You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Give it to em' straight.

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

Adam and Peter give it to em' straight and talk about how to communicate within a band.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

Adam. Yeah. I think there's about to be a fraud perpetrated upon us and our listeners. I'm predicting that. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Well, I'm a little word. Oh, well, that's ominous, huh?

Let's see what that's all about. I'm Adam Mast. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Jazz explained. All right. Well, explain your intro there. But because you came in hot with there's going to be a fraud perpetrated.

Well, we are going to answer a listener. question. We are. Yeah. I'm a little bit, I feel like the name of this individual, this dear listener, as we say, they're either part of the witness protection program or they're covering something up, some kind of crime du jour du jazz. Okay.

Or tell the folks the name. You just told me right before. It is a name I've never heard before. It's a cool name, but doesn't it sound like... Very cool name. It sounds like something like that you would make up if someone was like, what's your name, but you didn't really trust giving your real name. Which is fine.

It definitely sounds like something you wouldn't put in if you were writing a novel. Right. Because it's like people, no one would believe that's a real name. But now I'm thinking maybe it is real. Maybe we shouldn't put the name out there for like identity theft purposes. I don't know. What's the initials? FG.

But that's not going to be interesting to people. Yeah, that's not going to be a fraud. Fogarty Geronimo. Well, if this is your real name, apologies. But it's, it's Freddie Gildersleeve. Gilderslead. That's a great last name. It's a fantastic name.

That's a jazz musician name. It sounds like somebody would, like a stage name. Gildersle. You're just like Rob Cohen and you're like, I want a cooler name. So now I'm Freddie Gildersleave. That's amazing. It's kind of hilarious. It's kind of amazing.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, Freddie, thank you for writing in. So this is an email question. What? I know. Do we accept emails? Well, this might be a snail mail. I don't know.

Maybe our boy Sam put this in is an email. Mr. Gildersleve. Mr. Gildersleve might have got, he went down to the post office. He bought a couple of Liberty Bells, maybe. Yeah, it just reeks of subterfuge, right? Subterfuge. I think you're just really into the three-syllableness of it. It reeks of like somebody's trying to pull a fast.

Well, let's see you the question. It's a great question. So it's how would a guitar player gently, and he capitalized all caps gently, which is a weird word to see all capitalized, ask a piano player to lay out to play more like Bill Evans when I take a solo. How do I convey? that although you do have 10 fingers, not all 10 have to be doing push-ups all the time.

Right. Let this song breathe. Okay, so I feel like Mr. Gildersleaf is a guitarist. And he plays with, maybe we shouldn't say his name because the piano player might be listening. Oh, yeah. Maybe this is his way of asking his pianist to play less.

Well, maybe that's why he adopted the name, Gildersleaf, to hide behind his real name. Freddie, I'm so sorry if we're calling you. His actual name was John Scolice. Oh, my gosh. And he's referring to Herbie Hancock's a problem he's had. So how would you gently ask a piano player to lay out, play more like Bill Evans when I take a solo? So, okay, so I'm just going to address your second suggestion here.

Play more like Bill Evans when I take a solo is a horrible thing to say to any piano player. Right. Mr. Gildersleaf. Yep. Would you like to be told, play more like Freddie Green or play more like John Schofield? Yeah, play more like West Montgomery. Like, oh, yeah, I'd love to play more like Bill. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you, Captain Obvious. But it sounds like you want a more playful duo scenario. So you might say, hey, have you ever checked out Undercurrent with Jim Hall and Bill Evans? What a great way that a guitarist and a pianist can collaborate, you know, or Undercurrent 2, Electric Bugaloo. Have you ever heard that one? Yeah, but this, I don't know. I think that approach reeks of possible gaslighting, as they would say, a phrase that I'd learned that I still don't totally understand.

and a little bit of manipulation. Because the first part of it is how do I gently ask someone to lay out? Ask them to lay out. Yeah. You know, but I do feel like you're taking them a little far with the, but I want you to play like Bill Evans. That's a little bit of microbial management.

