'm out. I'm going to stop listening. Okay, these are our top seven, but in no particular order. You got to wait around for it. How about that?

All right, so we start with number seven then. Okay, whatever. You want to phrase it, man. I want to just say one thing. This is interesting that Mark said understated. Yeah. Because, I mean, have we ever talked about that as a genre, the understated ballot? Well, Peter, I don't know if you noticed or not.

But we are not understated dudes. I know. We're overstated. I think we have, like, this is something that really resonated with us. as soon as we heard it. It was like, yeah, of course, I know exactly what he's talking about. Absolutely.

The reference of Speakolo, and I think it's a great, I think about super patient ballots. I mean, ballads are always, you know, somewhat slower and by nature, I guess, understated.

But I think implicit with this understated, like, I don't know, I just immediately thought of so many examples as did you, so it's kind of excited. Well, people may not realize that there are certainly

different styles of ballads. Like, there's walking valid and there are ballads that can be very intense, you know, and ballads that can be very dissonant. And ballads that can be very dissonant. And ballads that are even loud, you know, and have lots of energy.

Just because it's a ballot doesn't mean everything gets, you know, immediately quiet and slow. However, understated ballots means that everything is happening in a very muted tone. Yeah. Put it that way. And I don't think this should be confused with like background jazz or music that you would drink wine and chat with your friends. You can drink wine, but it's not meant, it's not a box of wine. But I think all these tracks that we've collected here, and certainly the reference point that Mark started,

with the question of Speak Low. Where does that line? We're going to start with Speak Low so we can hear the reference. Is that what you're saying? Or seven. It's the one we're starting with. But it's like understating, just like when you're talking with somebody, sometimes somebody who's very understated still demands and outsized them out of attention.

I noticed that your volume and cadence has reduced quite a bit here as you. Assume me because I tend to be overstated. By the end of the podcast, we're just going to be. Well, you're just getting close to the mic and doing that weird AMSR. I'm understated here. Do you like jazz? This is Roy Hargrove. Speak low from here.

Is that understated enough for you? I mean, how beautiful is that? Yeah. So this, I think the performance is amazing, of course. Roy Hargrove, the great Roy Hargrove, Gerald, Clayton. I love that first chord when Gerald Clayton. Yeah. I think on all these, when it's understated,

it's really a time for beyond just the band, the musicians to shine, but the artistry of the engineer and production to really shine because you've got a lot of space, you've got a lot of chance. And I mean, Al Schmidt just killed it on this record, I think, in terms of engineering. Totally, totally. And let's move on to our next selection here so that we can kind of... Number two.

Vibe off of this. I'm going to go with our most famous selection on the entire list next. This is probably the most well-known... No? That is not... Did I press that or did you do that? I think you did that. I'm sorry.

I was just waking up. my computer. Oh, that's Cowboy Bebop. That is not understated. We brought everybody in very, very closely. And then you played the Cowboy Bebop theme. Why do we even have that up? Well, now we've exposed ourselves.

Yeah. That is not an understated ballot. And by the way, we are not doing an episode on Cowboy Bebop. We were laughing about it because we got some requests. We had, yes. From friends, yeah. Friends. And users.

Yeah. Users. Yeah. Those are users. Abusers. Abusers. Now, this is not Cowboy Bebop. This is actually the furthest thing from it.

This is probably the. probably the most famous understated ballad ever. This is Flamenco sketches. We've overstated this album. This album is overstated, but the track itself is severely understated. This is Flamenco sketches from K-O-B, Kind of Blue. I mean, you all know

Kind of Blue. Yeah, so great. Obviously, this is like the, you know, up there for understated. There's so much space and air in that track. There is. I mean, one thing about that, every time I hear it, it's always a little bit faster. It's not fast, obviously. It's valid, but it's a little bit faster than I

remember it. And I think that that kind of speaks to the understated way that they're playing. Like, Miles, even the way he comes in, he's like laying way back on the beat. And everybody's playing super quiet. And again, one of the most brilliantly engineered records of all time. Absolutely. Because, you know, it's like how much do you boost it up and how much you keep it in that quiet understated zone? Actually, you know what? As you just mentioned, brilliantly engineered, I'm just noticing as I'm looking down the rest of our list here that pretty much every single one of these is, is a genius level engineering sound feat. Yeah.

I think it's almost mandatory to really pull this off. To be able to get all the textures that you can get with acoustic instruments, you really have to start with a really clean, good sound. And certainly, ECM is legendary for that. And that's our next. Manfred. Manfred. That's our next selection is, of course, we have to do something from Keith Jarrett.

One of the most gorgeous, delicate, understated touches on the piano that has ever touched a piano. I mean, seriously, every chord is like a little work of art. I mean, you know, and it's ballads with the Keith Jarrett trio, specifically Gary Peacock and Jack D. Janette, are always an event for me. Yes.

