You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Kenny Kirkland "Phryzzinian Man" - #18

Episode Date: September 19, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam break down Kenny Kirklands powerhouse solo on Wynton Marsalis' "Phryzzinian Man". See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You know what that sound means, Peter? I sure do. It means it's solo analysis. Wednesday, I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to The You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice and solo analysis once a week coming at you. I love the Wednesday solo analysis, man.

Man, I'm all about the Wednesday. It's so cool. Yeah. Especially when it's, well, they've all been great souls. So I remember this from our blindfold test a couple weeks ago. This is Phryzinian man. Yes. From Witten Marsalis' black coats from the underground.

But we're not going to analyze Winton solo. No. We're going to analyze Kenny Kirkland. Yes, we are. Nice. So, yeah, this is, you know, this is one of my favorite Kenny Kirkland solos, one of my favorite piano solos, really heard it, as I've said before, at a, you know, super pivotal time.

But I think it's a great representation of the time of Kenny Kirkland's style, of any time. And I'm just excited to dive into it. It's, you know, I always think a great solo for you and for hopefully anyone that would enjoy it is about like, it's like a great movie or a great meal. You can have it over and over again. It doesn't go bad. It's not like the pod cave where mold is probably growing. It's just fresh as it was in 1985. It's got that timeless quality.

But the main thing I think is just our personal connection with it. Like, do you still get just excited or is it like, man, I've heard it. I mean, it's like, you know what's going to happen and it's still good. But sometimes solos get deeper as you progress through your life. Absolutely. There's solos that I've had in my life for 25 years that the more I understand about the inner workings in the music, the more I'm like, oh, man, that's heavier than I thought. And I thought it was great before, you know.

It's like an endless treasure trove. And I think, too, there's even solos that maybe we weren't ready for. Like, you ain't ready for that. Totally. And then you come back and then you're ready. And then that's some really deep, deep kind of solo type stuff. So, all right, why don't we just listen to a little bit? Let's get into it.

Yeah. Okay, so they're, you know. We just talk about the sound first of all. Yeah, the sound is, yeah, yeah. The sound of the record, but his sound, his touch is so distinctive and rhythmic and beautiful. I love it, man. Yeah, and he's not even really going, like, he's just starting to set the table right now. So he hasn't even really gone into his thing, you know, but just do, do, do, be qui, you know, like, that very typical phrase.

The lick. It's the lick. And, but, like, you hear his phrasing, and he's, you hear his phrasing. And he's already kind of hinting at that undercurrent of like that triplet laid back kind of thing. And Jeff Watts, the great Jeff Tane Watts, where I saw last weekend. Oh, nice. Playing is incredible as always, you know, he's hinting at it with that little bit of a precursors to what's going to happen with a more complex conversation as the solo goes on.

A little foreshadowing, like any great story. I mean, this is the thing. I think, you know, and this is fun. Every Wednesday we're both, we're alternating come up with different solos. The one thing that's that I think people will hear and you can. really learn from in these great solos is the storytelling aspect of it. That's the thing, no matter what the style is, like these are great stories, because you're not going to want to listen to a year after year, decade after decade if it's not an interesting

story. Just like a great movie. It could be wonderful visually, but if it doesn't have a great story in it, it's kind of like, meh, you know. So this is a good opening act here. Yeah. Okay, so like one thing I'm thinking about here, I think that he just nails in this solo that's so great is that, you know, the whole thing that gets us bobbing our head. Like, and, and, you know, And you could say, well, yeah, I mean, the rhythm is, you know, Charmed him off at Jeff Watts, and certainly they're all swinging. But, like, Kenny had this thing where it's like if you could have just taken the other tracks away, you'd be bobbing your head just as much, you know. I mean, he has so much. And it's one thing once he gets, you know, later on, he's going to get into like some real choral stuff and some super rhythmic things.

And so you could say it's easier to kind of delineate that kind of swing with that. But even when he's just doing the simplest of lines that, you know, if any other pianists plays him, it's like, Like, ah, that's cool. But it's like he has a personality in the sound that comes through with his rhythmic, you know, precision with how he plays it for his personality. So much confidence in that playing. There's so much. And I love what, I love his left hand, too.

I love Kenny Kirkland's left hand. Those cordal voicings. They're not always strictly like just forth. He adds some little clusters in the middle or at the bottom sometimes. Yeah. Killing. Style, stylized. Accent.

Sicapagic. You know you're doing good when you're like cacking notes left and right in one phrase, and it still sounds good. And then as he expands the course, double time, that's what you really hear that. You hear a little Peter Martin going on? Man, I stole as much as this as I could have, man. I mean, this was truly influential to me. And I heard him live a couple times around this period.

