You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How Do We Feel About Mid-Century Pop?

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

Peter and Adam throw in their 2 cents on Adam Neely's newest video about the incredible Laufey's rise to stardom in today's Jazz climate. What are your thoughts on this musician's career? How does this change the way we look at Jazz?Check out Adam's video for yourself right here. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

Hey, Adam. Yeah. Are you familiar with mid-century pop? Well, I'm familiar with mid-century modern furniture. Oh, I love that. Did I see you at West Elm at the mall over the weekend sitting in front of that beautiful credenza? You may have it at the future antiques, yeah. And I'm also, but I'm also, I'm familiar with Taylor Swift.

So is that what we're talking about? Mid-century modern furniture and Taylor Swift? We're not quite at the middle of this century yet. I think they're talking about last. Let's figure that out, though. It's interesting. Okay. Midnights is overrated.

Swifties rise. up. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll hear at podcast. Music advice coming at you.

Coming at you today. Sponsored by Open Studio. Peter, we're talking about mid-century pop, but let's try not to make this episode mid. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying?

Let's elevate the game, as we like to say. No, no, no, I think we will. This is one, look, we're going to react to something that's out there that is kind of prescient. Preciant, yeah.

Is that correct? That is not a mid word. I love that the word mid has now turned into like a derogatory thing. Oh, it's mid. It's just the mid-century. That's right. Middle of last century. People are going to be like, oh, 20th century was so mid.

Yeah. Well, I love this term mid-century pop that I first encountered this video. So we'll get into that maybe a little bit. But just to set things up, there is a video called Is Laovee jazz that Adam Neely. Excuse me? Laovee. Got it. I believe that's the correct. That's as good as I can do right now. Lauve is a wonderful young artist that I just heard my bad, my ignorance, somehow I totally missed her music until I saw this video. That I think is cool in a way, though. Like Adam Neely is one of, I think, certainly one of the better music commentarians on YouTube. And it's just getting better.

I think to me, this video is really good. Which is annoying. It is very annoying because some of his other, I mean, all this stuff's been good. But like this, I think is just, he really nails it. And this is normally the kind of title that I would just be like, even if I knew who it was, I would just roll my eyes. It'd be like, is Samara Joy Jazz? I mean, it's not that interesting to me, these labels and going back and forth. We've talked about how, and I think from our perspective as like trying to learn the music and trying to just, you know, become better musicians, our stance is always like, labels aren't super helpful for that, you know?

I have seen the first, I think, third or maybe half of this video. Okay. I haven't seen the whole thing yet. but from what I gather from what Adam talks about in this video, though, it's more breaking down like the narrative behind some of these things. And, you know, like it or not, the marketing of the music of what we're playing is part of what we're doing. Right. And so when someone like Lauve kind of pops off and similar to like, you know,

20 years ago when Nora Jones was popping off. Yeah. There was pushed back about, is that jazz or whatever. Listen, anybody who's playing real instruments and writing great songs and playing. and playing great songs. I don't really care what you call them. Right. But I get it how it's like the marketing of this

and how this like is kind of perceived by people who are outside of the community is very interesting. Yeah. And can be annoying for the people who are inside the community. But it's kind of like, I know. And I'm, I don't know if I'm maybe I'm mellowing with age to this issue because that is blank jazz.

I mean, how many times we're going to see this in our lifetime where it's like it happens all the time? I know, is bitches brew jazz. Like how long is this is bebop jazz? There was a time when they were saying that. Should we even use this? the word jazz. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I'm shafing to this whole is this jazz because we don't even love the term jazz either. But if you think about other things, I mean, do tennis players,

recreational tennis players sit around and say like, is pickleball tennis? They'd be like, no, absolutely it's not. A hundred percent is not. Do we hate pickleball? Yes, we do. Yeah. So, but I don't think this is coming from that. And I did watch the whole video. I made a couple of notes and some things I could maybe just take you and the listeners through that I thought were important. Just before we get to that. I just saw one really important thing. I just, did not mean to upset the pickleball. He got scared. Look at her.

He got scared. They are rabid. Yeah. Well, just to let you know, Kelly and I are becoming close. We are pickleball curious. I think I've mentioned that before on the pot. Just so you know. So if that's going to be a problem for our musical or professional friend.

I don't know if I can work here anymore. If you guys, we're not all in yet. It seems like a lot of fun. I'm delaying playing pickleball because it seems like it's something I would get addicted to. Yeah. But if you've ever played tennis in an indoor bubble, like in the winter, and you're next to pickleball courts,

you might as well be next to a shooting range. Like, it's the worst. Yeah, exactly. Anyway. Speaking of bubble, let's pull up Adam Neely, because Adam Neely, just like us,

kind of lives in a little bit of a YouTube jazz commentary bubble, I would say. But let me let him sort of set up the video for the video. Don't we all, Peter. And look, we're going to link below to this highly recommended video. I mean, we agree with it or not.

