You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Jazz Artists We Wished We Could Have Played With - #78

Episode Date: April 18, 2018

In this episode, Peter and Adam discuss the musicians from the past they'd most like to play with. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. Today we're going to answer one of our listeners' questions about jazz artists you wish you could have played with, with bonus points for lesser known players. So this is like a hipster list. A hipster list. And we're getting points from our listener.

Bonus points. I appreciate that. This is great. Okay, I'm ready. Now, this is really cool because, I mean, jazz is a communal music. jazz is, I think it's wonderful when you play. We've both gotten the chance to play with a lot of different players, and it's always inspiring. And it's always fun, you know, to think about, I think, because we've all listened to so many great artists, especially ones that perhaps even

passed away before we started playing or were even born, and we kind of fantasize about what it would have been like to play with them. So I'm really been looking forward to this one. The bonus points for lesser known players, why don't you start out and see if you can nail that one from the beginning. All right. So, I mean, he's not lesser, lesser known, but someone that I'd really love to play with, and I often do play with in my practice and in my dreams, is the great drummer for Nell Fornier. Yes. From Amad Jamal's famous trio. New Orleans own. New Orleans own. I mean, there's a sound and a feel to his playing that, I don't know, I just, I really wish I could get in there and live in that pocket for a while. You know what I mean? I mean, I do it all the time

when I play along with those records. But, yeah, that's someone that would be a, I don't know, kind of dream come true kind of thing for me. That's great. So I'm going to go with another, try to get some bonus points for another less than known player, and that would be John Coltrane. Sorry, who now? Yeah.

No, I'm going the other way. John Coltrane was somebody that I listened to, you know, in terms of thinking about what it would be like to play with and probably more than anybody when I was growing up. I actually don't listen to his recordings as much anymore, although I go into phases where I listen to it. And whenever I do, it's a very intense thing. And I think, you know, I mean, we can talk about great players today in the past, in the future.

There's many different types, but I think that John Coltrane is somebody that kind of sits above others in terms of intensity of his music. And so that was always a really interesting thing for me. It was like, what would it be like to play with him? Now, he died in 1967. I was born in 1970, so I never had any illusions that I was going to actually play with him. But somehow on the back of my mind, I could always sort of picture it. I was sort of the weak link in the quartet the way I pictured it, but I was in there. I was like the seventh sub for McCoy.

But I really could see myself sort of entering into that realm of intensity with Elvin Jones, John Coltrane. And that's the thing playing with John Coltrane. It's kind of like I was thinking about a specific period with that most powerful quartet that he had. You know, Jimmy Garrison, John Coltrane, Elvin Jones, and me. Yeah, that would have been great. And, I mean, I listened to it enough that I feel like I could have at least made the gig, you know? Yeah, absolutely. For my second choice, I'm going to go with the great bassist, Charles Mingus.

I mean, I'm so steeped in his, you know, recordings. And I just love his compositions. I love his playing a lot, too. I think he gets a little bit undervalued as a great bass player. But, man, I want to know what it's like to be. in one of those bands, you know, where they're doing those really complicated but grooving arrangements and just lay in that groove. You know, the piano parts on those two are just kind of repetitive.

And I mean, I just, I want to be in there, you know? Yeah, but in terms of the timeline, you would have been just like a little baby in a diaper trying to play those parts. Could you have handled it at that time? Early 70s, mid-70s? Dude, I'm 78, man. Oh, twinkling my dad died. Talk about negative space now.

That would have been tough. All right. I hear you. Okay, now I'm going to think about somebody that I would have loved to play with and go with another giant, but Louis Armstrong. And the reason being is like I feel like a lot of his, especially early recordings, not a lot of them, but some of them, the pianist was kind of, well, everybody was sort of behind Lewis Armstrong because he was just,

he was still kind of inventing this new style. For years and years and years. Yeah, so I feel like if I could take what I know now, but have gone back in time, I could have kind of kept up with Louis Armstrong in a way that his pianist couldn't until a later years. So I really feel like I would have had something to say at that time. So that would have been a lot of fun. You would have had the advantage of 80 years on it. Exactly.

