You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Has Jazz Strayed Too Far?

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

Adam and Peter discuss if Jazz has strayed too far from its roots and what that means for the future of the music. 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

Check one, two. Check. Check, three, four. Three, four. Hello, how's this? How's this on? I feel like it's okay, but I feel like my, your mics. Check, fine.

Are we sound checking or doing a podcast? We're doing a little both. I feel like my voice is better. If you could do something about your voice, that would be great. I think my voice is more authoritative based on the information that's about to spew forth from it during this episode. Well, we'll see. If this is your first time tuning in, please stick around. Yeah.

No, it's good. I'm Adam Annas. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It, Hold on, hold on. I got it. I got it. Don't say music advice coming at you. I have it here in my trusty boojo Coming at you today, little traffic on a I-44 and the temperature is 53 degrees with slight showers. Yes, we got to explain to people. Back to you, Peter. Yeah, we got to explain what was happening. We were doing a little impromptu, de facto, uh, sound check. Yes. Because we're having some issues, not really issues. We're, this podcast is great. Let's let's, you know what I mean? So it becomes, it becomes very specific.

in how we can make it even better. You know what I mean? So we want it to be perfect. We want our audio. I'm even working on my posture. Have you checked me out here? It looks good, man.

Yeah, I've discovered just by seeking myself on the YouTube that oftentimes when we record, I'm like down like this, slouched down on the chair, my backyards. These are very ergonomic chairs. I know. They're very comfy. But I do better, just as I do on the piano, if I'm not slouched back,

if I have my sort of back straight and off of the bench. So we have actually. We are admitted into this. And we've provided no music advice. I'm not a fan of jet. No, I cut off a little too early there. Thank you Fred Arbiston. Yeah, for everything, actually.

I mean, just play the right note. Did you know Portland, but we're all over the place today? We're like those cats that are like, squirrels. Squirrels, like, oh, look at that. Did you know that Portland, speaking of Fred Armiston, Armistand, Armistin? Armistice. What's his name? Fred Armisen.

Armist. Wait, it's nothing that I would... There's not a T in the last name. Oh, it was nothing that I just said. Doug Lory. That's all I have to say. Doug Lory. No, Frug.

Fred Armistance. Should we start this one again? No, let's keep going. Fred Armistence, what's his name? Armisen, Fred Armisen. How you doing? You're on the podcast. So we just walked by.

Fred Armistin. Armisen. Armisen is from Portland. I'm not a fan of... His name. I just don't know his name. I'm a fan of his name. Fred Armist.

Great drummer, former band leader of the Seth Myers show. I'm thinking on my feet here, buddy. Right? I think that's correct. Yeah. Witty guy out of the Portland area. Correct. Yeah, of course. Well, actually, I don't know.

He was on this show. Now, I'm famously, yeah, Portlandia, yeah. Got a little quiz for you, Adam. Yeah. This is very important for all you jazz musicians out there, so I'm sure Adam is gonna ace this, and we're gonna get to some speak pipes. So I'm gonna give you a speak pipe right now.

Okay, go. nickname for Portland. The city. City by the bay. No, that would be San Francisco. The big snapple. The big snapple. No, it is not.

I don't know. Rip City. Rip City? Yes. What was it like a... I watched the highlight of a Portland Trailwayway's game this morning and they had that on there.

Rip City? Rip City. Come on, baby, Portland. What does that mean? You've been to Rip City? No. If you've been there, you'd know. Those who know, no.

All right. I've been there. Don't know. Well, we, I haven't been there, but I've been in speak pipe, and we've got a lot of messages, man. Thank you everybody for leaving us a voicemail. If somebody is new here and they wanted to leave us a message. Why would they? From what the, from the drivel that we've been spewing the first four minutes.

Our listeners inspire us, which they're about to do, you would go to you'll hear it.com. Yeah. And you can leave us a speak pipe, which is just a voice message. And look, you can retake it as many times as you want. So don't be nervous as you're doing it. We may or may not feature you on a future episode. Yeah. Yeah.

But we are going to feature Tommy. Tommy Jay. Let's hear it. Hey, Peter and Adam. This is Tommy. I'm a guitarist in San Francisco. And I want to ask you guys one of the most basic jazz questions, which I'm sure you felt with on the show before. But do you think the jazz can grow too distant from its roots? So, you know, I'm from New Orleans, grew up there. And then jazz was always brass bands, Louis Armstrong, big smile on the face music, which is light years away from the space. end of the world stuff you hear on the ECM records, stuff coming out of Europe, cold parts of Europe.

