You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Jazz, Politics, and the 21st Century

Episode Date: May 9, 2019

You SpeakPipe it, we answer, and Peter and Adam talk politics in the jazz world today. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.Today's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download - a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Cage, and John Cage. Visit https://www.oxfordamerican.org/yhi today for a special subscription discount!Let 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. What's up? You hungry, ma'am? I'm starving. Let's make this quick. Okay, cool. I'm Adam Mis. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily jazz advice coming at you. Some advice and some controversy coming at you today. We have a speak pipe and it's about 21st century jazz politics. We're talking a little bit of sexism. We're talking about a little race. It's going to be an interesting. Racism or just race?

We'll find out. It's going to be two white guys talking about jazz. So it should be good. We're going to dictate exactly how. This is good. Two straight white men talking about jazz. It'll be great. Today's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American.

Go to Oxfordamerican.org slash YHI for some great deals. They deal with some politics over there too, but it's always really thoughtful, really well done, and really relevant to what I believe most jazz musicians are interested in. So definitely go to Oxfordamerican.org slash YHI for some great deals. So you're saying they don't step in it. Like we may be about to step in. I haven't heard that you pre-screen the... You got some boots on.

I got my bright white shoes on. So if I step in it, it's going to be noticeable. I got my black Adidas. My Adidas. This is a voice message. A voice message. This is a speak pipe from Eric. Hey, Peter and Adam.

I'm a fan of the podcast. I've been following on the YouTube's for about two or three months now. I have a question for you if you want to dive into politics and political correctness. I'm wondering how you guys think jazz should be interpreted and applied to the 21st century with respect to the Me Too movement and with sensitivities to a cultural appropriation. I think of examples like how insensitive the lyrics are in some songs. Like, Baby It's Cold Outside is a good example, which is basically about a guy trying to get his date, drunk and stay the night with lyrics like I simply must go and the answer is no but he's still persistent back in the day maybe it was viewed as charming today maybe it's viewed as creepy

should we stop playing songs because of the contents of the lyrics uh thanks a lot for what you guys do all right Eric that's a great question that's a great question um and we are not going to deal no no okay first of all yeah thank you eric um this is why we are both pianists we never play lyrics we uh we might place these songs but we refuse to play any controversial lyrics um right i think so yeah i do man it does make it easier i mean look for for vocalists i mean this is a very real issue well yeah i mean love for sale love for sale is rough love for sale is rough Cherokee cherokee is even the tight i mean this i i actually feel weird even playing Cherokee instrumental now. I'm going to put that out there.

It is a weird, it's a weird concept for today's person. Yeah. And so I mean, look, first of all, I want to say this, though, is in a little bit of a pre-defense of jazz in general. And even saying jazz is controversial. I agree that we've talked about that before. We say it every day, but it's weird. Daily jazz podcast, we have to say it because that's our tagline.

But this is the thing. Okay, yeah, baby it's cold outside, Cherokee. These are not only politically incorrect and insensitive by today's standards, but even before today. Maybe not when they were written. It was more accepted just because of everything. That doesn't mean it was right just because it was accepted at that time. So there needs to be correction of this. But let's not come too hard on jazz musicians because we have other genres that are still writing lyrics like this that are very, very offensive to groups, very misogynist and that kind of

a thing. And so it's never, but that's like, you know, people want to attack hip hop, which becomes really like a racial kind of attack in a way by trying to bring in these other things. These are misogynist, but that's just certain parts of that. So you can never, I don't think, you know, we should be careful to go with too broad of a stroke. But I like this idea of like talking about specific things and how can we fix our approach to this. And as he said, 21st century. I mean, yeah, we should be, I mean, we're far into the 21st century now. Oh, yeah.

And jazz has been, with sticking to all this charm of the past, slow on a lot of these issues, I think. Well, man, you know, the good news on all. this is the kids fix it for us, right? That's right. It's like the kids have already decided that even our generation, you know, put up with and added too much BS to jazz and didn't allow things to happen that should have happened. And they're already fixing it by what they listen to and what they don't care about and care about. Right. You know, I'm thinking about women in jazz. Like, it's so different now than it was, even when we were coming up. Yeah. You know, I mean, for me, my favorite saxophone player is Melissa Aldana right now. I think she's doing things that are

Oh, she's great. Far and beyond almost everybody else. And, like, there wasn't as prominent where she would be touring around even 25 years ago. And that's crazy to think about. So I think it's kind of exciting. And I think there's, you know, there are ways that I think, you know, men in jazz can, things that men in jazz can do to even help this advance more. And that's by playing, promoting, listening to women in jazz.

