You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How Does He DO It?

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

Adam and Peter take a speakpipe question about one of their favorite artists. Brian. Blade.Check it out right HEREHave 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

Peter, hey, you're going to start with a little bit of playing today? Yes. Nice. It's either our greatest intro ever or the worst intro we've ever done. Train wreck or Trainrake or Trainrake inverted. It's like the train jumped the track. Somehow it got on the interstate and everything worked out okay. That was really fun.

Welcome in, man. How you doing? I'm doing great, man. That was fun. Yeah, that was great. Have we ever started out with that? Yeah, we probably have. I think we have, but we did a little playing on an episode a few weeks ago and we got a lot of requests.

You guys should play more. And I realized, like, we do have these keyboards here and we don't play them. as much as we used to. Well, we have more before. Maybe they meant you should play more like you should practice more. You should practice more. We used to, you know what it was? When we did the live show more, like when we go live on Mondays, we would do a lot more

playing because we would usually start by playing a tune. RIP live Mondays. And when we do it the podcast now, we don't do as much playing except when we're giving examples. But I think it'd be fun to do a little more. But maybe we'd go out with some playing for real. Speaking of live on Mondays, you know, we were back and forth, should we continue this or we're not? And then we're like, well, for various reasons that are not that interesting enough to go

to we decided to stop doing it but there's nothing like you take something out and no one says wow i missed the monday lives not one person not one person was like are you guys what what happened to the live show on mondays you know you've made the right decision yeah that's you can trust your gut you could also trust people's the people have spoken but you know what not spoken in this people have spoken about speak pipe we got a ton of these yes the people are speaking on speak oh my gosh so much if you want to leave us a voicemail you can go to you'll hear it dot com and you can leave us your question that's so confusing and fussy.

Leave us a voicemail on a website. How do you do that? You go to You'll hear it.com, and there's a button you push. You literally push one button, and you can leave us your questions. It's magic. It's a magic button.

It is. This is a virtual button. Are you going to let me get to this question? No. You're talking more about the button. What colors the button? Let's button this up and move on to the speak pipe. Hi, Peter.

Hi, Adam. Ed here, big fan of the podcast and Open Studio. My question today was prompted by your episode on Brian Blade, the drummer and the way he brings that joy and emotion and connection to his performances. And I'm wondering, how do you approach that if you're just not in the right mental state or you're trying to get that mental state to a place that can deliver? How do you navigate that and how do you approach that situation and how does that work? Thank you.

This is a great question. I want to hear just one more time his live. He brings that joy and emotion and connection to his performances. Yeah, okay. Yeah, this is an episode we did a couple of months ago where we listened to Brian Blades Fellowship Band Live, but I think it was a music store, a drum shop? Chicago Music Exchange. Incredible video.

Go back and check out. I'm so glad that somebody picked up because sometimes we do these episodes and we feel so good about them. And they're not controversial in that, you know, we're not arguing about anything. Everybody's like, yeah, it's good music. But I have the feeling that people do connect with that. So thank you, Ed, for referencing it. What I love about Ed's question here, what he really picked up on was the whole point of listening to that

and was appreciating Brian Blade's real connection to the music, the musicians he plays with. For me... The audience. The audience. For me, you know, as someone who's really working hard at trying to get away from, like, results of, like, I really want to make this best music I can.

and be this kind of musician. And really, as a lot of people do midlife, which I am in, is focus on more like, I want to feel like this when I play. I want to, the process is now more. Now is the time. Now is that. The process is more important than the results for me at this point, which actually makes the results better, ironically.

And for me, Brian Blade, even though he's just a few years old with me, he's like a shining light example of this, someone who's always been connected to the process and to the people around him. Yeah. And I can, you know, I just because I've known Brian for a long time, I can say that there's an authenticity there to what he delivers for the listener, for the audience, for other musicians playing with him on stage, that is 100% Brian.

