You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Having a Big Impact on a Small City - #47

Episode Date: October 30, 2018

On You'll Hear It today, Peter and Adam walk through ways one can have a big impact on a small city. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. What's up? Do you like City Life? I do like City Life, yeah. The beer or the lifestyle? Both. Oh, nice. I'm Adam Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz advice and occasional humor coming at you. Very occasional. Very occasional. For those who don't know what City Life beer is, that's a St. Louis thing. That's right. That's right.

Big shout out. Keep on brewing. Four hands. Yep. Okay, so today we have a question about City Life about small City Life. That's right. our listener Austin. Austin says, hey guys, first of all, I love listening.

Wait, sorry, I got to stop you there. You said from listener Austin, but I see Austin. Is that correct or is that a typo? We don't want to. Are you publicly shaming my... I'm not, I just say, from listener Austin. It's Austin. Okay. Man, this guy. Oh, you fix it. Okay, good.

Okay. Carry on. Is that butter? Yeah. Okay. He says, hey, guys. First of all, I love listening to your podcast. My wife and I got a lot of laughs out of your seven reasons. Your spouse hates jazz episode. Funny, because my wife and I got a lot of laughs. Yeah, I kicked out of my house. I'm in the dog house since that episode, but keep up the good work. Okay, Austin says, I have a question

that I'm hoping you can shut some light on. We recently moved to a smaller city that doesn't have a thriving or even medium-sized jazz community. I've met a couple of other jazz musicians in the area, and we all want to spread the love and appreciation of the music. What are some ways we could try to grow the appreciation for the music within the community besides throwing the real book at audience members during open mic jazz sessions. I mean throwing out of like figuratively or physically? I think literally throwing a real book at which could name someone. Let's be honest.

I mean, that's like jazz police. That's taking jazz police to a new level. I mean, you're not going to make a good impression on the counties. If you do that. Yeah, you might have a good old fashioned book burning the next day of real books if you try to do that. Depending on what small city a move to. Okay, well, first of all, Austin, thank you for the question.

But I'm just thinking you couldn't be in that small of a city if you're like there's several, me and several, if you've already met several other jazz musicians, real small cities have no jazz musicians. Absolutely true. They don't even allow them much less to have them. So you're, I don't know, maybe not totally what some people are thinking of a small city. But I understand, I mean, not New York, not Chicago, not L.A., not Paris, not Tokyo. I was thinking, maybe Austin's from Tokyo and you just like move to Detroit or something.

And like, yeah, that's not a small city. Yeah, that's a small area. Yeah. And I mean, maybe he's also talking about small jazz city, you know, in some places are, fairly big populations and I don't want to speak out of terms that could be totally wrong. I'm thinking like Boise, Idaho is not a teeny city, but it may not have a big jazz infrastructure, but that might be the kind of place where you meet a couple of jazz musicians and they might be good too. And so it's like, you know, how do you make that, how do you have an impact? I think part of this question, correct me if I'm wrong, if I'm wrongly interpreting this,

my brother Adam, but I think he's also maybe asking about some some audience development in a smaller city. Like how do you build an audience and appreciation, and then which could lead to more gigs, which could lead to a better infrastructure for musicians? Yeah, you know what? I mean, I love, we're in St. Louis, Missouri here, and I love St. Louis. But, you know, St. Louis in and of itself is a medium-sized city,

and it's definitely a medium-sized jazz market. And we have some similar struggles here, maybe not at this level. But, you know, and even though we have a great jazz history, we have good players, obviously Peter Martin is here. Like, we have good players that are here. But it is something that the local players here, we struggle with as far as like, you know,

not everybody in the city knows what jazz is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's not a, there's, we're lucky, very, very lucky to have a few really good jazz clubs. Yeah. And that helps big time because we have people that are out there promoting the music. But I think we can, we can speak on this a little bit just from our experiences here in saying, because it's not New York, it's not Chicago. No, but, you know, it's funny.