And luckily, there's more opportunities. there's more opportunity to do that than there ever has been before and hopefully more to come. Yeah, and I think an important thing that many have been doing and we've been very supportive and doing a little bit ourselves and need to do more of is supporting and promoting the current generation of female artists because there has been such inequity in the past, but also going back and realizing there's a rich history of females in jazz that have, that are not only contributors but originators of this music. Absolutely.

Lil Harden, Lil Hardin, Mary Lou Williams. Of course, I'm going towards pianists and stuff, but you go all the way back to the beginning, obviously Shirley Horn, and then we can talk about all the singers, which is obvious, but I mean, instrumentalists. There's so many, and they are just left out of the history of the music,

and it needs to change for sure. The history books need to change. Yeah. I think it was our friend, a friend of the show. Why am I spacing? She was a guest on our show. She's our friend.

Tia Fuller. Tia Fuller. Yeah, yeah. She's an amazing. amazing musician, great saxophone, great teacher, but go ahead. No, she had done this whole article on the history of women and jazz and some that have been left off the list. And it was incredible to read. So check that out. Yeah. And I think, you know, part of it is that we don't, we never want to just wash away the sins of the past in terms of what jazz musicians have done.

We want to embrace, I mean, look, we're part of this music and everything and mistakes were made in a number of different ways. and he brought up cultural appropriation. That's, you know, American pop culture was really built on the foundation, the wrong foundation of cultural appropriation in so many ways. Yeah. Jazz, in some ways, I think, was kind of a beacon around that. You look back to the time when, you know, people were taking, you know, white artists became huge. And I'm not even talking about like the Rolling Stones and stuff where they kind of honored their roots

and acknowledged it. Yeah. in terms of coming from blues. You're talking straight up theft. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're talking about Elvis Presley. I think Elvis Presley had times later on. Paul Whiteman, you know, that whole thing.

Right. Notice his name, white man. See how that goes. No, but I mean, so there's a history of that. But when we look at jazz, there's also a lot of sort of beacons of, you know, you're talking about Benny Goodman's integrated band, Miles Davis having, you know, integrated bands. And, I mean, it wasn't as big of a thing then.

But, I mean, you saw some, like, some very real integration in the music from the beginning. I mean, you're talking about going back to New Orleans and stuff in a way that was not the norm. I mean, I always think on this about the generosity of the early masters of this music, and still today, and of African American culture, that, like, could you imagine maybe some other forms of music that are just like, yeah, yeah, let's all play together and take it and let's do it. You know what I mean? Like, the generosity of spirit of the African American musicians that really created this music is unbelievable. Yeah, and I mean, you had, and look, we're no expert. on this outside of, I think, kind of our understanding of the music and being, you know,

white musicians playing a music that's still predominantly, I don't know, we never really talk about predominantly African-American. We talk about the history, the origins of it being based upon the African-American music experience in this country and these kind of things. But now it's just like, you know, we're part of something that is not based upon anything until you start to look at it in this context. But what you had at that time, which was very, different than what we came up when was you know black artists that were leading bands that maybe had it was like the opposite of say the classical world where you'd have an orchestra with maybe one black or two black musicians whereas you had like you know the black the african-american leader of a group and then like one white musician or something like that was not normal yeah yeah you know i mean even up to like when bill evans was playing with miles and stuff but i think it it did look we're not perfect as jazz musicians and all day i mean there's been a lot of racism, sexism, and all this. Totally.

But at our best, we've been like, you know, where the people, where we really had that spirit of like, whatever the music, you know, demands is not about race. And this was at a time when race was, I mean, look, it's still all up in our face because it's not solved in this country. But this was at a time when it was real and there was real problems and there was a real, you know, kind of feel, you know, go even more tribal. You know, everybody goes separate and everything. And so jazz was a beacon with that.

I mean, you talk about Dave Bruback and Miles Davis. These guys were big stars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and they had integrated bands. And, like, that just wasn't seen much. Well, and it's, again, it's a tribute to the amazing, inclusive spirit of these African-American musicians who didn't have to be. Yeah. And were, and it's a gift to all of us.

Louis Armstrong. I mean, I don't know about you, but I am very conscious of the Black American experience in regards to jazz. And I tried to respect that in everything I do with the music and try to honor that. Yeah. But the thing is I think that we, and we've, I don't even know if we've ever talked about this, this is interesting to do it here. It's kind of like, maybe you should go over the couch. It's kind of like a therapy session for.

