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

Episode Date: December 4, 2019

On today's episode, Peter and Adam answer a SpeakPipe on how humor presents itself in jazz music.The ending theme song for today's episode is "Mohe Bhool" by Bombay Bop, sent in by listener Dave Jago. You can check out the full track at their SoundCloud here: https://soundcloud.com/user-148266380. To get your music featured on You'll Hear It, send an MP3 recording of your music to [e-mail]'s a new drum course from Open Studio - Hutch's Groove Encyclopedia | Vol.1: Brushes. Learn from brush master Gregory Hutchinson on how to play 5 essential brush grooves, including swing, up-tempo, and ballads. You can even practice alongside Hutch with his Guided Practice Sessions! For more info, go to https://openstudiojazz.link/hge.This episode of You'll Hear It is sponsored by Anytune. If you want to improve your jazz playing and transcription skills, Anytune is the #1 tool you need. Just load any track you want into the app, and Anytune allows you to change the speed, loop sections, change the pitch to a different key, and so much more. For more information, go to https://anytune.us/youllhearit/Want every Open Studio course for free? That's right - over 300 hours and 1200 lessons can be yours with free lifetime access! All you have to do is enter Open Studio's 2019 Holiday Giveaway. Go to https://learn.openstudiojazz.com/giveaway/, or watch this video of Peter for more info: https://youtu.be/KsdhVXE5ovILike those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! And if you sign up for Premium, you'll get a discount on all YHI merch. Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.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, Adam. Yeah. You think I'm a funny guy? Like funny looking or funny ha ha? Are you laughing happy or you're laughing with me? Both. Okay. I'm Adam Anus.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily music advice coming at you. Coming at you today, sponsored by AnyTune. You know, I don't know about you, Peter, but I've really been enjoying using AnyTune over the past few months. And we've already heard from several listeners that it's a remarkable tool. And it is.

It is. Yeah. And I felt like we were almost in danger of beating a dead horse here until we kept listening. I mean, hearing for people that didn't not only didn't know about this app, but didn't even know that this technology was available in the palm of their hands. But I understand that because I remember, you know, not that many years ago as talking about, even with like some engineers, like what would the computer power, you know, be, what would make this possible to do something? They're like, it's a lot of program. It's a lot of power. and the fact that it can do what it can do now

just with your phone is truly amazing and mind-blown. But the problem is we have all these mind-blown things happening all the time so we don't appreciate the little things that are actually a huge thing if you're a serious musician that wants to get better. This is probably the biggest technological game-changing tool that exists at this time. Agreed. Go to anytune.org slash you'll hear it to check it out for yourself. It really is an incredible tool. Yeah, just a little reminder that teachers,

All teachers at any level, I believe. You can see details at that, at the link you just gave. But they can get Enetune Pro Plus for free, which is a super cool thing that the AnyTune folks are doing. So if you are a teacher, the AnyTune folks realize the transformative power and what it can do in the right hand. So it's very nice of them that they've made it available for free.

So check that out. And it is Wednesday. Happy Wednesday. Happy Wednesday. Update. I got to pay my, it is humpday. I'm going to pay my parking, man. Are you going to do that right now?

They're vultures out there. They're tough. Big shout out to the St. Louis City parking department, not. Man. Can I, I, I'll do a rant while you're doing that. Yeah, I got some too. Okay. Save me some.

Yeah, yeah. I know, I mean, we love the city of St. Louis. And actually, nothing against the parking people in particular. They're actually very fair and efficient. I got nothing, no problem with that. But they have these jack-leg rule. The great Johnny Griffin, who I got a chance to be around, I'm so blessed and happy for a little while and play with amazing saxophonist.

But, you know, Johnny used the term jackleg a lot, which is an old school term. I love that. He never had to define it. I learned it, you know, jackleg. But they have these jackleg rules like, you can park there all day, but you have to renew it every two hours. Exactly like you just did it two hours. Yeah, and they will come get you. Yeah, there's a little lurk goes out.

You can do it by the app, though. That's nice. It is nice, but I owe them, I'm in the hole about 40 bucks this month. You know what I'm saying? It is jack leg. All right. So today we have a speak pipe. Speak pipe.

