You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Humor in Jazz

Episode Date: June 20, 2019

Is humor okay in jazz? Peter and Adam answers this today. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.Special offer for our You'll Hear It listeners: For $129, you can get both Jazz Piano for Beginners and Elements of Jazz Piano ($320 Value). Just add both courses to your cart, and apply promo code "BOGO" to get this deal. Visit https://www.openstudionetwork.com/courses/Be one of the first 20 people to leave us a rating or review at https://www.youllhearit.com/sticker and you can score a FREE You'll Hear It sticker.Today's episode is sponsored by Soundslice. Soundslice is a web-based music-learning software that is a hybrid audio player and notation viewer that syncs music notation with real audio. To find out more about them, visit www.soundslice.com/transcribe. And check out our Slice of Emotion In Motion (the You'll Hear It Jingle)!Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Pete. Hey, man. Do you think my playing's like funny ha-ha or funny? Like funny, are you laughing at me or are you laughing with me? Yeah. Yeah. I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to The You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz advice and occasional humor coming at you. Occasional. Very occasional. Well, remember, that was in our original moniker. Yeah. The original slogan for the Jazz, for the Jazz podcast, the You'll Hear a podcast, was occasional humor. We didn't want to oversell it, but we wanted to be honest. Yeah, I love some humor, obviously.

Yeah. I'm with you. Do you spell humor H-U-M-O-R or as the Brits do, H-U-M-O-U-R? I'm American, buddy. American. Nice. So today's episode is sponsored by SoundSlice. Go to soundslice.

Go to soundslice.com slash transcribe to check out this amazing transcribing tool. We use it every day here. It really is incredible. Her day. And check out their awesome community, too. You can look at other people's transcriptions. It's just a great jazz resource. It's founded by a jazz musician.

go check it out support yeah so if you i'm just looking at i always like to check in if you go to soundslice.com slash community you'll see you know featured slices they call them which are little tidbits or they could even be longer there's like a wilton feldder solo you know him that good young guitarist sure sure and um there's some george benson they definitely always is you know because adrian is a guitarist who's the founder and uh the brains and brawn behind soundslice always some great guitar stuff, but there's great piano stuff, really all different instruments. We're on there, too. We're on there.

We have the theme to this podcast up on there. So if you want to check out a motion and motion by Mr. Peter Martin here, go to SoundSlicse.com and check it out. We also have, I was just trying to remember, we have something like, I think we have the Freddie Fuehler solo up. Is that possible? I know we put that in SoundSlic at one point. You're not helping me out on this one, buddy?

I think it is up there. I think it's, I'm trying to remember if it's on Open Studio. It's definitely on our blog. You can go to you'll hear it.com to see, but I'm trying to remember if it's on sounds. I think it is on sound slice. Oh, yeah. If it's not, it will be.

Right. Oh, this was when I was really excited. Somebody put, somebody named Sean Nuff, Sean Nuff, put up the baseline that Ron Carter plays on a kind of a, not a rare record, but not a record that people know Ron is on. Winton Marsalis' 1981 debut on Columbia Records.

And it's like a rhythm change. It's called Hesitation. Right. With Herbie and Tony. With Herbie and Tony. I love, I've always, I actually transcribed that Ron Carter's solo many, many moons ago, but it's kind of cool.

They put that on there, and it's, like, synced up with the audio. So, sorry, man, I'm a little distracted. I got to admit, I mean. Oh, this. Okay. There's bourbon on the table. Yeah, we, this is our newest sponsor. Old Forrest.

It is not a sponsor. Sorry. Yeah, but because we're recording this so late today. We usually record in the morning. We should tell people. And so we're recording it deep in the evening. The sun is going down somewhere. It's not that deep at the evening.

Are we going to do a little tasting, too, as we go? Let's do it. All right. So why don't you, we have a listener question today, right? We do. Let's check it out. This is from Simon. And I'll pour as you listen.

Thank you. Hello, Adam and Peter. Simon Whiteside here, calling from London or Whitey from Blighty if you prefer. What do you think about humor in jazz? Do you think it's disrespectful? Or is there a place for joy, lightheartedness, and fun in jazz? No. I'm often amused by quotes in Dexter Gordon's solos, for example.

and early jazz is often quite light and bubbly. Be interested to know your opinion. Love the podcast, watch it daily. Great jazz advice. Thanks for doing it. Bye bye-bye now. Simon, you're the best, man. Yeah, man.

