You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How To Play Joe Henderson Tunes

Episode Date: September 11, 2020

Peter and Adam take You'll Hear It live to YouTube and answer some listener questions - today, they talk about the genius of Sonny Rollins as well as answer a listener's question on playing Joe Henderson tunes.Friday's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)3:00 PM - Adam's Guided Practice Session on YouTube8:00 PM - Peter's Shelter in Place solo piano concert on YouTubeSaturday's Open Studio Live Events:7:00 PM - Romero Lubambo + Pamela Driggs: Live From the Living Room on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam, what's up? You know whose birthday it is today? I do indeed. Who's? Happy birthday, Sunny Rollins. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily music advice coming at you.

Coming at you today. We are live again on YouTube. We're taking your questions. If you're listening to this right now, come to the Open Studio YouTube channel every Monday at 4 p.m. Eastern. We're taking your questions. We're having a good time. We're having a little bit of fun here.

Yeah. I had us on Black, uh, Black, screen there for a minute, but that's okay. That just adds to the drama, as they say. Shout out to you, Peter, for, like, you're actually producing this show. Like, you're playing piano with your right hand, and you're producing the show with your left hand. I don't know

how we're doing this pandemic-wise, but we're making it happen. Well, we're sharing duties a little bit. You're producing the audio over there, right? Yeah, and that I... But did you press record? Oh, shoot. No, I did. I did. Yeah, but that's literally, I came in. Here's how producing the audio goes. I came in. I turned the computer on,

and then I pressed record. Well, yes, but you also, you're producing the lighting. This is really, we've distributed out the jobs here, right? We've tried to, we've tried to shoulder some of the work between the two of us. Yes. I think it's working. But today, you know, okay, so we are honoring

one of the greats today turns 90. The amazing Sonny Rollins. You know, I think for Sunny, I mean, I don't know about for you, Peter, but when I think of Sonny Rollins, he's like, we talk a little bit about what we used to get people who aren't into jazz into jazz.

Sunny Rollins is one of those people I use all the time. Like I give people St. Thomas, saxophone colossus, you know, from Saxophone Colossus as an intro. And then also just he's just full of all this deep, you know, wealth of really beautiful music that spans now decades.

Like five, six decades? Yeah. Oh, easily, easily. Actually, no, I mean, he's 90, and he's been, yeah, talking about 70. years plus of powerful music. And I was just thinking about that. Like Sonny Rollins is, he's kind of like Roy Haynes in that,

you know, he's always there. He's always around, always doing his thing. And, you know, I think he's going to always be around. It's just, he's, it's that presence, you know, even though he's not performing as much as he used to. He actually kind of cut back on performing a while ago, not because of health reasons or anything. I mean, many years ago.

Yeah. Because my understanding was, and I remember hearing an interview with him talking about this, He wants to play when he feels moved to play. And I think he was always in a pretty good situation in terms of taking care of his financial stuff or whatever that it was never like, okay, I have to work for the money. And so he always wanted it to be a special thing

and he would always kind of wait to see how he was sort of being moved by the spirit of music what it would put upon his heart to play. And doing the solo saxophone stuff, the duet stuff, the trio without piano, with, you know, larger group stuff. I mean, it's always been exciting projects. I was listening to a interview with him just driving over here today that was on the radio,

and it was from the 90s, but they had mentioned that he actually stopped performing in 2012. Is that what, okay. He hasn't played out since 2012. Right. But they were talking in the interview with him from the 90s about how he would just periodically just say, you know what, I'm not going to perform right now. I'm not, I need to work on. I have something specific that I want to work on, and I'm not going to perform.

until I feel like that's ready. And that takes a level of honesty and courage that is, I think, very rare. Yes. You know, if you think about someone who, especially when you think about maybe that period, you know, the bridge period that everybody talks about where he practiced for five years, he took a break from performing at the peak of his career. Yeah. He just stopped.

Yep. And because he had something that he wanted to work out. And he just, you know, the legend now goes that he practiced every day or night. on the Williamsburg Bridge until he was ready to go. And then he was talking to Terry Gross on this interview as I was listening to it on the way over here. And he was saying that she asked, like, how did you know when you were ready to come back? Which is a great question, by the way. And he was like, you know, I had something specific I was trying to accomplish.

I didn't feel like I ever quite got there. Like I'd never quite accomplished it. But he's like at a certain point, I just felt like any more of this would be a little self-indulgent. which was such a sunny thing to say and so humble and you know what I mean like he's working it out but he sees this greater purpose that he has and so he went back to it of course that record

the bridge the first record he made me oh it's incredible amazing yeah and I just I'm gonna go seek out that interview because I can just hear him you know what's his voice I'm sorry I'm doing a bad version of it but yeah well happy birthday

sunny Rollins you know I was thinking too Sunny's like that connection, that direct link that we have to our elders in the music. And I don't just mean old people. I mean elders from the sense that like Sunny represents that kind of integrity and, you know, depth in the music that's kind of a beacon for all of us. You know, that whole thing of like if I'm only going to play, if I need to play, I'm going to do what I'm placed on this earth to do. And we always need those, those beacons and those markers, those full.

