You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Get To Know The Real Peter

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

On this episode of YHI we throwback to 2002 when Peter got interviewed by Marian McPartland for the acclaimed Piano Jazz segment on NPR. 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 Instagram

Hey, Adam. Yeah. Are you ready to go back in time? I am. Are you ready for a blast from the past? Where are we going? We're going more than 20, I can't believe this, more than 20 years into the past. We've never done this on the podcast.

No, 20 years. But, okay, math is important, buddy. 2023. We're going back to the year 2002. Oh, yeah. Oh, I love that year. Yeah. I was a rascal.

A rascal. For sure. That's an old-fashioned name. So let's go back to an old-fashioned year. All right. You know, I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Mark. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcasts.

Music advice coming at you. In Open Studio Podcast, Peter, you're not even flinching anymore. I'm trying to throw you off with the, you know, and hey there. I'm starting to get used to it now. I'm starting to get used to it. So it's a very special episode today because we're going to go back and unearth something from the archives. Do you remember Marion McPartland's piano jazz? I think like probably a lot of our listeners who are especially our age and around our age or older, this was a seminal show.

before there was podcasts really yes this was just a radio show on NPR is that right that's right right coming out of the South Carolina affiliate I think for some reason but recorded in New York City but she was an amazing interviewer incredible I mean she's the OG jazz podcast I mean doing what we're doing here with our little two our little humble two key word set up she had pianos two pianos yeah in studio she was amazing Mary McPartland and I think everybody's familiar with her wonderful player as well amazing player but I had the honor to appear on piano jazz I grew up listening to this.

I remember Kenny Kirkland in, I believe it was 1987 or 1986 being on the show. You know, Herbie Hancock. I mean, everybody was on there. It wasn't just pianists. Yeah. She had everybody. So when she asked me to be on it in 2002, I was just, I was honored and just nervous. I mean, I was pretty young then still, I think, oh, semi-young, you know, young-ish.

But, I mean, I definitely knew. Young enough. It was very hard to not think about all of the great folks. I mean, she had Roy Hargrove. She had a lot of non-pianists or piano-adjacent jazz musicians. And anyway, so we have the audio here, and that's going to be the episode today. So we're going back to 2002, enjoy Mary McPartland's Piano Jazz featuring Peter Martin as guest. Piano Jazz is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts.

the Baldwin Piano Company, The Friends of Piano Jazz, and NPR. Hi, I'm Marion McPartland. My guest today on piano jazz is Peter Martin, a young pianist and composer from New Orleans, who plays with great daring and excitement. His elegant touch and clear and distinctive solos complete the picture of a young musician on the rise.

Peter, how are you? I'm well. Are you on the rise? I hope so. I really think you are. It's so much has happened for you since I met you all those years ago at the Lonez Monk competition. I was looking that up. Was it 1993?

I guess it was, 93. I mean, it's quite a while ago. You must have done all kinds of different things during the past seven or eight years. Right. I have. I've done a lot of things, and I guess I feel like I am arrived somewhat now that I'm here sitting with you about. to create some music and speak about it. So this is a pleasure for me.

Well, it's a pleasure for me, and that's what we're doing. We're going to create some music and speak about it. And right now, I'd like to have you create some. So what do you think about starting out with? Well, Embraceable You has been on my mind a lot lately, so I'd like to play that. Has it? It has.

Well, I think it's a good choice for an opening tune because it's not only a great tune, but people love it and I'm going to hear a totally new version of it done by you. All right. Okay. You know, I love that tune, Peter, but what I liked about your version

was hearing it in another key. I think the original key is F and I don't know, it sounds so much warmer or something in E-flat. Yes, I think it does in playing it with different vocalists. I did it with Betty Carter and Diane Reeves.