We're one to talk with our clear walls behind us where we talk jazz piano in here. That's right. Our own little ball. Piano. Here we go. So as we all know, jazz is dying.

But at least we have Loewe, the Icelandic Chinese multi-instrumentalist jazz singer and songwriter, who is currently dominating the jazz charts. She's very much the Nora Jones of Gen Z. If streams are to be believed, she is the most famous living jazz musicians. A lot of streams.

Okay, so that, okay, so that's interesting. I think that Spotify, since they're classifying her as jazz, they're either doing a service, a disservice, or they're just sort of, the algorithm is plugging you. where they think she goes. How does that work? As you know, Spotify doesn't classify anything. Her record label or team has classified her as jazz. I think all her stuff is self-released. I don't know.

Well, then she's classifying herself as jazz. No, but I think Spotify does. They have genres. Yeah, but you pick the genre when you upload your stuff. When you, yeah, of course you do. Have you ever uploaded music on Spotify? I mean, I think so. If you use any service that does it, I don't know what she's doing. Maybe they, maybe they put her into the jazz category, but usually you self-identify as an artist when you upload it. So when they say here, verified artists, they're not saying verified genre. Nobody's verifying that it, like, what if you put heavy metal and say this is jazz? Again, genres are bullshit, so it doesn't matter. Okay, gotcha. But we here in the benighted jazz community are so thankful for our new savior.

Tongue and cheek or authentic? Foreshadowing of some of his beliefs in this video. I think so, yeah. Which is unfortunately the narrative that's currently being pushed. And I would like to is that the narrative is that's being pushed. That's what we're talking about. Like, to be clear, I've heard her before, like during the pandemic, I heard her when she was just, like, not blown up this much. She's great. She's terrific at what she does. Like Nora Jones. Super talented what she does.

Has a real vibe, has a real point of view. So just want to caveat. Anything we say is not to diss her because she's awesome. But more about the narrative around it, I think. Yeah. And this whole, like, there's two things that is such and such saving jazz. We've seen that story over and over again. It's so boring.

And is this jazz. Yeah. So all both. But you know what? It's just like, you know, is pickleball killing tennis? It is interesting to people, actually. I'm just saying. Take the opportunity in this video to very lightly push back on that narrative

and put it into some badly needed historical context. Okay. Where's this coffee cup from? You like that. I do like that cup. So that's kind of the intro, and I think that, you know, Adam does a wonderful job. This is exactly what he does in the whole video. I'll show you a few.

We're going to jump around. But he really does place this in historical context, which I think is super useful. And as some of Lauvae's fans see this, I think it'll be really, really, really interesting. I mean, I learned some stuff for sure. So I'm going to jump ahead unless you have, do you have any thoughts so far? No. It's a great, but I do as a YouTuber. Yeah.

This is a top shelf setup. Exactly. And I mean, it's very like, look, it's how long is this video, 33 minutes. If you're going to invest 33 minutes, it's nice of what they say at the beginning is what they actually, what they do. It's not about if you agree with it or not. You might agree with some things or not. That's not what, I mean, let's get out of this echo chamber where everybody's like, I'm a pickleballer. I'm a tennis.

This is some inside baseball here, but that's a great cabin on the mountain for the... Don't give that way. Cool. Gala. We'll get to that later. Okay. Gat solos. Compare the vocal improvisation from Chet Baker's Do It the Hard Way to Laveh's solo break on from the start.

Look at that. It's a little different to the flat nine on the B-flat-7. Isn't that also a Disi-Galas-B thing too? Yeah. From Donnelly, right? Yeah. Yeah, a bunch of people have done it. But I mean, I think, yeah, and it's interesting.

I don't know why he referenced specifically, he might say that in the video, Chet Baker, because I think it's because La Jave had said, talked about being influenced by it or whatever. So I don't think that was necessarily saying like he invented that. But I think that this part is interesting because it's talking about like what makes jazz. And improvisation is one of the things traditionally that we associate with jazz. So is she improvising here? Is it even important? You know what I mean?

Let's keep playing. Steenth note articulation, the turn. Like is there something. But I mean, let's zoom back. That's that's Bebop vocabulary right there. Yeah. And that's an audience of 5,000 in Manila singing it back to Loewe as she scats Chet Bakerlands. That's pretty cool, actually.

