You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Is There Anything Great Happening in Jazz Today?

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Peter and Adam catch up on what the present day greats are up to in the modern day Jazz world. Check out Samara Joy for yourself right hereWant to see what NJU is up to? Here's the link.  Goin nuts over that SF Jazz Collective video? Watch the whole thing right 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 Instagram

Hey, Adam, check it out. That's one great thing. Yes. Happening in jazz. Today. Today. Just happened. We got three. We got three?

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Music advice coming at you. Music commentary coming at you too. Music commentary. We're commenting on music. We are commenting on music.

Well, we always do. I think today we're just really enjoying some music. Music enjoyment. Coming at you. The theme for today's episode is three great things happening in jazz today. Today. And by today, we mean in the last. eight days.

In the last eight days or so. But that's pretty good. You kind of fake me out on that intro, though. I thought we were going to show the three things, and then we'd be done. And then I did one that was really more of a warm-up than a great thing. Yeah, but your warm-ups are so good, man. It's intimidating to go after that. I should have started.

That's the problem. It's all good. So we're going to get to the real three things, though, in a second. And we're brought you by Open Studio. We are brought to you by Open Studio. We're proudly presented. Our presenting sponsor, as we like to say, a lot of cool things going on over there. What's happened in OS Pro Land?

We haven't talked about that lately. I love OS Pro. Some big change is going to happen in OSPro. It might be a good idea if you're an Open Studio member and you thought about getting in an Open Studio Pro to get on it sooner rather than later. Rather than. Because it might change how you're able to get it. And you might not be able to get in depending on how we do this. We might be gating the entry.

Well, because we really want to try to solidify and do like a similar subject every quarter. Yes. And with all the, because now we have, like, great teachers. It was just me, just me being like a jerk on there every day. But now we have people like Chris Parks, like Peter Martin, like Jeremy Siskin. Jeremy Siskin. John Lier, he's been doing some good stuff. Bob DeBoo, of course, is doing some great stuff.

And we have all these teachers. It's time to sort of like have a theme. So we're probably going to be doing that. And for that we might have to gate the entry of it so that everybody's kind of starting in a similar place. It's interesting you say gate because remember we toyed with the idea of using that as part of our narrative about what the program was. Come to Open Studio Pro. If your swing sounds like a rusty gate, then you need to come over to...

Have you seen that video of this sign in Tokyo? I forget who it was, but there's a sign in Tokyo. It's like, you know, it's almost like a sandwich board out in front of a shop. And it's got a light on the top. And the light makes a noise that's so swinging. And these jazz musicians have been over there and have like taken videos of them like being like... Swing it out over there. out over the automated sign.

Yeah, that's awesome. Caleb, can we pull that up? So I'm getting really rogan on it over here. Caleb, pull that up, please. Pull the crazy Japanese sign. Cool. Well, so do we need to place into context what we mean by, well, I think we kind of did it, eight days.

That's the oldest thing we're going to show you, right? It is. Yeah. And it's the very first video. No, the second video is going to be eight days old. But this video is three days old. This is from a friend of the show. New Jazz Underground.

Big fan of theirs. Link below to their channel. Yeah, these lads who are crushing it. Yep. They're coming out with merch here. Oh. But they're also coming out with swing. Uh-huh.

I got rhythm. You see the title of this video? No. It's called You Can't Hang. You Can't hang? You can't hang. They're hanging, though. Can I just say you got to go check out all of New Jazz Underground stuff.

They're so good. It's one of our favorite channel. For our pianists, guitarists, and vibes players who are watching, who might want a little bit of a play-along for I-Gat Rhythm. especially if you want to practice trading with drums what we just saw would have been a perfect thing to practice. Because he's doing a walking solo

and then trading with the drums. It's a great opportunity to... Yeah. And you don't... Good. No, no, no. Sorry. No, I usually recommend Sunny Rollins

a night of the village vanguard. It's perfect opportunity to practice comping. Right. But you can find things like this as well. No, it's so good. And I was... Practice playing with great musicians, essentially, which these guys are.

Yeah, absolutely. Dias on saxophone, Sebastian, on bass, T.J. on drums who we had on the pod last year at some point. Yeah, we had them along. Really nice young musicians that are doing their thing. Youngish. They're all 23 years old, which is that's what I was looking up. They sound so good, man. It's like

I love, this vibe also reminds me of being 23 and being in a little room with my friends. Yes. Just swinging out. And I love how that comes across in their videos. They've kind of kept the same look. The audio, it might look kind of casual. They're wearing shorts. It's like, you know, one shot. But the playing is killing. So I think kind of fits. What was the old sitcom way back in the day? It was just one shot, the whole sitcom? Three's Company?

