You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How Horn Players Can Add Interest - #17

Episode Date: January 22, 2019

Peter and Adam answer another listener question; this time, it's on how horn players can make a tune more interesting for the rhythm section. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey. Is there anything that a horn player can do to entice a rhythm section? Leave their horn in their case. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily jazz advice coming at you.

And a lot of love for the horns. I was just kidding. I love the horns. It's one love out here. Yeah, man. We couldn't do half the interesting stuff. We do what we could. We could do about half, actually.

We could do about half of it. But that leaves the other half, which is super interesting. So this comes from a speak pipe, which we mentioned last week. We ended last week with a speak pipe. And this is another one. This is from Terry. Let's check it out. Hi, fellas.

Just wanted to start by saying that I'm loving the podcast, and it's easily worth seven billion stars. Anyway, I'm a Canadian saxophonist living in what seems like jazz exile in the southwest UK. I came over here from Toronto, where I was used to being able to make a couple of phone call. and have a session set up with people who are into playing just for the sake of playing and improving. But over here in rural Southwest, UK, I find myself dealing with some, shall we say, sensitive rhythm section players

who make it feel like they're doing you a favor by accepting and or playing on a gig. I was wondering if you all could speak about some of the things a horn player can do to make the rhythm section want to play or want to engage with the music or some of the things that your favorite horn players do to make things interesting or challenging for the rhythm section. Many thanks.

All right. Thank you, Terry, for the question. That's an interesting scenario. Yes. Switch countries. Yes, yes. Go from one of the great metropolises in North America to the southwest rural United Kingdom. I'm getting in my headphones again.

Yeah, yeah, me too. So yeah, I mean, Toronto, which is such a great music, such a great jazz town. I mean, one of the best. I was just up there, and I'm always, like, amazed by all the great homegrown musicians, but also musicians going there from the States or for other places because it's a nice scene, and it's a super cool city. And I was just looking at the map real quick, as he said, Southwest England, because I was actually in, I don't know if he's in, like, Exeter, X-Smith, that area,

but I was there for actually a family wedding a few years ago. That is one of the most, yeah, X-Moor National Park. I was around that area. And it's one of the most beautiful places anywhere. Oh, my God, it's so beautiful. Now, obviously for rhythm sections, apparently a little more sensitive. But I was there, you know, with some kind of extended family and stuff. And it's just, I mean, like you're going on these little country roads with like you go through tunnels that are like hedges and bushes naturally.

I mean, it looks like something out of, you know, a fairy tale. And it's just incredible. But anyway, I think. think that probably the issue that he's talking about is not reserved to just that part of Southwest England. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could potentially be a difficulty worldwide, but I think it's very good that he's thinking about it in terms of, I think he said, you know, what can horn players do sort of to engage with the rhythm section or get to have them engage more. So, you know, he's thinking more along

the lines of like, like, how do we solve this problem? How do we bridge that gap? Yeah. And not not make it a rhythm section versus horn player, right? Yeah, I think so. Interesting conundrum. I mean, as a rhythm section player, I don't really, I don't know if I think about this like this. Yeah. That's because you're a good rhythm section player.

You're sensitive. Not this kind of sensitive. That's debatable. But, you know, it might be just a matter of there's just not enough, like, people with your similar mindset in your area. And that can be tough. I mean, we've dealt with that in, obviously the United States has tons of rural sections and players that,

I think we've talked to people about this before. You know, one of the things that you can do, especially if you have a limited pool of musicians to choose from, is ask them what they want to play. You know what I mean? Everybody wants to be the star of their own show. Right. And so I would start there.

I would maybe send an email to all the people that you're playing with and saying like, hey, does anything you have suggestions for tunes that we can do on this next gig? Yeah. I mean, that's kind of some... It's very invitational. which is nice. It's very invitational

and it's sort of that leadership from behind quality that I think most people can get in front of. Well, you could, that nice. And maybe they'll even

suggest playing invitation. That might be a nice team to play. I like that a lot. I think, yeah, it could also be done like on the bandstand or if it's a jam session thing.

Yeah. I'm thinking about that like you come up on your horn player and they're usually like, let's do this. Yeah. But what if a horn player were to turn around to us

and say, hey, what are you guys hearing? Yeah. You know, but see, a lot of players are like, oh,

they don't want to do that because they are going to be embarrassed if they don't know the tune. And I think no one should feel like that. Everything is a learning experience. And I used to be like that. I was like, well, I want to say what I'm going to play so that I can shine the brightest. But now I'm like, yeah, you know, to your point is like, what is the majority want to do? That's going to probably be more fun. Maybe it's not the best for me, but maybe I'll learn something.

