You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Getting Out of the Math - #24

Episode Date: January 31, 2019

Peter and Adam drop some knowledge on a listener's question on how to play melodically while improvising.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 two minus five plus one? Uh, minus two? New math. Yep. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you.

And should we let them know this is take three already of this episode today? This is take negative three. Take negative three. They were so bad. We've been having trouble getting started today because we somehow have insulted many different people in the previous takes. How did we do that? We're good at insulting people. And we're like, we can't do that.

So we've got to start over. So now I feel like we're a little more joyful, a little more giving, a little more positive. Smiles are on the faces. That's right. Math is on the brain. Why is math on our brain today? Well, because we got a speak pipe, which has nothing to do with math. But the question in the speak pipe does have something to math. So let's listen to our listener question. Let's hear it. Hi, this is Brendan. Love the pod and thanks for all the work you do. This week, I've basically only been listening to Keith Jarrett's solo on In Love and Vane from his standard. It's Volume 2 album. Each time I hear it, I'm more and more amazed at how melodically he plays.

When I'm playing, I sometimes find myself getting caught up in the math of what I'm doing, which basically results in just a bunch of BS lines with no melodic interest. So my question for you then is, do you have a list of players or recordings that you consider to be a cut above the rest in terms of ability to construct highly melodic lines while improvising? I hope to hear from you, and thanks in advance. Thanks, Brendan. That's a great question. Yes. And the answer is yes. And the answer is yes. We both do have those.

We do, yeah. Too bad you didn't ask for us to share them. Yeah, no, we're not going to tell you what they are, but we have compiled the list of seven. That's right. You'll hear it. You'll hear it. No, this is a, you know, this is a great topic. And it doesn't get talked a lot about. We do talk about the math of these things more than we talk about maybe we should, which is the lyricism of these things. You know, I had piano teachers that would always tell me to learn the lyrics of the song you're playing. I think that's so crucial.

Yep. I remember Ellis Marcellus was a big proponent, is a big proponent of that and told me that when I was a young and in high school, he's like, always learn the lyrics, you know, learn the verse, learn all the words, learn the shape of the melody, what it means, all those things. So I think that's the first kind of entry point for you, Brendan.

But I mean, you know, that, I know that record really well that Keith Jarrett's Standards Volume 2. And, I mean, there's Standards Live, you know, of course, volume 1, volume 2, that cut of never let me go. It's just unbelievable. I mean, you talk about lyricism and melodic invention and stuff. And I think that, you know, what you said is really spot on,

that each time you said something to the effect of each time you hear it, you discover even more or it gets even better. And that's certainly the hallmark of a fantastic jazz recording. It's like a fine wine that gets better with time. So, yeah. Yeah, so we've compiled a little list of seven. This was actually pretty easy for us because I think we both realized that a lot of our kind of favorite tracks and what do we call them deep,

deep, not really deep cuts, but just personal deep cuts. Choice cuts. Choice cuts. That's a different part of the, of the piggy. USDA choice melodic cuts. Yeah, there we go. But a lot of are the ones we kind of naturally gravitate, if you were to say, like, what are some of your favorite tracks and solos anyway,

consist of some super melodic solos. Yeah, I think most great players are naturally melodic players. Yeah. Even if it's not an obvious melody that they're playing, you know, if they're, if they're playing a lot of notes, it still feels melodic. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And we're going to get to at least one I see on here that's maybe a little bit unexpected, but I think we'll be able to break down why it's very useful. And I mean, really, to check out a variety of different kinds of highly melodic playing, I think is ultimately very valuable to the aspiring jazz player because it'll get you out of that rut. It'll get you out of that. It's funny.

I never actually heard this term, get out of the math. I guess I'm always in the math. Sorry. So maybe I need to get out. Well, no, before we get deep into our list, maybe we can kind of address some things that Brendan could do to try to get out of the math a little bit. And definitely we can continue on with those suggestions

as we go down this list. It'll give us ideas. But, you know, the first thing I do, when I realize that I'm in the math or that I might just be playing some BS, as I totally get what he said, I totally understand what he meant by that, but is I start shortening everything up.

