You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Best Holiday Bangers

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

Peter and Adam put together a list of their personal favorite holiday jams. Want to check out The 442's holiday album feat. Peter Martin? You can find it here! Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Adam. Yes. What did you think of the episode today? I thought it was good. I thought it was festive. It was very festive. I think the highlight, among other things, was us placing some of our own performances at the top of the greatest holiday albums of all time.

We're the worst. How did we end up doing that? It kind of works, though, I think. It works for us. It works for us. It works for us. Spotify royalties. No, it's fun.

So we're just kind of going through our favorite holiday. That's a joke, by the way. Spotify royalties aren't a real thing. It's not a real thing. It's not a real thing. No, but we had a lot of fun, and it's always fun around holiday time to complain about holiday music as we do in this episode, but also to celebrate some really great tracks. At least we think we were asked by the listener to highlight those. So we just sort of went through, told some funny stories.

Oh, so much fun. And so enjoy the episodes. It's on the pie. Spotify royalties, they're kind of like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Like you've heard of it. Yeah, you've heard of it and you think like, oh, reindeer's kind of a real thing. That must be real. It's not real.

Well, no, you know what it is? If you're Taylor Swift, she's got a whole backyard full of, like, Red nose. Like real. And we have a cartoon version of it. Okay, that's it. That's kind of good. That's great, yeah.

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Two pianists talking music. Peter, have you noticed that my inner, my, my, uh, my intros when I go, uh, I'm really, I'm starting to get a little bit too loose with it. I need some feedback on this because I feel like, you know, left to my druthers. Yes.

It could be, uh, uh, I'm out of about about. Bad-a-Bad-Bada-Bada, jazz advice. Coming your way. It's getting a little wonky. You know what we're nearing, too, Peter, by the way. A couple things. Yes. We're nearing Christmas, which is a ding, ding, ding for this episode here.

And Kwanza. Kwanza is coming up. And Hanukkah. Hanukkah might be closest. Yeah, I think it's closest. Festivist for the rest of us. But also are 1,000. This is crazy.

You'll hear it. And they said it wouldn't last. Caleb, what are we on now? 999? 995. Well, this is the thing. They said we wouldn't make it. And by they, I mean, you and I.

And most of our listeners. Yeah. No, I mean, let's just think about it. I mean, we're going to save most of this for our thousandth episode, which is going to be glorious, which might even come in the new year. I don't know. Stay tuned on that. Well, yeah, because it gets hairy this time of year. Right.

I got a million Christmas gigs between now and next week. Right. But whenever it comes. You've got, you have a million, but you're just going to be. Oh, by the way, people should know. Sorry. Is this going to be before that? aside.

Yes. You're probably right now as people are listening to this at the Village Vanguard. Oh my God. I got to get to New York. Bye.

I'm leaving. No. Peter's going to be the Village Vanguard. This week, yeah. This week. As this is coming out, what is that?

The 6th through the whatever it is, Tuesday through Sunday of this week. Of this Village Vanguard. First week in December. Yes. 7th Avenue South. With Christian McBride.

Christian McBride and Inside Street. Please come down two sets a night. I do not know what time they start because I'm there right now. But yeah, Village Vanguard. The greatest. Am I going out on a limb to

say the Village Vanguard is the greatest jazz club in the world. It's pretty edgy. It's pretty controversial. You could bring up other clubs, but could you have really? I'm going to put this out there, and a lot of people aren't going to agree. But Village Vanguard, greatest. Well, no, but I mean, New York Yankees best baseball team ever possibly? Oh, don't say that in St. Louis.

Well, there's almost one of those. Second best ever. No, it's almost one of those indisputable facts, right? It's just like. No, but it's, no. Okay, so saying that the Village Vanguard is the greatest jazz club in the war. It's kind of like saying Michael Jordan, in my opinion, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.

Again, not controversial. Well, but people are talking LeBron now. People are talking Will Chamberlain, Kobe, La Mamba mentality. I mean, there's others you could have in the conversation that you couldn't be like, oh, absolutely not. You know. But I digress because this is not a basketball show. Although we do get confused with the Utah Jazz sometimes.

I mean, here's the thing. The test for this is people still, not even just of our generation, but even younger generations are still like, oh, she's the Michael Jordan of this. Or, you know what I mean? It's the village vanguard of rock and roll clubs, whatever. It's still. Have I ever heard that?

