You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Accompanying in a Duo

Episode Date: April 29, 2019

Peter and Adam answer a SpeakPipe on a few ways of accompanying another musician in a duo. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.The ending theme song for today's episode is "And There It Is" by Kash Wright Trio (sent in by listener Kash Wright). To get your music featured on You'll Hear It, send an MP3 recording of your music to [e-mail] Tip:Ella Fitzgerald & Ellis Larkins - Ella Sings Gershwin: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/album/ella-sings-gershwin/1216860784?app=itunesShirley Horn - I Love You, Paris (Live): https://geo.itunes.apple.com/album/i-love-you-paris-live/1233832578?app=itunesTony Bennett & Bill Evans - The Tony Bennett / Bill Evans Album: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/album/the-tony-bennett-bill-evans-album-bonus-track-version/202949643?app=itunesToday's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download - a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Cage, and John Cage. Visit https://www.oxfordamerican.org/yhi today for a special subscription discount!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, what's up, man? Where is it? And there it is. I'm Adam. And you're listening to the You'll Hearer podcast. Daily jazz advice coming at you. Today's episode is sponsored by the Oxford America.

American. American. Go to Oxfordamerican.org. For some great deals on a yearly subscription. How many cups of coffee? Yeah. Way too many. Hey.

You are on fire, man. Hey, Sam, can you make some more coffee, please? Dude. Better pull out the coffee. decaf. No, I want the full stuff, the full strong stuff. Hey, we got a lot to do. You're about to go out of town. We have to record a lot of these episodes so that they don't

get the crappy Adam-only episodes. No, what do you mean? Those are some of our most beloved. And we might do some remote ones from Europe. Would that work? That'd be cool, actually. Yeah, we might do a few. Yeah. All right. Today we have a speak pipe. Let's check it out. Hey, guys. Love your podcast. Just wondering if you could do

an episode on duo playing discussing how to accompany a vocalist or an instrumentalist perhaps in ways that do not involve walking a baseline. Thanks a lot. I love that question because I do feel like I hear a lot of pianist resort. I'm going to say resort to walking a baseline. There's nothing wrong with walking a baseline,

but it's really not the only way to accompany another musician in a duo situation. And it's not my favorite way. My favorite way is much looser, and I know yours is too. My favorite way is to hire a guitarist and sit back and listen to that duo. That's a great way to do. That could be nice. Yeah.

No, I think that, which you know what, the baseline thing, I think that's something that when we're younger and haven't, I mean, not really younger, just maybe less experience. You haven't done it as much. It seems like a bigger deal. When to do it, how to do it, how much to do it, not to do it than it is. I mean, I used to really focus in on that a lot. whereas now I just kind of do I'll go into a baseline sometimes not a lot but I'll do it

but it's never like oh let me get out of it if I'm feeling it I'll do it and it can sound great you know and I mean at a young age I was in a very traumatic situation in which I was asked to walk a baseline in a dual setting with none other than Ray Brown and you talk about

like not an appropriate time to play a baseline come on so once you get past that the sky's the limit but I mean I think you know there really are times when It's fun to do a baseline. And I think with the baseline, let's just remember, it's never like there's not just one kind of baseline. You know, I mean, if we're talking about like a swing beat, there's like two feel. And it doesn't have to be always stuck in one way.

So I think with good solo piano playing and then duo playing with a vocalist or instrumental, which kind of flows out of somewhat of a solo style in terms of the range that we're hitting on the piano, a little bit of flexibility in how you look at a baseline, that it's not binary. Like you're walking a baseline or you're not. I guess the walking part would imply a walking baseline. Sorry, I missed that part. No, but even that, you can go in and out of it is what I mean. It's not like, okay, I'm going to play a chorus, a company,

I'm going to walk a baseline, and then the next course I'm not. Like, you can kind of slide in and out of it, I would say. I think, you know, one thing I've learned hanging around you more and more amongst a plethora of things that are bad for me. One great thing I've learned being around you is that when you are doing that sort of solo piano accompaniment of another of a solo instrument whether that's a vocalist or an instrumentalist all of this stuff is more hinted at like the feels are you can hint at them more than you can actually just go a gun gun yeah speck it the pooh you know there's

some of that you know you can kind of go under that that that was cool well thank you yeah but you can go into that you could come out of that you seamlessly you know and you can hint at even a stride thing but you don't have to go full on you know art tatum stride like you can do all of these things now in a modern context. Sometimes you can play rootless voicings and just comp that way as you would if there was a bass player for a little bit, but then go back and drop a bass note. You know what I mean? That's how I like to think of it.

One thing I'll say, Chris, is check out. We have some stuff on our blog on you'll hear it.com slash blog. We have a bunch of stuff on like the three zone concept and some solo piano voicing concepts, which get you into this, right? So one way to practice doing this. is it's a baseline, but it's not a walking baseline, it's a two-field baseline. So being able to play the two-feel with that low zone

in your left hand, playing the bass notes, and being able to fill in around that with that middle zone. You know what I mean? And then doing some leading tones with that upper zone, if you want. Yeah, and I think from a practice standpoint, that really starts with that two-feel.

