You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Is Jazz Bad?

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

Adam and Peter talk about famous actor Fred Armisen's hot take on jazz. 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, are you a fan of jazz? I, dude, I am jazz's biggest fan, I think. Are you sure it's just a role you're, it's not just a role you're playing? Oh, wow, I don't know where you're going with this, but no, I think I'm... I'm not a fan of jazz. What? What?

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Jazz, fan explains. We are fans of jazz. I feel a little defensive now. I want to just give a shout out to our old buddies at Jazz. Friads memes, Fred of the show, jazz memes, who, uh, hit the world to this clip of Fred

Armisen. I said, I don't know this. So I'm not in the world. I am otherworldly, apparently. This is very funny. How do I not know this? You know, Fred is, Fred Armisen. He's actually a musician.

He's a drummer. A good musician. He's a good musician. He's been in some punk rock bands. He actually, I think he was the music director for Seth Myers' late night show. Right. When it was on Instagram only, though, right? Or something.

Obviously, a former SNL cast member. One of my favorite S&L cast covers. A great comedian, a good musician. Portlandia, one of my favorite shows. Is that actor? You hear what I'm doing there. Is that being fair? What'd you say?

Great comedian, great actor, good musician. As I recall. Yeah. Is that correct? I feel like, well, he's famous for being a comedian. Right. More than anything. But he, this is from a show he was doing in Kansas City, right down the road.

And look, just to just to let everybody know, This is a very honest reaction. Like, you started playing this for me right before. I was like, hold on, hold on. I wanted to add it to our arsenal. You know, we have our. And we have, of course, the class.

What do you call it? And then, Celebrity quips. And then, so I wanted to add this one. I'm not a fan of jazz. It's so great the way he says that. It is really great. Well, and I thought it could be very applicable

to a lot of what we do around here. Right. But the entire clip, it's only a minute in 41. I thought maybe we could just listen to the whole thing. Is this an audio or video clip? What's happening? It's a video.

It's on YouTube. I can't see it. We'll put a link here to it. Okay. And so that our listening can check out. He's hilarious and it is funny. And he actually has a ton of other, like, funny musician bits that he does. Yeah.

About being a musician and little, there's one he did on Conan about different ways that guitarists do things. It's hilarious. But we can talk about those later. This is about what we care about. So that's all we care about. If we can't laugh at ourselves, we won't be allowed to laugh at other people. I mean, we know we love to do that. What's mildly infaring about this.

is how accurate it actually is. Well, I'll be the judge. So here it is. I'm not a fan of jazz, and I don't think anyone in this room is a fan of jazz. I don't think anyone really likes it. It's a role we all play. We all, we act like it's part of our lives.

But my problem with jazz is that it sounds like itself. Okay, let's just pause around now. And I hear it. All right, let's break this down so far. Okay. So he's definitely. Right. Well, he's hit on something that's funny, but it's kind of true, right?

Like there is this element of like, I should like it. Well, and you figure this is probably just the characters that he plays. Fred's maybe totally who knows what he's really like. But our perception of him would be he'd be at a dinner party or hanging with friends in Portland or whatever. And if he said, do you like jazz? Of course, everybody would like, yes. It's kind of like, do you like oatmeal? Of course.

I want to be a cultured soulful person. Yes, I love felonious monk. Yeah. So he's already, you know, kind of peeling back a layer of the onion that's going to be kind of funny and interesting. Speaking of it, I feel like this has been a theme of the onion, the newspaper before. They've done things like this about whenever they talk about jazz. It's about how you kind of should like it. Right.

You know, but nobody really does. Right. Which is a funny thing to think. Yeah. So, okay, here's more of it. I don't think, oh, I love this song. I think, ah, that's jazz. And to prove that...

Hold on. So that is, though, that is a real thing when you're not steeped in the genre. Like for me... Or if you're not listening to the right stuff, maybe. Well, yeah. At the right time. That's true.

Like in the right time of your kind of acceptance to it or... When I listen to Bluegrass, I don't think, like, oh, I love this Bluegrass song. A lot of times I do think, oh, that's Bluegrass. You know what I mean? Like, that sounds... But there is, of course, the more you listen to it, you get the nuances. You understand the different players. So this just tells me that he doesn't have a ton of,

he just doesn't listen to it a lot. Well, but that's so, but what you're saying then is possibly that any form of music, because this sounds like he's specifically making this about Jeff, potentially any form of music, just like any food could be like, I don't like broccoli. Yeah.