I think they both did it in E-flat. I got used to hearing the lyric in that key and it had a certain resonance to me and it always seemed to make sense at that particular place. Well, I can see how it would and a lot of times I'll be playing a tube and I'll get tired of it

and now move it up into a different key, and it gives it a fresh feeling or something. I don't know. I have all these little idiosyncrasis that you probably do, too. Yeah, I mean, I've found that, too. It's like a revelation sometimes going into a, it has a different sonority, of course, and a different vibration to the instrument,

you know, playing in different keys, just as much as using different voicings and different melodic patterns. Yeah, and you have to move your fingers in a different place when you're in another key. Absolutely. You know, you sort of, well, I was thinking about how I met you, and I'm wondering after that Thelonius Monk Festival, like, where did you go after that? Well, right after that period, I started working with Roy Hargrove. And I was still living.

Well, Jim, he is. Oh, absolutely. Isn't he wonderful? Oh, he's incredible. I mean, that's someone I really learned a lot from, even though we're exactly the same age. You know, I almost feel like he was a mentor to me, being able to play in his band.

There was wonderful musicians. And I was still living in New Orleans, but I was traveling a lot with them, and that was really the perfect situation. It was very inspiring to be playing, you know, with my peers, you know, playing something exciting musically every night. But so then you went somewhere, I read where you went to Juliet for a couple of years.

Was that off to the Ptholonez Monk thing, or both? No, that was before. Right when I graduated high school, I came up to New York and went to Juilliard. I was there for three semesters. And you know, I was sort of having illusions or delusions of being a classical pianist, concert pianist at the time. But I really wanted to play jazz, but I grew up in St. Louis and we didn't, there wasn't a vibrant jazz scene when I was coming up outside of on the radio.

And wasn't your father a classical violinist? Right, right. Both of my parents, actually, my father's a violist. He still plays in the St. Louis Symphony. And my mom is a violinist. Terrific. And my father also plays piano and organ and a number of things. But how did he feel when you turned to jazz?

Well, he's very laid back. I mean, I think he was, both of my parents were very support. I mean, my dad's always been a big jazz fan. And he was the one who first played me, Art Tatum Records, and he had a John Coltrane. He had a real small but thorough collection. Oh, that's wonderful. And he had this great box set of LPs,

the Smithsonian Classic Jazz Collection, which was like the lineage all the way from the beginnings of the, you know, Jelly Roll Morton and different New Orleans, original New Orleans music all the way up until whenever it was made, like the early 70s. Oh, that's terrific because it gives you all those sort of reference points. I sometimes think that musicians who have started with Colourns, train and haven't heard back in the days of Jelly Roll and those people that they're missing

out on something in their own playing because they don't have that reference to even if you don't play something like Jelly Roll, you still, you know what he did. Right, right. You know that it existed and where it, from whence it came. Right, from whence it came. And by the way, you turned into a composer too. You've got some things of your own, haven't you? Right, yeah.

I love writing music. I love to compose, and I've always done a little bit of that, and started to do more and more over the years. We'll do one. Okay, I'll do one. All right, what's this one? I'm going to play La Pregunta. Now, that's off your record, isn't it?

Right, exactly. And it's something that's loosely based upon the poetry of Pablo Neruda, which I was reading. He's a wonderful Chilean poet, and I was reading a lot of his work when I was writing the music for this record, and so I ended up taking, borrowing one of his titles. It's funny how you can get inspiration from something like that, from something really musically great will come out of some words that you read

that went into your head. So I can't wait to hear this one. All right. Boy, that's really an impressive piece of music. How long did it take you to write that? Well, I wrote it pretty, as I recall, pretty much in a few hours, but I had been playing around with the idea of it for a while, like the one line.

I had been messing with that, but then when I decided to turn that into a tune, it just came real quick. Well, what's actually the main melodic part of that? I mean, can you, like, give me a one-finger version of... Well, when the melody comes in, it's... Which is on top of... And then the melody.

Wow, that's... Well, that's... Yeah, well, I always had in mind to have a horn playing it on top of it. So in this scenario, which is the first time for me to play solo, I have to try to, I can't quite play everything that I'm really hearing at the same time. It sounded like you were, my goodness. But that's brilliant. Anyway, there's more to come with Peter Martin. Our program is made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. I'm Marion McPartland, and this is piano jazz from NPR.