And, you know, I really preach that real restricted thing of not only being a two-field, just starting with the half-notes at first. That's so important. Yeah, so that you can work out that independence of the hands, but also starting with that middle zone being really just right-handed first. Yeah. But then also starting, you know, to do some simple improv and then during the breaks, bringing

your left hand up to do some of that middle zone. Yeah. And then even kind of combining left and right on that zone, because that will start to force you to those places where you can leave out some of that two-field baseline. I wonder if I can reach this. So I'll, I'm going to try to do something else you do with the half, with the half notes is don't think that the half notes always have to be the bass note. You can imply that, but you can also fill out the chord with that half note.

Maybe you do do a baseline occasionally, but maybe it's just... Yep. And then you can even get that, yeah, like you got the voice leading going, kind of implied separate voices. Exactly. You're basically doing, you know, you're adding seventh, like this voicing. Just break in the half notes. Yeah. And then you can also start adding things in your right hand around that. That's right.

Right. And I think later on what that can become is some nice stuff with your left hand where you're playing a fair number of roots with actual like Route 7, Route 5,7, kind of open stuff in the left hand because you are going to be lower, but you're not playing an actual two-field baseline or a walking baseline, but you're playing part of it in each measure so it feels like it. And I think, you know, to your point earlier about you don't have to play but doon go doong do do staccatak it

but if you thank you but if you imagine that and play part of it something like that's the that's where the magic I think was solo piano playing I don't know the question is about duo but what we're talking about is no bass no drum yeah these are solo techniques

and then you know supportive supportive in a duo role the magic is in leaving out a bunch of stuff but making it sound like it's there like you want to play it a way where at the end of the course He's like, man, pianist was doing everything. He was walking on a baseline. He was like, I didn't miss anything.

That's right. And in fact, you're not actually walking. It's kind of like slide of hand. But as long as you're confident and you hear it, and then you can fill it in some and you'd be amazed at how much it can come across and have the illusion of you doing it. Totally. So, for example, like, you know, and then going back to the half notes and maybe even,

you know, that kind of thing, doing these little things between their left on the right hand. Yeah. But not sticking with anything for the whole time. Like, and here. the chorus where I walk and here's the course where I do a two feel and here's the course where I just comp. You can go in between those and in fact you want to because it kind of gives the illusion that everything is happening at once and your own rhythm section.

Yep. And I mean, you know, we hinted this the other day in one of the episodes in terms of I cannot remember what I was going to say. Well, that's okay. You'll hear it. Do we have an ultimate tip for this episode? We do. Okay.

That's right. I was so focusing into that that I totally lost my train of thought. Before we get to it, though, one more time, don't forget to visit oxfordamerican.org slash yHI to get some great deals on the Oxford American. There's amazing articles on music, music that's incredibly relevant to what we're talking about here. Music from Nita Simone, from John Coltrane, from Pellonious Monk, from James Brown, and many, many others, not to mention just a ton of great literary articles, a ton of great poetry. It's an incredible resource for, I think, any.

any musician who's into what we're into. That's right. Absolutely. Please leave us a rating and review right now. Do it. We're going to sit here. We're going to make you wait for that ultimate tip until you do it. And go to yelhear.com for a speak pipe. Leave us a question.

Leave us a question, yeah. And we are going to, before we get to the ultimate tip, I think we have a listener tune coming up tonight, an outro. We're getting back on our altros. Oh, that's right. That's why we were talking about, and there it is, because we have a listener tune

and there it is from CashWRite. So get ready for that coming in just a few seconds. So, ultimate tip, this is going to be, and if you want to chime in on one, two, that's fine. But check out Ella Fitzgerald and Ellis Larkins duos, especially for playing with the singer. I think that that's just like so many great ideas, such beautiful recordings. And I'm forgetting, well, they've been repackaged so many times. I think one of them is like the essence of Ella, it's not to ask, it's something like the something of Ella Fitzgerald. But, I mean, just look for our duos with Ellis Larkins and Ele Fitzgerald, and you'll find it and all that stuff.

I mean, they do a rendition of, uh, uh, da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da the gersh with someone to watch over me. It's just amazing. I mean, Ellis Larkin's playing. I mean, it's just textbook. Also,

a little bonus ultimate tip. Um, it's not really a duo, but when you listen to Shirley Horn play and accompany herself, it's like it's a duo. It's like vocals and piano. So check her out. Uh,

especially on some of her lesser known recordings like live in Paris. Um, that's some great. I mean, of course, playing with the trio a lot. but also just she's breaking it down on the duo with them i'm gonna i'm gonna throw the bill evans tony bennett album in that and that's with that bam bam trump card yeah well yeah well the good kind of trump yeah till tomorrow you'll hear it