Whoa. And in a way, that's great, because jazz has always had the capacity to absorb these different influences and incorporate them in this coherent, beautiful way, you know, without sort of discrimination. But sometimes, some of the stuff I hear coming out of Europe or, you know, coming out of the universities,

it just seems to me to have kind of lost touch with the heart of jazz. It's not that I can put my finger on what it is. even though even these, I'm sure these people have all listened to, you know, the classics. They know the whole canon. But anyway, I'm just curious if you guys can speak to this question of jazz kind of growing too distant from its roots. Thanks. Well, I mean, so, okay, we don't want to necessarily apply.

I hear what Tommy saying. I actually, I hear it. But we have to be careful when we apply it to certain regions. Although there is some merits, I think, what he's saying, in my opinion. Okay. In terms of, like, specifically the part, like, has jazz strayed too far from being people music, what I like to call people music or folk music, where there's a direct connection with the music, where the joy is celebrated within the beat and the groove.

And, I mean, it's so hard to say. This is, I'm just doing the best I can't. But you know what I'm saying? Like, where it just makes you want to tap your foot, puts a smile on your face. It's not that it's trite or unsophisticated, and it's nothing about that, but it's also not that it's so sophisticated. But I'm talking about music that connects with people anywhere, right? And I think that that is one of the hallmarks of this music that we call jazz, and maybe we

shouldn't be calling jazz. But what we're kind of coalescing around, one of the hallmarks is that it has connected with people from the very beginning or just about the very beginning with folks anywhere. And I think that that is really, there's some commonality between all great art that can do that. They can transcend race and religion and region and everything. So then when I hear a question like this, and it's a little bit applying to like,

well, people from here and New Orleans and cold parts of Europe and stuff, I'm like, there may be a little bit of truth of that on an individual basis or whatever, but I would caution us from looking at it as like a regional issue and making it more of just different movements and sounds that have not taken over, but taken flight. within the music. And I think it is a valid question to say, it hasn't gone too far from the classics. But like the music needs to grow. It needs to be relevant. It needs to change. We can't be stuck

in New Orleans, 1918 to 1922 with Jelly Roll Morton and all. I mean, that's a great place to be. But they wouldn't, if they were if Jelly Roll was still around, he wouldn't be stuck playing like that now. And also, let's remember, I mean, this is a label problem more than anything. Okay. This is a framing problem, Tommy, in your own head about what expectations. you have on the music because at the same time of Jell-R-Morton were people playing some crazy shit, man. I know. Already. Like, already not toe-tapping stuff, already pushing the boundaries of all art everywhere.

There's, I forget, the Mexican composer who was a fan of jazz and like Scott Joplin and made like piano roles that are insane piano roles that like is unplayable by a living player. I'm in a space under name. If anybody knows, it's really incredible stuff. But it's around that time. It's around like the early 20th century when all this stuff is going down. And so it was already being pushed. So I think it has, and even in the, you know, we consider like the swing era, there were, there were bands pushing the, you know, toe tap and this of it in the 40s and the 50s.

People thought Charlie Parker was the death of jazz because it was too complicated. It was too artistic. It was too self-serving. People thought John Coltrane was the death of jazz because, and Eric Dolphy and Ornett Coleman in the 60. People thought electronic music with the death of jazz because they couldn't have their toe on it because it wasn't swinging. Weather report. Weather report. It wasn't not swinging, not jazz, right?

So it's, it's, there's no, what is, what root are you talking about? If you want to go all the way back to it's got to be, it has the blues and it has to have syncopation and swing. Now you're just talking about specific players. That's like, you know, I don't like jazz. I just like Thelonious Muck, which is great. Just like the players you like. Like if you're just labeling things and saying it should be like this or it shouldn't

lose touch with its roots, what route? Which root are you talking to? Like, are you going to go all the way back? as far as you can go as far as we know because that's the you know those roots are even spread out amongst different continents and different players that are doing that put importance on different things yeah so there's no it's a folly i think to try to like say well this should be this and this should be that like every player is different uh i don't like uh when i think about music i like i've been trying to get out of this like well i like jazz or i like rock and roll or whatever

i just like john coltrane i like the loniest one but there are are people that play jazz. I thought you say, I just like great music. No, there are, there are musicians who play a lot of musicians that play quote unquote jazz that I don't like their music at all and it's not music for me. And that's fine. And they're not a fan. I am not a fan of, thank you. I'm not a fan of jazz. As a label. Because I do think it has this, because now all of a sudden you're comparing something from an ECM record in the 80s with Lewis Armstrong. From the cold, cold, cold parts of Europe, perhaps? From the cold cold, cold parts. But that's its own thing. And there are, you know, hundreds, literally hundreds of people that like that kind of music.

Right. Oh, that's good. I got you. No, no, no. But, like, there are loads of people that. Those cold parts of Europe are not as populated as you think. I know. Once you get above Copenhagen.

