You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - OG's React To IG Pianists

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

Peter and Adam take a deep dive into what's going on with Jesus Molina.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 Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey, what's up? I want you to get ready. I want you to prepare yourself. I want you to find a seat and grab on to it. Okay. For dear life. I'm sitting right across from you.

You can clearly see that, but yes. Okay. Are you ready for today's episode? Yes. It's OGs. Yes. React to IG's. What does that mean?

I don't know. Okay. I'm Adam Manus. Things are popping off here. I'm Peter Martin. This is the you'll hear it podcast. Two pianists talking music. Talking music.

We're banging on the can. Snaping. Peter, you got an energy about you. I love music, too. That's why we're here. It is. It is why we're here. That is, yeah.

Literally the defined reason of why we showed up. Isn't the music the greatest? It is the greatest. We're going to be doing some react. Okay, first of all, in cases, this is your first time. Yeah. Where you've been. Yeah, yeah, welcome in, much love, fam.

Yeah, yeah. But this is sort of a special feature within a greater feature. The greater feature is the you'll hear a podcast. That's right. That's right. It's also a YouTube channel. This is like the little, remember the little Russian doll, the wooden doll. where you take the head off

and there was another one and there was another one. Peel back. We have many layers here at the Yule here. Is it a hat on a hat? It's a hat within a hat. A hat within a hat within a hat.

A exception. Yeah. It's a series that we have today. A series. It's a series. This may be the last one. It's our third part, second.

We're not even sure. It should be the last one. It's a short-lived series. We've done... A popular one and a much requested one. We did Domney and J.D. Beck. Well, first tell them what it is. So it's us.

We're the OGs. We're reacting to... old guys or old gangsters or original gangsters, no however you want to look at it. However you want to look at it. And we came up before the internets. We did. Well, technically, there was an internet,

I believe when both of us were born. No, there was. There was. But we didn't really use it as part of our growth as young musicians. We had no algorithms that were a part of what we were doing. Well, that's interesting. No, no, put a pin in that because we make, I might circle back to that.

Okay. There may have in fact been a different kind of algorithm. Okay, fair enough. Yeah. And we were reacting to musicians who have come up in an era of social media, in an era where you weren't the apprentice. You could just start your own account and start your own career. And that's the IG part as an instrument. The IG part.

So we reacted to Domi and J.D. Beck. Yes. That was the thumbs up for me, thumbs medium for you. Yeah. We reacted to Lewis Cole with Gregory Hutchinson. That was two big thumbs up from Hutch. Yeah, and thumbs up from us, but more question marks too. We reacted to Jacob Collier, thumbs up from you, medium thumb, slightly downturned for me.

I was a little surprised by that. I was surprised as anybody about my reaction to that as well. And today, we've a little judgy that day. I'm, that's okay. You're still my friend. I'm allowed to be judgy. A little crotchety. You know, I'm not a fan of some people.

I'm not a fan of jazz. I am a fan of jazz. But since we've been doing that, we've been teasing out other people we might. talk about Justin Lee Schultz, Joey Alexander, who... We should do him because he's straddling a bunch of different

lines in a way that... Like, he's different. I think he's different from all these other people are listening. Yeah, he really is. Not that any of these are the same, but they're more easier to group together. He went viral, but not in the same way. Right. Yeah. And today's artists

that we're going to react to is probably our most requested since we started the series. Hazes Molina. Right. And I feel like, if you had said before, look, I was shamefully not that aware of any of these young artists or I mean I was vaguely aware of all of them you in a bubble I was a little bit in a bubble and so this has been instructional and educational for me yeah so I'm glad I'm kind of starting to get up I'm no expert obviously because I'm just hearing a lot of these but Jesus Molina is probably one that I've seen on and off

yeah online fleetingly yeah on the on the talk as the kids are calling it the TikTok and on IG and just different you know kind of kind of no I've seen it immediately um But I think, yeah, Hesus Molina is somebody that I've been more than, yeah, still vaguely aware of, but it seems like for a while now. Yeah. Like, oh, okay, I see this guy, flashy piano player. I recognize him or whatever, but have never delved into it. So this will be very much a gut reaction. I think. To me, he is the quintessential Instagram pianist. Like, I think I, he was one of the first people I started following on Instagram. Like, the algorithm fed me, Hazus. Shubbed it down your throat probably. Like, as soon as I signed up for Insta, they were like, hey, look at the this guy. And I was like, oh, snap, that's amazing. Like, you know, and I started following it. See, I'm more, like, I probably would have thought it was amazing when I first saw it.