I mean, and you think about a lot of the ones that we have in the music that had this passion for the music and would do anything for it. We don't have a lot of them anymore. Like, Sunny's still here, you know. Roy Haynes. I mean, we just lost Jimmy Cobb, you know, a few months ago and McCoy Tyner. I mean, these are like legends. These are like just you say their names, you know, and it's sunny. One word.

It's like Prince. You know, Michael. I just think about the musical courage that Sonny Rollins displayed his entire career, just from the way. he played from the way he improvised from the way he just played straight from his heart straight from seemingly you know all of our collective consciousness it's amazing yeah amazing it's very very inspiring it makes me makes me want to be a more honest person honest musician you know what i mean like to really please to really like uh look at yourself and say like even though i have you know this career established, I need this time to work through what's most important to me, which is playing

great music. It's courage that I can't imagine and I'm very envious of. Yeah. Cool. Um, all right. Well, we've got a bunch of folks on here. We wanted to just say, you know, thank you guys so much for joining us on this Monday afternoon, which is our new time. We even thought about, well, it's a big holiday today for our second week, but we, we thought about it, but we never wavered. Did we? Well, we thought about wavering, but we didn't really. We're like, we're going to be here. So we appreciate you guys being here to share this with us. And I saw somebody, Eddie, or E.D. from Alborg, Denmark.

I love Denmark. Every time, you know, I love a lot of places. And I've been fortunate to go as a view, Adam, to some really cool places around the world. But Denmark has such a special place in my heart. I've never even been there. You've vacationed there, not just played, right? Yeah, we did a nice, a beautiful family vacation a couple years ago. in Copenhagen

had a great Airbnb and you know a lot of people like oh my god Denmark's so expensive yeah because it's so great it's so great that's why it's so expensive Did you make it to Noma?

We went to Noma we did not dine to Noma We walked around It was actually closed when we were there Yeah They were in Mexico at the time probably

Well they were in the middle of moving locations And the new location was kind of It wasn't open But we got to go in and see it It's beautiful incredible place We have a friend

who went to Noma though I think Didn't Sean go to Noma? Oh, he might have gone. Of course he went right. Yeah, he did. It seems like something Sean would do. We got at least, oh, we got somebody else from Denmark. Cheers from Denmark.

Mika. Danish, you're all up in this. You know what I'm saying? You know what I was saying? Well, we got a couple questions here on YouTube already. We have actually several questions that we could totally hit. And the first one was from Raphael. And he says, yo, I was wondering if you guys can go over some Joe Henderson stuff.

I'm working on Serenity, and it's a really hard tune. That is a true statement. Yes. And, you know, So, yeah, see, that's as much as... So that chord right there, Joe Henderson, show me this. It's actually A half a minute. I think it's wrong on like a fake book chart or something.

And then A flat, minor, and I can't... Something like that. Nothing too complicated with the melody. So I must be assuming that Raphael's talking about the changes. Yeah. You know? And just how fast some of these, like that thing, right? that that old chestnut.

Yep. So, I don't know, did he say anything about these when you played with Joe when he was talking about this? Did, he didn't say anything except for that, the one core. And I played C minor. And he was like, yeah, I think he just like sat, he's like kind of over at my shoulder at the piano was just like, played that or maybe he said a half diminish.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know if, I want to say that they, on that original recording played it wrong or something. Because there's been several instances where he's like, yeah, just because they played it right. You know, he was such a laid back. I don't think I've ever played it with an A-half-dimensional minister. It's always been a C minor. Yeah, it's definitely, definitely a half-to-man.

But do you think that these, and I'll have to go listen to what was being played on the piano on the original recording, with this like A-flat, major 7-ch-11, is it that kind of, do you think it's that kind of inner urge sound? That sound? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Joe was known for? Yep, I think so. But it leads so nice that an a half-de-minish to that.

a flat minor. On that, that, uh, yeah. It's, yeah. Woo.

Yeah. That's nice little bit. Yep. Yeah, so how would you approach something with all these false cadences and then some like, like that whole step movement. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I think, yeah, those kind of false resolutions or non-resolutions, false cadences, I think it's important. to really like we're always trying to think melodically of course but like as you improvise over this this kind of a tune is to really think about some kind of longer phrases

that can stretch over those chords because you don't want to segment your playing because it just makes it it makes it more obvious that there's not a connection there and really the melody just like the actual melody as you're improvising a melody is the thing that connects it and makes it such a pretty cohesive form you know so you have to just really think melodically and be you know, fearless, like Sonny Rollins, to be able, like Joe Henderson, to play over those chords and to kind of get into some situations that you may not be exactly sure where you're going in reality. Let's break that down a little bit. What does it mean to you to play melodically? I think it's really thinking horizontally instead of vertically. Like no chord running, no scale running,