Let's check it out. Speak pipe is back on. It's online. Go to you'll hear.com and leave us your message. Limited time only though. Yeah. Hello, Peter and Adam. Adam and Peter.

This is Philippe from South Mexico, Costa de Oaxaca. And I enjoy so much your podcast for the last humans a few months. It's a big help. It's a gem for me. I like to ask you about humor in the music, since we make often the analogy with language, and I'm grasping now what that means. And when you start to know language and really well,

and you get the humor of it, then you know you are really getting into the fibers in the greens of that language, you know, and even the music of that language. So I know myself, like I play in the street clarinet, and often people ask to be played, So I like to use humor and it's so many ways. I mean, it can be very subtle and I can give an example like maybe I played wrong notes.

That's an obvious one, but people obviously they know it's wrong and I can show my vulnerable side of it and people will laugh about it, which is really, it's a big release doing that. But there is so many ways DZGyGylypsy was really good at it. And so if you have example or feedback, so it resonates to you, thanks. Thank you so much. Thank you, Philipp. That's a great question. I don't think we've ever even come close to talking about this on the podcast, but it's a legit subject.

It is. I mean, this is one of our best questions ever, both in the delivery, the beautiful accent. I'm imagining, as it's cold and raining here, I'm thinking about South Mexico. I was going to say, can you spell Oaxaca? Oaxaca. I can bear it. I wrote it out phonetically. It starts with an X.

I'll tell you that much. I figured it might have. They got like Zawait-Nay. They got a lot of X's down, though. For sure. They say them differently than us. But yeah, thank you, Philipp. This is such an interesting and insightful question.

And obviously, you are a master of language. The fact that, I mean, you're speaking in English, which I can tell is not your original language, and you talk about the greens and the fibers. I'm not even sure if Spanish is the original language, though. Philippe, and he has a bit of a French accent, maybe? And then he's got some jazz language going, so it's great, nice, nice. Well, I think, let me just start from one of the last things that you said, because I think humor in the music, you mentioned Dizzy Glassbeat.

Yeah. And did you ever see Dizzy live? Did you get a chance to him? I did not. Okay. Yeah, I would have been right off. Yeah, I was fairly young when he, but I got a chance to see him a couple times. I did see Clark Terry, who also used humor in the music. Absolutely.

Yeah. But the thing with Dizzy is Dizzy was a really funny human. So, you know, and then he was a great musician and a great artist. So the fact that humor came out in an organic way is almost to be expected, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I think that that's, we can't all be dizzy as far as humor in the music. And because you're not, you know, that's one in a million just music anyway. And humor is just part of it.

But I think that you will see that, you know, the artistry and what's great about jazz music is like what comes out is almost directly proportionate, I believe, with the level of like, you know, artistry and ability to execute on. your instrument and within the art form to what, you know, the higher level you get, the more of you comes out. So like yesterday, we're talking about storytelling and all these things. You know, everybody has a story, but not everybody knows how to get it into their trumpet or into their piano or into a composition or whatever. So the fact that I'm going sauls, I'm inspired by Philippe, possibly being a Frenchmaul, I'm going saul's headphones.

No, but, you know, Disney got to be around him just a little bit, but more even just hearing stories from others and, like, seeing pictures and like, He was just a funny, funny, smart guy. He also was in this incredible trumpet player. And because, maybe, to your point yesterday, about confidence and courage, he did not feel like, oh, now I'm playing serious music. I have to act differently. He was himself all the time. That's right.

And so that came out. That's the way to do it, though. For sure. Just be like Dizzy. Be yourself. You'll hear it. If you're Miles Davis and you're a very serious person, you know, there's not like a ton of humor in Miles is playing, but he wasn't him. Right.

But folks like, Dizzy, Clark Terry was hilarious. Oh, yeah. You know, there's a ton of funny, there's a long history of funny musicians in this music for sure. There's some people in this music right now, they're claiming to be funny that are not, well, we won't get into that. We will not get into that today. That's not a part of the league. Next week, maybe. But, you know, I'm thinking about the second show I ever saw.