Thank you, Whitey from Blighty. That's amazing. Yeah. First of all, we're going to send one out for Old Forrester here. But I'm a little bit offended, though, that Simon didn't, Whitey from Blighty. He didn't realize that, well, I thought we were doing humor every day in between the jazz. You said he didn't mention us? The advice.

Well, he was just kind of like, you know, is jazz, is humor okay in jazz? So he hasn't noticed the humor we've been doing? I mean, all the time, right? Okay. You know what? Humor is very much okay in jazz. And it has been a part of the tradition of this music. Like you said, from the beginning, definitely has gotten away a little bit with some players,

although some modern players are very funny when they play. Yeah. And I actually love, I mean, here's the thing. When you're playing jazz right, especially live, and you're interacting with the other musicians on stage, for me, like, I'm friends with some funny people, right? So like, Montez cracks me up. Yeah.

On purpose, on stage, musically and off the music. You know what I'm saying? So it usually happens. I've seen you and Hutch do hilarious, hilarious things together. Right. And it sounds great and are appropriate for what's going on, but it's part of the personality of the musicians who are bringing the music to the stage.

Yeah. Absolutely. I think that Yeah, there absolutely is a place how far you take it and the appropriateness of it is you know, really subject to the environment what the flow of the set is. The flow of the evening, the audience. You know, I think something important is that, you know,

we always invite, if we do get into some humorous, either overtly humorous things on stage or even, you know, more subtle things that I think it's important to invite the audience to be part of that. Absolutely. What I'm not crazy about is the kind of inside joke stuff. I mean, that's not cool.

No. I mean, it's okay. But if it's noticeable, the audience, but they're not invited to be part of it, I think it's a little bit off-putting. Yeah. Yeah, and you don't want it to get too cutesy

with each other either, and it becomes all about that because then that just becomes all about you. Yeah. And not the music, right? But there's place for humor in the music and the compositions and the tune selection and the set list even.

You know, I can mess around with an audience's head and make them laugh from the first few bars of a tune because of what it followed. You know what I mean? Right. That kind of thing, I think, is more than appropriate.

It's part of art. It's part of doing what we're doing, you know. Yeah. And I love, you know, talking on the mic and making jokes or whatever and then moving right into some very, you know, serious musical explorations. And I think that that can be appropriate. It's just kind of how you set it up. That can be inviting to the audience in that, okay, this is a relaxed thing.

It's not, it shouldn't become like a comedy show. but, you know, to put smile on people's faces, to give them a little bit of a break in between some, some, you know, music that takes a little bit of attention. It's almost like a great meal in which there's some little lighter things in between. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like the pacing of it. Now, what you want to be careful is you don't necessarily want to have, like,

you know, do it like this really hilarious comedy routine and then go straight into like, you know, Alabama by John Colchamber's about a very serious subject. Right, right, right. It has to be appropriately laid out. But I think that it's, I love doing that because it's also. You're good at it, man. You're funny. Oh, thanks.

Yeah. Like funny ha-ha or funny you're laughing at me. We'll talk about it. But, I mean, there was such a great tradition. This kind of got lost. I almost brought it back a few years ago. But the actual opening act, comedy opening act before jazz show, that was quite popular up until I believe like the late 60s or so.

I remember my dad talking about that. He's like, yeah, they'd always have a comedian duo. I mean, for big shows. It gets people loose. Yeah, I mean, the Village Vanguard, they used to, was it like Bill Cosby was doing, sorry. It's on the marvelous Mrs. Maisel, that show,

she's a comic and she plays at the Village Vanguard before. Really? Yeah. Oh, I haven't seen that yet. Yeah. I had no interest until you mentioned that the, is it the actual Village Vanguard? I think it is.

Wow, that's cool. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And who was it? Kevin Spacey. I've hung out with him at the Village Vanguard, a couple times because he grew up in that neighborhood.

Look out now. And he, bam, did I just drop that famous actor's name? Kevin Spacey or not Kevin, not Kevin Spacey. Oh, no, not Kevin Spacey. I'm sorry. Ooh, that was a big difference. Kevin Spacey, I did a gig with Kevin Spacey. No way.

