You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Best of YHI: 7 Great Standards You Don't Know - #87

Episode Date: December 25, 2018

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Hey Pete, Merry Christmas, man. Merry Christmas to you. I can't believe that you made it all the way into the office for you'll hear it recording a Christmas day. We said we were going to be here for these intros every day. I'm appreciative that you're... Wait, are you here? No, we're not here at all. I'm trying to touch you.

We're not here at all. We're doing a best of week where we're going to broadcast some of our most popular episodes ever. Today, we're talking about seven standards you don't know. Oh, I like it. This must be season one when we were getting super dogmatic, right? Yeah, I think this is actually... It's either the end of season one or the beginning. beginning of season two. I can't remember, but it's, you know, it's funny. These first two most

popular episodes yesterday is with 17 great standards, every jazz music to know. Today is seven great standards you don't know. People really want to learn their tunes. That's right. You know what I mean? So this is our second most listen. When we say popularity, we mean most listened to, according to our stats, right? Absolutely, yeah. So, well, this will be interesting. Can you name one of these tunes, seven standards? And did you know any of them? I think we talked about that in the episode. I mean, I think the whole point is I don't know. That's right. All right.

Let's take a listen. I'm Adam Menace, and I'm Peter Martin, and you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Today we're going to give you seven great standards. You don't know. Now, you don't know me. How do you know I don't know these? For the audience. Oh, for the audience.

Well, we don't know you. So if you know these, sorry. We're both so accusatory and apologetic at the same time. We can cocky on this podcast. That's right. Okay, so these are, well, if you do know them, good for you. But if you don't know them, shame on you. I think the idea is these are less jam session-y standards.

These are more like, I mean, good jazz musicians probably know all of these. That's true. And have played them at least. So these are definitely some of like the next level standards that you may want to get in your repertoire. Yeah. And actually, now that I'm looking, there's at least one on here. Not only do I not know I've never heard of. Really?

Yeah, I think so. Let's start out with I cover the waterfront. It's a great tune. Great tune going way back. You know, a lot of times where. I mean, definitely a standard. I always think about when I first heard Lewis Armstrong and got into some kind of older stuff,

I was lucky because this trumpet player in New Orleans kind of hit me to a bunch of... Like, I'd heard Lewis Arns, I was like, oh, he's corny. You know, what a wonderful world or whatever. I was young and dumb. And he's like, you need to check these. You need to go back further and check these. I was like, go back further.

Oh, hell's not. But he, like, gave me a bunch of tracks, like Dinah and I covered the waterfront. I got a right to sing the blues. and you know like I really just it just drew me into Lewis Armstrong and then I started thinking about man this is like 1932 1928 you know the hot fives the hot sevens that stuff and like really listening to the soloing and the phrasing of what he was doing now everything around him was pretty corny sometimes or dated I shouldn't say corny yeah yeah but I mean you know how that's when I really heard how ahead of his time was and just got into his voice and his phrasing and started to really

understand, you know, how much he laid out everything that we did in terms of jazz, you know, taking standard tunes and making them jazzy, quote, unquote. I feel like I've heard this tune recently. Now, where would I have heard this? Well, it was on my mind because I played, yeah, I did. It's funny. I just did a gig and I hadn't played it in like 25 years or something. I recorded it years ago. It's a cool arrangement you have, though, with the trio. Yeah, and it was kind of, you know, Oscar Peterson, Oscar Peterson, you know, inspired arrangement and stuff. So that's a fun. one. That's cool. So my first one, this is number two. This is the great Sam Rivers tune,

Beatrice. Oh, wonderful. Super fun tune. It's a short form. It's, but the changes are really, really fun to play on. And it's definitely become a standard in the circles that I run with. Yep. But I find that sometimes a lot of young players don't know this one, but check out. No, and that's one of those tunes, I think, we could even have a list sometimes with, like, tunes that make you sound better than you are. It's true. If you just play the tune and kind of honor the tune and then, you know meander around the melody and stuff you're you're gonna you're gonna sound above your pay grade which is nice it's a well-written tune for sure sam rivers and i think that's a great you know jazz standard standard because we just said standards and sometimes people think it has to be old broadway

american songbook yeah american songbook but then jazz standards and then even like pop standards they all go into the jazz standard uvre i would say totally yeah yeah um okay number three i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna go with the great benny golson classic the great the great um I remember Clifford. Awesome tune. Yeah, that's an awesome tune. Now, I learned this tune. Shame on me.

I didn't know this until I was, I can tell you exactly, I was 24 years old. And the very first gig I did with Roy Hargrove when I got in his band, I had learned like all of Roy's music and some other tunes. Like, I was prepared. I felt like I was prepared.

And we did like a sound check and just played a few things. And I was like, what else were going to play? And he's like, oh, you know, you seem like you got it. And then he kind of sat at the piano. He's like, we might do this. I've been kind of thinking

about, I remember Clifford, I was like, whoa, I don't really know that. And he's like, I'll show it to you. And he just, like, sat at the piano and taught it to me. Awesome. And, like, I remember that tune. There's nothing like being taught a tune, like, when you know you have to play it later that night. But that's when I learned it and, you know, the melody and the changes and everything. So I've always loved that tune. I mean, and if we're talking about jazz standards here, Benny Golston's whole songbook is just an amazing collection of jazz standards. It really, you know, talk about, like, getting you to play to sound good as a jazz musician. If you, if you learn, you know, all of his

hits even, which some aren't even played that much, but they're all so good. Well, I think that this, you know what it is? This list, I just realized what we made. This could almost be like, these are tunes you can't just call in a gig and assume that even good players are going to know them. That's what this basically is. That's true.