That's wild. It's Taylor Swift does bebop. What a time, man. I mean, I'm here for that. Yeah. And so obviously it's not improvised in the sense of that. Well, it could have been improvised. And then she does it the same way each time.

But that doesn't make something jazz. or not make something jazz in my mind. People might say, okay, there's Art Tatum versions of tunes that he played that were almost identical the next time. I don't think anyone's going to argue. You know what we're seeing here. What? We're seeing Gen Z take, like, their filter through what's been done.

Really? I think so. I think so I'm going to jump ahead a little bit here. Let's keep watching this part. By that, by that I mean the process of how she's probably learning how this music is unfolded is from YouTube videos. Interesting. Probably some of Adams, probably some of ours.

Probably everybody who's making YouTube videos about bebop and about that. And people this age, that's how they're learning everything. Right. But so that affects Lave and any other artists that are putting their music out there, putting their artistic vision. But for her fans, the 5,000 in Manila that are singing along probably don't have any of that reference point. No, not yet.

You know what I mean? Incorporating this vocabulary organically in my... modern pop music seems to be something that she really is passionate about. For example, check out the 7, flat 7, 6, flat 6, 5, condensual chromatic line in the underscoring Saravans Misty. Walk my way. Wallythe alters the melody in her own version of Misty and sings the line too much in love with this chromatic line.

I mean, that's very Saravan-esque. I know he's gonna have Ella Fitzgerald here. Jazz grades have used similar chromatic vocabulary. on the tune. I'm going to love with you. Novi has talked to... So, okay, obviously she's taking these things.

She's got a beautiful voice. She's taking some very specific vocabulary that a vocalist would do that is kind of improvisational, right? But then placing it in kind of this

modern context that's a real throwback kind of a thing for a lot of things beyond just these specific harmonic things that he's pointing out or that we would hear you know things like that that evoke another time the same way with her clothes and the lyrics and all these kind of things

so there's definitely a nostalgia part to it as well but I think for us as musicians we look at that and we're like oh that's just that descending diminished to the major like does it actually mean anything in terms of like is this jazz is this mid-century pop like he's going to put forward I don't

I think what it means is it evokes this time period, right? You don't hear modern pop singers do a lot of that. Yeah, the way that Ella would do that, right? So it evokes that whole. And I'm sure there's actually some pop standard singers or mid-century pop, whatever you want to call it, that do a similar thing.

But that's very seravanish, the way she sang it specifically, right? Absolutely. Okay, so that brings up a good thing. We're going to jump now to sort of how, oh, look who's heading up here. Oh, Witten shows up here. Okay, great. Okay, so we're going to jump to.

to the question of, okay, so her young, spoiler alert, she has a lot of young fans, as you would expect. Do they, not do they catch these references, but when they're hearing this, like, is this a connector to the culture that Laurova is providing to her young listeners? Every time you say her name,

it's a tightrope walk. Right, it is. But I mean, like, there's a connection to the culture, i.e. jazz, you know, and then there's also like the picking out a little bit. It's like, oh, I'm a chef. Give me a little bit of these Thai spices. This is what I'm saying. So if you take someone who's R-H, right, like Harry Connick, right, who I would say is someone who's certainly crossed over in, OLAF. In, OLAF, he's certainly crossed over into a pop. Yes. Realm. Yeah. Several times. I mean, I actually just watched the other night when Harry met Sally for the first time in like 10 years. Yeah. It was on Max or whatever. And it was, first of all, it's a hilarious movie. It's a funny movie. It's a great. It's probably the best rom-com of all time. It's got to be.

Rob Reiner's tiny. I hated every round comment after that. But music's killing. Harry's killing. Crushing. Mark Schaman did all the range. Did all the arrangements. Did all the orchestration.

Bad cap. But so Harry is I would say like in the same, you know, like the same stratosphere as this, is Laoday, right? It's the same like we're going, we're crossing over, we're taking from the past. However, here's what is the difference. It is the digital age, right? Right. So Harry, the only way to get that is through connection through people like Ellis Marcellus.

and the people in New Orleans that he grew up just around physically. And while you said La Jave went to Berkeley, so there obviously is still a connection to the lineage and the musicians that are there, you can, with everything at your fingertips and everything, just a YouTube click away, find anything and develop and cultivate your style. It's almost a little bit removed from the generations.