Was Three's Company? One shot? No, no, no. I'm talking about way before that. One shot. Yeah, like Gleason. Oh, the honeymooners. The honeymooners. There we go. That was one shot. These are like the throwback to the honeymooners. One camera angle. That's an interesting analogy. They don't know. Say this one shot.

But the playing is killing. The sound is killing. And what's fun about this? If you like this kind of thing, if this is not your jam, it's all good. You can find something else. But if you're into this kind of a thing, what's fun about this is you can see their development. They're at a very high level. I don't believe in this thing of like, oh, by the time they're 30, they're going to be great. I'm digging it already. From the first thing I've heard. But it's what is fun to see is the way a group, a trio develops over time. So you can go back and see some of their videos. They're developing pretty quickly starting at a very high level, in my opinion. But also,

like, you can kind of follow them. And then when they come to a city near you, you can support When they put an album out, you can stream it at a device near you, all that kind of stuff. You can kind of be a part of what they're doing. You can get their merch if you'd like or whatever. Can I just say I'm a sucker for a saxophone trio as well? Yeah. Which you wouldn't think being pianist that we would be that into it. They're cutting us out of gigs.

They are. But I just love the room that it gives the drummer and the bass player to explore some things that, you know, honestly, we tend to eat right up. Exactly. We would have been all up in the way of that. Yeah, exactly. But especially with drums, like when the drummer is playing less, it actually makes it even kind of more jarring and more somehow like locked in.

Yeah. And then they get this room to explore more of their own comping voice, which is fun. Yeah. And I love stuff just from a YouTube kind of visual and sound standpoint that is super, like that there's some kind of a story in the way that it's presented. And you might think, okay, they're just playing. They're just jamming in this room. Right.

But there's like, they look very casual. It's one angle. It's very simple. It sounds great. They're playing at a very high level. So there's kind of a story with how it's being visually presented, I would say, that to me is very interesting. As opposed to, like, they're in a club and there's a bunch of cuts and they're wearing suits and they're appearing more like some preconceived notions you might bring if you were just listening to it. Because I'm like, in general, I like to listen to music.

If I'm going to go watch it. With your ears, you mean? I use my ears more than my ears. Exactly. No, but you know what I'm saying? Like, in order to go watch something on YouTube that is really about the music like this is, there has to be a reason. a live stream or like a live concert event or something going on visually. Otherwise, it can take away from the music. But I think the visuals of their videos specifically, you know, notice they all

kind of look the same. They have a tone. But I think that is an inviting thing for a lot of people. Because like I said, for me, this does remind me of like hanging out at friends' apartments and playing great music and just having like really discovering music and how to play it. And I think for a lot of there's a similar vibe and these guys are sort of like giving you that feeling so it doesn't feel like you're at like jazz at Lincoln Center it's a right and you may go see them yeah feel like you're sitting on the couch with a beer and maybe you're about to go you know you're gonna sit in on the next tune or whatever right jump in at some kind of some of a similar appeal I think that the Emmett's place yeah yeah a Cohen series in that you know it's a jam it's not all out jam

jam session but he's bringing different musicians you're in his living room there's some I love it I love it's place but I feel like that's even more of a formal vibe than yeah but it's also live because then you got I'm a lot because then you got like Chris McBride is there. Like that wouldn't happen. You know, my friends apart. But I think that this is also really can be of interest to folks,

even if you have, maybe even more so, if it's not like what you're referring to kind of as a nostalgia thing. Like I remember being that age. Because it's interesting like for people that weren't there, you can imagine, like say you go here the same trio at Disney's or something, which is a more formal,

you got a cool view, you know, you're going out for the night. The music's going to be similar, but there's going to be that energy with the audience. But you could kind of be. be there and be like, wow, I wonder what they sound like when they're rehearsing, but not just like rehearsing casually, maybe casually looking.