I start shortening my phrase. Yeah. My phrases, because if you look at great melodies, whether that's American song book melodies or Beatles' melodies or any kind of great melody, Beethoven's melodies. They're usually series of short phrases

that they link together in interesting ways. So what we run into as pianists, I know guitarists can run into this, bassists can run into this, is that you just play a bunch of run-on sentences. Right. And then it turns into something else. Yes.

You know, trumpet players and horn players can get away with, I think, sounding more melodic because they have to breathe at some point. Although I've heard some saxophone. players sound like they never take a breath ever. I know. Yeah, they can do it pretty quick. But I think that, yeah, the length of the phrases, I love that because that forces you to play something more melodic, actually. It does. Because you're going to kind of sound lame if you play the same way that you play a

longer phrase and you just kind of cut it off. So it's just like speaking. I mean, if you have something to say to someone and you have to say it in only five words, you can't say it in 30 words, you're going to be a little bit more clear and concise most likely. You're going to get rid of some of the fluff and stuff. You can get into that later. But I mean, there's been some great speeches that are based upon short sentences. I have a dream, you know. That's right. So I think that, yeah, that's great.

And I think we're going to see some of that. Breathing, for sure, shorter phrases, confidence in just letting a couple of notes really tell the story at any tempo. I think we're going to see that in some of these solos. It's so true. Yeah. So maybe I'll kick it off. Is that cool? Kick it off.

Okay. So this is Herbie Hancock's solo on Solitude, really his whole performance. And this is from River, the Joni Mitchell record, which is kind of funny that there's a Duke Allington song on there. But I mean, I just, as soon as I heard this question, I thought of this track. And it's just highly, highly melodic playing, a lot of really clear and interesting phrases. And then he gets into enough kind of interesting Herbie directions with his melodies. And he, you know, Herbie always, to me, in this, in slower playing like this,

uses a lot of like very interesting tension and release in just the way he, phrase is a simple melody. Notice how short the phrases each individual phrase is. Yeah. Granted, he's still kind of playing the melody here, but it's the same thing, really. You know, a lot of just little piano techniques, like a singer would use a singer technique to shape the phrase. That's so great, man.

And listen to the left hand. There's some nice, very clear, short melodic content in there, too. Counter melodies. Yep. So that's one. What you got for number two? So for mine, I have Brad Meldows when it rains. Now, we did a solo analysis of this a couple of months ago.

Yep. And, you know, I chose it for that. We had a request for it, but also because I love how melodic this solo is. I think this is the epitome of some melodic playing because he gets into it. I mean, most of Brad Meldose playing is very melodic, but I'll skip to hit here. See, now, notice, like, we jumped in here at a part where he did this. big line, right? But then he finished it with this very strong melodic statement that ended on the tonic of the chord. And had a little blues in it, a little triad and it's super like straight down

the pike. And I mean, that's a theme for me on this is, you know, we're going to hear players do things that are, that don't sound like a sung melody, but they end it in a melodic way or they begin it in a melodic way. Like you could still be a melodic player and not have everything like a sound like a Chet Baker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? When I think, you know, Brad does a lot of, he really takes advantage of a very advanced piano technique to shape his melodies with like very, use great voicing in terms of, and touch. And so he can play those very simple things, but make them sound complex melodically the way, you know, on an instrument that's kind of hard to do that. We don't have the breathing and, you know, we play the note and that's what it is. Let me go to the next one.

So it has to all be about phrasing and how you shape the line. He's got a very advanced technique. Love that moment. Cool. All right. Yeah. Moving on. Number three.

We can listen to that, the whole rest of the thing. Number three. Yeah. Okay. For three, I've got, I decided, you know,

I realized that I don't think Brandon was just asking about pianists. So we can, right? We can go out. And I think it's a real. Should we?

Well, I think we should because I realized, like, I learned a lot of my truly melodic playing from listening to a gentleman from East St. Louis named Miles Davis.

Never heard of them. Learning his souls on the piano. That always helped me a lot. So I picked old folks from Someday my prince will come, Miles Davis. All right. But I was to say everybody's sold.

I mean, Hank Mobley, Miles is soloing. Winton Kelly is just incredible. His solo on here. Super Malachi. Yeah, I mean, and that, you know, Witton Kelly kind of completes that melodic phrase there with those beautiful little octaves up there. There's some collective melodic playing.