Like there's like one step further, we're further step removed. By the way, this is not a criticism. This is how things go, right? how it goes. So now she's probably what, a generation or two generations younger than Harry Connick, if she's Gen Z? Yeah, one generation. Right. So there's a generation. There's millennials between. He's Gen X, right? So like, yeah, of course it's going to be a little bit detached from Harry Connick who is like, I believe studied directly with Ellis, right? Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And James Booker. And James Booker, right? So though like those cats were like from the, from the generation that made all the stuff, right? So it's just interesting. It's just really, really interesting. Well, and I think, too, there's like, you know, this gen Z, and we've seen this in looking at some, and again, this is not gen, I don't even remember which one, which generation. Young folks, coming up in the music now, you know, anywhere from nine years old up to 30 or whatever you want to say arbitrarily, but it's like they have such a closer connection in some ways to like hearing every version of phrasing over Misty immediately and from studying this stuff and getting that without having to go.

or be able to see Ella Fitzgerald. Diane Reeves sings some of this stuff. She doesn't necessarily do that. But she got it. Yeah, she also like sat and sub for Ella Fitzgerald when she couldn't make a gig when she was a teenager in Denver and had to literally step into her shoes. You know, it's just a different time.

It's almost like the further away you get from sort of the source material, you're kind of picking and choosing your vibe that you want to take from a wider swath. So like Lave has like, she has Nora Jones and Harry Connick and people like that to pull from and from the 70s and from the 60s. Whereas Harry Connick growing up in the 70s and the early 80s only has really the 60s and the 50s and the 40s to pull from from his sort of language, you know, a little bit earlier, but like that sort of tradition is much more like

linear straight through. It's interesting. And then he takes that and becomes this huge pop star, you know, doing that thing. But this is a, it's almost like a different, it's a different connection to the, it's still, I think, rooted in like, in the language of the music. Right.

Just like a, there's a little bit more space between it. Right. I think the corollary with Connick might be a little bit, you know, like say he had that Frank Sinatra influence. You can hear a lot. But because I think he's always been connected with the jazz culture, that that prison with which he brings that Sinatra thing in is kind of actually kind of like Sinatra did as he moved along where he started as, and I'm no Sanatra.

expert, but from the recordings I've heard, the early ones, actually there's a quote, there's a reference to that in this video where it's very like not connected, what you wouldn't be like that's jazz, but then obviously Sinatra with Basie at the Sands. He was doing it all too. Yeah, he brought, he learned that cult. Like, he brought that into his thing, whereas iconic was kind of coming out. So it's almost like anything you do, you're not going to move that far from the jazz culture. But I think for the, for the thing of like, is Lave going to save jazz and this whole question

that keeps coming up? or is it, Nora Jones, is like, are the fans that hear her do, you know, singing Misty and loving that? I think people, what jazz people want to know is like, is she going to tell them, go listen to Ella Fitzgerald. I got this from Sarah Vaughan. Here, listen to these things. I mean, does she have to, you know, that's not for her to do. And in any case, I think that should come directly from the music. I don't think that happens as much as we think it does.

No. You know what I mean? Where it's like they're becoming jazz fans. No, they're just becoming Lové fans, which is fine. I mean, that's all she's responsible to do, although I don't know, maybe not. Maybe not. Well, let's keep going to make more salient points than we're ever made. Well, and this, you know, he does great because he brings in other people to make points.

But this is to the point we're just talking about in terms of young people and is jazz even for young people. So this is a little bit of a controversial quote that I remember went and saying, but this is a long time. Listeners of jazz, consumers of the music, there is in fact an act of hostility towards youth culture. When I'm giving clinics, a kid will ask me, what about relationships? meeting us. What about appealing us? And I have to tell them, look, adults don't appeal to children. Leve talks about this. For young people to relate to music, they want to hear music made by people their age.

Jazz is a music that I think is best experienced live in a small club. The vast majority of small clubs, you have to be over the age of 21 to enter. TikTok. So he gets into this whole thing that at first I was kind of like, uh, okay, and then I'm like, well, that's kind of, you know, what Winton's saying is pretty like harsh, but I'm also also like to be fair that's, I mean, Winton looks like he's 25 years younger in that thing and he probably is. Yeah, yeah. But he was already the director of, you know, the head of Jazz and Lincoln Center, the founder of it. I'm not sure what he's getting at, though, of like, I, I, well, he comes back and

shows some more quotes. It's more about like jazz isn't for young people, you know, but I think maybe what a little bit of a disc. But Bam is for the children. I'm just saying. Exactly. But this is the thing. Like also, I think to be fair to Winton, he was talking more like, there's in between a 23-year-old. 24 and I'm not sure at Lauva is somewhere around. Or even like an 18 year old and a 10 year old. Yeah, exactly. It's like, are we making music that's going to appeal to a 13 year old, you know, in terms of jazz? Well, that is probably not what the target market of that is.

