You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - First Take Friday: Jon Batiste's "WE ARE" *Grammy Nominated*

Episode Date: December 3, 2021

Peter and Adam listen to and break down the first track, FREEDOM, off of Jon Batiste's WE ARE.Preorder your copy of the album on CD HEREListen to this tune on HEREWatch the music video that Peter loved so much HEREHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Learn more about Open Studio Pro: openstudiojazz.com/proInterested 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 Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey. You know what time it is. It's Friday. It's first take Friday. First take Friday. Adam Manis. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you'll listen to the You'll Hear a podcast. Make advice, inspiration, and listening. Oh, yeah, because it's first take Friday. Peter, I forgot something when we started. You know what I forgot? What? You're going to hate me for forgetting this. Oh.

I totally forgot the whoosh. But there it is now. Yeah, I apologize to your listeners. That was like an exposed whoosh. I know. Which is interesting. You know, I got this board and there's all these buttons on it. Yeah.

Sometimes I just, I don't want to stare at it and push the buttons. Right. I just want to be here in the room with the people. You know what I'm saying? Be present. Just being present. So this is the great thing about listening to the music.

I always find that like it just centers me in a way that it's like, I mean, I love talking about the harmony and like we were talking the other day about lyrics and all these different elements that we can and can't learn or should and practice. And I mean, strategies on doing this. I mean, this is our stuff.

I love doing that. But it's so fun to just sit down and listen to music. And, And like you kind of remember this is what it's all about. And to me, in some ways, it's just as meaningful and impactful as playing music. Absolutely. It's so connected in that same way of participating in music, of being a part of it, of like immersing oneself in the language. And I think that as one learns to listen deeper and deeper, I know for myself and appreciate it more, it becomes very much similar, very similar to playing music.

It's connecting with the language in a way that's great. Totally. connect with the language to the day. So this past week, as we record this, this actually just a couple days ago, the Grammy nominations were announced. And I thought we could spend just now until the Grammys, essentially, listening to some nominated artists. This is all about listening to new music anyway. Right. And I like to get kind of caught up with what's happened and who might win. Now, the biggest news, I think, for jazz pianists specifically, jazz musicians in general, is that a jazz pianist has been nominated for album of the year, which is a huge.

huge deal. And that's John Batiste, of course. Yes. Who you know personally, like you work with when he was a kid, didn't you? Yes. Yeah, yeah. He used to come over just a few times, though, but for lessons, my house, when he was a teenager. And I very wisely told his mom and dad that he needed to get a better teacher. And he did. So that was, well, I just recommended a classical teacher. I was like, you know, he's welcome to come over and hang whenever we can play. This is in New Orleans? In New Orleans, yeah. But I said he's doing, and he was already either started or about to start at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts,

a fantastic, you know, arts high school. Oh, there's got to be a ton of talented. The kids coming out of there. Yeah, so I knew he was going to get all, you know, the ensemble playing and stuff. But it's been in one of my, the joys of my,

you know, kind of educator, sideline career over these years to see him, as well as Sullivan Fortner, some other great pianists, you know, just really grow up and go on to do amazing things. And this is quite an accomplishment. Well, there's a lot going on here for Jazz musicians in this year's

Grammy nominations, even for the big categories like Album of the Year, you know, there's John Batiste is nominated, Tony Bennett is nominated. Even like her, who has worked with Robert Glasper is nominated and on Kanye West

Grammy nominated Donda. I know Corey Henry. It's some writing for that and playing on it. And I think this thing with Jonathan Batiste for Record of the Year, is it album of the year? It's both. It's album of the year and then record.

We're going to listen to the record of the year submission, which is on the album of the year. But this is huge because I'm thinking back. So Herbie Hancock was nominated and won, I believe, for album of the year. Yep, for a Joni. For the Joni. So, like, that's kind of a very rare intersection of a true jazz album. Absolutely. Getting that top.