It is. Now, if you are in a duo situation, you might ask the piano player, just give me a baseline. Yeah. Tell them what you, clarity is kind. Clarity is kind.

If you're in like a quartet situation or quintet situation, Freddie, and there's two chordal instruments, you can literally say, I got it. Exactly. When you want to get it. In the moment.

In the moment. And you know what? That is completely okay with everybody. But you have to be saying that because that's what the music. It shouldn't be about what you want. True. So it's what is best for the music. If it's if you're confident and look,

there's always different opinions and different approaches. It's not like one ways. So you have to be, you have to use your judgment. If you're not sure what the music requires, you might want to shut up. You might want to lay out. Yeah.

You know what I mean? But if you're sure that like what you have to be, have to offer is what the music needs and the piano compas is going to get in the way, then as you say, continue on with the layout. Yeah. And do it with no shame. Do it with no shame. And slap them in the face if they don't like it.

No, you know, you can, well, I think your point here is taken that really, Freddie, honesty is the best policy. So if you are feeling like the piano player is sort of killing the vibe of the music by overplaying and not letting you communicate with the music, which, you know, every member of the band is entitled to have some. voice in the band for sure. You just need to be honest. Like, hey, this is how I'm feeling.

Right. You know? We can give an example. Keep talking. Yeah. So, like, you can, after the, so, this is very distracting. After the gig or after rehearsal. So you're not dealing with this.

Right. Well, see, yeah, and it's frustrating me. And so now I'm just performing badly. What should you do? So I should be like, hey, Peter, can you hold up on playing? Hey, I can't hear you. I'm playing. I know, but can you hold up for a second.

Please. You still haven't done it right. Hey, Peter. What? Could you stop playing? while I'm there you go thank you clarity is kindness clarity is kindness you can just say

at some point and with kindness and with the music in mind you don't have to get all weird about it just like hey man like I feel like we're stepping on each other's toes I feel like you might be playing like not leaving enough room for the other chordal instruments in this group or whatever it is you want to say however you're feeling as long as it's honest and as long as you're

serving the music and not your ego and they can get around their ego you know that's easier said than done but it should be doable. Is it okay to say, hey, could you stop playing? Because what you're playing is taking away from the music. Is that taking it too far?

Clarity is kindness. Clarity is kindness. Not always, though. As long as you have the music in mind first. I mean, listen, we are so pampered these days, aren't we? I know. And I've told this story before. But you know.

Especially you, because you are the world's oldest millennial. I am the oldest millennial. So you're like the most entitled millennial. I'm the worst. But when I was young and I was playing with Willie Aiken's famously, Willie would do this all the time. Especially my first year when I was in Willie's band, Willie's legendary tenor saxophone is here around St. Louis. OG legend. Yeah.

And he kind of trained. I mean, he's one of these musicians when he was in his 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, he would always hire people in their teens and 20s to be his bands. And so he would help bring up. I mean, he brought up generations of musicians here in St. Louis. You and I included. Yeah. Both of us. and lots of other big-name people,

not that we're big-name people, but lots of our... Clary-His-kind. No, but a lot of the local luminaries came through his spin. Anyway, he would famously, if he didn't like what you were playing, he would turn around at the piano player,

if he didn't like the way you were comping for him and say, tacit, which means stop playing. Which is even better than layout because it's only one word. Right. And it's Italian. Tasset. And he would not give you much of an explanation.

You just had to realize, okay, what I was doing was not working. Right. Right. But that was very clear. You knew that if he didn't like it, you would not get to play. Right.

And sometimes I think, man, we should go back to that. I feel like we're too soft. I remember Steve Kirby, a great bassist, another St. Louis jazz legend that trained up myself and other young musicians. And I was lucky enough to play with him when I was coming up. I used to do a duo gig with him at a place in Seulard. And he would like, when he'd go to his solo,

I was trying to like comp or play a bait, just do something holding on for your life. Yeah. And he was just like, stroll. One word, stroll. Stroll is good too, which also means stop playing. Stop playing, right. Tasset.

