You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Jam Sessions

Episode Date: September 6, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam tackle an email from a listener asking what to expect from a jam session and how to better organize one.Like 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! 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 and leave a comment for this episode.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. Do you like to jam, man? I like to jam and jam bands. I love jam bands. I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hearer podcast.

Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. How are you feeling there? I'm feeling pretty good, man. You, uh, can we talk about our new sponsor? Is it old granddad? Wait, well, what is it? Old granddad. Yeah, old granddad.

I feel like my old granddad is. So you bought a bottle of old granddad the other day. for the You'll Hear Podcast. Can I tell you the story, even though you were there? Yeah. So we went to lunch. We went to this new spot that has a bunch of coffee and cigars and wine and beer and bourbon. And I didn't see any bourbon on the shelf.

And so I asked the lovely young woman working there, I was like, do you have any bourbon? Where's the bourbon? And she said, you know what? Hold on. I'm going to go across the street and bring you. And buy some. And I was like, damn it, now I have to buy. I know.

Something she brings back. She left and went across the street. So she came back with three bottles. And she said, this one's expensive. This one's medium. And this one's cheap. And I was like,

I'll take the cheap one, please, thank you. But it was actually really nice. Right. Bottle of bourbon. So we have this, like, really strong old granddad here.

So, it's good, though. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's Friday. So. Oh, see, he finally gets it. I like it.

I was teasing you. All right. So today we're talking about something. And this is a, a listener question via email, right? Yep. Okay. So, this is something that we really get a lot of questions from different situations, different channels. So I think it's good. And it's funny, because I don't really think about

this a lot, but we're talking about jam sessions. Jam sessions. I don't think about it because I'm like, not that I don't go to Jam sessions still, but it's always so spontaneous, right? Right. And I think this might be kind of from a different angle. So I would imagine your life in the Jam sessions relationship at this point is like you're at a fancy jazz festival somewhere and then like people are like hanging at the hotel afterwards and playing and someone is you know what I mean is that accurate or like a house session yeah well it's more just like the promoter will be like after the gig will be like oh we want to take you out to dinner and drinks please come with us and then we get there and it turns out it's the jam session and then people start coming over and saying oh I love the performance come on it's so great that you're going to be playing again it's like it's like a free gig for them so I have a little bit of an aversion to that but I usually end up doing it because I actually love music Yeah, of course. And so, yeah.

But it's such a big part of the history of jazz. For sure. And over the years, and there's different types and stuff. So it's important. Our friend Bob DeBoo hosts a jam session here in St. Louis. Every Wednesday night, 7 o'clock, check it out Cranzburg Arts Center.

If you're in St. Louis or around St. Louis. And so sometimes... Cranz Center? You know, he does the thing where, like, the first set, he'll have special guests, like good pros come in and play. Sometimes he invites me to come play, which I'm honored to do. And so then I'll hang for the jam session. You're kind of an old pro?

Yeah, I'm an old pro. So we have a question here from Gyrton who asks, what are your thoughts, experiences on jam sessions? Do you like going to jam sessions? What do you expect from a session you enjoy? How do you think I can organize my jam session better in order to maybe enhance it musically

without changing the concept? So Gierton had a very long email to lead up with this about the jam session that he hosts in Belgium. He's a bass player. Yeah. He's worried about the quality of the music at jam session. So the first thing I will say is that

a good jam session should cater to the players that are there first and foremost. Situational awareness, right? And any good jam session might flux in quality violently. Yeah. I mean, if you're in a place like New York it could be very, very sad one minute. And then the next tune could be unbelievable. That's right. You know, it could be amazing. And if you're somewhere else, it could be very, very sad

and stay that way. It might. It might. You know, even here, like, it could be, you know, a lot of beginners who are just trying to, like, get through now's the time. Yeah. And it's not really happening. And maybe the drummer's left-handed and drags. And then maybe the next tune, it's like a bunch of cats show up who are, you know, touring or some local cats or whatever. And it's like, it's happening all of a sudden.

So I think, like, kind of have to let some of that go, especially if you're the host of the jam session. But I do think there's some things you can do for you to help make. it better. Like, move it along. Yeah. Let's not ramble at a jam session. That's just bad etiquette. You know, you're not there to take 100 choruses of Cherokee. Right. Well, and I mean, I think this is the number one

pet peeve of rhythm section players. For sure. Other people waiting and the audience is the tunes being too long. And it's such an easy thing to solve, but yet it, I mean, it should be easy. It should be simple, but it's not, it's simple, but it's not easy. but I think this idea of the audience

should be the first thing we think about I know it's usually the last because we're like well jam session that's for me me me me me I get to play this I'm going to sit in I get to do this and normally there's still an audience there right because otherwise it's not a jam session no there's usually an audience otherwise it's like a house session yeah but if you're a horn player and you see that the horn player

before you has been playing Cherokee for eight minutes now yeah just don't solo But most of them, they're like, wow, okay, so this is an eight minute per solo kind of jam session. Also. Just imagine if you were the bass player having to walk quarter notes for those eight minutes and the eight minutes before, just take the next one. And if you're the person listening, and look, a lot of times jam sessions are, I guess, like free, no coverage charge, right? Usually. Because they suck basically to the listener.