Like, that's the way he is. So I think that's the first part of this. Like, you have to be, I mean, you have to be. The closer you can get to being your authentic self in terms of if you're lucky and or blessed enough to be in that position to be able to, be an artist. I mean, to be an artist in the way

that everything is kind of seemingly lined up, right? So I believe that everybody's an artist in this world. Whether or not we all get a chance to have access to being able to craft, you know, an instrument or visual arts or whatever and kind of

connecting a specific way and then to be able to do that with others in front of an audience, there's a lot of variables, but if you get to that place where you are privileged to be able to do that. How are you going to deliver? And I can say that, like, Brian is very, very good at delivering on that, all these things that are kind of lined up for him in terms of like he's very talented musically. He comes from a musical family. He's worked very hard at a craft of the drums. He's very well suited in terms of how he's oriented his musical self to the drums,

but way beyond just the drums. He can play guitar. He's very open to different things. He understands a number of different styles and grew. So he's got a lot of things going from him, is what I'm saying. But then that thing that I think pushes, and he's a very joyous person, that's the authenticity part of it. Right. But I can say that, like, to actually, you still need something else to be able to deliver on that. And this is perhaps, like, you know, would address Ed's kind of the core of his question. And I think that is professionalism. It's like, it's not enough to just have all those things.

How can you deliver those always, or at least most of the time, the highest percentage of time? Like, you know, to Ed's point in the question of, like, when you're not maybe feeling that, when something happened. For instance, right before, you know, right before this episode, I was reminded of the deep-seated hatred that you and I have for each other. But because we're professionals, we never let that seep into the podcast, right? This would never know. Yeah, listeners would never know.

No, of course, I joke. But the thing is like, I think an example of professional is, it's like if something happens right before you have to perform, if that's a podcast, if that's a gig, if that's a literary event that you're speaking at, professionally comes in with like, can you default back to your, connection, your joy for the music, your appreciation for the privilege that you have to be able to be that conduit, that connection point between the audience and something that's bigger than all of us, can you be humble and default back to that? That's what being, I think, a professional

is. And that's, it's not, I think, spoken to and adhered to, well, just like the craft of that is its own sort of art that we have to work at. Well, that's what I was about to say, is that it's easy to say to, oh, just be professional and then be engaged. But if you're not, to Ed's point, if you're not feeling like that, you know, how can you get to that place? Like, how can you find that place? Because it's, it's one of those things where it's like, professionalism, yes, if you want to say like, oh, show up on time, that's easy to sort of achieve. But if you want to say, like, be joyous and connected, that's more difficult to be like, oh, I'll just turn that on. Yeah. So I would say, Ed, this is actually something that you can practice.

Yes. And, you know, for some people like Brian Blade, I think it kind of comes innately in his personality. But he's practiced a lot. But he practiced a lot. A lot of people, Ed, Ed, things like meditation or a spiritual practice for this is why spirituality is often so connected with art and especially music is because it is something that's taking place at least the music we make takes place in real time in the moment and that joy that you're describing that connection you're describing can be practiced it almost has to be lived outside of the bandstand if you want to have the ability to turn that on right on the bandstand because then it's not as

much of a thing that it's not such a change that it's like turning on it's more just a adjusting the dial a little bit. Well, it's almost a value system. If you teach yourself how to value that connection, how to value the joy, like you said, how to value the music when you're there. A lot of people don't ever, like, even realize that that's a value to have.

Like, I should be here and present with the people I'm playing with and the people I'm playing for. I should be here present with the music and not trying to put my own shit on it. If I work on technique and chops, it should be to serve the liberation and the freedom of when I'm making music in real time, not for impressive shit.

You know, that kind of attitude. It takes actually a lot of life work to get there. So I would say, think about, you know, that feeling of connection and joy. Where does that happen off the bandstand? How can you practice that sort of attitude of gratitude or that mental focus, it's concentration,

it's the realization that we're very lucky to be actually taking this breath now? Yeah. As, you know, even luckier to be able to share the breath with people, even luckier to people to share something like music with people. And so remembering that is difficult in some cases when your own ego is really trying to protect, oh, but I'm a musician and I need to be good and these people are good. Well, they're not as good as I am. You know, like this is all things that naturally happen to everybody. And so training yourself

to get out of that and take a step back from that, it actually takes a lot of work outside of the bandstand. Absolutely. That's all great stuff. And I mean, I think if you've fold into that this concept that things that as a performing artist seem like big swings back and forth to us are not actually manifested to the listeners. They're not as big of a deal. They're not revealed in the same way you think. So in other words, if you're like, I'm feeling kind of down, how do I go out and still bring my joy out in the music? It's not a binary thing on or off. if you're feeling somewhat down and you feel like that's really coming across

and you're playing, it probably isn't as, it's certainly not as much as you think it is. You're going to be your own worst critic. But there's no reason to say like, oh, I'm feeling down. I'm going to try to push that aside. That's not going to happen.