No. I mean, no one talks about jazz. It doesn't matter. Anyway, come out this week if you're in the New York City, the Tri-City areas. Or if you just want to make a trip to New York because it's a really special thing. And we're having fun already. So we're going to have fun today because we have on recommendation from Zach. I believe it was Zach.

Yes. Zach is one of our, was it Zach? I can tell you, as you vamp. We're going to go from C minor to F7. Yeah, Zach. Zach is one of our Twitter. Hey, follow us on Twitter. Well, although that's kind of controversial now.

Are we supposed to be on Twitter still? We're still monitoring the situation. Well, I'm definitely, we've had to leave Facebook. I don't know how Instagram is getting off Scott Free in here. I know. Instagram, that was smarter. Pretty soon as it's going to be everybody on Be Real. We're on Twitter as you'll hear it.

And I can tell you that Adam and I are not as attentive to it as we'd like to. be. But, you know, like they say, couple goals, podcast goals. I got dragged kicking and screaming by Dr. House to get on to do it. Louis House. What's his name? Louis. No, I can't. No, I want to hear you guess.

Doug Laurie. Doug Laurie. Hugh Laurie. Hugh Laurie. I was going Doug Lloyd. Doug Laurie. Did we talk about that on the pod? He was a relief pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1982.

No. Hugh Laurie. He sounds like it. Doug Laurie. Famous actor, infamous actor. What? Famous actor, right? Famous, yeah, not infamous.

I mean, maybe he is. I don't know. Big fan of Open Studio, but an even bigger fan, specifically of Adam Maness's YouTube channel. Yeah. YouTube video, sorry. I was a Freudian slip right there, wasn't it? Wow.

Well, we all know who runs the show. No, but it's been really fun to see Hugh slash Doug's. feedback on no, just his, really, his warmth and his love for you. You're listening or watching, which you almost certainly aren't. No, I mean, he probably is. He watches all your videos. No, but it's been fun to see him because he's a big,

he's a pianist, and he's got great taste. I mean, he loves, from what I can see from his Twitter, he's amazing. John Cleary, who's one of the best new or pianist and you. So those are two two guys that are pretty good. And, oh, Dr. John, too. He posted something the other day about Dr. John, so that was cool.

But, you know, yeah, we're on the Twitter, you can follow us over there. We are, you'll hear it. We're at you'll hear it. And Uncle Elon is still allowing, he's still allowing us to post. We don't post a lot, but we're up for it. So, anyway, this is a circuitous route. It's a free speech zone. Right. But we did get a message from our buddy, Zach down in Texas. We got a lot of love down in Texas. I don't know if you knew about that. Well, that's a big place. There's a lot of loving going on down there. No, we, Zach is one of, that would not be something you might be interested. No, that would not. But this, yeah, Zach hit us up on Twitter, which we invite you guys to do, of course, speak pipe.

We have a number of ways you can get in touch with us. But he hit us up, and can I read the tweet? Yeah, good. All-time best Christmas jazz albums, question mark. I love that. That's such a Twitter thing. It's like no messing around or wasting anything. So we put together a list that we think is irrefutably comprehensible.

Yeah. Comprehensive. And we just have to. And incomprehensible. We have some tracks here. but I think a lot of these are from really, really good overall Christmas albums, if not the best of all time. Well, we have a couple of dear listeners.

We have a couple of Homer picks in here, just so you all know. But, yeah, we have some favorites here. So we're going to, let's kick it off, Peter. Okay. There's only so much Christmas to go around here. Now you can't have a list. Quintessential. Quintessential.

Without Matt King Cole. The Christmas song. Is this a Nelson Riddle situation? What does arrangements? Sounds like it. Chess nuts roasting on an open fire. That's a pretty good reverb there. The whole recording is.

Beautiful, D-flat. Yeah. Yule-tied carols being sung by choir and folks dressed up like Eskimo. You have nice changes. Oh yeah, the changes here are different than you might play. They're really good. I actually spent some time learning this arrangement.