Well, that takes me to number four, and that is the great ballad. We're doing a lot of greats. The great. No, this is by a really quirky songwriter named Matt Dennis. And this is a ballad called Everything Happens to Me. I played this for years with a particular singer that I used to play with,

and she just killed this song. And it's one of these lyrics that you can only really go through the lyrics one time because it's a bit of a punchline at the end of it, you know? But he wrote some really interesting stuff. Junior and Julie is another one that's really interesting. So Matt Dennis, check it out. He actually has a really quirky album that he did of his own stuff. as a weird dude, but a decent piano player and a really great composer and songwriter.

Check it out. Everything happens to me. Didn't Miles record this on like one of the work in steaming, relaxing, cooking or something? Yeah, I vaguely remember. I don't know that one. I mean, I've heard it. I've never played it. It's beautiful tune.

Nice. All right. Next, I'm going to go with, what is this, number five. This masquerade is over. Cool. And this is there. I believe there's two versions of this tune. I always be confused about this because, you know, I grew up.

appearing a lot of like George Benson because he had some really big hits like when I was in high school and middle school like pop hits. Um, you know, and then on Broadway and stuff, uh, or Broadway rather not on Broadway. And, and, and, uh, he has this, this mask. This masquerade is over. Oh, no, that's the one I'm talking about now. See, I'm getting so confused. I just confused myself. Seven great standards. Peter doesn't even know. This one. I know this might not come through, but this is the one I'm talking about. It's beautiful. Nancy Wilson.

This is actually Joe Zavidol, I believe, on piano. This is the Cannibal Nancy Wilson. But that, this masquer-the-masquerade is over. That's what it is. George Benson's this. Okay, now it's all coming back to me. They're both great tunes. But, oh, man, now I'm thinking about that Benson intro when he's singing along.

Don't confuse it. Oh, sorry. They're both good, man. They're both good. All right. The masquerade is over. I don't even know who this is by. Now I forgot.

But anyway, check it out on the Nancy Wilson, Cannibal, Classic recording. That's awesome. That takes us to number six. And this is really not, this might not be a standard at all. It's not a great American song book. I guess it kind of is. This is somewhere from the musical West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein. This is. I've got to be great American song.

It is right. West Side Story counts. Is that a legal term? So what's weird is, I've started playing this in last two or three years. And you don't hear any jazz musicians play this one. I think Keith Jared has done it. But I don't hear a lot of, I couldn't find a lot. of recordings of jazz musicians playing it.

But it's amazing. It's so much fun to play. Look it up. I mean, you know the tune. There's some... Beautiful tune. Beautiful lyrics. Somewhere over the rain.

Oh, no, not that, man. Not that. No, but the form is a little funky. It's like an ABC form with different lengths on each section. I love my ABCs. Learned years ago. Learned them. But if you can incorporate this,

I've noticed that we'll call People who may not be jazz fans know this tune and love this tune. And it's incredibly popular and well known. And it really, it works in a jazz repertoire really well. Nice. Tomorrow we're going to do seven people that may not be jazz fans. They call them out by name. Look at you, Mom.

Okay, well, that brings us to number seven. And I'm going to call a little bit of an audible here just because Billy Strayhorn's on my mind from yesterday's episode and go with UMMG. Nice. And this is Upper Manhattan. medical group, which is kind of a... Healthcare scenario, right? Healthcare scenario. And apparently he wrote this, I'm just thinking about

from in the book, like he was very ill at the end of his life. But he was such a consummate artist and creator and creative force. He was writing, you know, he was in the hospital, you know, very ill and was still writing and stuff, so he kind of used some names. And you would think this is a really dark...

He also had a song called Blood Count, and that's like a very pensive, poignant ballad. But this UMMG is actually, you know, like just a great kind of blowing tune. That's a swinger, right? It's a swinger kind of A, A, B, B, B, booty, the, really fun tune to play.

And there was a time in the kind of mid, mid or the early 90s in New Orleans where this was like actually a standard that you had to know on a gig. Victor Goins kind of started the thing. And it was cool and we all kind of learned it. I was going to fit, isn't it funny how like certain players will be like, we're all playing this? And the whole community kind of rally, like, you know, my first one, Beatrice, that's like a Willie Aiken, who's a legendary St. Louis, tenor saxophonist, who everybody's played with.

He loved that tune. So I feel like we all know it. We all know it in this town, but sometimes, yeah. Yeah, around that time, it was some kind of lesser-known ones that I realized when I left New Orleans, I would call these tunes and people like, I don't know, the UMMG, what is that? It's great. Regional standards. Regional standards. Seven regional standards. You don't know unless you're from there. Yeah, cool. So, all right, well, that's good. If you don't know them, you should know them.

and you don't know them, so you'll hear it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast. You can go to you'll hear it.com to get more information, submit a question, or just say hello. You can do that. Absolutely. All right, and if you like what you heard, please leave a review and a rating below.

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