And then, of course, Esperanza Spalding. Absolutely. Similar thing. But beyond that, I can't remember. I'm sure it's happened other times, but it's been a while if it has. Yeah, it happens sporadically, but it's always, it's always, It's always great to see. And it's such a cool album.

I highly recommend everybody to go listen to the entire record. It's really a pop record. I mean, that's why it's here. But it's made by a very skilled jazz pianist in John Patisse. I mean, legit skilled jazz pianists. Of course, you know, on music director on the Stephen Colbert Late Show. Right. But he's such a great musician.

And so I love this cover, too. I don't know if you've seen this cover. The name of the album is We Are. Yes. And it's this beautiful cover. First of all, he's a great song. He's a handsome dude. And like he's wearing this like red robe with this yellow scarf and there's a snappy dresser. Can we say that?

Oh man. It's like such a, it's one of those album covers that you will remember always as you listen to this record because it's so striking. Is that a selfie? You think he took or was there a stylist and professional crew there? I'm, I bet. I'm just going to take a bet here that this one photograph costs more than our entire pod store here at the budget for the entire pod seat. It's a very, it's a beautiful photograph and it's a great album cover. So I thought we could listen to, you know, so We Are is the album,

and that's nominated for album of the year. And the second track is Freedom, and that's nominated for record of the year. Right. And I thought we could listen to Freedom. Awesome. Here it is. That's Freedom from Jonathan Battiste. John Batiste, we are.

Yes. You know, we're just 2021, right? Let me set the scene free. You know what I'm saying? 201. Yes. That's a blues, buddy. That's a straight blue.

That's nominated for record of the year. It's a five, four blues right there. That's amazing. Yeah. God bless New Orleans, Louisiana. It's like going back to 1950s when that happened a lot. Oh, man. And I love all of the little details in there.

First of all, the production is killing, especially for a pop record. I mean, of course, all of these production tricks that are so prominent. Man, I was just listening to this, or actually it's a YouTuber named 12-tone. You know this YouTuber? No. It was an answer to a Rick Beato video. Who? Rick Beato, famous YouTuber.

Friend of the pot. Friend of the pot. A friend of the pot. an answer to one of Rick's vids about why new music is boring, but, and I don't actually think Rick thinks that, but, you know, it has this reputation now for that kind of stuff. But the production value of new music

is part of the, like, quote unquote, music theory that's happening. Right. In music now. And this is a great example of that. Yes. This is a record that couldn't have been made 30 years ago. Right.

You know, because of the way the production value is. And I kind of, I'm super into it, actually. I think it's great. And I mean, I think it's, yeah, that's taking the technology that's available. The same way, actually, it was done in different ways, but the concept of taking technology and letting that be a prominent part of the creative process of how music is recorded, music is presented.

That's always happened. I mean, back to the beginning of recordings period, but definitely, you're talking about the 60s, the 70s, that was kind of the heyday for that. So I think that this is, you know, we're in this period where, you know, the possibilities are. limited now in a way that's good in that. Like we went through this period where it's like,

oh, everything is limitless because you can have a plug in for this. You can do this. And like we, maybe some of the production stuff went off the rails a little bit. And like this kind of harness more. You can get really cool and creative and organic sounds in a way that's different because of technology than you could 30 years ago. But the end result that we're looking for, that cohesion of the art is still the primal thing as opposed to getting started.

Like in other words, they're using the technology for good, like for a creative thing as opposed to being used by the technology. But the technology has been used creatively, you know, the entire time. It just does it like, like you rarely hear a mix of something like this, right? Which is a really good feeling blues, you know, form. But it's like they didn't let the technology get in the way of you still getting that, even though it took advantage of some of the technological. That's true. But there are all those hallmarks of things like sound design, right? Which didn't happen to. 20 or 30 years ago that are happening more and more now, even in stuff like this. It's really exciting to hear.

Yeah. I think it's great. I just think it's great that it felt like for a lot of folks, we had a period where, you know, especially sound design and, you know, auto tune and these different things were like, they were so powerful. And they'd been around for a while, but all of a sudden it was like, well, you could actually do it relatively easy. So it's like, we got to use that on everything.

