You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Is Stevie Really a Jazz Musician? (Yes, Here's Why)

Episode Date: January 31, 2020

We all know Stevie Wonder is a great musician and songwriter, but is he a great JAZZ musician? Peter and Adam fill you in.There's a new course from Open Studio: Elements of Solo Piano. Learn from modern jazz master Geoffrey Keezer as he shows you the strategies and techniques to become a better solo pianist.Interested 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.

Adam, sounds like you playing some jazz. Doesn't it? Absolutely. I like it. I'm Adam Anis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily music, advice, coming at you.

Coming at you today's episode is sponsored. Oh, I can't even finish the sentence. It's too much. It's too good. Man, that does sound like jazz. We're inspired today. Oh, we are. Well, we have a Spotify playlist that we're going to go through a little bit.

And hopefully... Hopefully we don't get sued or ding. Yeah, hopefully. So the name of today's, the title of today's episode, I should say, is, is Stevie really a jazz musician? Yes, here's why. Now, a controversial. You'll hear it. Yeah. Controversial title, maybe, or non-controversial? Not controversial to us. Nobody in this room. Is it controversy a bit of a controversy? No. Yeah. The non-controversy is, never mind. Is Prince's song controversy really jazz? That would come to mind as well. No, you know what it is? Here's what the idea behind today's episode is. Oftentimes, when I'm listening to Steedy Wonder, I think Stevie Wonder is the best jazz musician of his generation.

He just happens to sell a crap ton of records, and most jazz musicians don't. But the spirit is exactly the same. Like, what you're playing now is not anything different than I played at my gig this morning. You know what I mean? That intro that I just played, you are the sunshine of my life.

That's a whole tone scale. You know what I mean? I know. All the elements are there. The depth, the breath. I would say even like, you know, we'll talk about the obvious elements in terms of harmonic ingenuity and complexity and interest and rhythmic and improvisation and all the things. I would just say the joy that it brings to us to performers.

It's obviously the joy that he brings through his lyrics and his music to the masses, which is just, he's just a special songwriter and, you know, kind of once in a generation, if we're lucky. but, you know, when we were talking about, is he really a jazz musician or jazz writer or part of the jazz role, I think it's because of the joy that he brings to us to players that want to improvise and take tunes and make something different out of them. You know, in the same way that, you know, all the great songwriters, I think you could say is George Gershwin a jazz musician? Okay, probably not, but he's the material. And I don't even want to compare it. It's not even about comparing. It's just the, you know, when you have music that is universal and runs deep with listeners,

worldwide and with players worldwide, then you're really on to something. And Stevie wanted probably more than any artist of the last 150, 200 years epitomizes that. Yeah, and I think the reason why most jazz musicians are such fans of his is because he's got this combination of, does this sound familiar? Yeah. He's deeply steeped in the blues. Yeah. He's a virtuosic improviser. Yes. And he has and uses very complex harmonic and melodic structures in his songwriting. Yes. These are all things that feel like home to jazz musicians. Yeah. Even if he's not straight ahead swinging, it's all funky and it feels like, it just feels like great black. Yeah, and he's always been a very, you know, as a music student and music, as a musician, and as a songwriter from a very young age, he was always very open to learning from many different influences.

But he has a lot of jazz tradition. I don't know if you've ever heard him. I've heard him several times live and a couple of times he played giant steps. Come on. Yeah. No, I mean, just like played it. It's like a warm-up tune and people are like, what the hell's going on? You know, they're giving some slack, people they didn't know it.

They're there for. He's going to get to the hit soon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, you know, he's very well-versed and has known a lot of jazz musicians. He throws that in because he knows the musicians were there, too. Well, there's like seven of us. Yeah, exactly. It's fun and plays the blues and just does a lot of different things.

So we have seven examples. We love our lists of seven. Here are some examples of what we think kind of epitomize Stevie's main jazz influences. I'm going to start off. Basically, it just tracks we like. Yeah, because it's like everything, right? And he really is his own category. Can we play a lot of music?

Can we play along a little on this since we... Man, you play however much you want. I'm going to start with too high here from Inervisions. Okay. First of all, there's that baseline. You know what I mean? Yeah. Those triads over the pedal.

Like, this all is... It swings. I mean, it makes you want to improvise. I know, yeah. And this is like kind of a... You know, it's basically a minor 11. Exactly. I mean, it's something like 13 chords descending over that pedal.

Point 5, whole tone kind of thing. Very advanced. But, I mean, you know, he has a way of taking very... advanced stuff and unlike most jazz writers making it sound complicated and you know undecipherable to the average listener Stevie makes it sound beautiful, funky,

and popish to the listener. So good. And our next selection here, you picked and I love this ballad if it's magic. Harp. Now this is one where it's like it's around the harp so you wouldn't think like oh this is a jazz thing. But it really changes. Yeah, this is standard.

What key is this in A? E. E. Yeah, he loves E. Like the sun that always shine. What a beautiful, too. Yeah. So nice. Relative minor.

11, he loves that minor 11. Is he better than most jazz? I think he might be. Well, I mean, it's just, you know, he takes, he's got all the jazz sensibilities, and he's just an extreme songwriting tastemaker that understand, you know, and lyricist. Yeah. And, like, connects the lyrics with, you know, the harmony. And then a song, and this, I mean, the, the bridge.