Yeah, no, for sure. You should actually really like, acknowledge it. Bring it into the fold here. Okay, you can't ignore it. That's not a, it's not going to happen. And it's just going to create a lot of like internal.

Believe me, I've been like sweeping my problems for years under the rug and it's not working out great for me. Man, you know, like when I first started working here at Open Studio, I've said this before, Peter, but hanging around you, hanging around people like Rubin and Gregory Hutchinson and these great musicians, Christian McBride, I realized, like, for myself, like, oh, you know, I can actually do technically a lot of what these guys are doing. But a lot of this is just like this confidence and freedom that they have in their own personality. They'll let whatever's here come out and not try to force anything. Yeah. And that takes a little bit of work off the bandstand.

I was, I joke about it. I was like, oh, shit, I have to work on my personality. Dang, like that's the hard part, you know? But then it's fun because once you kind of, you know, working on your personalities, a lot of it's sort of getting to know yourself. Totally. You know. Getting comfortable in your own skin.

Getting comfortable. And then once you realize. Being confident with what you bring to a situation. Just being yourself and reveling in that and not trying to be someone else. That's putting yourself in the position of being able to provide the most to serve. So it's like the confidence that you have with yourself and that's all the levels from just your personality, how you sound. And we're talking about if you're playing an instrument, how that comes out. So also working all the technical and theoretical things that'll better bring that narrative out in your playing.

But it's like the more comfortable you get with that. And that's not to be confused with the better you get. you know to your point about the about the process and then the end result you've got to let the end result no I'm just metaphor I wasn't pointing anything I'm just saying over here I was like this is the starting point this is the ending point but um like that will take care of itself we know that like if you're working on the right things playing with the right people you know orienting yourself in the right direction living a musical life living a musical life and then you know folding in this attitude of gratitude and also a service mentality where it's like well it's hard to be a professional because I don't know this, I don't know that, as opposed to maybe reorienting your mindset more like it's an honor to be a professional. Yourself to the music. Yeah, because I get to be my little part in serving to uplift some other people. So then you've got more of a responsibility, but a good kind of responsibility, not like,

oh, I'm responsible. It's like, wow, I'm responsible for people's joy. I don't have to go out on stage and make, it's not about can I make them as joyous as Brian Blade could be. There's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, such a good point. There's a big range of that. All you gotta do is make them feel. better than they did when they walked in. And I'm just realizing now too, like, you know, with,

there's, there's sort of this spiritual element of music and why I think a lot of musicians fold in their own spirituality to their playing because it's so connected. And this is such a huge part of it. It's like a growth as a human, act of being a human. And there's sort of the Eastern spirituality thing that we've been talking about of looking inward and noticing what's here. But then there's also like the Western religious part of this too, which is devotional. And I think it's equally as important. And a lot of people use that where you sort of humbly give yourself over

to the higher power of music or the higher power of the greater good of what we're all making together of this thing that you're just glad to be a part of that you're one little piece of. And a lot of people talk about like I'm just like a conduit for whatever is already here.

It's coming through me in this filter of whatever Adam is or whatever. And it's hard because like the society and like even within this kind of insular world of jazz, like there is the star element. There is, I mean, we, on a recent episode, we had Samara Joy. We were listening to some of her music. He was just here in the studio.

And it's like, you know, there's a lot of pressures, I'm sure, on her to be like, it's about you. Now is your time or whatever. Yeah, that point in someone's career is very perilous. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong. Like there's going to be ebbs and flows. That's a different kind of professional.

That's not even professional. That's more like, you know, in terms of, you know, career stuff. But I think that you can weather, all that ups and downs when you hold on to the service part of it by serving others that can really take you far you can still enjoy those times you know and but you're always ready to serve I think there'll be a way that it'll be found for you to serve with others great point great question Ed yeah we can talk about this stuff all day but we did promise a little playing oh yeah do something else no I like it