And then you look at something like what she's doing and it is. So is that going to connect a 13 year old that loves Laura's music to Ella Fitzgerald? Probably not. This is where I think like this just becomes a lot of pointless, a lot of pointless thinking about stuff that doesn't ever matter for. I'm always selfishly relating it to making music. Right. And, you know, getting a direct feed from the music that's in my heart, that's in my soul, out to people. And this just doesn't help.

It just confuses the matter because then you start thinking about like, well, should I be making for this? Should I be doing this? It doesn't matter. Right. Well, let me jump to a part that's- Lovee or Winton. Do whatever you want. Honestly.

We're going to pull Adam off the brink here and get into something that I think, I agree with you. Let's move. These are fun discussions, but this is a play. or it muddles the waters a little bit. So this next part kind of gets into this mid-century pop idea, which I was super interested in. And some recordings that I really liked and I think hits on a good thing here,

an interesting point at least. Identity. One of the questions that needed to be answered is, why is Miles Davis doing Someday My Prince Will Come part of this tradition? And why is Judy Garland doing Someday My Prince Will Come? Love some Judy.

Not part of the tradition. It's the same music, same melody, same harmony. Is it just because Miles Davis is black? Well, that doesn't seem right at all because there are plenty of non-black musicians who've contributed to the culture of black American music. Q. Obligatory Bill Evans video. Got a video coming up about this whole thing, too. Yeah, yeah.

So, okay, so I think that this is a valid and interesting point and something, you know, that we think about that most people in the GP, the general public, will associate music, kind of like were doing earlier with the repertoire. So it's like, okay, you're a singer singing Misty. Are you going to reference Ella Fitzgerald? Are you going to reference Saravon? Are you going to do your own thing? Well, it doesn't matter. That's a jazz song. So you're going to be singing jazz because you're singing Misty. Who cares, though? Okay. Now I'm now I've turned and I'm indignant to this whole subject. Like really? What does it matter? Any of this? What does it matter? Well, I think for, well, it doesn't matter for

you and for me. But we're from a privileged place in our little walled garden here as creators of this music. I mean, as, you know, not creators of the music, as participants in the ongoing creation of the music and like coming up with stuff. But I think for people that listen to the music and try to define it and be like, oh, I like jazz or I like this, they do get caught up in like this is what the repertoire or it's in a jazz club or it's at a jazz festival. So that makes a jazz. And I think it is an interesting thing to be like, hold on a second. Nothing wrong with this or this. But is that really what it is. Is that part of the culture, so to speak?

I feel like, yeah, I understand why people dig into labels a lot, but to me, this is where they start failing us, because it is just a matter of finding a community of people who share the same values that you do about art or life or whatever. And that could be for music or sports or whatever, cultural food. Like, we're just finding our community essentially, right? So to me, this is where, like, if you start to really, you know, dig deep into labeling things and then gatekeeping those labels, it really just you're just adding a pile of crap onto your brain about what you should be doing and what you should be experiencing as opposed to just like you know like trusting your gut as far as when you hear something like what does it do to you you know right i think i got you i got you okay so let's move on here sorry i didn't mean to kill your episode no no no no it's good we want to move things along anyway so he's got some great quotes from different people but at this point i was definitely thinking about samara joy because i was like wow okay were dancing around like is she saving jazz loyva but i'm like i think i heard that come up as direct questions to samara joy now samarjoi friend of ours she was actually just in open studio a couple

months ago she's amazing and um you know i i think but but it's always like a dangerous thing to put that on anybody especially a young person that's out here just doing their thing but there is something let me just jump to this and then we'll talk about it because the reference they came up come up in here, which I was glad it would, because it would have just been a glaring omission. By the way, this whole thing, so far, boom. I feel like Adam Neely is just crushing this whole subject. Like, he's doing a great job. Absolutely.

It's a tightrope walk, and he's nail. Musicians, like Wayne Shorter, for example. Because jazz was struggling. Like, I know this was done out of ignorance, but it is genuinely strange to show Esperanza of Spalding, all people as an example of failure. But Esperanza is not the only savior of jazz. There have been many others. couple months ago, for example.

Yeah. And the Grammy goes to Samara Joy! Samara Joy won Best New Artist at this year's Grammys. She is another young Gen Z phenom, deeply inspired by Ella Fitzgerald and other great jazz vocalists of the past. Samara Joy. She, like Loewe, has done the circuit of late night shows, and has a beautiful singing voice that seems completely removed

from the popular style of today. So I saw today, my dear. So good. The most importantly, A.I. Patrick has covered her work. That gets into some funny stuff. Okay, so we'll pause it right there for that beautiful visual. Okay, so my question to you, Adam. Samara Joy.