The bridge. You know, AAB form. I actually recorded that years ago. I'm trying to remember who was... I think Nicholas Pagan's playing on it. Oh, you dropped that name. Yeah, I did it. Sorry, did I drop that name? Bam, there went.

No, I mean, it's, you know... Well, yeah, what a beautiful. So number three, this is... This tune is one of jazz musicians love to play. Yeah. And it has a lot of salsa influence, especially in the piano part, obviously.

Don't you worry about a thing. I've never played this, actually. I love it. But what's... me about this one is that that thing at the yeah

series of I think it's not even that one that one yeah so great number four do you know this tune

Tuesday Oh yeah you know that is on saxophone who listen if you listen if you listen deeply

you'll hear it oh it comes in the second course oh no it's a Clave Clavin The structure of this song, though, could be

Like solar or something That's a young David Sandborg Is it David Sandborg? Yeah. Before he was David Sandborg But he's already sounds like, you know what I mean? Sounds like, yeah, Sanborn Tritone subs

But at the right place, the right time, not overly done. Come on, it's chorus He loves this minor four I think this is Stevie playing drummed on this Yeah, it is. Man, here. Sharp Nines. Yeah.

So good. So, so good. Come on, Steve. All right, our next one, this is the obvious choice for what. Steve Wonders. Look, let's throw a little trivia in as we go. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

Stevie Wander's real name. A given name. Are you asking me? Birth name, yeah. Steveland. Steveland Morris. Morris, right? Yeah.

Isn't that like it's the name of his, like, writing company or something? It's like Stephen Morris. Could be. Could be. This one's obvious. Yeah. There's a song he wrote about Yeah, exactly.

Ella, do count. And I love this because it's actually swinging the drum groove. I think it's his hit. I mean, I should know this better because I love Steve. I forget. I think this is him playing. Now, maybe it's in him on drums. But like the groove, it's almost like a swing group.

Like, you know, on the hi-hat and stuff. But it's in the pop, you know, the really like of the time in a way. And the bass line is almost like a two-feel. but it's not corny, you know. And I remember when I first heard this when it was on the radio, I didn't really, I knew a little about jazz, but I wasn't like into jazz.

I was just listening to the radio pop music of the day. This was a hit, you know. This was actually... That's so hit. I can look at a little syncopation. This was maybe the B-side to I-wish. I think that's correct.

Yeah. Oh, actually, you know what I'm remembering? Wait, wait, wait. More respect for the break of it. down it's not going to happen for a minute. It's a double. Very jazz musician. Sorry.

That was disrespectful. So that's just a pentatonic scale, the whole thing, right? Yeah, yeah, I wonder if Stevie took our pentatonic course. And I mean, yeah, Stevie. Probably not. He does not need it. No, but you know what Stu is like Stevie, and I don't think he did this before his vocal because he's always had a big range.

And he still, I saw him a couple years ago, the last, I've seen, several times live over the years but I saw maybe three years ago when he was in St. Louis, he sings everything in the same key which is amazing because his voice is... It's incredible and it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. Anyway, and he did like

a really long show. Songs of the Key in Life. He did the entire album. But, I mean, he's also playing keyboards a lot. Obviously, he wrote all this music. He performed. He played bass and drums on some of these tracks. But these are hard keys for everything. Yeah. But he wrote, he wanted to hear him. He didn't do this be like, ah, I'm playing in B.

So now you guys, he had to play it. So it would have been a lot easier in B flat, but he liked the sign. Like, he really wrote music for how he wanted it to sound when he was singing or whatever it was. But it was not about what's the easiest way. Amazing. Yeah. This next one.

Oh, let me just add in too. I think, I think that was the B side to, because that was a really big hit. Like when I was about 12 years old, 11. I know it's not on list. Oh, this is the one I recorded with Nicholas Payton. Sorry. I wish. they're all all of those tunes

could have that influence so this one is one that maybe it's probably I mean it was covered by the Red Hot Chili Pepper as a rock band and it's known for being harder rocking but check out the bit of Elvin Jones-ish influence for higher ground

Joan Joan Joan Joan Joan Joan going into this the drone film oh come on that's killing right there's not a bit of Elvin in that

I don't know what absolutely Oh, out, out, gosh. Oh, man. That's really how you got to play. And then during that period, too, he was, well, even a little bit before this, like, well, I guess that's Intervisions. Higher Ground on Intervisions?

No, fulfilling his first finale. But around that time, Stevie Wonder was going to New Orleans a lot, listened to a lot of meters, playing and hanging with them. Like, he really took that influence. There was the jazz influence. There was the New Orleans funk. There's a lot of blues in higher ground, too. He was able to take these different influences,

I mean, truly kind of like just American sounds and filter them through his genius in a way that's... And then we're going to end and go out, Andrew, on Isn't She Lovely? And I chose this one to go out on, because of all the things we're talking about, we haven't yet talked about what a killing improvising harmonica player. Oh, right, exactly.

And this has one of my favorite harmonica solo. Oh, that's incredible. Isn't She Lovely? Oh, this is also covered by tons of things. We're going to skip ahead here. to the harmonica solo. Go to Open StudioJazz.com, check out all our courses.

Yeah. We have to do a Stevie Wonder course. We should do a Stevie Wonder course. Come on, man. See if Stevie's available. I think that's just, I think we know what you're recording in Q2. Yeah.

Anyway, until tomorrow, you'll hear it. You'll hear this.