You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How Many Choruses Should You Take? - #156

Episode Date: July 13, 2018

In this episode, Peter and Adam discuss the amount of choruses you should take on any given solo. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. This is the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Good job. That was good. I've been having little problems with that. My vernacular.

That's just a sentence. But yeah. So today we're going to talk about how many choruses should you take? I mean, two more than the saxophone player, right? Of course. Yeah, like is this some, I hope no one's expecting an answer like four. You'll hear it. All right, that'll do it.

I mean, obviously, this is a question begging for an easy answer that you're not going to get. It's not going to be an easy answer. But that's good. This is why, I think this is, this goes hand in hand with like a musical question, but it's also kind of a social question. Yeah. Because don't pretend like some cats don't count. Yeah. You know, on the bandstand.

Yeah, yeah. You know, the jazz police are known to do an accounting of choruses. many, many times. I mean, the easy answer is an answer that is often the number one answer on our podcast, which is listen. Listen. You got to know where you're at in the gig on the tune to really make a decision about this. Yeah, I love that being kind of the, I mean, there's a number of different things to consider,

but that being the number one sort of priority issue is listening to everything that's happened before that time. Now, it's a little more difficult when you're the first solo. because there has not a lot has happened so you're sort of setting the tone so you can't so much go if you're soloing last and as pianists oftentimes we are um i almost think that the better you get at listening the more the answer to how many choruses at that particular tune on that particular night at that particular venue kind of is given to you it's easy you know because you're you're last so it's like listen to the flow how much does the arrangement need at that point and the closer you get to that the better you'd be at that answer that's great if you're if you're towards the end you can really like you're you're You can be like, oh, you know, it feels like we should wrap this up. You can come in hard, you know, and really like get like a big solo going early. Yeah. And then finish late or big solo early.

Start early and finish late. That's definitely not the way to do this. Or if you're like, you know, overplay and under deliver. Yeah. We're feeling the vibe. I can really like take my time. I mean, for me, it's like if I feel like I'm saying something. Yes.

It doesn't matter. Yeah. Like I can go and I know that it'll be cool. If I feel like maybe I'm not saying as much as I want to be, I'm going to be like, you know what? I'm going to wrap this up. Yeah. And I mean, look, the reality of this is, and this is why we've been having to talk about such questions is most of the people that don't have anything to say are playing too many courses. And sometimes the people that do have something to say are playing a little bit on the short side.

There's a little bit of element of showbiz of leave them wanting more that can be very effective. Have you employed that before? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Often. Yeah. Because that also works well with the they're not paying me per note concept, which is often employed by an advanced musician. You know, I also, I will consider where we are in the set, you know, as far as like what's needed.

First tune, sometimes I'll keep my solo kind of short as like an introductory thing. Introductory. Oh, nice. I have some speaking issues today. But sometimes I'll do it extra long if I'm feeling like we're going to like really set the tone of, you know, this is going to be, we're going to take our time tonight. Yeah. Sometimes for me, if I'm holding. hungry.

And we're going towards the end of the set. I will shorten it up a little bit. If there's going to be some dining after. So now this is good because you play so much with the great Diane Reeves, you know, a vocalist gig.

Oftentimes, and I know that in her band it's different because she's such a consummate musician. No, I'm just kidding. Musicians, musician. But I'm sure you get to stretch out a little bit. In vocalists, I've done a lot of vocal

gigs in my life. And usually, I try to keep it to like one or two courses. You try to get back to the song. I think so. I mean, I do try to think about, you know, we haven't really talked about the audience, but, you know, ultimately we're supposed to be doing this for the audience, for the listener. But I also feel like we don't have to think about them so much if we're listening, you know, effectively, because it's going to be the same things that we're listening for

in what's appropriate at that time for length would be something that would work for the audience usually as well. Yeah. So we have to kind of take yourself. Like, you never want to get on this. this thing of like, oh, I've got so much to play. I want to do this. I want to, like, any solo is not your opportunity to show off all the stuff you can do

and then to extend things just to play things that you can play, unless the situation and the moment requires that. Right. Serve the song. Yeah, serve the song. And then you will serve the audience and all those different kind of things. I think, yeah, you know, in playing with vocalists, I think that there's a natural, you know, kind of conditioning of the audience of wanting to hear the vocal.

And yeah, they're cool for it to leave that for a while, but they're going to want it to come back to that. And just the moment wants it to come back to that more than if it's an all-instrumental situation, everyone can stretch out a little more because there is no vocals that's going to be coming. Now, the more advanced you can get with integrating the vocals with the instrumental solos and the more they kind of overlap each other, the less of an issue. That is, and Diane Reeves is very good at that as far as, especially on the kind of heavier improvised things that she gets into to really, you know, sometimes even like stepping back and, waiting and then coming in and doing a very short solo herself while she sort of features other things. So I think, you know, certainly variety. There's what's required on that particular tune. Then there's also what's happened during the whole set. Maybe if it's a club gig and there's two sets or whatever, you're even thinking of the whole evening and trying to fit in there.