But I think it's important for white musicians to talk about it. Because it's a part of the history of the music. Yeah. And I think it's our responsibility to help lift up that side of it. It is. Yeah, yeah. I think because we come from that kind of spirit with this, that, you know, I'm never worried about cultural appropriation.

Because there's not like, I mean, I'm worried, like, it happens a lot. But I'm saying for me or in terms of like, you know, my connection. with the music or what we're doing because I just don't look at it that way I don't look like let me take this and do that like I've been part of this and that is I think what you're referring to that that's like a gift and I'm so happy to be a part of that but I'm also like I'm a contributor to that and like I do that with a with a clean heart or whatever and there's a lot of you know we all bring our experience I mean this country so screwed up I mean we know this and like you know I I mean I was I was I kind of was raised in a very idyllic situation that's unusual in this country and that I grew up in an integrated graded, you know, schools and things like that. I mean, they had their own problems. No, University City is diverse, especially back in the day. Yeah. And so you bring a certain perception.

And then you're like, what? Then when you get in the real world, you're like, wow, people don't think that everybody's equal. Oh, and people aren't treated equally? What, you know? And so, you know, we all bring to it what we will. But I would just say that, like, my experience with, you know, really 99% of jazz musicians in terms of race has been super, like, chill and, like, positive.

It's just really non-issue. Not to say that there isn't that there. It's just been, I've been kind of lucky in terms of my experience, you know. Now, in terms of the sexism, the misogyny, these kind of things, that's a much bigger problem. It's a very real current problem. But I think I'm seeing like some of the institutions really, really kind of not necessarily leading the way, but getting on the bandwagon pretty quick. And the kids, they've had to. Thank God for young musicians who are pushed back big time on this.

Like shout out to all of you who are doing that. And we learn stuff from them like when Ron Ging. are like, you know, you kind of say something that we're used to saying that it's not horrible, but it's like, no, no, no, that's not really cool. And that's like, that's what it's supposed to be about. You got to move ahead. Yeah, and shame on older cats for not calling it out sooner. You know what I mean? I think we always have to, I mean, the culture is where it is, but we all have to be responsible for this. But jazz musicians are really good at, like, pivoting quickly. So that's been good. Like, we've seen some serious changes. Like, you've got to acknowledge there's a problem,

and I think we've gotten to that, not everybody, obviously. And yeah, for when you're older, But it doesn't have to be like that. I mean, part of our thing is improvising and moving fast and stuff. So y'all just get it right. You know what I'm saying? Man, well, I feel like we stepped in it a little bit for sure. Don't worry. This will never air.

This will never make it pass. You'll hear it advisory panel. It is interesting to talk about in this context, though, because it's a little prickly, I think, for a couple of middle-aged straight white guys to talk about things like this. I mean, we didn't even get into, like, gay jazz musicians, which is a whole other thing we've talked about in our great expertise as white guys. Well, I think that, well, you know, some white guys are gay, just so you know, that's not a, it's like white, gay, black, female. There's a little bit of overlap there just so you know. Whoa. It's turning red.

Well, no, I've been read this whole time. No, but I think it's, you know, these are important conversations that we have to have because, you know, like it or not, we do have a voice that gets heard in this. Yeah. For whatever reason or another. And it's up to us to lift those voices who maybe aren't being heard as much. Okay. So now we're going to go ultimate tip today. Right.

We're going to jump right to the ultimate tip. Which is? Well, this is something that you mentioned before, but I want to really highlight this and folks don't take anything more away from this. First of all, know that we did not plan any of this, like we don't plan any of this. So we don't have any kind of agenda.

It's just kind of speaking for our hearts. But I think this concept of, you know, the responsibility that white musicians in this music do have is to speak up more forcefully about, you know, like racism and sexism and these kind of things. I mean, everybody should be speaking up about this. But I think that we need to say the kind of things like what you said in terms

of like, you know, being grateful for the gift of being part of this and acknowledging, you know, the origins of the music. It shouldn't just be black musicians. It shouldn't just be Nicholas Peyton saying, this is black American music and like making an issue about these things. Yeah. And it's not about jazz. I mean, that's a whole

another issue. I'm talking about like acknowledging the reality of what the music. Well, we all know it, which is natural when we're all talking and hanging out of it, of it. But it shouldn't be when you get in front of the camera or you get into a state all of a sudden it's different. Yeah. You know what I mean?

It is an amazing. Or like we should be quiet and like, okay. It's an amazing gift. These brilliant artists with this history of being oppressed still allow people in some cases their oppressors in on this beautiful gift. And we should acknowledge that and respect that. Absolutely. Well, until tomorrow.

You'll hear it.