I'm constantly getting and traveling, you know, people saying, oh, where are you from? St. Louis. Oh, jazz. Yeah, birthplace of jazz. And I'm like, I mean, part of it, there is an incredible history that's outsized. Scott Joplin's house down the street.

Right or right. Yeah, I mean, Ragtime truly was born in this area. I mean, not just here, but I mean, this, you know, there's no richer history for that. And I mean, if you're talking about jazz trumpeters, you know, the lineage and the quality that we have, it's unparalleled except for maybe New Orleans, you know. Yeah.

But it's funny that people's impression is like, man, it's jazz. And really, we talk about this a lot. it's more of a now, and even historically more last 50 years, blues town. There's a big blues appreciation and infrastructure, which does kind of overlap some with jazz and they kind of help each other in a way. But here's the thing, Austin,

is that chances are no matter how big your city is and how big the jazz scene, there are plenty of people in that city that love this music. You just don't know them yet. Yeah. You know, there are fans out there who love records, who love this music,

who probably play this music that you haven't found yet. A friend is just a, Stranger you haven't met. A smile is just a frown turned upside down. Come on now. So, you know, my first piece of advice for you is to get a regular jazz gig somewhere. Start your own thing every week.

I think that's the crucial part. And let people know this is where jazz happens in the city every single week. Yeah. And get the best players you can there every week. Yep. If you want to open up the last set as a jam session to get really people in the community there, do that. But do it on a weekly basis. Just get...

But have an audition process for... I don't know. Make sure everybody can play, so you're not playing a bunch of crap up there. But you know what I'm saying? You are kind of the ambassador for this right now. So make sure you're presenting this music in a way that's most effective. But find a local, you know, club owner, bar owner, restaurant owner,

someone who loves the music, someone who's willing to take a chance on having some live music, try to have a weekly jazz gig. And I'm not talking about like a brunch gig where you're playing... Like background music. No, no, no, no. I'm talking about like get some heavy hitters, play the music.

the way it's meant to be played, swing it like crazy, if that's what you want to do, and really go for it like you're in Greenwich Village in New York. You know what I mean? And show people what the music can be, and I guarantee you you will attract a crowd. Yes, and I think, and you might have to build it. You might have to build it, but do it.

I really believe, I agree with you, and I believe in the whole, if you build it, they were calm in this instance. I think for a lot of things, not so much, but the wonderful thing about this music, and look, most people listen to this podcast, most likely, you know, We're preaching to the choir.

Yeah, we've sold you already. We don't have to sell you. Yeah, but that's the great thing about jazz in general for people that are appreciative of any kind of like live music or culture. The music sells itself. So what you just have to do as Adam is so, you know, so nicely put is just like be consistent so that people have a reason to want to come to you. So like it's just like if you open up a coffee shop, you don't necessarily have to like put a sign out that says coffee, a great beverage that will put. perk you up and smells good and it's tasty. No, you just have to say coffee shop, when you're open, be consistent and have it good quality.

People are already sold on coffee, you know. And if they're not, they'll come in, oh, what is this? And they'll try it and be like, oh, this is kind of nice, you know. Or maybe they don't. Maybe it's not their thing. But, I mean, the music's always there. Lean on the history of the music, the live music aspect, which we know and preach is so important.

That's when it said it's most exciting. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, another thing I'm thinking of, and I'm kind of inspired, we're across the street here from a great jazz institution here, which is Jazz St. Louis, who runs the biggest jazz club here in St. Louis, Jazz to Bistro,

but they also have an incredible education program run by our friend Phil Dunlap. And something that you can do on your own. You don't need a big institution, Austin. If you have players who are hungry to spread this love, as you say, you can get gigs in elementary schools, in middle schools,

put together a show about the history of jazz it's cultural impact on your community. If there are jazz musicians from your region, there probably are, no matter what region you're in, or even just the cultural impact on America and put together a little program, like an educational program that you can take into schools,

you will literally spread the love to kids who maybe most won't care or they'll just go on the next thing, but you could hit one, two, three kids who really are impacted by that. Maybe one of them picks up an upright base. You know, maybe one of them starts listening to Thelonius Monk.