And I was like, I mean, way before I could play it. I mean, I can't really play it now, but I can imitate it now. But, I mean, I didn't know what was going on. but what was cool was like the rhythmic concept I could kind of start to get before I could get all that you know there's some deep stuff happening harmonically yeah yeah but I mean the rhythmic thing I was just like man I want to get that feel and something about Kenny like and it was very much his personality too like it was as advanced as it was and as complex as some of the you know when you really analyze it there was an approachability and a welcomeness and this is like his personality like he was very much

He wasn't one of these guys that was like off-putting or anything, even to a young punk kid coming up to him. And that was, so that because, I think because I met him and he was so nice to me. And like his music, I was like, well, let me try to imitate what I can in this. And, like, I kind of got with that rhythmic. Like, I could say that I sort of learned how to swing because of Kenny Kirkland, just imitating him. Yeah.

And, like, kind of just, like, it was like, he gave me a big hug and just, like, welcomed me in with his music. Yeah, yeah. And so very, very, very fortunate to be kind of around his, his light. That's so funny. That's, you know, the first one I did, the Grant Green solo. That's the same thing. I kind of learned what swing was from that solo.

It's funny how those first experiences with rhythm stay with you because you still swing like this. It's like, you have that same. You could hear it in your playing for sure. It's an influence. Yeah. And I think that, you know, you certainly, you go through a period of being like, well, I don't want to be imitating somebody so much. And then you go past that and like, you know, just like, oh, I'm happy to play how I hear.

And so, yeah, because it's such an influential period in my development. And really a whole generation of pianists, you know, Kenny Kirkland, Mulgrew Miller, you know, Kenny Barron, Herbie Hank. I mean, there's certain pianists that just sort of have that influence. And so it's great. You can grab a little more from here. I mean, I just wanted to grab a lot of cats. I just loved it, you know.

Yeah. I loved it. So cool, man. Let's keep going. That's that left-hand great comp and you would talk about it. And then when he shifts into like kind of two-handed chords and then comes out of it, I've definitely ripped that off from him. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Those like moments where you just go into chords. Yeah. His wrists are so fast, though, when he's doing that like da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah. The bounce is, that's hard to get that clean. He had a, I don't know the whole history. I remember asking him some sheepishly and kind of afraid when I, a couple times I got to hang out with him about sort of his back.

He had a pretty serious classical training when he was young. And I know like, but then he adapted, I mean, like you can really hear those 16th in those line, like the evenness, like the attack, the way his phrasing, you know, like the acclaiming and the syncopation, like the clarity that he can pull it off. He had a lot of control, you know, a lot of control. But he had like very distinctive physically technical, like he did some things that you really, we think of not supposed to like letting the join in. and stuff like that, that first joint. So he definitely had some unorthodox things happening. Like he sat at a position that, I don't know, I was always taught was incorrect.

But, I mean, he just, he basically created a technique, like all great pianists in jazz, that works for them, whether it's, you know, so-called correct, or it works to get the sound that they want to get. Well, he's definitely, I think of him as having one of the more distinctive sounds. Like one of those, when you hear five seconds, you know, it's, you know. And I mean, you know, piano, like what I was talking about this, piano is not an easy instrument to do that.

Like, it's more of an accomplishment to do that on the piano than almost any other instrument. It's just, it's harder to, I mean, the chronic and Bach, look, I'm going to play a C. Now you play a C. Pretty much sounds the same. It's very hard to be distinct of on the cratic. I think even then you got a little bit heavier sound than me. No, but it's just, yeah.

It's true. It's a tough instrument. So I just want to mention, too, a little bit for some people, you know, I mean, I think everyone kind of knows about Kenny Kirkland, but a lot of people, but a lot of People don't know him deeply. And I would just say there's some other, like his solo recordings is just called Kenny Kirkland on GRP where he does crisscross and all those great tunes. That's a great record.

The Kenny Garrett, several records he was on with Kenny Garrett are great, but the one I'm thinking of in particular songbook. That's a great recording for Kenny Kirkland. If you want to go on a little bit deeper dive, certainly Blackhodes from the Underground, Wintmarsall's Think of One, another Wintmarsall's early recording with some nice Kenny Kirkland. Very cool, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, good stuff. Great stuff, yeah. Solar Analysis Wednesday. We're doing it. Do we have any other business to take care of here? On-air business? I don't think so. All right.

Yesterday we did the ratings, you know, we're still looking for ratings and reviews. Always. You can always go to you'll hear.com to leave a question or leave a voicemail or buy a t-shirt. Yeah. Oh, you know what? Give us a shot on Twitter. Hey, Open Studio. We're up in a week.

We're getting a little dialogue going there. Maybe, you know, tweet at us and tell us your favorite, Kenny Kirkland, maybe some stuff that we don't know. I'd love to see that. Is there any that we don't know, though? You know what? I always think there's not, but there is. All right.

There is. Well, in that case, you'll hear.