There's something in the back of my head that we should be playing something. All right. It would be a pleasure. And I don't know. I would love to do a Sonny Rollins tune. I'm sure you're familiar with a bunch of those. I know some, and I love Sunny. I mean, I remember when he came to St. Louis, when I was in high school,

we got so few jazz concerts that everyone was a big event. I mean, we'd be looking forward to it. And he did a concert at one of the local universities. And just, you know, I wasn't really familiar with his music. But his whole persona and his personality on that, the instrument was just blew me away. His personality on the instrument, that's a cute way of putting it because he sure has personality on his instrument. And we had a talk once about tunes. And I mean, he'll play, it seems like any old tune, he's telling me how much he liked peg of

my heart. I never thought, but I've heard him play it and it's amazing. So anyway, we could play, I would love to play this thing, Sunny Moon for two. It's just a blues, I think. Could we do that? Yeah, that'd be great. Okay. We'll see if I know it now. Funny, you just fell into playing two pianos.

Do you do a lot of that? I haven't done much of it, and I love to do it the few times I've had occasion to do it. It's been a real pleasure for me. I did a couple of concerts with Ellis Marcellus last year down in New Orleans, and that was really the first time in a long time I've done it. He's very good at that too. We had him, I think we had him twice on piano jazz. And he's got some interesting tunes of his own.

He's a very fine player, isn't he? Yeah, he's, I mean, he's so understated. You almost forget until you actually get up on stage with him and have to play with him, how good of a pianist he is. And he does a funny thing. we rehearsed and I was kind of trying to pick his brain as we're rehearsing because I know he's done a lot of two piano playing and he was real laid back whatever tunes you want to you know let's whatever tunes

let's play them and we rehearsed and then when we got on the concert you know right before about to start he kind of looked at me with a twinkling his eye and played totally different tunes the couple tunes that we did rehearse he did them in different keys and everything oh boy that's mean that's mean well I don't think I don't even think he thought about it I I think, you know, he was excited about doing the concert, and, you know, the rehearsal was okay for him, but he was ready to go once we got out of the concert.

I think he'd already put the rehearsal out of his mind. Yeah, you might have been surprised. I tell you, he likes to do that kind of stuff. It's George Shearing. He'll suddenly change key or play stride piano or something. I guess it all goes with the territory. You know, jazz is imbursed. improvised music and

that's one way of improvising. If you can catch the other person off guard, I guess you win the game. Right, exactly. Exactly. But I was, yeah, that was, I mean, I remember when I was playing with Betty Carter, I think she really thrived off that kind of a relationship with her trio. Oh, yeah.

And the fact that, because I remember on that whole tour, she kept telling the three of us in the trio, she said, well, I'm older than all three of you combined, which she was. We were all 20 years old at the time. and then the next statement would be something to the effect of, but I'm still going to get you tonight once we get on the gig. It was like a sporting event.

Well, I'm too chicken to get into that stuff. Well, how about, I don't know, I'd like to play something for you just as a change of pace. I would love to hear that. Maybe, I don't know how you feel about doing one of your own compositions. Well, I'd like to. This is a tune, I guess I wrote it a while ago, When I did it, I don't know why I was thinking about Errol Garner, and in a way it might sound like something he might do, but not in his styles.

Anyway, I called it Errol. So here goes. That was beautiful. I really enjoyed that year. It's always a great reminder to hear pianists with such a beautiful tone that is a good reminder for me to concentrate on the most important thing about playing this instrument. and that is projecting beautiful tones. So thank you for that. Well, thank you.

I'm very complimented. Well, there's more coming up. My guest is Peter Martin. Our program is made possible in part by the Baldwin Piano Company, manufacturers of the Piano's Heard on Piano Jazz. I'm Marion McPartland, and this is Piano Jazz from NPR. I guess you've recorded a few albums before this one that's become so popular. Right.