Yeah. Is Samara Joy jazz? Yes. Okay. So why is that such an easier or quicker? You might not think it's an important question. question, but like what is, I think, interesting, if not important, is certainly interesting, is what are those like shared values for the community, for the jazz community that jump

off for you? Because you're really good at like hearing stuff and connecting it, I think, in an organic way that's interesting. I mean, first of all, again, labels don't really matter. But yes, I would consider her more in that, again, if we consider genres as a collection of people, not as a sound, right? So we can get out of genres. And by people, do you mean artists and listeners and like venues and even? I mean just, human beings like blips, of awareness here in our universe that happen in a very short time skill that have share similar values,

at least in a common time frame, right? Yeah. And she fits into that community where she's, you know, she's at Newport Jazz Festival. She's got a trio that's swinging and improvising and certainly rooted in the foundations. There's a direct lineage that you can have vocally with what she's doing, her repertoire.

And I realize that Loewe is, has a repertoire and her voice is beautiful, but she's dressing it up in a different way that is not so much connected with what you might call the community of people that you would define as jazz, right? Right. And it has nothing to do with age or race or where you are in the world or anything like that,

but it is a shared set of values musically, artistically, and aesthetically that you can just, you know it when you hear it. You know it when you see it. And I think that, you know, and Adam Neely, well. The way that the two would use bebop language, right? The way that there's a crowd singing bebop language because it's repeated every single time in the same place

is not what would happen at a Samarjoi concert. Yeah. You know, Adam Neely brings up, well, he brought it up at the very beginning of the video and he comes back to it the gatekeeping of jazz and how he's saying he doesn't want to do that, but then he kind of does that and he's a little bit tongue-in-cheek, or at least he has some pretty good self-awareness about that, I would say.

And we talk about that not wanting to do that a lot, but I think that this type of discussion, it's not what that we're saying, Samar Joy is jazz and, you know, Loe Vei is not jazz, but it's more about what are the shared values, like how do people come in? Because sometimes people come in and out.

We were talking earlier about Nat King Cole. And it's like, is Nat King Cole a jazz singer? And I immediately was like, yes. And I think you were thinking more like, well, he became an incredible pop singer, more of a mid-century with pop, if that's a thing. Nat King Cole is a jazz musician, first and foremost. I mean, he's playing is, I mean, he's in that tradition.

100% jazz singer too. But if you hear him just doing... But if you, he has made pop records. Right. That are not in that same tradition. Right. And I think that's what's a beautiful thing about, I think the way we're talking about this and addressing this issue. Because normally we just run away from is this.

We're like, that doesn't matter. We don't even like jazz. But to be able to sort of define or at least get into the areas of what the jazz culture is, what is the jazz community. More from like a, a. standpoint of like what are the things that we love but also observing other people like how do you how do you define what a tribe of people around the world because that's what's such a cool thing about this totally about anything it's like oh i'm a hockey like you're a hockey person i'm not a hockey person but i love seeing like hockey people i can see them around town they might be wearing a blue shirt or

whatever but it's like it's a shared culture it's a shared values it's it has its own language and i'm not just talking about the musical language a way of talking about it and stuff and i think that somebody like Loewe, you know, at a minimum, she's definitely going in a little bit into the jazz world with, you know, boobo do be, which is cool. Like, we don't need to define and be like, she's only 4% jazz and she's not, or to me, it isn't that interesting of that. But it is interesting to see like when people that have huge followings or are superstars. I mean, it'd be like if Taylor Swift goes on the Super Bowl halftime show and sings Misty, like that's going to be sort of interesting to do. jazz people. Right. You know, because it's like, wait, what the hell is going on here? Is that jazz? Or

what does that mean for jazz? Like, what is that kind of cultural reference point? Probably won't mean anything. It's just singing in a song. It's not jazz and it doesn't mean anything for jokes. Right. But again, none of that really matters to me. And this is where like, oh, I can tell. I only have a point where I want to actually like spend any energy with this. Yeah. Because it is so easy to get caught up. I think our, I think our minds are primitive minds, right, that come from like, people call it the lizard brain or whatever. Yeah. We love categories and boxes and we love to label people and things because it makes us feel

safe and it makes us feel like, oh, we're secure because we now have a boundary on this thing. Yeah. But the truth of all existence is way messier and way grayer than any of this, right? There's like no like severe boundary. And so I personally like will start pushing back on just even thinking like this because because of my own tendency to like, I'll go deep on this and like really try to think my way through this and like, okay, well, if I categorize this

and then I can become this and maybe if I should, well, if I'm going to do this, I should do it like this. And I've just found that's just like a creativity killer, man. That just like stops me in my tracks. It makes me not want to make stuff because I'm too worried about how it's going to, well, Charlie Parker like it, no one cares.

