You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Hymns and Her's

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

This first-take friday features an album by Hank Jones and Charlie Haden called "Steal Away (Spirtuals, Hymns, and Folk Songs)". Check out the album here!Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey Peter. Hey. You know what that sound means? Beautiful sounds to my ears. And? That's Hank Jones. And? Charlie Hayden.

And. That's all I hear. It's first take Friday. Oh, first take Friday. Yeah. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast.

Jazz. Explained and listened to. That was it? I don't know. I mean, it's first take Friday. We're not explaining. We're trying to have the music explain it. We are letting the music explain it.

We thought, you know, You know, we like to listen to new stuff. Sometimes we like to listen to old stuff. This is an older record for First Take Friday, but I think this is your first time hearing this record. Am I right? Yeah, well, no, I heard you playing it once before, but it's still very new to me because I was super recently.

Yeah. I didn't hear the whole track. Well, I'm just discovering it. Like, I'm actually just discovering a lot of Hank Jones catalog on the advice of some of our dear listeners and also from Jeffrey Kieser, who's a huge fan. Yes. And guiding me and some of this, too.

But, man, this steal away. So this is, today we're going to listen to maybe one track. Let's listen to one track, the first track, the first take. Okay. From, this is a duo album, piano and bass. And we get asked about this combination a bit. It's a great combination. It's a great combination.

Hank Jones and Charlie Hayden. Well, it's a great combination when it's Hank Jones. Would that be something you might be interested in? Yes. Yes. I mean, these are two masters. Now, this was 1995. So these are two, we'll call them seasoned masters at this point as well.

And they decided to make an album of his. Hymns. It's listed as... Hems and hers. Nope. It's called Steal Away, and the subtitle is spirituals, hymns, and folks.

Oh, H-Y-M-N-S. That's right, that's right. And there are some just absolutely gorgeous duo performances by both musicians, and this has been playing non-stop in my house. So my new place,

we have a working fireplace, which is something I've always wanted. Wood-burning. Wood-burning, which is very expensive, by the way, people getting wood. But anyway, I'm... A tough on the environment, too, I'm just saying.

Is it really? Oh, shoot. Well, I've been doing it pretty much every morning when the weather's cold. I start a fire. I'll put some French roast coffee on, French press coffee on, and then I will listen to this album

as I sort of start my day. This is total French press woodburning type of sounds. I got it. Like, you said that? Okay, that makes sense. No, yeah. It's unbelievable.

So let's listen to... I assume you do this at like four in the morning before your kids are awake to kill the vibe. It's at 6 a.m. It's a 6 a.m. Before they're awake. As soon as everything starts getting up, I turn just on complete chaos,

like a lot of stockhausen, you know. Get them in the mood for the day. That's right. So, but this is the first track. It's a beautiful hymn called, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. And it's a religious number.

And they're all religious numbers, and they're all just complete stunners. Here is. Yeah. What else do you want? So beautiful. You know? So beautiful.

It's gorgeous. And every track on here is like this simple, beautiful tune with these simple, beautiful beautiful melodies that these two great melodic and harmonic masters just take through the paces, just like what you heard, all these little things that are happening around the melody, these beautiful little arrangement touches. I think that's what Hank Jones's genius was as a piano, as a pianist, was like these on-the-fly arranging techniques, right? just taking little things, you know, even if it's just like, you know,

little approaches to the one, little delays of the five, all these little brilliant things that happens are unbelievable. We've been working over in the daily guide of practice session at the Monday Masters Club. We also, we transcribed one of the intros and heads to Danny Boy from this record.

And I realized that's the track. I did a YouTube video on that intro. Yeah, and I've heard that track. That's the only one I'd actually heard before was from this album. Like listen to this intro real quick. This is what I'm talking about. These little techniques.

Super simple, right? Like all things Hank Jones, you're like, oh, that's just a little like... Yeah. And then you get into it and you're like, oh, okay, well, now he's setting up the four. And then... He's backing himself in all sorts of corners. He's bashing up in all sorts of... Oh, and then he's going like 5-1 on the 5?

What the hell is going on? Like, it's just creating all of this beautiful, lovely tension, you know. It's so great. And I mean, I think that the track we... We just listen to, and certainly Danny Boy, and just a lot of Hank's playing. It's really kind of a simple concept of simple elegance, obviously that comes across in his playing, but then upon further notice and analysis, there's a huge amount of, like, complexity and science kind of behind it, 100%.

But it's almost shocking because when you hear it, it's so accessible. Yeah, you think like, oh, this is simple and easy. But does, I mean, isn't that the template for any great art? You know what I mean? Make something complex sound simple. Yep. You know, I mean, that's the bottom line. And the piano's already a complex machine as it is.

So you've got, you know, from a technical sound point, from a sound standpoint, his touch, he does such a great job with that. But then these harmonic devices, the arrangement as you alluded to. His little arranging things, he's got like four hands on the piano, seemingly, you know. And then he's like, even as Charlie Hayden was kind of getting into some of his busiest, which he never got super busy, but what a busy is playing. Oh, incredible. I mean, Hank Jones was basically playing stride for a little while

underneath that and not clashing but not bashful about jumping right in that same range and playing some really thick and interesting stuff. Big years. It's a mark of a master where you think where on your first listen you're like, oh, I could probably do that. And then when you go to like transcribe it,

you're like, what? How do you think to play this in the moment? You know what I mean? That's incredible thing. So this was recorded. I was just looking up in 94. And I came out in 95 as you. said and I was thinking back the first time I heard Hank Jones live was in 91 oh so you were there

right around this yes and then but it was so impactful on me like that it's one of my closest memories most sort of accurate like just happened yes like I can still remember what it felt like and it was in Sicily on the island of Sicily at this beautiful jazz festival wonder you can still remember well that was nice too but I mean yeah but I just remember his sound Like, and every time I hear him, especially on stuff that I haven't heard, which is a lot, I'm like far from a Hank Jones. I'm a huge Hank Jones fan club member, but I'm not the president of the fan club. I don't know his stuff. And this is really inspiring me to go back and perhaps look into a Spotify playlist of Hank Jones exclusively because there's just nothing.

I have never, I've never, there's none of his tracks that I've ever heard and been like, that was, that's good. It's Hank, but it's not really like, he's very consistent. or bangers, as we would say. Absolutely. Coming out of his oeuvre. Out of his... Out of his... Okay. Peter's...

He's malfunctioning now at this point. It's getting late here, man. It is getting late. So, uh, we'll go out here on the rest of this, Danny Boy. Thank you, Peter, and thank you, Hank Jones and John Hayden. Thanks, Adam Farrow. Check it out. Check out.

First take Friday. You go. I mean, just play the right note. It's my new fave. Yeah. You got to play the whole thing, though. People got to get the context. Not stupid.

Jazz is. stupid. I mean, now I feel bad playing the Hank Jones. Why did you press that? That was like the antithesis. That's Dwight and Angela. That's Dwight and Angela for me all. They obviously haven't heard Hank Jones and Charlie Hayden. No, but this...

And to... To their point, though, this really isn't jazz. I mean, this is like straight up melody. This is not stupid jazz, that's for sure. No, for real. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Peter. Thanks. Peace. You'll hear it.