But why does that have to be? So somebody coming to hear jazz for the first time, maybe they're like, I'm not going to buy a ticket, but there's a jam session. That seems like something I've seen in a movie. Then they come and have the worst listening experience to whatever, 45-minute one Cherokee rendition. But then sometimes you can have this thing where a kid will get up and then blow this roof off the place. And you're not going to believe what he did on chorus number 12. Another tip I would give you, Geerton, is to organize your jam session. You're frustrated by the level of some of the musicians and feeling like the better musicians are getting frustrated.

You know, you can, as the leader, you can obviously decide when and who gets to play, who and when they get to play. So you can, you know, once you know, the musicians, be like, you know, maybe you, this group of players can play a tune or two together. And then the advanced guys can, you know, go for a cigarette or something and come back. I mean, it's Belgium, I assume everybody smokes. Yeah. Yeah. But you come back and smoking. And, and play, you know, together or maybe only, or maybe even break it up.

only one beginner plays at a time. You know what I mean? Like some strategies like that, I think could be good. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm just, now I'm remembering. I've been to this festival a couple times. I've been to Ghent, at least two or three times, and it is an amazing jazz festival that they have there.

And, I mean, I'm so impressed. It's not a big city, but Belgium's, like, is a really densely populated, teeny little country that you can drive across and back again in the same day. But there is an outsized number of good musicians there. Holland, Belgium, what else is over by there? For sure, those two countries. And I mean, the thing is, like, that is really, like, your talent pool.

Like what we're talking about in terms of etiquette and structure and all that, it always is going to come down to the quality level. I mean, rhythm section, horn players, whatever, because then that's when you're able to get away with, you know, the inevitable lull in judgment, maybe, in terms of playing too long or even the wrong thing or whatever. whatever, the wrong choices of how you're going to segue to the next thing or whatever. But if you've got the kind of, you know, a good majority of good musicianship somewhere floating around on the stage and in the wings and everything,

that can kind of make up for a fair amount of bad judgment. Yeah. I hope. I think so. Yeah. I hope so. You don't look convinced, though. You look skeptical.

No, I think that's a good point. All right. Let's turn positive. Let's talk about some of the best jam session situation. we've ever been in. Oh, man. I mean, usually it's when there's just monster players all around and it's super fun.

And family, it feels like family. Yeah. Those kind of situations. I love those. And I think those situations really for the audience can be thrilling. For sure.

You know, because there's a, you would think that there's more of like an inside job kind of yeah, we're all together, we're doing this. But, you know, really good players and usually in that kind of situation because, look, in a jam session,

you're always going to have more spontaneity than almost any kind of set gig. I mean, we talk about like, man, that gig felt like a jam session. It was so random, you know, because you don't know what's going to be played, you don't know what someone's going to sound like you've never played together, mostly,

and the unexpected is going to happen. And so there's some good things with that. And so if you can harness that into a positive jam session experience, there's kind of nothing like it. It could be very, very special. You're absolutely right. Yeah.

Thank you, Gyrton, for the email. Please keep them coming, folks. Right. And, hey, we haven't talked about, you'll hear it premium all week. Premium, as opposed to you'll hear it Normale, as we are calling this now. No, there's nothing Normale about this podcast. That's true. That's right.

No, but we do have a premium membership. Support the podcast if you love it. Yeah. You can go to You'll hear it.com, and it's very, very affordable, and you get some really cool stuff. Yeah, and we were talking about, like, it's taking us a little minute, let's be honest, to kind of lean into this idea of supporting, because we're not like, well, we are kind of big PBS NPR guys, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, the thing about this is, is like, this takes time, money, and resources, and we want to keep doing this.

We want to up the game. We're looking at a new space to move, and, you know, even to get into here and Andrew's time and the mics and everything. And, like, we really want this to be a fun experience for you guys to consume. And we're big podcast listeners and watchers. So we know what it's like when, even if the content is good and the quality is low. And so we want to keep doing this and we don't want to have a bunch of commercials and stuff. Obviously, we're sponsored by Open Studio. We do mention that from time.

It's not for a show. But we want to kind of give you guys, you know, 10, 12. 14 minutes of fun. So we just ask for a little support. If you're feeling it, no pressure. Yeah. You can do it later. Then you do get some benefits.

Cheap skate. Way to go. We get a new premium episode every month. You get a new premium video every week, a little fun video. But the premium episode is great. They're at the piano. There's usually some kind of worksheet or transcription or notation of some kind. We got September coming up soon.

I just have one so far for August because we just started. And it's popping. It's very popular. And then you get discounts on swag. You get the archive. You get the Facebook group. Yeah. You get to come into the community.

which is what we're super excited about. So consider it. And as you can. And until tomorrow, you'll hear it.