Yeah. It was the first show I saw at Jazz St. Louis here when they moved down to Grand Center, which is right across the alley from where we are now. And your boy, Greg Hutchinson was in this band. And he is, he's funny. Greg is a funny individual as well. I was talking about a smart, funny guy. Yeah. And I remember he was trading for.

It was second set towards the end of the night. So the crowd was super loose. It was packed. I forget who the headliner was. I might have been Nicholas Payton or someone like that. But Hutch is trading fours. And at one point, and I know you've probably seen him do this before, he just fell into his drunk camp.

Like he just fell forward and just, and got out. And the whole place erupted in laughter. And that was like a lightball moment for me, especially then like talking to him a little bit afterwards and hanging and realizing that's just who he is. It's like someone who's kind of going to clown on you if you are playing a four that he's not like you know feeling or whatever but like that

kind of energy changed the game for me as far as being yourself and and you know adding who you are it doesn't have to be like i were playing this heavy art music changer huh never heard you say that before buddy yes that should be a coupon code a game changer with hyphen um yeah i think that so is there probably an element for all these individuals in humor the music also of not taking yourself so seriously, like what you're talking about with Hutch. Yeah, and I think, you know, really the brilliant point of Philippe's question is that he framed this within the context of the music is language, which it is. And I always talk about this with students, too, like, you know, when you're doing it right,

the music contains everything that it would contain when you're having a great conversation. There's cliches, there's insightful commentary, there's jokes, you know, there are size and everything that we use in our spoken language can be applied here. And I mean, I love, especially because the music we play when we improvise with other musicians, you know, we're like, we're having a conversation with them. Yeah. So like, you know, I play every Thursday with Bob and Montez-Colman.

And Montez is a funny dude too. Yeah. And so we sometimes... The drummer thing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There might be.

The drummers are fun to hang out with. But, you know, Montez and I will have, we have running jokes on the bandstand that happen, you know, on the regular. Musical running jokes that are hard to explain. Those are fun. Those are really fun. And then there can be things like clichés and satire, all within the context of playing. Yeah. So I'm wondering just as an overall thing with humor in music, if it isn't not unlike in life, like, the right amount of humor is, I mean, they've shown that, you know, laughter can improve your health and, you know, friendships and all

these different kind of things like humor is such a bridge between people you know sometimes even a bridge between cultures when you find out i mean you know from the very bottom level of like a fart sound a little kid or an adult laughing at that that's kind of a universal there's a universe that i mean we can be funnier than that like we can be funnier than that but that's always funny too it always works it always works but there's a connection between that but like anything too much and i think within the context of a solo or you know the language of improvised jazz, too much humor

can be, just like with the conversation, it's got to be the right of mind. There has to be the meat and the bones, but how do you put it all together? Well, there can definitely be corny humor, and that's always terrible.

Shabababab. But you know, there can be, there can be a corny sense of self-importance. Like, you can be corny and be trying to be serious, too. And that is also

up for grabs for. That could be funny, but that's more laughing at them. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, than participating. I mean, it's just like in real life. Like, I can just tell pun dad jokes all day.

That's right. You know, I know you can. But that doesn't necessarily... You thought you're laughing with you? Comedic genius level. Do you know what I'm saying? That's right. But also, I think within the music,

not actually exactly the same as with life too, the more we can be ourselves, the better. Although, I think, like, I mean, like a comedian, that's where it gets challenging because they have to kind of be funny

the whole time. But if you notice, like, the really high-level comedians, they put in a fair amount of serious stuff in there. It gets dark, for sure. Yeah, yeah. and then all different levels

but then also like great actors that like Robert De Niro is hilarious he's not really known as a comedian but whenever he, it's even funnier when he throw something in so like you could have a player like you mentioned Miles Davis maybe he's more perceived or even his style is more serious but then when he puts a little humor in

it's very impactful very impactful don't be the hack comedian is the key right you know like someone who is just does an entire solo full of quoting other tunes and then maybe throws the lick in and then winks to To everybody as he throws the lick in, you know what I mean? No, Bueno.