And it's English for Tasset actually. Stroll, but I remember being like, it was a great lesson for me because he wasn't angry, but he was kind of like intense about it. Because he was soloing and like basically what I was playing was sort of frustrating him, but it was more frustrating the music. Right. You know what I mean?

So at first I was like, I felt like embarrassed and like shameful. But then I realized I was like, wow, it's it felt better when I stopped playing. So I turned that more into like I need to figure. I didn't say like, oh, I can never play during a baseball on a duo game. But it's like I need to figure out how to do this. So I remember asking him at the break. Yeah.

Like what could I do? And that was so cool because like he actually told me some things and set me on the path to be able to do stuff. Probably stuff that you still think about when you. Exactly. That's how those lessons were. Because that was the first time I played duo, you know. And he was just like,

ahead of me in terms of development. He just wanted the music to sound good. Yeah. And I'm just thinking like, had I taken that as like, man, what is he telling me? First of all, I just, I was nowhere near good enough to have, even if I wanted to have an entitled attitude. I just, I wasn't good enough yet. But, um, not that I am now.

Sorry, that didn't come out right. But, you know what I mean? It's like I didn't have any kind of sophistication to be able to understand this concept of like what's best for the music. I was just trying to survive. But I was trying to learn because I understood the greatness of the music and that that being bigger than me. being bigger than anybody and I wanted to be part of it.

So it was more like how do I work into that system? And both of these examples with Steve and with Willie, they kind of ring true to that thing that Miles Davis told Herbie Hancock when Herbie Hancock said, I don't know what to play. And Miles said, well, then don't play. Right. You know, if you don't know if what you're adding is any good or you don't have an idea that's good,

don't worry about it. And that's a great lesson, too, to hear it framed in that way with Herbie Hancock and Miles because you can listen to that time that Herbie was playing with Miles. And in some ways, you could be like, well, Herbie was every bit of the musician that Miles was. Like, they're playing together. There was no like, oh, Miles is light years ahead. He was very advanced.

Herbie was very advanced. They're certainly in the same ballpark and league. But what Miles did know that Herbie being a little bit older was stuff like that. Yeah. So like he, you know, and again, Miles, because he cared about the music, would pass on that kind of information. I think we've always had such a great mentorship, kind of organic mentorship. as part of the music that, yes, it's about helping the younger musicians, but it's really about just helping the music because we care about that so much.

That's right. And that is a lesson to other musicians. So, Freddie, don't be, don't be afraid to let. Freddie Gildersleaf. Yeah, Mr. Gildersleave, do not be afraid to let your pianist friend know. Your true name out into the world. Well, we've done that for him. This is why we don't get letters.

This is why we don't get letters. Yeah, well, that was good. I think we kind of nailed that one. Well, if you do say so yourself. I'm going to fix that for you right now. We fix that for you. We fix that, Mr. Gilderslie. So we remind you that you can ask questions in several ways.

It's a little bit muddled our communications. But you can tweet at us. Did you know that? I did know that. That might be the slowest way to get in touch with us. I'm not on Twitter. Yeah. I don't know if anybody checks that.

I'm there sometimes. We are at you'll hear it. Let's get the Twitter going. Come on, man. Let's bust this is your domain here. You can also send us a snail mail. Send it to Open Studio. 3333

Washington St. Louis, Missouri 63103 That's right Oh, you didn't think I knew that Sweet 140 Is that correct?

It's 101 104 But I don't think so 140? Just put 3333. We'll get it. It'll get it. Or you can send us a speakpipe Go to you'll hear it.com

Oh yeah, the speak pipe Go to you'll hearth.com And just leave his voicemail. Don't do any of the other stuff he just said. Just do that because it's the easiest. And we check it all the time.

time. Exactly. All right. Thanks, Peter. Thank you. Until next time, you'll hear it.