Like these are things that can really make an impact. Bonus, you get some money for the gig. Exactly. And sometimes those kids go home and tell their parents, oh, guess what happened at school today? That's this cool jazz thing. That's right. You're like, wow, okay, I want to check that out.

It works that way too. One more thing I'd like to just add something that you said, maybe think of this Adam, and that is, I think, some good advice for you is once you get that regular gig going or you're going and playing for the kids, really think about the quality of your music, but think about as you're building up an audience and maybe potentially new jazz appreciators

in your small to mid-sized community, play, you know, concentrate on some good old-fashioned, toe-tapping, really hard swinging. I'm thinking of the great Christian McBride. He always talks about, you know, this band that I've been playing in his, for like going on the last 10 years called Inside Straight that kind of comes together sporadically now.

But one thing that he wanted to do with that band was just play, I'm trying to remember because of like, not feel good music or down, home, but basically just stuff that people want to snap their fingers to. Totally. And when we were younger, we were just like, nah, man, we're angry, young jazz musicians. You better get with us, you know. But it's the same kind of stuff we want to listen to.

You know, we're talking about like Horace Silver, you know, Lee Morgan, Lou Donaldson. I mean, everybody good. Feels great. Audiences love it. And I was going to say it is deceptively challenging to play right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's not watering things down at all. No way.

And there's nothing wrong with getting to the more esoteric and the avant-garde. That's all great and stuff. But, I mean, as you're building up, you know, educate your audience, not in a jazz police kind of way, but in terms of you're bringing them in. You know, like give them something a little easier to grab onto. It's not simplistic. It's just easier to start your appreciation level at. Give them some real pretty ballads, you know, just stuff that's grooving.

And then you can start putting a little bit of more challenging stuff. The same way we put sets together. I mean, it's the same thing. But cultivate that all. audience with what you're giving them. And I think that you'll have some nice, some nice results. It's great. I love this question. It's an ongoing process. Always good luck with it, Austin. You know, let us know how it turns out. And yeah, anything else, be it? I don't think so. We are occasionally still asking for those seven star reviews.

Oh, we do like seven stars. Just as an old school thing, you know, Apple, we've actually been talking with them. We finally got a response from them, and it was just a one word response, which I was surprised. We'd sent all these emails. We'd called up Cupertino and saying like, the rating system is broken. We have fans out there

trying to give six and seven stars, but they always show up as five stars on the iTunes reviewing system. We've had fans give as many as like 10 and a half. Yeah, yeah. Oh, there was the infinite one. Remember, the solar system is,

that's ridiculous. So we kept asking Apple, no response. They're notoriously tight-lipped company. Finally, you know, one of our questions was, can you open up the star system? and they answered no.

That was it. Just two letters in the email. So for now, you've got to do five, but we know. We know what your intent is felt here in the pod cave very warmly, and we appreciate the love you're giving us. Yeah, you know, go to you'll hear it.com if you want to keep up with us, if you want to ask us a question,

if you want to leave us a voicemail. I see you're on your computer. That doesn't look like you'll hear it.com. Are you checking your email there, buddy? No, I just had a tab open that. I shouldn't have had open. You can get a t-shirt. You can leave us a voice now.

You can ask us a question. T-shirts might be like a nice little early, I don't know, for the podcast jazz lover in your life. That could be, we got any spouses out there listening. A little holiday. Yeah, for the husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, you know, come on. Wear it to your Thanksgiving dinner. Right. Maybe we'll do like a, you'll hear an ugly Christmas sweater promotion.

Could we do that? I do that all winter long anyway. Okay. Nice. Well, until tomorrow. You'll hear it.