Just exploring together. But exploring. Like if you think about like if you ever go to an NBA game really early and you see like these great players like working on their three point shot or something, it's not the same as the game, but it's the same level of, you know, craft and perhaps artistry that they're demonstrated. And it's a really cool. If you're really into it behind the scene things, it's like you're drinking a great

bottle of wine. You can leave it at that, but you can also go to the vineyard and see where did it come from. It's actually a big part of the development. think of young musicians. You know, Herbie and his book described when Miles put together that band, the second great quartet, or quintet, that, you know, they'd get together at Miles' plays without Miles. Right. Miles was upstairs. And they would just play the four of them for hours and hours and hours and hours all day long. Yes. You remember that, right? Just like exploring

with your friends. No, I'm not that old. I wasn't at Miles''s basement. No, no, no, but just playing with your friends all day long and you're figuring stuff out and how to craft, you know, how to build tension, how to communicate with other people, you know, how to lay your time down with these people. It's really, I think it's an important part of all musicians as well. It's a shame. It kind of like tapers away when people get older and you have a career in kids and stuff. It gets harder to make that time, but I think it's important. But for those that are like, oh, it's not like the old days when we used to get together in jam or when you'd hear about, you know, back in mittens in the late 40s and whatever, these are some young cats doing this now. Throw a little support

that way. I'm just saying we should make more time. But, buddy, Friday, this last Friday, you and I just sat, we have two pianos now. Yes. I don't know that. We just sat down and played a little dolphin dance. What was it? Yeah, we put out a little dolphin dance. But that was, I just, I left that.

I was like, we should do that more often. That's so not. Like, it's, we, we, should we move the pot in there? Eventually, maybe. Or move the Steinway Bosendorfer podcast. I mean, I love the flying, the formerly, formerly flying Vs. They were never flying. They were always train tracks.

Yeah. The goal is to get these keyboards to fly out in a V's. somehow? We did that. Or I guess we'd be more like this. Yeah. You know? This is the flying T's.

Flying H. It's so weird. So this sound, people are always asking about this. This is a, well, you know what? I'm not giving them any more oxygen

because until they send us some free stuff. Am I getting off the rails? Yeah, you are. Adam just gave me a look. I'm falling off the rails. You're falling off the rest. But we have two other great things in jazz that are happening.

Two day. Today. In this case, eight days ago. Oh, I love some art. Paint a picture. We're sitting here two weeks ago.

We're sitting here two weeks ago. with the great Dan Wilson, guitarist. And all of a sudden, I look up and out our open studio window here is Tamara Joy, walking down the street. Dan runs out, Dan Wilson runs out and starts talking to her and invites her in.

And all of a sudden he's got Samara Joy, we've got her drummer. Yeah. And Dan Wilson hanging out in the studio, I'm like, man, this is what's so great about open studios. Like, you never know who you're going to see. Yeah, no, she was just in town.

It was really fun to have her in and get to see her. She was playing down the street. Jazz Becer up some wonderful people have been buzzing in town. Everybody loves her. and rightfully so we love it when that intersects with like a great young artist or any aged artist whatever but like somebody that's kind of new to people and then they love it and then if you're a musician you're like yeah this is the right the right thing happening to the right person well then right after or not long after she left st louis she went to brazil yeah it was funny because she was like

what's what's happening what are you doing where you're going after this and she's like we're actually going to brazil next week have you been to brazil and i was like i have been to brazil she's like i'm so like it was her first time it was her first time i believe so yeah yeah she was so excited about it and she was even talking about how she, I don't know that it's this track, but she had learned something in Portuguese and I was like, that's what I love about her. First time going to Brazil as a vocalist

you're learning something in Portuguese and you're going to present it. That's a really cool thing. Well, let's check out a little Samara. Star Dust. Apparently this was recorded on a Super 8 in 1972. I know. I love the old school filter. Control much?

So good, man. Control of the line? It just the taste. No accident that she's getting the attention that she so rightly deserves right now. You know, it is elegant and beautiful. And she's singing this. The level of difficulty on this, I can tell you, just phrasing of both. Because I'm not a great singer, but I've been around some great singers.

It's very difficult. He's making it look kind of easy. Well, like some of the great singers you've been around, she really has. She doesn't really have a. a weak spot in her voice that I can hear. Like there's, her voice is rich from top to bottom. She's got all of these different expressions within each range.

That's just incredible. I mean, not unlike, I would say, you know, it's different than Diane Reeves, who you worked with for so many years. But Diane equally has her own variations of control and expression within every part of her range. It kind of reminds me of that level of, I mean, it's like, it's not the same, but it's a similar caliber of like, wow, the control is amazing. throughout, the intonation is amazing throughout, but then the expression and her choices throughout,

like all great vocalists really make the difference. Like some of those little choices of, she's not even changing the melody that much when you know that little intro. But she's phrasing it. She's phrasing it, the way she gets from one bit to the next is. That's that high level of difficult.