And then, you know, Miles Davis is sort of known and I think felt as just the most melodic, lyrical horn player probably we've ever had. I would agree with that. Yeah. Incredibly melodic. in everything he did. Yep.

But don't sleep on Hank Mobile. We're not going to have time to get to it here, but we could do a whole breakdown on this tune sometime. That'll be fun. Miles' playing always reminds me of a practice technique

where he's making these melodies, but the first thing I think we tend to do when we're like, oh, I'm going to play melodically is you start repeating phrases, which is a way to do it. Miles never does that. No.

I mean, so an exercise you can try in your practice, Brendan is like to play something whether that's maybe it's a it's a five note eighth note phrase yeah and then say whatever I do next it's not going to be that where it's going to be something just a whole note right you know or something faster or something slower or something staccato yeah yeah having that contrast that melodic contrast as you go within the horizontal flow of your of your playing that's the hallmark of great melodies in compositions and in solos totally yeah good stuff what you got next for number four of our seven highly melodic solos.

Well, so number four, I have another modern pianist, Aaron Parks. And Aaron Parks is such a melodic player. He uses so much space. He's great at using space. I think better than probably anybody of his generation. You should see his new apartment the way he used space with his living room decor. It's amazing, man. So I have here Travelers.

You know that one? Yeah. Well, I heard him do that live. I think if it's a tune I'm thinking of it. It is. It's a great tune. It's from his record Invisible Cinema. And I chose this because it has a lot of movement.

It's not what you would think of like, oh, this is like melodic playing. This seems like it would be in the math. But the way, if you listen to the way he phrases and uses space. Yeah. This is not like Brad Meldow either where Brad is coming up with these lush melodic phrases to end everything. If you check out when we get in here to the solo, phrasing makes the melodies. Literally quoting the melody. at times.

Play something real complicated, then come back with the real simplistic little melodic phrase. So this is very, very busy playing. Yeah. But always coming back to the melody, always having a sense of phrasing of melody, even amongst the busyness of it. But I noticed two things,

like in some of the really busy, long phrases, there's actually some sectioning off in between there, like little semi-breaths or something. Exactly. Yeah. And then some of the other ones, our continuous, he leaves a nice break, like a breath after, longer than normal, or comes back with like a shorter phrase. Like, I bet here he's going to. He's just cool right here.

Anyway, I think that's a, for me, that's a great example of someone who can play a lot. Yeah. And, but there's still so much space in there that you get these really great melodic moments. I love that. Yeah, great stuff. All right. Number five, I guess I'm up. I'm going to go with another two solos because we're going to do a little two for one on this one. This is Sarah Vaughn and Clifford Brown on Lullaby of Birdland. And I mean this is some very classic super lyrical, logical, musical swinging just like straight up just who wouldn't love these phrases. This is such a great recording. Is anybody more swinging with their voice?

in her. She's so swinging. Oh, the triplets. In the phrase, how I feel, have you ever heard to turtle death? Yeah. Pianist? Yeah, maybe go up to the basis. I think a bass. They let everybody solo. Then Sarah Balsy.

Herbie man. Herbie man. Yeah. Then Clifford Brown's coming up. Absolutely. They're trading. She's really hearing everything. I know. She knows the change.

A little bit, yeah. Shabby dovi. Shabababababababud d'i-dubun-de-duba-duba-d-d-d-do. Oh, man. Come on. Come on, Sarah, though. Yeah, so I got to hear her live a couple of times, and that was very exciting and inspirational.

So, man. Yeah. All melody all day. And really, everything, Clifford, you get a lot of different kind of tempos and ways of playing. But Clifford Brown was such a melodic. And again, I think as a pianist, if you're a pianist, I learned a bunch of Clifford Brown souls for a certain period because I was like, oh, this is B-Bop. And I mean, it is. But I didn't, it was like, I kind of heard Clifford Brown before I heard really got into Charlie Parker.

So I was just wanted to get that sort of sound. I was like, yeah, okay, I'll try to learn this stuff. I think Clifford Brown is a great entry point for people into B-Bop. Yeah. You know, because he's got such a lovely warm tone. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the stuff with Max Roach just feels great. It does.

And he's such a precise player. His stuff is kind of easy for a beginner to, for his complicated stuff to be able to transcribe. I highly recommend. Someone who made the trumpet seem easy and it's really not. No, not at all. So for my pick, this is number six. I'm going with one of my favorite pianists of all time, the great Nat King Cole, obviously known as a singer.