Yeah. No, but I mean just, you know, the joyousness of his playing. And it always just struck me like he would have been such a fun person to be on the road with, to play with the hang would have been amazing, you know. And then the whole New Orleans connection, that would have been awesome. Oh, man, that's great. So I am going to go with trumpeter Clifford Brown is my last choice. Because, and, you know, I realize that I'm picking everybody based on how they feel and how they make me feel.

And, you know, again, I would love to comp behind that eighth note, that, like, glorious eighth note that he had that was so swinging and the language so pure and clear and the idea is so well defined and the trumpet playing so marvelous. you know, especially I'll even add a little bonus of Max Roach, that era of everything, you know, them together. You know, I don't know how many times I've played along to like Cherokee and all that stuff on those records. And I would really love, would have loved to have played with Clifford Brown. So I was going to close it off, but then I realized we didn't get a lot of bonus points. You started well with the Vernet, and then we kind of hit like the Masters? Yeah, we hit the Masters. But let me just think, okay.

Okay, well, I'm going to throw in one that I actually did get a chance to play with, and he was lesser known, and that is the wonderful bassist, Larry Gales. Does this count, though, if you actually already did? Well, okay, so there's, okay, I'm going to show two sides of this. Okay, bass players, you know, as pianists, we're always thinking about great bass players. Larry Gales, who played with Monk, I got a chance to play with him in New Orleans in the late 1990s, which is a lot of fun. But there's another bass player.

Now, we're going to go way off the radar in terms of well-known. Henry Grimes. Have you ever heard of that bass player? No. So he's on a great trio recording of McCoy Tyner that I listened to very intensely for a few months when I was a teenager on impulse. And I want to say it's called Reaching Fourth. It was definitely Impulse and it was McCoy. And I never saw his name on any other recordings.

I think he's from Philly, though. And I vaguely remember him making a reappearance like a few years ago like he'd been off the scene. But he's just a wonderful bass player. It would have been a lot of fun to play with him. Just based on that one recording, I heard him. All right. If we're going this route, I'm going to throw in one bonus one for me, which is St. Louis's own Grant Green. Oh.

Excellent guitarist. And, you know, he usually played with organists. So if I'm fantasizing about people that I could never, ever play with, I would be playing the organ, the B3, the B3 in Grant Green's quartet. Nice. Yeah. Now, I just did a little bit of Internet research as you were, I wasn't listening. Who are you talking about? Grant and somebody.

It doesn't matter. Go ahead. No, about the Reaching Fourth Record, 1963 on Impulse. Roy Haynes. Roy Haynes, Henry Grimes, and McCoy Tyner. So there you go. Awesome. Well, I hope this answers your question.

What's our listener's name who asked this one? This was Joe, my friend Joe. Oh, yeah, Joe. What's up, Joe? Hope this answers your question sufficiently, Joe. You know, as always, if you liked what you heard, leave a rating and review. And until next time. I'm going to interject one thing before we get to that.

Dude, I just set you up for the you'll hear it. I'm looking at Henry Grimes on Wikipedia right now. Oh, man. There's a flow to this. No, man. So this is after more than a decade of, okay, Henry Grimes was born 1935, a jazz double bassist, violinist, and poet.

After more than a decade of activity and performance, notably as a leading bassist in free jazz, Grimes completely disappeared from the music scene by 1970. Now, I was born in 1970. There's no relationship between him disappearing in 70 and me being born. Grimes was often presumed dead, but he was rediscovered in 2002 and returned. to performing.

Wow. And he's from Philadelphia. That's right. That I did know. So it started on the violin as many great bases do. So what can you say, but... Oh, are we really doing it now? We're out now.

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