But have you had a Michelin Star Chef prepare broccoli, you know, or whatever? But, but I mean, a lot of people like, I hate hip hop. I don't like hip hop or, but that doesn't, but hip hop doesn't have the connotation of like you're supposed to. Like he's kind of hitting on this thing of like we're required to pretend to like jazz, but like bluegrass or something, do we have

to pretend like it? No, no. You don't really. There's a cultural element. There is a cultural element, right? I mean, Ken Burns has done a whole documentary about its importance and American culture and history. Yeah, well, he did one on the civil war. Do we have to love the civil war? And we never, what's fun for us is we never get to see this perspective because we're jazz musicians. We love, and we love it. And we love it with people. And we're only around people that love, I mean, people that come to your shows are going to be, unless they're like, oh, this sucks. This wasn't what I was expect I thought it was going to be bluegrass. But I mean, if you think about it,

there are a lot of people that if they hear any instrumental music with strings, they think, oh, this is classical music. Yeah. You know, there's no nuance to it. But aren't there too kind of, not to generalize and put everybody into two camps? But aren't there two camps of like, there's people and musicians

that would say a successful jazz performance is when people listen to it and say, yes, that's jazz. And if they didn't enjoy it, it's because they didn't understand it. But it was great regardless. And then there's another camp that's like, if you don't enjoy it,

there's something wrong with the music, not something wrong with the music. It just isn't for you. But it's not like you're supposed to love it or you didn't do your homework in order to love it. I'm in the second camp. I think that I would say so and I'd say I am too and I think that that's kind of our philosophy.

And I would almost say there's nothing wrong with the first, but it kind of is. There is something. Because everything doesn't have to be for everybody. And in fact, if everything was for everybody, it would be horrible. Yeah.

And then plus, I always feel like it sort of divests us from the great element of, which I think is great about jazz, the entertainment part, the foot tapping part, which as we've gotten more away from that at different times, and I don't want to be an old fuddy dutty. Oh, I like it back in, swing of days. Are you tipping? No, but, I mean, secrets? Is that something that would interest you?

Absolutely. There's no swing on that, but you do tap your foot. I am, assume me, I love to tap my foot to music. I also love to tap my foot to music. But that could also be a beautiful slow ballad of Shirley Horn. That's a different kind of tapping. Well, so Fred's, the crux of the joke here is going to be revealed with the kind of music he plays. Oh, this is a joke.

I thought this is. Well, yeah, it's a humorous observation. But it really gets hammered home. As jazz musicians who know all of these different kinds of corners of the genre, when you hear what he plays, who I don't even know. I'll check the comment. Back it up a little bit. I heard what he said, but I want to just get to context, but just 10 seconds or so. 10 seconds.

Like itself. it sounds like jazz. When I hear it, I don't think, oh, I love this song. I think, ah, that's jazz. Fair enough. He's so funny. To prove this point, I'm going to play a jazz song. And check out within yourselves.

First of all. When you start checking out and when your thoughts start to wander. So there's one of the top comments here is, I feel the same way when I hear Fred Armisen play drums. Ouch. All right, here we go, here we go. You could raise your hand when you do it. I'll do the same.

So is this raise your hand when it starts sucking? When you check out. Peter's hand is up, by the way. We're done. These musicians are still playing. When they were recording this, they just kept going. I don't know. Actually, I kind of.

It feels pretty good, actually. Another four minutes and 52 seconds. Oh, man, that's a short track. Yeah. This is a short track. And that is the end of the clip. Now, actually, what's more cringy than this video is some of the jazz musicians defending it here. Oh, yeah, of course.

Come on, guys. Sense of humor. Be a little lighthearted. Can we laugh at ourselves? Apparently not. Yeah. You would not think up until this. A lot of jazz fans here are also criticizing jazz, but then defending it in a very serious way.

Guys, we can have fun. Can we hear some of those? so um sorry put you on the spot yeah now now i'm trying to find the funniest thing read one of the wind marsals quotes i'm sure he made a comment on there no just that would be funny though this is so stephen garris says i like jazz but also have a sense of humor um but yes it's like of course he plays something that's really hard to digest and then people are like when the sax and drums are bass drop out the piano studs you letters. I honestly thought it was wicked cool, you know, like.

Comments are the best, man. You shoot comments. Listen to directed it yourself personally. I don't know. So what do you think, man? What do you think about all that? Do you think that? I think it's hilarious. It is hilarious. Yeah. I think he probably does like jazz. I think he must. But he might not like this kind of jazz. I think he's, he just found something that is pretty easy. I mean, the clip he played, I'm not sure. Does anybody know who this? Write us if you know who he played. I mean, it's good players, I can tell. It's like, it's kind of an off-kill. place. Yeah.

You know, that, but if you get into that, there was nothing there that I was like, this sucks. No, absolutely not.