And people don't need to know. I don't mean to be like, you don't know, you shouldn't know. But I'm just saying, like, I can tell you that that's a very, it's a very exciting thing to hear somebody at any age, a vocalist, or any musician to be able to control things in that way. Because I think that's what makes doing Stardust again. This song has been covered.

I don't know if you're familiar with that, Adam. It has been done before. A few times. But that's what validates doing it. Wasn't this famously for years? This was like the most recorded song in history or something? It could be, yeah. Probably isn't anymore, but I think it was for a while.

Right. So, you know, a knock could be like, oh, she's just doing standards or whatever. but you kind of raise the bar. Who would say that? No, people are, and I think also people would say, oh, she's, yeah, she sounds great because she's doing stuff that's right in her wheelhouse. Oh, well, that's genius then. Of course.

Her wheelhouse is big, first of all. Yeah. But a lot of people have kind of, I have heard some stuff saying, well, she's too conservative. She's too this. And it's like being able to, especially when you are kind of a younger artist and in terms of like you haven't been doing this for decades or whatever, where it becomes a little bit easier to figure these things out.

But being able to do it at that time where you can kind of identify things that you excel at, that you're passionate about, and that you can portray to the audience in a really interesting narrative already is exactly what you're supposed to be doing. You know, it is hard, and she's far from being a role player, as we would say,

but to find what your role is in terms of your instrument. I mean, look, a vocalist, you are the instrument, and you have to learn how to control the instrument just like we all do, if it's a piano, whatever, and your instrument's changing because you're traveling to Brazil from St. Louis and the weather and you're on the airplane or whatever. So there's a lot of degrees of difficulty in just being able to kind of pull this kind of stuff off and to be able to do it with poise and grace and something really interesting and exciting. For some some people, older folks like us that have heard this tune by some great artists,

when you talk about the proofs in the pudding, proofs in the pudding. Proof is in the pudding. Yeah. Well, let's go out. We've got one more here of. exciting jazz things happening today. Today. Today. Today. Well, this is actually just from yesterday, I think.

This is saxophonist Soweto Kinch. Soeto. Performing freestyle with Nicholas Payton and Gary Bartz. And we will... And Gregory Hutchinson. Friend of the pod. This is at SF Jazz. Take some noise for San Francisco.

What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yo, you know I'm right here. On the track, I ain't drunk. I ain't had five beers.

rhyme like I'm here, my mind's clear, almost as twisted as the past five years. Ed Simon on the piano. Yeah. But that's really transparent. I'm up upon the microphone, yet I'm straight rapping and that's what happens. You know what, I take it back in. I might call a manager like a black carrot. You know, I'm gonna bring it properly.

I'm winning never sloppily. They can't copy me. Ooh! Freestining right off the tree. What we need is to end the inequality. To bring people together. together it might be that's what the government don't think is clever but yeah we on some next-ish that's the way we twist it I don't need Brexit to feel

more authentic and that's the way I said this on the microphone a ticket off the guest list yo because you know that I'm off what can I say my brain heart never could be soft when I'm found here I never could be lost like the government sometimes it's crazy chaos we wait on every way off we never stray off because you know I'm like Bernie Madoff. And you know the phone died, but I'll be on the microphone, I will still improvise. That Joe Sandy?

Doing it naturally. I hate the iPhone batteries. But you know it's just a strong flow. And in fact, it kills people in the Congo. But anyway, let's not go there. It's like a wrong sound. I'll be up on the microphone. I ain't wrong now.

Look at the end of the show, it ain't long now. But yo, I got to give the verse a lockdown. Nick was smiling. I know he liked that one. Man, Hutch is so good at this stuff. Is that grooving, Caleb? Producer Caleb? Do we have a thumbs up?

He said two thumbs up. No Caleb can by the back from. Did you say that already? Scary Barks. Do you not read the titles? Dude, I've seen this for the first time. It happened yesterday. Amazing.

Couple friends of the show on there, Gregory Hutchinson, Nicholas Payton, Edward Simon. I'm sorry from that angle. It's very different. I think that's Joe Sanders, a big fan of Joe Simon. do a Gary Barts episode. You're a killing out my laugh. Man, Gregory Hudson. Dude is good at everything.

Yeah. That's fun. Okay, so for folks saying that, you know, there's nothing happening today, what do you say? That's three exciting things happening to me. I find that exciting. They're all different. They're all in the jazz world, or let's not even call it jazz.

Please not. Please tell. But that was fun. Cool. Yeah. Until next time. You'll hear it. First time, Emma.

What? Thanks.