Yeah, me too. I just got into it, but the changes are a bit unexpected and really beautiful, really cool, subtle stuff happening, which makes you think that it probably was Nelson Riddle. Yeah, really good stuff. Next up is, again, our first Homer choice. This is, but this is a great choice, man. Homer, like, you know, like, so if you're watching,

like, local baseball, right, or your local sports team, the home broadcast announcers. They're homers, right? So they're like rooting for the home team, right? So we're rooting for the Diane Reeves team. Oh, Team Diane Reeves. Team Diane Reeves. But this is...

Friend of the pod. Gorgeous. From the album, Christmas Time is here. This is Christmas Time is here. Who's on piano here? Is that... Oh, wow. It's the guy from Peanuts.

Young Peter Martin. Schroeder. That's a good sounding piano, I can say that. Where was this? This is Tony Bennett's studio in New Jersey. It doesn't exist. Christmas time is here. Happiness and cheer.

Fun for all that children call their favorite time of year. I remember Diane, this was one take for her. She nailed it, no overdoves right here. Carols every... Old in times and ancient rhymes of love and dreams incredible to share

he bells in the air but Rubin, Roger and that's a tricky line those are easy lines for piano tricky key he's the greatest

Oh man he nailed those Christmas time is here What? Come on Pete Soul for the season will be drawing near Oh that we could always see

Such spirit through the year. Gorgeous. Diane Reeves, Christmas time is here. Our own Peter Martin on piano on that. Not Peter's only appearance on the list. Oh, my God.

What a self-serving list. You know what I'm telling you, it's a homer list, but it's good stuff. You know what I remembered from that, just a little side note. I remember we were talking about what key to do this, and I decided to put this in the C for Diane,

which was, I knew it was going to be a little bit of risk, not much of one, sort of her top, she can sing higher than that, but that's like a very special place for her voice, that be natural. Because she goes into that other, is it head voice or whatever, right about there, maybe even there. So that's a hard place to just come in on. That's what I was saying. Like the fact that she just, and I've done it a bunch of times alive with her and she kills it.

But to come at the top of your range before, you know, with that kind of intonation. Obviously, we're not doing an auto tune up at Tony Bennett's studio with Diane Reeves. Come on, man. Yeah, that piano sounds great, too. But I just big shout out to Diane. The master. The master. So that was Christmas time.

It's here. You know, originally that's from the Peanuts Christmas. Right. Vince Goraldi. Charlie Brown Christmas, officially. So I thought, well, we've got to include some Vince Geroldby. So here's my favorite. My favorite tune off that Charlie Brown Christmas.

I think it's a lot of people's skating. A little three, four action. I can still visualize the scene. The little kids walking. Yeah. Subpar animation. Snoopy. Skating around.

Coltrane changes there? Coltrane is. This girlie trio. Just killing it. Classic. The entire record of Charlie Brown Christmas. I mean, you can't not at least give it a spin once around during the season. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I don't know about you, but for me, my jazz piano aesthetic was so influenced by this trio. Of course. Because we're, you know, I'm, you know, we're listening. to this from such a young age before we're thinking about jazz. It's just background music, kind of, but the way it's presented, the clarity of it and the sound is just so top-shelf. And it fits with the vibe of the show, which is important when you're making music. But also,

it was, I just remember it being very fresh. Very fresh, very timeless. So, like, you still hear it now and just the quality level, kind of off the charts. There's some other music I came up listening to on television shows in the 70s, you know, kind of the studio orchestra kind of sound that were really great as well. But I mean this just in terms of a jazz trio, I mean, it's it's just stellar. Next up, we have one of my favorites, little-known Christmas album. This is Harry Belafonte, Christmas. Glory manger. Oh, I thought this was glory. Glory manager. Glory manager. It's a job you can get. Certain religious institutions. You can be a glory manager.

Have you ever seen the righteous gemstones? They've got a glory manager, like for sure. I feel like I might be a gory micromanager. So there's something really special about this entire album. The production with this huge room sound. His voice right now is unbelievable. And the band is, check out the second chorus coming up. Blues much?

The mix, you know what I mean? I love where his voice sits in the mix in this. whole album actually. That's a staple at our house. That's great. Aher's Elfonte Christmas. And as well as the next one. This might be

Peter, the top of the list, honestly, as far as artists. I don't know if you can top that, that glory management we just heard. That was, I love that. Some really good glory management. That's going to go into our into our Martin household. I think for me, this is my all-time favorite Christmas song.