But there are, and there are people who think that that's bullshit. And there are people that, you know, did Lewis Armstrong love Ornette Coleman? Probably not. Does that mean Louis Armstrong is wrong? Right. You know what I mean? Right.

You know what I'm saying? Well, okay. Absolutely. I know what you're saying. But now I'm going to play. little devil's advocate okay you familiar with that game yeah I'm because I'm a little I got I got a lot of coffee here yeah yeah I just play the right no that's all I'm saying you love those buttons okay so I'm gonna pull up my pentegram and play a little bit of

that's a devil's advocate that's a devilish thing okay good that's a what devilish yeah yeah I'm gonna put my devil's egg but this is the thing so Tommy because he's from New Orleans I'm gonna try to kind of connect the dots a little bit and say you know just having spent a lot of my life there almost at this point more than anywhere else else, or at one time more than anywhere else, and say that perhaps Tommy, I'm hearing a little bit of a connection with the musical tradition that is not unique to New Orleans, but it's unique to New Orleans, I think, in the United States, as far as I can tell. And that is this idea of like that there is a common musical language that is directly connected with the

culture and the greater people, like the greater culture. So like, it's not to say that there's more cultured people. I don't mean that, but I mean that the music and jazz is certainly a big part of it. You know, some people would say Dixieland, New Orleans music. This is the problem with labels. Yeah, the labels. I know, but I'm just trying to say be very inclusive in terms of like blues, the meters. Like there is a New Orleans kind of, I don't even want to say sound because there's many New Orleans sounds, but there's a New Orleans vibe. There's a New Orleans groove. And I don't mean just shakitakit. But it's in there. It is a New Orleans group. But I'm saying that there's, even like with the classical musicians there. Like there is something, when they talk about there's something in the water,

that is true. And what it is is a common musical heritage that is directly related to culture in a way that I have seen in other places around the world. Like Italy has that with like certain vocal things, not just opera. Totally. Brazil definitely has that with like Samba and beyond. I mean, that's being like super surface level just to say that. But I'm talking about when you can like break out a song like in Brazil, certain songs, a bunch of songs. And when you start them, people start dancing and singing along. They're just normal people. They're not musicians or dancers, but they're doing that at a higher level than some of our pros. So, like, to me, that's culture. And so I think from New Orleans,

Tommy may be kind of tapping into that and saying, like, the joy and the connection with the music, you know, since it obviously came out of New Orleans, it was born. I don't think there's a lot of dispute with that. But when there's been these other contributions and stuff, traditionally or typically the connection with the original spirit of that music, and he brings up Lewis Armstrong, has been kind of unbroken, even when you talk about Ornette Coleman, when you talk about Alice Coltrane,

when you talk about Nina Simone, when you talk about Brad Meldow. Now, I mean, some might look at that as the cold, cold parts of Europe, but I hear that connection with Brad's playing with New Orleans. I don't even know if he spent much time there. But, you know, so is there a point where we cross over the line, like is Brad Meldon as connected with the original New Orleans vibe as Nicholas Payton is? No, he didn't come up there, but he is connected with the music, I think.

I don't know why I'm talking about Brad Mildo, but I'm just saying like that's somebody who you typically wouldn't think of that. And so there are different levels to this. And I do think at times the music and the culture has gotten maybe too disconnected from not a New Orleans group, but like that vibe. And New Orleans has never been so like obsess. excessive and selfish with it, that it hasn't shared it with the world. It always has. So there's influences and there's things that come with that. Having said that, I love ECM stuff.

I mean, it's some of my favorite records. Do I love it all? No, not all of it. But to your point, it's like, I love artists. I love records. I love different genres, different specific sounds and everything. I mean, I love Kirk Franklin, Sumi. He's very connected with the New Orleans vibe.

I mean, to me. Yeah, but the fact of the matter is, is that because of the success of the New Orleans vibe, because of the music and the spirit that came out of there. New Orleans spirit, Maybe it's even more. Yes. It is the spirit of the culture for sure.

And it's, but because of recordings, because of technology. Yes. And when this music popped off, which was the beginnings of technology, it traveled over oceans. And then it's become its own thing in these other places. I'm not a fan of all this stuff either, but like I can see how it's just, it's developed on an island out across the ocean as its own thing, just from sort of like word of mouth, almost from these records, without a true connection to the, the culture that it came from.

Yeah. And that does it just shows the power of what it is actually. I know. I know. But it's its own thing. It's, I mean, just like, is, is Chris Davis connected to New Orleans? Is Mary Halverson connected to New Orleans with like avant-garde things out of New York? Or any of the avant-garde traditions out of New York in the 80s and 90s connected to

New Orleans should they be? And should we, I'm just saying like, if we're always just comparing everything to a root, then it's just, we're always going to be failing. Like some kind of authenticity test. It's an authenticity test, and it's always looking back for a should. Well, it should sound like this or whatever. No, man, it's its own thing. Let it be its own thing.

