You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - A Jimmy Cobb Retrospective (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

Today, Peter and Adam honor the memory of another giant of jazz we lost this year: Jimmy Cobb.Links From This Episode:Listen to every song from this episode (and get a preview of what's to come in part 2) with our Spotify playlistToday's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)For the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested 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.

I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Daily music advice and beautiful sounds coming at you daily. Coming at you daily, beautiful sounds brought to you by, of course, Miles Davis. And on drums, a very special person, someone that we just lost in the global jazz community, Mr. Jimmy Cobb. And today we're just going to spend some time with Jimmy Cobb and some of his seminal recordings.

I mean, just one of the world's greatest drummers. That's right. And we realized it's been a couple of weeks. We wanted to, well, we've just been kind of marinating on this loss a little bit because it's so, it's so outsized, you know. And because Jimmy Cobb was 92, I believe, or 93 maybe even. He was around for a while. He had a long and productive. It was playing right up until the end, you know, playing great.

And so it's always a little harder to even accept when someone's not with us. but of course their musical legacy is will always be with us, which is great. But I think on reflecting a little bit on Jimmy Cobb's influence, it becomes so much more apparent, such a subtle master and so influential in two big areas I see.

One, of course, on drummers. You talk to any jazz drummer that was around at the same time or later from when he kind of made a splash in the mid-50s, late-50s, all the way until now. But also, just such a huge influence on the sound of a modern jazz recording, you know.

It was part of, and it wasn't just by luck, you start to realize that he was part of some of these just seminal recordings like, and the fact that those recordings were seminal. So we started, of course, with Kind of Blue, and we're going to branch out a little bit from there. But that recording, no Jimmy Cobb, no kind of blue, basically. For sure. When you think of Jimmy Cobb, what do you think of? Because the first thing that comes to my mind are quarter-nob.

Yes. You know, like drummers practicing all these tuplets and 16s over tens or whatever. Yeah. And this dude is just banking on a quarter note. Yeah. And it sounds amazing. Yeah. I don't think I, you know, I'm not sure that I've ever heard a swinging quarter note

with either brushes or sticks that is just a straight quarter note. And, you know, he was, he was known stylistically to do a lot of ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, to ding. less ding ding t-ting ding t-ting so but so much swing within those straight quarter notes which is very hard to do and so I think for kind of blue and then some other recordings and then you know he would branch and he always had his style and his sound and that's why people love to have him on these recordings but he had an ability as we'll hear in some of this to really define the structure of whole tunes so on this he just defines the sound of it I think from a textual standpoint standpoint, which, you know, Miles was a master of texture and Bill Evans and John Clown.

I mean, you're talking about some heavyweights up in there. That's why he was such a, Jimmy Cobb was such a good fit in that band. Oh, man, incredible. But I just think in terms of like, you know, kind of blue being this millions and millions and beloved record, millions of sales and stuff, I just don't see it with, and I'm talking about you could put in some other, you know, Philly Joe Jones, uh, Roy Haynes, great drummers. But I mean, for this very stylized kind of a sound where subtlety that's being

recorded really well is really rewarded to the listener and to the players, of course. I think Jimmy Cobb had something that was just so special. And luckily, a lot of other drummers and producers and other instrumentalists heard that and always wanted to bring that in. Even if the style was different, they wanted to bring that sound and that texture, that Jimmy Cobb sound. Well, let's get to some more music.

What do you got? Okay, so next we're going to go to, and look, we got a Spotify playlist here celebrating Jimmy Cobb. We call it the Jimmy Cobb, OpenStub. studio retrospective just for fun but this is just you know these are one two three four five six seven of what seven how seven yeah why do we do that why do we do that of what could be a hundred or or more tracks uh that i've never actually heard a bad jimmy cob track and uh i've been having some fun going and checking out stuff that i never heard but these ones are all kind

of special and and hopefully representative of course they're heavy on the miles uh because you know that's just that's just how it happened but this next one is actually uh west montgomery uh Smoking at the half-note. I love this record. There's another West Montgomery. What is it? The one with the other version of four on six, and I forget the name of it,

I'm blanking on now, that's kind of more known. But this one, Winton-Celly Trio with West Montgomery, live at the half, smoking at the half-note, I think is great. And this is actually four on six from that.

And, you know, I think, honestly, Jimmy Cobb and Witton-Kelly were a great combination. Because talk about two musicians who were playing things that we would think of, I mean, in comparison to someone like Herbie Hancock or Tony Williams, these guys are playing things that are relatively simple in theory, and doing it at such a high level that it just, it just seems so elevated. You know what I mean? Like, nothing they're doing

there is like a cluster with a, and he's going like over the bar or whatever. It's just all very simple, but it's so hard to pull off in the quality that they pull it off. I mean, it really shows you that sound and feel are everything. Yeah, and Jimmy Cobb always seemed to have, like, once I got a reference point for his career at his age, when I was, you know, younger and first hearing him, I was like, wow, this is, I love Jimmy Cobb, but you, you don't have the reference point of, like, he was very young on these recordings, you know, and he had a long career, but he played with a real maturity and a restraint, but a very, you know, a very complex approach to, you know, nuance of sound.

Like that was always in there. And that's why these recordings were, like, and where he starts with those brushes, you can hear everything. I love that. I mean, you can feel. So the way that, you know, he's bending the brush on the snare drum gives that other sound. And his time is just so spot on and effortless. And, you know, he drives the band while relaxing the band at the same time.

There's a lot of kind of subtle structural things that he's able to do that all great drummers do. But he does it in a way that's just so beautiful and compliments what's going on so well. And then when he goes to sticks Also, did you check out like his high hat? He was not always on the high hat always on two and four. You know, he was very like advanced

in terms of like not having to rely on that to give it that forward momentum because his beat, his corner note beat is just so strong. It's subtle though. It's so strong but subtle. And when you've got that

kind of intense feeling, I think that that's what you hear from a lot of drummers that they got from Jimmy Cobb. Yeah, it just becomes another drum. And that was, I mean, it's more common. common now, but very, very much ahead of his time.

Yeah. Around this time. Let's check out the next track. This is My Shining Hour. This is John Coltrane. Yep. From Coltrane jazz, John Coltrane, that's My Shining Hour, Jimmy Cobb. Laying it down, man.

I forgot. I don't want to say I forgot about that album, but we've been so busy with the Crescent Love Supreme lately, just from the vibe of it. Coltrane Jazz stands the test of time. I know, well, I'm glad that you knew. Like, a lot of cats don't know about this. I don't know if it drifted off, but I had this LP. And I got it.

I was actually still, I was like really into Winton Kelly. And like my entry point, but like John Coltrane, I was like, ooh, he's so crazy. I don't know, McCoy Tyner. I like wasn't ready yet. But I got this one because it was once again, the Witton Kelly Trio, PC, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb on most of this record. Although there's a little bit of McCoy's on like a track and Cedar Wall. They had some other things. But the bulk of it is this trio too.

And I just love the way, man, I love the way Jimmy Cob played on this too.