You know? So this is from Standards volume two? Yep. This is Never Let Me Go. You know, just the chord. Yeah. Right there. Just the core. Let's never let me go. Keith Jarrett trio, Standards volume 2. We'll have a playlist here linked, Peter, of all seven of these. So if you like to listen in full,

which I highly recommend. If Spotify's still operational by the time this episode is. We shall see. Oh, no, we're definitely going to put some Joe Rogan on the end of this playlist. Not understated at all. Just kidding. Not understated. But no, we've got seven songs here, almost 50 minutes of music.

And yeah, please go check it out because I think you'll, especially if you're in a mood where it's like you need to calm down a little bit. Yeah. Maybe you're a little amped up. Maybe you're a little nervous about something. Put this on. Maybe a little rainy or snowy weather. Got the fire going.

A loved one with you. That's right. Yep. Next up, this is your pick, Peter. So, yeah, this, okay, this is not a, there's nothing under the radar about this, but it is very understated. The record is, here's the live.

Which that could have been its own. Yes, exactly. The only, the only thing it's slightly understated about this in terms of, like, notoriety is that it's not the title track. But this has come a little closer. It's actually part of that great medley with the wonderful arrangements and artistry of Shirley Horn, both on the vocals and the piano. So this is Shirley Horn.

Come a little closer. Wild is the wind. Just a little closer. It won't take very long. It's late and we can't play this piano too loud. Because the neighbors upstairs are asleep and dreaming. I will tell you my happiness softly. Come on, man. I like that chord. I like that chord.

I love that chord. You know, I'm thinking the understated ballads. There's some opportunities. there for some beautiful chords to happen. That's not the first chord we've heard today. I mean, Shirley Horn is probably, if we had to assign a master of the understated ballot on this list or any list, yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's why she's on that. That's why she's on. But I'm saying she made the top seven. Yeah. I mean, because it just, it's so well suited to her, her, the cadence of how she feels the lyric and the melody and the companyment, the whole thing. And we were talking about, and we didn't get into the arrangement, of course,

If you hadn't had a chance to check this out, this record out. That's the great thing about this. Like, I always think everybody knows this record, but not everybody does. And that's okay. That's true. What a great thing. I would love for somebody to come up to me and be like, have you ever heard this record by Shirley Hall? Could you imagine somebody saying, have you heard of Shirley Horn?

No, never heard of it. But I love great music. That would be like winning the lottery. Yeah. That would be like, I'm going to make your year, my friend. Right. Check this out. And then think about what an amazing time we're living in.

Somebody comes up to you and says, look. You ever heard of Shirley Horley? No, but I love great vocals. Oh, but I don't have anything to listen. Can you give me a CD? No, no, no, here, for $9.99, you can listen to that in any other album as much as you want on your dang phone. Yeah, yeah. That's something that would interest you.

And then you can get a bunch of misinformation. It'll be great. Okay, that's where it goes downhill. But I do think that we have to, like, as lovers of, you know, understated ballots, for instance. I mean, what a great time to be alive where you can just check out any of the, I mean, not Neil Young. Don't try, you can't find anything understood it. That's been pulled. You know that.

But I mean, the fact that you can pull up these things. So it's almost like, what are they used to say something about like we're entering a time, like the knowledge economy or something, something, you know, where basically like information is easy, but knowledge is a little bit trickier, right, curation, knowing about, you know, different things. I mean, there's so much. I mean, we used to have, well, this is before your time, but I remember the encyclopedia. Yeah. And if you weren't from a rich family, you might only get like A and B and then you run out. You can't get the rest of them. So you might know a lot about things that start.

with the A and B. But now all that's just sort of random information. But like understated ballots, can you go down that rabbit hole of finding these things in hearing them? What an exciting time. We're on Spotify right now, and you should see the recommended under this.

It's lush lies with John Coltrane. It's you must believe in spring with Bill Evans. Oh, man. You know, it's peace, peace with Bill Evans, alone together with Chet Baker. Like, I've got all these recommendations of obviously picking up on our algorithm here. That's right.

Yeah, you know, I think the saying that I heard is in an information economy, the biggest resource is attention. Yeah. Right. So how you put your attention is what is valuable in this type of space. It's a weird time, man. I'm actually like,

I know we're kind of joking and dancing around the Joe Rogan, Neil Young, Johnny Mitchell thing that's been happening the last couple weeks. But I kind of love it when stuff like this happens because I love seeing our systems tested. Yeah. I've always been on the fence about Spotify. To your point, it's like super convenient. But also to your point, I've gotten checks for 20s. sense.

You know what I mean? So it's like it's such a drag. Yeah. But I love having all this music at my fingertips. But then I'm also like, you know, Bird didn't have all this music at his fingertips. He came out just fine. Like he made a lot of good music, you know?