Okay. And I would love to hear argument against it. Yes. Oh, yeah. How can you not love a Christmas song that starts with a couple of bars and seven? That's another well-recorded vocal right there. Well, and everything the man's saying. Willie Weeks? On bass, I think.

This Christmas We're a show Christmas For me I'm trying to remember Do you like groovy stuff like this? I can't remember Yeah I mean Do you like

1972 Through 1974? Dude, that was alive those years I was not But it's my time to shine, Peter You were born outside of your era, I think No, it's so great It's the greatest

I wouldn't argue with you If you said that was the greatest Christmas song ever I should hope not And it's funny because it's like It's so It's somewhat omnipro present in terms of like you'll hear that like at the grocery store or something around

Christmas time but a lot of people don't necessarily know like if you said what is it they're like oh that's that they might be like that's Stevie one you know like you know they don't necessarily know that's Donnie Hathaway and his song you know it is this song right yeah from the Donnie Hathaway collection which is this really broad compilation album I encourage everyone to put it on repeat because it's some of the best music ever made in my opinion yeah Atlantic Records right his entire career is something that I think is musicians, you can always draw some amazing stuff. Dude, dude, Donnie Hathaway.

St. Louis. Are you kidding? Louis? Come on, man, right here. This Christmas, okay. Next up is one of your picks, Peter. I don't really know this one. I've heard it, I'm sure.

Oh, but let's see. I've forgotten it. What is it? Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, what is it? Straight swing. Elephants, Gerald, let it snow. Oh, the weather outside is frightful,

but the fire is so. delightful and since we've no place to go let it snow, let it's know, let it's know let it snow It doesn't show signs of stopping And I've brought some corn for popping

Oh The lights are turned way down low Let it's know, let it's no let it snow When we finally She swings with her vibrato even I know it's crazy Going out in a storm But if you really hold me tight

All the way home I'll be one The fire is slowly dying And my dear, we're still good-bying But as long as you love me so Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow Just one of the greatest musicians ever I just love Ella so much I mean, could you imagine walking up to a place

And it's like, oh God, I hate Christmas, And then you hear that and look, I'm tapping my foot. I can't stop tapping it. But have you ever heard anything from Ella That didn't make you feel amazing? No. That didn't make you feel great was swinging or feel

even if it's heartbreak but like the wet like she's so intense and such a beautiful musician you know like you said her phrasing her vibrato swinging like she's swings she's got the phrasing she's also telling the story of the song so beautifully you know what I mean

so I just saw I can't believe I didn't this is not super new but maybe from the last couple years the Ele Fitzgerald documentary I believe it's on Netflix we Kelly Martin and I watched this recent I don't know about this. Man, it's so good.

I meant to tell you, but this is a perfect time to tell you and all of our deal. I'm sure many of our listeners do tell. Yeah, but I didn't know about her whole story. And, you know, I got a chance to see her live. I actually met her, obviously, shortly before her passing. But her whole story is incredible. I don't even want to, not necessarily give it away. I just felt so ignorant.

Yeah, it's really, really, really good. It's possible it's on Hulu, but I think it's on Netflix. We have all the streaming services. We can find it. Yeah. You can find it. But it's really good. And, I mean, it's a kind of tragic place that she started, much more so that I would have thought from hearing her music and just seeing her live and her interviews.

Yeah. She always just, but I mean, yeah, I mean, incredible story. All right. Well, let's go out with the ultimate Homer. So if the listeners don't know, Peter and I have put out our own Christmas album a couple years ago. With my band, the 442s. Actually, it's a double release with 442s and Peter Martin. The 442s is my project that I've been involved with for a long long long.

time. We put out of Christmas. When we do this annual holiday show, which sadly, Peter, you're not to be able to join us this year. We couldn't line up the schedules. First year without you. Why? Well, it would be fine. It's a drag. Sorry to miss it. But we'll we'll go out here with, I love this track because I mean, I conceptualize this with you in mind. And then to hear you knock it out of the park was really, really fun. This is dance of the Sugar Plum Ferry. Adam Manus Arrangement. I'm playing a little chaleste on it. You got Montes Coleman on drums, Sid Rodway on the bass. Let's hear it.

You'll hear it. You'll hear it.