Like just make what is in your heart that you want to hear in the world. You know what I mean? And let it go. Let it be after that. Right. That's my goal. And I don't achieve that, but the more I spend time thinking about what is jazz, the more I want to, like, you know, roll this piano out into traffic and just let it hit.

On that note, please tune in next week as we do volume two, part two of this episode, What is Jazz, a deeper dive? I want to say, are we wrapping this up? Yeah. Real quick, though, one thing with Adam's video that I think you nailed, that I haven't seen from the video, but I've seen other people posting clips from it is the live at Emmett's place. Okay. That to me is like a great definition. So here's where like a younger jazz community actually exists. That is they all know about Thlone's Monk.

They all know about Charlie Parker. Right. Right. And I think to be in that shared ideals, shared values, you have to have a set of common, you know, basically like ancestors that were all sort of, you know, dipping from the well of. Yeah. And Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, you know, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monies, Mike,

like these people that have created what we're all, what we're all inspired by. Yeah. And Emmett's places live in. his place is perfect example no he does a great breakdown of that and and sorry go ahead no I'm just saying this is where I think Adam nailed it with his video yeah we'll make we'll make that the last clip because I have one of those and I would just say that I think he I mean I learned something from that and Emmett was just here what a couple weeks ago doing a course for us in the studio and I didn't even realize that and I learned this from the Adam video that a lot of young musicians coming up have

been watching Emmett's place I mean I knew that but they're like talking about the different like that's becoming part of their shared experience for learning new stuff It's great. And like, oh, did you hear Sean Jones did this thing. I learned the solo on that. And he brings up a thing of like, you know, a lot of people be like, well, because of the pandemic, there's not as many places to play or I'm not 21. I mean, we used to go through this when I used to go up to Cicero's.

Like, you know, we were friends with the guy, one of the guys who worked on. And he led us in the back door because we weren't old enough and I wanted to see Pita Williams. That's the age old thing of like, how do you get in? I mean, Tony Williams couldn't get into the clubs to play because he was under 18. His own gig. His gig with Miles Davis. But that's an age old thing. But Adam Neely kind of turns out.

on its head and it's like, well, if there aren't any clubs where you are, whatever, look what you do have access to. It's true. It's sort of living new jazz club. And a lot of old people would be like, well, that's not the same as being in there with the, you know, the old thing. But you know what? Everything's different now, you know?

It's like, let's move on. No, this is what I'm saying kind of with the Lojave thing, too. It's like how you do it is going to change, right? Right. Like the spirit of where it comes from is great. And I believe I want to speak. You can watch the whole video, but I believe Adam even kind of makes a thing to Lojave.

It's like, if you do want to get, because I guess there was a clip on there where she was talking about playing at this jazz club in Japan. And she's like, this is actually my first time ever playing in a jazz club. And he's kind of like, you know, wow. Like, but she was approaching it more from the standpoint of like, you hear the glasses clink, clink and all like all the things that are around. Oh, she was like, it's a feature. It's a, she's like, oh, this is going to sound like these old jazz records. Yeah, this is what I'm saying then. Like, detached from.

And that's a valid thing, but that doesn't connect you with the culture. No, I mean, she obviously didn't grow up in, uh, in, in, um, in, in, in, um, basement bars in St. Charles where there's clinking glass because people are throwing glasses at each other and you are playing Mustang Saturday. So Loyvae, welcome to the club. I hope you enjoyed the Blue Note Tokyo. But it is interesting because, you know, that is still most people's, you know, and we turn our, roll our eyes, but maybe we shouldn't as much to like the GP, general public, potential jazz fans or whatever that come, I mean, most people, they come, especially if they're young to a jazz club because they're trying to impress their date and they want to hear some

clinkling of glasses and seen classy AF, you know? And then the music they get there, they're like, wow, this is boring jazz. Just like on the office episode when he said, let's have boring jazz for three hours, you know. No, no, no. Okay, I've gotten into all the office clips and it's now it's just animals. Right, let's jump here to this

Emmett's Place reference, because I think I've got it on here. It's like a 45-minute long episode? Glasses clinking in the background. There you go. Forks and knives, like scraping, like, probably like against the steak or something against Slate. You can hear the same like ASMR approach to the recording that places you in the jazz

club with Esperanza Spalding and Fred Hirsch on their record at the Village Vanguard. It's a great record. Clinks, conversations, which makes this comment by Levee feel... Levee. Just a little bit odd to me. And it sounds so like it really just transports you, just transports you, just transports you. Hold on, wait a second. you to win or...

Okay, let me just say this. I think this might be a little unfair just in my opinion in terms of yes. You know, um, maybe there's a disconnect that he's showing there. But it's also like, let's have some grace on young folks coming up.