You know what I always say. Would it could have should have should have. Come on. That doesn't mean that you have to like it either. You can just like swinging music that feels good and makes you smile. Also, it has to swing. I see what you're doing that. I mean, that's what I like, but I respect.

You love swing. I respect that my own personal boundaries are not everybody. You know what I'm saying? I'm just saying. Is that swinging? Not when you do it like that, man. You can make that swing. Oh, there you go.

Yeah. Accented. That's swinging. Yeah. So that's the, yeah, that's the vibe. He likes that. Tommy in San Francisco, you left New Orleans. What are you doing, man?

Yeah, yeah. No, but Tommy, seriously, I mean, it's a great observation, but I feel like it's a label issue more than it's a music issue. People are going to make all kinds of crazy music. Yeah. You like it or you don't, but there's no reason of saying, like, well, because it's in the box of jazz. And that's a stupid friggin.

label for all this stuff anyway, too. Never use that term. But I mean, you know what I'm saying. Well, but think about this. The great thing, like, let's look at this from the positive side is that regardless of like different strains or sub-genres or whatever you want to call it or different kind of sounds and vibe.

First of all, it's a cool thing when there gets to be a sound from a certain place, no matter where it is. You know, whether or not that has followers or not, if it's small, if it's not, I mean, if it's speaking to people, if it's entertaining them, edifying them, you know, lifting their spirits. That's what art is about. It doesn't have to be for you. The thing of like, are we, because Tommy did say, I wrote this in my nose, too distant from

his roots. I would say no. Now, is some of this stuff too distance? That's up for you to decide, probably. It is for me sometimes. But the beauty of it is there's plenty of stuff that is not distant from the root. Great music being made now. I mean, you know, I mean, we have so many different great artists. So much good stuff. Our friend of Not Cohen. So she's doing stuff that's so well connected from, and she comes from a far, far off land, a very mysterious place, Israel. Israel. You know, but, you know, so I mean, those connections with the original. She's connected to roots in Brazil and New Orleans. Yeah, exactly.

So, I mean, the music is still there. Support those artists that you like, but don't do it at the exclusion of all the ones. Just, you know, you know, order the dish that you like on the menu. Yeah, I'll tell you. If it wasn't available, like, if you go somewhere and you're like, none of these original joyous connections to New Orleans music aren't available. Yeah. You know, because I'd rather go hear some cold, cold music from ECM Europe that's tangentially. connected to this than like, you know, just some people in costumes trying to play New Orleans

Dixieland music like they're like historians or something, you know. I don't really have the spirit. It's like what Heather and I tell our kids, you don't have to yuck on someone else's yum. Just because someone else is yumbing on something and you don't like it doesn't mean you have to be like, ew, yuck. I can't believe you like that. Yeah, people like out different things. I like that little parable is yummy, yummy, yummy.

Don't yuck on someone else's yum. A man is parable. We brought you today. Bye. Open. Studio. Are you waiting for me? Jazz, you know.

We play all the notes. 12 notes of the scale, dip shit. Not three chords on a ukulele. That's all I care about. St. Louis's, Afton's own. Afterton,

Afton Missouri's own. John Goodman. National Treasure. Yeah, we're brought you by Open Studio. Check in. You know, big things are happening at Open Studio, Jazz.com,

especially the Open Studio Pro program. We are welcoming in many guitarists. We are, yeah. We're becoming guitar-centric. Tommy is one of them. You and I are about to become obsolete over there because the guitar program is, yeah, no, we're still I'm ready to be put out of the past year, man. We got piano, we got bass, and we have guitar happening at Open Studio Pro, and really all

instrumenters, even at ukulele. We found a bass player, Sharon. You want to hear Sharon's testimony here? Yes. I heard your podcast today for the first time, and I am in love with your podcast. Hello. I started off. I am a rock and roll bass player.

We'll allow it. We'll allow it. I got to Pachocchio This week on the internet I'm in love with his playing Chaco's good And from there I got to you And I'm just loving learning about jazz

Through you guys Thank you Sharon very sweet We'll have my rock and roll But Appreciate it See that's somebody that understands What she likes And she's discovering

You know First of a big shout out To our female listeners We are going to prioritize We know we got to female fans out there but they don't leave a lot of speak pipes. So if you are one of our female fans, male or whatever else you are, please leave us a speak pipe because we're looking for new voices like Sharon.

Is that okay? When you were looking at me like I was about to mess up, I probably did. But you know what? This is a good time because we're at the end of the episode now. You're tight rope walking. Is anyone still listening? Yeah, no. Is anyone still listening?

Yeah, no, but until next time, you'll hear it.