Yeah, yeah. As opposed to like using that as an answer for a specific creative problem. It was like there was a technological device available. So let's play with it. You know, now this is a more nuanced use of these things where it's coming in. I mean, it very much reminds me. I don't want to overstate how much I like John Batiste in this album and kind of the way he's doing things. But it kind of reminds me of like the way that Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock, like in the 70s,

we're using very new technology, keyboard technology. Totally true. But they were always using a lens of like, you know, soul and creativity and organic flow of the music. That was always the barometer of how they were going to use it. Absolutely. And I love the feel on here, man. There's some, I mean, the feel of the drums, the feel of the horns. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, this is like, it's timeless. It's got a little swampy New Orleans. A swamp going on it too. Especially if you're watching the video, which I know you were doing it. I started doing that. I got it synced about it's going. I highly recommend that.

You can see that on YouTube on J.Bats. Jonathan, John Battice. Would you call J. Battee? J. Bat, that's what we called him for a long time. And it was Jonathan. And I see he's officially John Battis on his YouTube channel. But you can see. this video and it's all in New Orleans.

It's some really, I mean, some of these blocks I know exactly where they are. He's got the St. Aug High School marching band in effect. He's got about 20 costume changes. Costume or uniform. What do you call that? Well, it's not a uniform. It's not everybody else is wearing it, Peter. What is it?

It's like a video uniform for the leader, right? It's a costume. It's a costume. It's the show business, man. It's not the military. What are you talking about? Uniform. It's, I mean, that's true. But I mean, but there is a uniform Formity with, you got to see the video. I mean, like, now I'll wear the same thing, but it's coordinated.

You got to coordinate. See, you got to coordinate. Mushroom jacket, mushroom belt. You got to coordinate. I'm going to fix that for you right now. Please fix that for it. But he's got, and then the whole video has a concept, and the story is, it's very subtle, but it's a parade. It's a New Orleans parade.

So there's constant movement along. Do they do many parades in Northern? It's been known to happen. Yeah. Celebrating life, celebrating death, celebrate everything. Have you heard that Hannibal Burris bit about going to New Orleans? And he's like, on New Orleans, you can just have a parade on a Tuesday. You just go to the police station.

It's hilarious, man. We should listen to it at a time. That's awesome. Yeah, but highly recommend the video. I mean, just from a videography standpoint, choreography, dancing. Jay Bad just hitting the wobble hard. And he's got a bunch of folks, some kids in here.

I mean, it's quite the production. The color on it is, the color grading, I would give it an A plus. This guy, who's a newfound video editor here. Who knows his stuff. Wow. No, but I mean the color, the color grading on it, and just the color of the uniforms. The photography. It's amazing.

Oh, the uniforms. Okay. It's got different colors to the uniforms. Well, it's we are, it's Grammy nominated. We're going to be listening to a lot of Grammy nominated jazz musicians coming up. Because we're mainstream now. Well, no, no. You know, how often do you?

No independent releases. Grammy awards only. No, no, but how often do the Grammys come out and you're like, I've never heard of any of these? We're going to fix that for you. I'm going to fix that for you right now. Does Harry Connick have something nominated? Not that I've seen. but maybe it's not his year.

Oh, Harry Connie's going to be on a big live anti-production. You know about that? No. Coming up on, I believe CBS. You know what the musicals live? Faddy Arbuckle is what's the guy's name? Danny Warbucks? Daddy Warbucks.

He's entirely bald. No way. He's fully shorn on that. Does that work with his face? It's pretty funny looking. It does kind of work, though. Because he's got great hair, that guy. Not in this thing.

He doesn't. But I think it's one of those like, maybe he's not shorn. It might be a bald cap. Like a Broadway bald cap. You got to be ready for your off day, you know. Well, thanks, everybody for listening. We'll be back here on Monday where we're going to be checking out some of our favorite. Not our favorite.

We're going to be checking out some YouTube videos that are recommended to us and just hanging. Until then. You'll hear it.