That's very, very cool. Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, don't, as much as you can, don't predetermine your solo thing. Yeah, you know, I'm not a big, but I'm not a big proponent of that, although there was a great musician who shall remain nameless, who we just worked with, that kept talking about, okay, I'm going to do X number of choruses. And I was, I was a little bit in conflict with that. Yeah. Because he or she, who's not being named, I was kind of surprised. So maybe there's something, maybe there is times when you do decide.

I guess recordings. Recordings, yeah, for sure. It's helpful. But on the moment, I don't like to think about it. Yeah. But I mean, I've heard people say, like, okay, I'm only going to take one chorus on this. it's usually like on my gig I'm just gonna because it doesn't need a big bass solo

I was like well that's cool I said but up the moment strikes you I always try to give that freedom No you say like yeah that's totally It's my gig One is too many Who even said you're gonna have a solo on that Ruben Rogers What's up RRR?

But yeah I think the main thing is you're thinking about it You're trying There needs to be some experimentation on this for sure Totally And this is a good thing to kind of make note of or even take notes of, like, whenever we get a chance to do a gig, what a great time to kind of tweak these sort of things.

I mean, yeah, of course, we're trying to, you know, expand our repertoire and improvise and swing and play good and all that kind of things. But there is a lot of sort of customizable things about how we play jazz and how we present it that a little bit of thought and experimentation can go a long way. Too much we get into a thing of just like, oh, we're going to do this. The solo order is the same, same number of choruses, and we're out. And that can kind of be boring a little bit. Totally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So keep your imagination open. Yeah, I agree. I do try to keep, you know, if I'm on a gig where someone's leading it, that's not me. Yeah. I do try to not to like overtake them. I like how you said they like on a gig where someone's leading it. You can't even say like where there's another leader.

You're just like, you're so gun shy with that. You're like, if another human element is there that is not in a leadership role. I mean, I'm always kind of leading. You're just not going to give it up. No, but I don't want to like, I don't want to, like, play too much longer than what they've played. You know what I mean? I want to, like, try to keep... Because you're co-leaders.

Why would you? No, you want to try to keep some kind of balance, I think. I mean, unless it's like I'm really feeling it or whatever. And, you know, when that happens, they're usually like, yeah, go on, man, go, you know. Right. Yeah, and I think that, yeah, learning a little bit about it, we can't go into all of them here, but thinking about and learning about by observing and listening, the different protocols that go along with this. I remember when I first, I mean, I knew Christian McBride since we,

We were in high school, but when I first sort of started, and we played together some, but he was putting a new band together about seven, eight years ago called Inside Straight. I remember he called. Oh, yeah, I've heard of that. Yeah, as soon as we went to the first gig, I don't know, it was something where it sort of, I kind of felt like he should solo first because it's his band. Sure. But it turned out it was really definitely a time when he wasn't even going to solo.

And Christian's really not into all that kind of stuff, but I remember I kind of looked at him like, and he's like, I don't know, go ahead. But I do think it's good to do that at different times. Like when the lead, like you, you, I know you're anti-others leading now. I've learned that about you. But if you find yourself in that situation, you do need to give, it's a little bit of protocol there, don't you think? Yeah, I guess.

Cool. All right. Well, we answered the question. How many courses should you take? Depends on who you are. Maybe zero. Easy answer? It depends.

Is Adam Manus on your gig? Is Adam Manus leading your gig? Probably. Yeah. All right, so keep the questions coming. You can go to you'll hear it.com. Leave us a voice message. Those are fun.

Just so you know, it's very clear. I think you'll understand this. If you leave a voice question, you'll probably going to be on the air. You may be on the air. We actually get quite a few, so we can't put everybody's up. But just so you know, your voice may be on

the subtle and supple airwaves of the You'll Hear It Network. You know, comb your voice. Come your voice. That's right. And then rating. and reviews. Hit up iTunes, Google, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcast. You know, we love seven, so leave us a seven star. You just realize that that is impossible.

Right. But do what you can. Could I read one of our five-star reviews here? I don't think I could stop you if I wanted to. You're actually controlling the record button, so you could easily stop me, actually. Got to lead it, man. So this is from about to get my temps. I love these in the U.S. My favorite podcast, an essential for jazz musicians, five stars. Everything about this podcast is awesome from the lightheartedly funny banter. That's a great way to describe. A little side note here.

Lightheartedly funny banter. We are. That describes us. To the great suggestions and references. As an aspiring musician, I learn something from these guys every day and get a quick laugh while doing so. Hey, that's what we're trying to do. So thank you. I'm about to get my temps.

Big shout out. Hit us up. If you guys leave a review and a rating, take a screen. screenshot of it. Yep. And send it to us on Instagram or Twitter at, Hey Open Studio. Yeah.

I think we got some T-shirts, right? We got some T-shirts coming. Yeah. They're not here yet, but they're coming soon. We got some happy practicing T-shirts. We might even have some You'll Hear It T-shirts coming, right? That would be beautiful. I wouldn't be against it.

Yeah. Cool. So, yeah, you know, when you read those T-shirts, they'll say, you'll hear it. That's right.