No, Bueno. Even in an O'Haka? Wahaka. Wahaka. So you're really going with a straight W sign on that X. Huahaka. You're hocking up something when you said that. My Mexican accent is, first of all, my Spanish is atrocious, but any kind of Mexican

flare on it is going to be terrible. No, no bueno. to your Mexican accent. Or mine. Well, cool. Well, that was an awesome question. Thank you, Philipp. Now I'm feeling better.

We were a little bit fearful about opening, not fearful, but opening the floodgates of the speak pipe, but we're just doing it for a couple weeks, and now I'm really excited because I remember how many great things that we get from people. And so you can go to you'll hearat.com for a limited time only and get that speak pipe in there. Normally, we reserve that just for our premium members, but that's for you. And if you want to become a premium member, I think, are we going to open that back up? We close it. We're not. We're closing it for the time. But we just gave them that cool PDF and the- Oh, we're still going to give our premium member stuff. It's just not, it's just not open for enrollment currently. It's not currently open for enrollment. That's

funny. No, it's not. See, some things aren't funny. That was funny. That whole exchange is funny. Yeah, yeah. No, but I mean, you know, we're big believers in funny things. So we just had all these big sales and stuff, so we're not really promoting anything open studio-wise right now.

Can I promote myself a little bit? Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. No, okay. Oh, no, but we do have, I mean, by the time they hear this, the new courses will be out, won't they? Art of Swing. Yeah, Art of Swing is out and Hutch's Groove Encyclopedia.

Now, we haven't talked about that, but this is... There is some humor in that. Oh, my gosh. Everything Hutch does is kind of funny. I know. Kind of funny how you'll never be able to be as good as him. It's Volume 1 brushes. Gregory Hutchinson teaches you like five essential grooves on the brushes.

If you're a drummer, this is like a starting level course. It's very affordable and it's like amazing, amazing, amazing to watch Hutch explain these different grooves on the brushes. He's truly a master with the brushes. Learn from Kenny Washington, the man himself. And then also, you know, there gives up the props to Kenny. Oh, for sure. I mean, I'm like, you know. I know.

I know. But he ends the course with five guided practice sessions where you can practice this stuff with Hutch himself. That alone is worth what it costs, which is not that much. So go check out. No, and you remember, I think, as I'm recalling, Hutch is the point like when we proposed, you know, because we were like, we're getting so much great feedback

on the guided practice sessions, GPF. And so he was kind of like, wait, so after I teach it, they're just going to go practice it, right? And like, well, that's how we used to do it. It took a minute. It took a minute to explain it. We said, now you're going to practice with him. But he was still kind of like maybe he was messing with us.

He's like, do I got to go to all their house? Was this a Skype thing? No, but yeah, Hutch, if you ever wanted to practice with Hutch, and we get a lot of messages around here asking for that, this is for you. And, you know, Greg is such a great combination of funny and dogmatic. That's what it really is. He's highly dogmatic about the brushes because he really understands the right way to play them. So this is truly foundational.

No, this is the right dude to learn this stuff. Yeah, I mean, like, this is really how you're going to get the O.G. Like, you'll build your own thing, and he talks about that. But, like, this is how you get it the correct way. He is very confident in explaining that to you. and, you know, giving you exact angles and, like, this is how you hold and this is, you know. But then he's super funny about it, too.

I know, that's great. I mean, it's called Hutch's Groove Encyclopedia, Volume 1, brushes. Look for volume 2, which we don't know what it is. Sticks, maybe. Or blastics. Mallets. It'll be some other hutch technique that's strictly hutch. Yeah, and that really came out of what we told him,

and he agreed because he's like, how am I going to do a whole thing on Brut? We're like, don't worry, you'll do it. And he did, so. Awesome. And it's a good one to go back. I've already heard from some advanced rumors that were like, I just wanted to check it out

and they watched the sample lesson and they were like, oh no, I need to go back and brush up on some of these techniques. Oh, my gosh. Speaking of dad jokes. That is not funny.

That is... Well, you'll hear it. You'll hear it. Before we go, though, we're going out on a listener tune. This is Mohe Boole by Bombay Bop. Send your tunes. You want played at the end

of the you'll hear it podcast to Andrew at OpenStudio Network.com. Until next time, you'll hear it.