Yes, I did. He's a pretty good singer, actually. He's funny. He's a, no, no, I mean, he can kind of sing because he played Bobby Darren in the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we did kind of like a private gig, him and Diane Reeves just, just, and just piano accompaniment. They did a duo.

He kind of held himself up pretty well. Okay. He wanted to do like four rehearsals because he was super nervous. Sure. But no, not Kevin Spacey. Who's the guy from, who was Robert, California on the office? Oh, yeah. What's that guy?

Why would I be confusing him with? Oh, man, this is horrible. James Spader. James Spader. Why would I confuse him with Kevin Spacey? It's the Spay. Okay, it's the Spay. Yeah.

James Spader grew up in that neighborhood right by the Vanguard and went there a bunch as a teenager and still goes. He loves jazz. He loves going there. And he talks about the comedians that used to. And speaking. of actors, jazz musicians that are quite funny, Jeff Goldblum. Okay. And maybe not.

I thought, well, we enjoy laughing at him. I don't know, is that the same? No, no, no. I mean, think about how many funny jazz musicians you know, though, right? There's a ton of funny guys. That's true. And, I mean, like, throughout, you hear these stories. And think about, too, some compositions in the pantheon of jazz, right?

Like, I'm thinking of some Mingus moments in Mingus compositions, who can get very serious in his compositions, but had moments of humor. Of course, Monk, has moments of humor. Clark Terry. Dexter Gordon, as Whitey from Blighty referenced. I mean, it's a part of it. Yeah, absolutely. It's part of it.

So answer, yes. Yeah. Is humor allowed in jazz? I'm so glad that we're this funny. Apparently humor's not allowed on this podcast, though. Yeah, thanks, Simon. Great question and hope that helps answer. I mean, you be you, Simon.

You sound funny. Yeah. Oh, man, total dry wind. I love it, man. Put that in your playing. It's awesome. Yep. And then, yeah, so we still have our deal going on for Open Studio for a nice you'll hear at Listers.

That's right. Just for the rest of this week, though. Bogo. Bogo. We've been told from the higher ups back there that this will not go beyond Sunday because it is a very good deal. But we're excited to have it. And it is jazz piano for beginners.

Yes. It's lifetime access. Yes. To both jazz piano for beginners and elements of jazz piano. Yes, our beginner and our intermediate jazz piano courses. Right. And they kind of work together in that they flow from one to the other. They both include.

online downloadable full workbooks like several hundreds of pages of workbook beautiful workbooks practice routines practice routines full sound slice transcriptions online access of course downloads of audio files so you can listen on the go

and lifetime access which is cool so we want you to go through these courses in a matter of months but you can take a lifetime no problem no absolutely take your time that's the beauty about the courses so you can buy jazz piano for beginners for $129 enter Bogo B OGO and you get elements of jazz piano absolutely free. That's right. And that's like a 300 and something dollar

total value. So it's a nice little deal. So we are happy to extend it to our you'll hear it listeners. Yeah, that's right. Thanks again to SoundSlice. Go to check out soundslice.com slash transcribed. Yeah. And you can check out their awesome transcription tool. We use it every day. Thanks, Adrian, for hooking up the podcast here with the sponsorship. And today we have an ultimate joke at the end of today's episode, which we're almost at. Damn it. Because we're talking about humor and jazz.

You want me to tell it? You want to tell it? It's going to tell it. Go ahead. Go for it. Okay. So the vocalist tells the pianist. I want to do a...

No, no, no. The pianist tells the vocalist. This is good already. I have another sip. It gets better. The more you drink, the better my jokes are. So the vocalist... The pianist tells the vocalist.

I've got a great idea for a new arrangement on Misty. And the vocalist, he says, back to the pianist. Oh, really? Let's hear it. So the pianist says, we're going to start in B-flap major for two bars, 4-4 of the melody. Then the next bar, we're going to go into 7-8 calypso-feel. Then the fourth bar, we're going to go into 2-4.

Then the fifth bar, we're going to go to a waltz, but we're going to move it up to D-flat major for just half the bar. The vocal says, hold on, hold on a second. This is nowhere I can keep up with this. It's too confusing. I could never sing that. And the piano says, really? That's the way you did it last night. Oh, you'll hear it.