And I think his... And Matt and the Idol as well. Movie Star? It's star of silver screen, then small screen. I think his lyricism as a singer really comes through first as a pianist. This is from recording of the Lester Young trio, which was just piano, drums, Buddy Rich, and tenor saxophone, Lester Young.

And it's one of my, some of my most favorite stuff ever. Favoriteists. Favoritists. This is the man I love. And you can hear Annette's solo here, how lyrical he is. How lyrical is he? It wasn't a question.

It's like poetry. And also the left hand feels great. Yeah. He had a great touch and control. To modify the stride, you know? Dynamics. All these pianists have been using dynamics we notice. Lost art at the piano.

It's so important, man. That's a great point. Those are those melodies coming out. Using a lot of the melody from the tune, from the man I love. Yeah. Man, I'm about to save a lot of money on bass players. It's all I'm saying.

You know what I'm saying? Cool. That was nice. That was very nice. Man, yeah, we forget about that can't call's pianistic skills, man. Master and an innovator. Okay, so for number seven, I'm going to go off the reservation, seemingly off the reservation a little bit, but I really don't think it is once we check this out.

And say, Thelonious Monks Baggs Groove. This was a solo that kind of came to mind as far as, I would say, the melodic logic of how he plays is something to key in on and use to be kind of an influence for your practice. Are we going to check some of this out? Check it out. Okay. I think he's the second soloist, as I recall.

Maybe third. Here we go. Yeah, oh, man, I love this solo. Peter's about to get really excited. You can tell by the all-man. Yeah. Milk Jackson. Now, he's a super melodic player, too.

Actually, Sonny Rollins on here. How do we not mention Sonny Rollins? Simple. This next phrase, I love that logic. Quoting your own tune, Monk. Monk is giving a shout out to Monk. Theme development, man. Court changes be damned.

I'm going melody first. But the thing with this too is like, this is funny because this is getting out of the bath. He kind of kind of goes into the math in his own way. But it's just so logical and inventive in such an offbeat way. It's the structure. To me, it's like Monk's solo. It's like his tunes. I mean, there's so much beauty in there and lyricism too,

but like the structure, like just the advanced structure, like the whimsical, and it's not taking itself too seriously, but there's a lot of like underpinnings there that you can really hold on to. Big shout out to Winton Marcellus for recommending this solo to me when I was like 14 or 15 years old, man. He was like, I met him and he's like, man, should check out Monk. I was like, who was that?

And I went and tried to get some of his record. So he gave his phone number. I called him. I was like, which one should I learn first? He's like, check out Bag's groove. but I couldn't find it because I'm looking for the monk record. It's actually on a Miles Davis. All right.

Can I do a bonus one, number eight bonus? Bonus. Bonus Jonas. I want to get a monk one in here. Okay. This is one of my favorite melodic monk. First of all, every single Thelonese monk solo is a melodic solo. Of course.

Because he used the melody. Is this his tune called Copying Off of Peter? Is that the name of this song? Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, he was unoriginal. This is brilliant corners. Your choice of monk.

Oh. Oh, you're talking about your story to me. Well, dang. Well, dang. So this is brilliant corners. So there's amazing moments in this. It's just all melody all the time and these little jagged phrases that happen. Monk is always very purposeful and careful about his left hand hopping to.

I think that's a one little tactic you could think about it. You don't have to do it just like him. But there's a lot of just letting that melody be on its own. And when he does use the left hand, there's a reason for it. And it's always accompanying in LinkedIn with the message. Yeah. Any monk is a great source for any pianist or any instrumentalist or any vocalists. And there, we thought that was going to be kind of controversial. And now that we're listening to it, it's not controversial. We should have had them first. Not at all. Yeah. I think we nailed that one. Agreed. Yeah. You're welcome, Brendan. You're welcome. Knowledge dropped.

No, but you know. Go back to your Keith Jarrett record now. I mean, some common things are definitely space. Yeah. The ability to use space in your melodies, the ability to use space in your melodies, the ability to, you know, to use a variety in your melodies, shorter phrases, all of those things will help you get there. Yeah, cool. Well, until tomorrow, we'll hear it.