like really creating melodies. So, I think you have to know the form so well that you're not thinking about the chords at all. Because as soon as you start thinking about where you're playing vertically over each chord, you might play some cool stuff, you might play the chord changes right, and you might kind of luck up on something. But it's not going to be melodic in the truest sense. Like I think one thing you can think about, Raphael, when you try to play over this, is maybe thinking of using themes not based on scale or chord,

but based on rhythm and interval. and trying to overlay that over some good sounding notes over the changes. So instead of like running scales, running chords, scale running, chord running. You might think of like, you know, like really trying to focus on coming up with themes, especially when you practice that stuff. Like, you know, you wouldn't necessarily want to think that hard about it as you're performing. You just want to let it go and play. The point of practicing in that way is to get yourself in that mode where you're like,

okay, I don't want to be, like sometimes it's, I think it's cool to think about what you don't want to do, right? I don't want to be just running scales up and down. As you said horizontally and, you know, as opposed to vertically, like, I don't want to be just like, or just whatever that is, like doing my insert bebop lick here or whatever. You know what I mean? That's where it kind of gets to be a pretty rough situation, I think.

Especially on a tune like this, where it's like that functional harmony doesn't really serve you. Right. Right, right. Yeah, and I think if you see, like, if we take the cue from the melody, oh, well, now you're talking. So, okay, this part, and then this is kind of like the sub-melot, you know, it's really all one phrase. So you got, like, if you take out, like, all the things that are leading to different places, the longer notes.

So that's sort of the shape, and it's stretching out over those whatever four bars. So when we improvise, and if you think about the way that the song, it's constructed too. It's waiting. It's like doing pickups to the next chord. So as opposed to just once you get to the solo, like one, two, three, four. Like where everything's starting on the thing,

you might be like, one, two, three, four. Yeah, like that. Whatever that is, I want to do that. Yeah, if you're waiting and you're delaying. And sometimes even either delaying or anticipating the next chord before you get there. That's the thing. You've got to be fearless about that.

So you're on D half diminished and it's going to G, you know, whatever that is, kind of sharp 9, flat 13. So I'm already kind of playing over that G before I get there. So that's already one way to connect it. Don't be like so robotic where it's like, I'm not at the cord,

that's like I'm not going to play it. That's the quickest way to make your playing vertical. Let's connect this question to a question here from Jeff. It's actually, it's literally the... Oh. We can have nice things, but they don't always stick. I need some packing tape up in this. So Jeff asked something that's kind of along the same lines.

He says, can you guys talk about playing over rapidly changing major seven chords? Started working on steps by Chick-Korea. Turnaround goes A-flat, E, D, B. I can do this okay on this slowed down, but this tune is really fast. So I don't actually know, do you know steps? I don't know steps. But I do know inner urge, and there's a similar situation. Yeah.

It goes through this pattern here. And this actually kind of ties into that Joe Henderson question, too, in that when I'm playing that, I don't want to be doing this. Right. That's the last thing that I want to be doing it. Well, and I think, too, a lot of times, like, you might have some good melodic content in there, but if you do want to do some kind of, you know,

little triad, one, two, three, five kind of things, is use rhythm then to make it more melodic. Because that's the whole thing is, like, the goal is to create melodies over this stuff and not just arpeggiate chords or run up and down scales. So you can use, you know, something like... Oh, you were doing that.

So, like, if you think about it, I don't know, I'm just kind of making stuff up now. But, you know, like, if you're thinking about that end result of that melodic thing, you can actually use some triadic stuff. Just don't play it in a symmetrical way, like a way that's going to lock you in. Yeah, and Jeff, you can find you,

with that leading right off that you can find common tones amongst the triads like if we're doing this you know I can I can kind of lean on a couple of different notes I just lean on looking at your shoes if you keep playing like that too oh I can do that all day but this is a great way I think for me so that I'm I'm out of this like like you know I don't know just doing these like throwing your hands at it in a way that doesn't seem like it's you're actually making music yeah again I'm feeling so inspired by sunny Ronald's today that I just kind of want to play different versions of sunny solos. I know, I know.

I know. And then the other thing is you can take some of these, you know, so you got D half diminished. Yeah. So you might take something that's a little bit unusual, but really commit to playing something nice melodically. So like I would actually think about like a C triad over this, oddly enough. So you've got C triad over that D half diminished, right? And then you go to the G7, you've got a D flat triad.

Because, I mean, what's, what's easier to make, there's nothing easier to make sound melodic than a triad, you know? But what you don't want to do is, well, you know, how gasey do we want to get at our feet? Because we could do. Yeah, okay. No, we don't. No, we could.

I mean, I mean, this is all. But it's like, so. But I'm thinking about big melodic phrases. I'm not thinking like, let me do something on the second and the third and a fourth beat of the first bar, stretching into the second. I'm thinking about like how do I stretch this all the way into the whole next phrase, you know, and you're going to make some so-called mistakes, but the more melodic you get and the more you commit to it, the more you can get away with just like totally, as long as you know

the form, as long as you know the form and you're still playing it with your actual melodic improvisation in your story, you can waver far from that.