I know. Well, that's like when we talk about like especially, it's different. I think if you're a fan of the music only, you're not a player. Right. It's almost easier because like your, your curation becomes based upon your knowledge

of what you like, I think. And it shouldn't be. like this whole thing in jazz and often in classical and any kind of specialized niche music where it becomes like this you know somebody from up on high hands down the scrolls and tells you what to listen to although we're kind of doing that today we're giving you seven you're suggested sorry hypocrisy much um but anyway check out our playlist the scrolls from on high uh you can get that it seven understand you'll hear it you'll hear it petastool dot com pedestal petastole but you're on a stool when you hand them down yeah I mean okay yeah so we're violating that a little bit but the idea is that you know once you go down a rabbit hole like how do you stop yourself

especially as when you're trying to learn stuff like so bird and really up until not that long ago you had the you didn't have the ability to check everything out so whatever little precious records you had you would study the shiz it out of them yeah and so now that's the hardest thing I think for players but for listeners the fact that you can be like wow, I'd love to hear some Shirley Horn, bam.

I am listening to Shirley Horn. And if you'd love to hear some Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins, bam, we've got that for you right here because these two artists probably recorded more understated ballads than Peter, you and I have played songs without recording. You know what I mean? They have just a huge catalog of ballots.

Coleman Hawkins, one of the greatest ballad players of all time. Duke Ellington, you know, legendary ballads. And this is one of my favorites. This is from the Duke Gellington. meets Coleman Hawkins record. This is Mood Indigo. You like vibe? Yeah.

You like tone? Listen to that. It doesn't get any more understated than waiting to come in until the bridge. That was pretty great, right? What a huge sound, too. I mean, he just made for these kinds of vibey balance. And it's great, too, because the intro,

Duccal, is such a cool, dramatic thing he did there. He kind of came in a little bit. Gatogdo God. He came it hot, yeah, like groove it. Yeah. Then he pulled back just a little bit. The tempo and.

and the vibe a little bit as he went into the melody. What a great kind of set in the plate, set in the table. You know what else is pretty understated? What? Peter is a chalesta. Indeed. It doesn't get anymore. How does that compare with a celesta?

I don't know the difference. Or a cheleste. Right. Or a celest. I'm not sure how to say the word. But I know it's... I once saw a celest playing a cheleste on a chelester. I just know it's vibe as hell.

This is Chet Baker. I get along without you very well. Well, Russ Freeman on the show. I watched a little documentary recently. A YouTube documentary on Russ Freeman. Interesting cat. Pianist with Chad Baker, played with Bird, among many others. But great.

Talk about like a solid accompanist, knew every tune, and just could like comp the hell out of anything. Oh, you could definitely, he's Russ Freeman's top. All right, let's do. I get along without you very well in A flat. Sure. I mean, no, I'm sorry, A. Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter. I'm already, whatever you play. You want to play the verse or not? Yeah. Do you want to play the verse nobody else knows? Yeah. The alternate version of the verse? I went to the composer's old folks home, and I got it out of him.

Right, right, right, right. One other person knows it, Bill Charlotte. That's it. And he'll knife you if you don't. Okay. This is, I get along without you very well. I get along without you. Very well.

Of course I do. Except when soft rains. fall and drip from leaves then I recall the thrill of being sheltered in of course I do

but I get along without you very well I've forgot classic Yeah Is Check Baker an alto? He is an alto

Does he go up into the altissimo Reservoir? He's got a very, he's got a pretty high range. Yeah. And he's control, beautiful voice, but his control of the vibrato is like that's, I mean, it's funny because understood you think you pull these things back. But I mean, I think that that adds, there's an intimacy there always. I always think about that with Chet Baker. Yeah.

But it is understated. A lot of brass players are good singers because they just have, they spend so much time working on their breath support. And that's a huge thing for getting great tone for your voice. And Chuck Baker obviously has that fantastic phrasing all over the place. Yeah, the phrasing is amazing. And yeah, I love that Chaless part from Russ Freeman there. So one more, Peter. And before we get to it, just a reminder, everybody, go to Open Studio,

jazz.com for all of your jazz listen needs. But go to you'll hear it.com and leave us to speak pipe. Yes. Let us know what you want us to talk about. If you want to do us to do a list of seven of the most heavy-handed funk grooves of all the time, we'll do that. We'll call it opposite day. Yeah, exactly. If you want to do a list of the worst intros you've ever heard,

we'll do that. If you want to do a list of when things fall apart, we'll do that. And you know what? If you don't want to go to you'll hear it and leave us a speak pipe, that's okay. Don't do that. I'll be understated about it.

Yeah, if you understand. So we're going to finish up here and we're going to go out here with the Peacocks. This is from Cecil McClorin Solvant. Sullivan Fortner duo, and it's just gorgeous. Peacocks is a... Whose tune is that? That's a...

I'm going to tell you in a second. Bill Evans famously recorded. Of course, yeah. is that a someone is screaming at their at their iPhone right now at their iPhone it's I'm going to tell you as soon as you say it

I will confirm it if you Google the peacocks you get the Winter Olympics Oh on the peacock network The peacocks that's What's his name? You know You know we're just Man we did so good this whole

This whole thing The peacocks that is Jimmy Rolls Jimmy Rolls Jimmy Rolls There is. I knew that. Here's the peacocks.

Cecile and Sullivan. This is absolutely gorgeous. Thank you all. Until next time. You'll hear it. Through the garden far below the pavilion in the sunlight. The peacocks proudly grace the sea.