I did two recordings. that were released only in Japan. But, yeah, I did these records, and they were both trio records with Brian Blade on drums and Chris Thomas. Oh, I love Brian Blade. Yeah. What a drummer.

So then you decided to put together a group thing, the one you have out now with it. Or is that your regular band? Well, I mean, as regular as I can get people like Nicholas Payton and Reginald Veal, you know, it's hard to get them regularly. But I was really blessed. in that the people that I had in mind as I was writing the music,

you know, agreed and were available to do the recording. And the reason it's beyond just the trio is because really the material dictated it. Because at first I was going to do a trio record. I'm a pianist so it can feature myself. And as I was writing the music, I was hearing the horns in different ways. And maybe like a horse silver, not stylistically, but the way he was such a great pianist, but he seemed to always be writing his music. would be hearing something beyond just the piano tree.

Yeah, well, that's good, because that's what makes it more interesting, I think, and more creative. Thank you. You know, I just was thinking maybe we could do some ballad as a duet. What do you think would be good? Have you got any special tunes that you like? Well, I would love to do lament. You mean JJ's tune? J.J.'s lament, exactly.

Oh, I love that tune. Right. And I mean, I've always been a, one of the first jazz records that I heard was J.J. Johnson and Stan Gats with Oscar Peterson Trio live at the Opera House. And I've always been a huge JJ fan. And when I heard this tune, it was actually, I guess Miles, I heard playing at first. It was just one of those most beautiful and haunting melodies I've ever heard. It is. It is. Well, let's do a thing. Maybe I'll start it out and then you come in and we'll sort of see where it goes.

See there was another rehearsal. Yes. It was beautiful, beautiful. I think that confirms what I've always felt about this tune in any great composition that it almost plays itself because some of the voicing you were using at the beginning are some of the same ones that I like to use and I know I've never heard you play this tune before. So I'm honored that I would play the same thing that you would without knowing it. Well, listen, we both know where the good chords are. And I don't know, as you say, that tune

sort of plays itself. And I guess I first heard JJ himself played. I think I have the record at home. And then, of course, having him on the show and having him play that. I was in my glory just sitting there playing chords behind him. Actually, that tune should be in everybody's repertoire. I mean, there's certain tunes. There's like that one, and there's Lush Life. Absolutely. And there's two or three tunes that are sort of immortal.

Right. Of course, thinking about tunes like Lament and Lush Life. Then I start thinking of tunes by Jobim, not necessarily the really popular ones, but I don't know, everything that Nan wrote was so fantastic. You probably know a lot of his tunes. I really love his music. My entree to his compositions was actually through Joe Henderson.

Oh, really? I mean, of course I was familiar with some of Joe Beam's music. but when I was working with Joshua Redbin, we did a number of concerts opposite Joe Henderson. So every night, I was sitting there listening to him play, and he was playing with the Brazilian musicians doing the music of Joe Beam, and it was some of the most moving, incredible music I had ever heard.

I mean, I still have, like, kind of dreams about the way that he would play over that music. And it's almost like, if I hadn't have been there to hear it, I wouldn't have believed that that much music, could kind of come out of somebody on such a consistent bait. I mean, it was night after, it was for a couple of weeks, you know, hearing them every night. Just unbelievable. And been doing it for so many years.

You were lucky to have that experience. And I think doing that and hearing that, that probably makes you play any tune you would play by Jobim better because of having heard that. Yeah. I mean, I feel like just having heard a musician like that, I think about the fact that the amount of feeling that he would put into every phrase that he will play. And I guess, you know, if you would ask him, he wouldn't agree with this, but it was almost like he would never play something that didn't have the utmost meaning to it. You know, and I had never seen that, you know, in person before.

I mean, I'm sure Lewis Armstrong had that, I think, from the records I've heard in different musicians. Yeah, well, he did. He did. But of the people I had heard, he really, really blew me away. Well, what can you play by Shopeen? Well, the one that I loved hearing Joe play was Tree Stay. Oh, do that.

That's a beautiful tune. I'd like to hear what you do with it.