It was a little bit off kilter, but that could have been, he started in the middle of something. I mean, that's the thing. It's like, I feel like any sort of genre of music, which is always dangerous to be like,

jazz is this. The diversity of like, like, I hate jazz. What are you saying? You hate Kenny G? You know, why,

are you afraid to say anything? The cat got your tongue there? buddy but i mean you know what i'm saying it's like or grover washington junior or lewis armstrong or miles davis kind of blue does anyone really hate that they listen to it some people might be like of course this is boring or i don't get it but it's a very it's a pleasant sound right um and i feel like you know classical music people oh i hate classical music but if you watch you know raiders in the lost arc and you hear the john william score do you enjoy that that's kind of classical music right or i mean there's a lot of different things and and um but yeah

Now, this is funny. Jazz sounds like itself is the most stupid statement I've ever heard anyone say about music. I mean, there's a lot of people who are very offended by this. Jazz nerds getting big mad, L-O-L. Well, you know what? I think he did hit on the reason people are laughing. And I think that's kind of true that jazz sounds like itself. It's like one thing about this music is it's about like, even with the diversity of like, you know, avant-garde or Dixieland.

Oh, Dixie. I hate that word. You know, whatever. Like, you know, but just the different things of like, it is more about sort of the sound and the personality of like the players and a little bit inward, inward lurking as opposed to like, this is the song. These are the lyrics like this is a hit or this is, or even like with classical music like this is what the theme is. When something happens, it's like that is jazz. It's not like, oh, that's the song that I like, but I don't like that. Even like bluegrass or something, I don't know is maybe not as much like that. So you have time for one more clip here. hear from Fred? Sure.

All right. So this is, yeah. I mean, or leaving it in. He's probably going to win anyway. Yeah, he's probably going to win.

This is Missouri. So this is called Fred Adamus Armisen tells jokes only musicians will understand. Okay. You just, it was made, because you are a musician, you're a drummer.

Yes. And you made a stand-up special. It was specifically for drummers. Yeah. And it was filled with jokes and observations that drummers would appreciate. Yes. Hey.

It was. James Wormworth was, loved it. He loved every second of it. Yeah, I did this stand-up special that was just every joke was about drum equipment and drum hardware. I'll give you an example. Yeah, I was wondering about this was back here. I didn't know.

I'll do this gracefully. I don't want to... I don't want to do an armisen. Yeah. Nicely done. That's it. Yeah. There you go. So one of the things I discussed is that when drummers go shopping for symbols, they act... There's in a drum shop. There's all these symbols. It's like

trees of symbols. And drummers go around trying them out kind of like fine wine, like... That is true. And then, as a drummer, so that was one joke. He loves it. He loves it. Look at him.

You know, it's exactly what he's talking about. I actually just face you the whole time. Yeah, yeah. And then the other thing is I spent many years as a drummer, and my memory of being a drummer is less about, like, being in front of an audience and playing and amps and stuff like that. My experience is mostly trying to undo the screw of a symbol stand,

and then it always falls off. So I have to go get it. And then the other thing... That would be number two, right? Yes, yes. That's the second joke. And then the other one was when non-drumers, by the way, are there any drummers in this audience?

A couple. Great. So you know, this is great. All right. So the other thing is when not... You're making three people happy. Yes. That's all I want.

The other thing is when, when whenever non-drumers try to help you on, there he is, undo your kit,

they always do it wrong so they sort of hand you. He took off the top of the symbol that's it. And nobody left. All that is true. You don't do a lot of keyboard or synth gigs,

Peter, where you set up your own stuff. But it is true whenever anybody helps you break down, not just as a drummer, but any of your own equipment. Right. Like they give,

like I have, I've had people give me back like a keyboard stand where I'm like, how did you do this? How did they go into so many pieces? How did you take it apart in so many pieces? But the setup, if they don't know what they're doing, that can happen to like the sustain pedal goes into the output. Absolutely. Yeah.

Or they'll, yeah. The power is going into the input. Exactly. They'll wrap the power cord around the keyboard. No, no, you could take it off. Yeah. Yeah. All that stuff.

So, yeah. What is the piano equivalent to this, though, like when you're like what they were saying, trying out the symbols at the store. what will we do? Oh, I think, yeah, every, every guitar center keyboard room is just filled with people. Just shredding. Yeah. Or just like, yeah, or just like.

This is what, this is actually, we can demonstrate. This is how a guitar center keyboard room might say. Same time. Just complete chaos. It is, it is what we do, right? And then also, oh, oh, and then just someone who just like will start like a loop, you know, on a synthesizer and just walk away. And so now it's going forever.

Right, right. You know, somebody just like, you know, oh, the playing of the hits. You know to get attention. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I like this one. Yeah, this sounds good. I used to. I'm not kidding.

When I was a kid, there was a really popular song by Van Halen that I taught myself by ear when I was in maybe sixth grade or whatever. And so when I go to the music store, first thing, pull out. What's up? How's it going?

I play a little. Oh, no, I'm just testing it out. Yeah, yeah. It's all good. No, I didn't write this. What's going on? Out of madness. That's great.

Good stuff. All right. Well, this is done. The pod is done. That's the pod right there. That's it. Well, until next time, you'll hear it. Things I miss by having a...