Like shit is different now. Yeah, for sure. You know what I mean? And like I've had great young artist, Sarah Hanahan, you know, who's playing with in my new band. I'm in just different musicians that I've come into contact, especially through the Betty Carter

Institute at Kennedy Center, Betty Carter Jazz Ahead, I should say. The general sentiment there is just like, we want to have what you. guys had when you were coming up. And, you know, it's, it's kind of a knee-jerk reaction I'd had before. It's like, well, just create it like we did. But the infrastructure is different. The things aren't there. We look at, it's always like they did. We look at like, wow, but you've got YouTube. By the way, by the time we were coming up, it was already different.

I remember like moving to New York and a pianist who was a little older and he'd been like, yeah, I used to have like a gig for a month, five nights a week at a club in Long Island. Caleb, put that visual back up again. We're going to watch. But look at this. This is almost an inner two different genera. Look at how Adam's looking. And it's looking. And You know, there's that, too. Like, let's not be like that between Jenner. Oh, so Adam's a millennial. And as Gen Xers, we can say, Adam, welcome.

We did this with you. That's right. Now you're doing it. Look at that. Eventually, Lojave will have a video looking at Gen. What is it, Alpha? We don't know what's going on. But anyway, Adam, I did not set this up, but I did get lucky with that.

Let's keep going. Exactly. A different time, a different place. Because, you know, the village vanguard never went away. It's still in the West Village. It's still sold out like every night. You can go there right now and experience all the glamour of this music for yourself. And you know, you don't need to go to a different decade to experience this music.

Young people never stopped making it. Better yet, if you're under the age of 21 and you're not in New York City, you can just tune in Live from Emmett's Place. Welcome to Emmett's Place. How's everyone doing tonight? Live from Emmett's Place is an ongoing live concert series held in the living room of pianist Emmett Cohen's Harlem apartment. The musicians are extremely talented.

They play classic tunes. They joke around and play music steeped in the jazz tradition. It's a great analogy of modern sensibilities. And it has garnered a huge following from people around the world first exposed to, in my humble opinion, what was that, Winnard Harper? Real jazz. And it's very pop. He said checkmark, real jazz.

It's good. I mean, this is all a bit, obviously, tongue and cheek for that kind of stuff with the checkmark. But this is true. This is the community we're talking about, right? This is like the genre. If a genre is a group of people, live at Emmett's Place displays that group of people. And it's not one is better than the other.

Or a particular group of people with the shared set of values and the same well. Like, yes. And I love just that like the music's alive, not because of Amma's Place, not because of, you know, Samara Joy, because of all this kind of stuff. You know, Loeve probably just a teeny little part of it. And that's okay, you know, or maybe it's more, maybe it's less or whatever. But I think that I do, it's a great video. Highly recommend it. Shout out Adam Neely.

and you know, I just think it brings up interesting issues. And I love the term mid-century pop. I can tell you're shaving it. But you know what? I love mid-century architecture. I don't know if you do. I grew up watching the Brady Bunch, sir. I do love something.

You're a little bit young for that, so. I remember the Brady Bunch. You remember it. It was in re-runs. Yeah, yeah. I was watching it in real time. Are we done? We are done.

This is the longest. This is the record, Caleb. I think we have the longest episode ever. Yeah. Dude, you've had that feeling since we were two minutes in, though. What do we, did we solve any problems, Peter? Well, let me just, I'm going to ask you one question. You're going to answer it yes or no, and then we're going to finish.

Oh, no, we're not. Gala. Gentlemen and ladies agreement. Now, anybody who gets to this long-ass episode to the end, you got to put, like, what are they going to, what are they going to put? Look at them. We've lost them. We've lost them. Don't put Gala.

Put Gala times 10. We're going to 10x Gala. Gala times 10 because that means, even if you've done it before, what is Gala? What does that mean? It means the gentleman. Sorry, I'm all missed up. It means the gentleman and ladies agreement. Yeah.

So we make this video. Yes. Sometimes we make them shorter. It doesn't matter. They're always... They're always high quality. Yeah. And...

Not free. Not free. A lot of people think this is free. It is not free. What is the payment required? You're on YouTube. You're watching. You haven't paid anything yet.

So you're about to. What are they about to pay? Bedhead. Can I put a little score under here? Please. You need to subscribe right away. If you're not on YouTube, go to YouTube. You don't have to watch us, but you need to subscribe.

And you need to put in the comments. We got to know who's listening all. the way to the end. We don't want to go in and look at the stats on YouTube. And nobody got time for that. So please go in and put comment. All you have to do is Gala, G-A-L-A-All caps times 10. Until next time.