Or maybe I'll have a different way of jumping in there. Or invite them to arrange or play an original of theirs. You know what I mean in your session or on your. your gig. And then the flip side of that is maybe have a very clear vision for your own music and call a rehearsal and say like, let's get this arrangement together so that it's tight so that we're a unit. You know, a little band bonding rehearsal never heard anybody either. That's right, right. Yeah, I think the importance of connecting with other musicians you're going to play with off the bandstand on a personal level can never be understated. And sometimes you don't

have a lot of chance to do that so you have to do it kind of right before the gig or on the bandstand. Yeah. But if you're in this place with these, this, again, a limited pool, Terry, you can invite them to go see some music. Yeah. You know, and just hang. Or maybe go grab a pint. You're in the right part of the world to do that. Get some coffee or some food or something and like really, you know, like, befriend them. Yeah. And then playing with friends is always the most fun. I did a recording session recently with some amazing musicians that I didn't know. I mean, one of them I, two of them I knew out of the six or seven that we're playing. The rest I met like literally as we started the session.

Yeah. Like because I got there a little late. I didn't get there late. I got there right when it was starting. Yeah. Everybody was kind of set up already setting up. And we just sort of jumped into it. And it wasn't even until the first sort of break an hour and a half, two hours into it that I got to like kind of shake hands and learn, you know, introduce myself and learn their names even.

I mean, it was crazy. Yeah, yeah. But we were able to bond over the music. So that's not a given though. Like that's a special thing. That's a special thing. That's a special thing. But even that, even though, even though we bond.

It's really rarely that everybody bonds like in your headphones, different rooms. But then when we had a little break and we're grabbing a coffee or whatever in the lounge, I made, you know, and I didn't even do this consciously. I just did it because it felt right. I made a point of bonding personally with each of them a little bit. Hey man, you know, how are you doing today? Where are you from? You know, just a little bit of a connection to make, even though we made that musical connection. Yeah.

I wanted to make that human connection. It's important. Yeah. I mean, it's important. It's part of the communication of the music. Yeah. It was a little weird because one of them was a member of the Taliban and then another was a member of ISIS. So I kind of wish that I hadn't known that about them.

Great players, though. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that comes to mind with this is more cynical. Yeah. And that is money talks. Money. That's right.

Pay them more. Pay to play. Pay to play. Yeah. I mean, pay to play. It's sad but true. Yeah.

If there's a really good drummer who's like not showing interest or whatever, just be like, you know, here's more money than you thought you would get for this. Yeah. They'll probably do it. Yeah. It's true. It's true. And I mean, yeah, look, as you move up on the professional level that has less to do with it, hopefully. In other words, or sometimes more. Yeah, yeah. But the reality is, yeah. No, absolutely. Let's just talk about a couple things on the, like, as you're playing. Because that's actually how I interpret this question. I might have been wrong. But I think it's interesting, too, things that horn players can do to make it more interesting to interact more. And I would say as you're actually playing a solo, I think the first thing that comes in my mind is listen.

Yeah. And I was just doing this gig with Ron Blake, credible tenor saxoners. And actually the two horn players were Nicholas Payton and Ron Blake. I saw some of that. Yeah. That was amazing. And Ron Blake, Nicholas does this in his own way also, but Ron Blake is one of the biggest listeners at the beginning of his solo that I've ever heard of any horn player.

Yeah. The amount of space that he leaves, it's almost unnerving because you're like, oh, should I, is he going to ever start to play? But, like, he wants to, like, just be in the moment and, like, leave space. And, like, he has such great ears. ideas and he's so confident with what he's going to play. He wants often for you as in the rhythm section to give him an idea. Like he wants to invite the engagement almost entirely from the rhythm section. I love it. So it's so fun, you know. I thought this is for anybody, not just horn players,

but I do this all the time too where it's like 90% of my ideas come from the people I'm playing with. Yeah. Because I just try to open up and just absorb what's happening. And that doesn't mean mimicking what they're doing, but if someone gives me an idea, I'll try to expand on it. It's Like the easiest way to play jazz and also the most effective. Yeah. No, it's the easiest and the hardest too at the same time. Because your ego gets in the way and you want to just play all the stuff you do. It's very simple.

It's very simple if you allow yourself to get to that level. That's a good word. Yeah. But the other thing is you have to really have developed your ears to be able to do that because you have to be able to. But that's definitely not only possible. It's like it will happen and it will come. Yeah. But you've got to work on it.

You've got to be confident. You've got to be willing to kind of fall flat on your face a little bit too. but basically, I mean, I've heard Ron during that those 14 sets that we play take little things that I was playing and like turn them into these beautiful things. And it's just like if you're having a conversation and meeting someone or talking with someone, there's always people that are like, man, how are you doing? That's the equivalent of that. How's your day been?

And then you have an hour-long conversation that gets deep about that one question. And then you start feeling bad. It's like, wow, it's all about me. They're so focused on me, you know. But it's a very interesting way to approach music and approach life. By the way, how are you doing? No, how are you doing? No, how are you?

Andrew, how are you doing? Great. There you go. Well, thank you, Terry, for the voicemail for the speak pipe. Peter, where can people go to leave us a voicemail? You'll hear it.com. And I hear they can also not do ratings and reviews there. They cannot.

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