I probably did. But I'm not going to give it a sub if it's not something that are, well, we'll talk about it. It was very novel. This was early days, right? And so I was like, oh, if this is what you're going to show me, just badass piano players playing like Art Tatum. I'm all for it. Right. Now, my feelings have evolved. That's right. You're a little touch. You get a little touchier I've been noticing. Okay, so look, I've just got something pulled up kind of random because it was the... Let's switch it over to here. By the way, we've lost our beautiful window. Yes, and we should explain.

So we'll go back to this. It is sunny A.F. today in the loo. I mean, it's seriously sunny. We have this beautiful blackout curtain that keeps all light from in here so that we could really dwell without seeing any part of the outside world. If you were to open this now, though, it would just be blinded. You wouldn't be able to make us out. Probably people would love it. But the thing is, it's so bright out right now.

couldn't even see there. So work in progress, we're trying to figure out a way to do this. If there's anybody from the Today Show watching with that beautiful Rockefeller Center camera thing and you can give us some help, that would be great. Put me up, Hoda. But it'll be open again at some point. But let's get to the IG pianist. Jesus Molina.

So this is one. When I saw it pop up at the top of the list here, I was like, okay, I know I've seen this before. It's got two and a half million views. We've got to delve into this. I think I know which one this is going to be. Yeah. Oops, I'm going the wrong way there.

He was super young here, too. Yeah. maybe not 20 even i don't think so clean okay first of all this is fine so far but my first reaction is nam sucks i've never even been to it but this whole thing i mean not nam doesn't suck so you're saying maybe uh i'm not a fan of yeah nam exactly and to paint a picture for you guys on the audio podcast here is that you know this is a bunch of people a bunch of dudes sitting around with cameras you know, it's like an animal in a zoo kind of, everybody watching, and Jesus is at the keyboard here, whatever. But we're just going to stick the music.

I just want, that's a quick aside. Yes? Put a pin on it. I love to talk a little bit about NAM after this, because I think NAM tells is part of the story of the IG musician. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Nice.

Okay. So, so far, great playing, obviously great technique and stuff. But one thing, and I've heard this with some of the other players that we've been listening to, and now that I'm remembering some of the other stuff I've heard him do. is like he's grooving, kind of. Like, you know what I mean? Although I know he's young and he's just sitting out of this keyboard he's doing,

but it's like the runs and stuff. I'm always like, that needs to be in service of the music, the musicality, the groove that's in there. And so you're hearing a little bit of, I mean, it's not like he doesn't play well. He's playing incredibly. But the technique, there's a technique to playing in time and like being very much locked within the groove

when you're playing like this, that he's losing a little bit to me. And then he gets back in it, you know, it's nice. Okay. So this is kind of what he's, one of the things he's known for. It's a nice run there. I mean, nice left-hand stride. Okay, that dude there with the beard.

Yeah. That's naim, right? Over in the right-hand corner, that's name. That guy. That makes a mean espresso. Okay, before we keep going, reactions to the little stride section there. So one thing to keep in mind, which I will give him some props on here. So, you know, he played saxophone first.

He started playing piano when he was 15. If he's 19 here. Wow. That means he's been playing piano for four years. I mean, that's incredible. It's really incredible. It's amazing. I'd love to know the story of like how he, did he learn this like online on his own?

Did something, you know, from recordings? I think you too played a big version. You probably were part of his development at some point, Peter. But like, I mean, that in the of itself is amazing. He didn't start when he was two or three. He started when he was 14 or 15 or something. And obviously he's heard of Art Tatum. Like he's playing like Art Tatum stuff there.

Now, it doesn't feel like Art Tatum. It doesn't feel like Art Tatum. But can anyone feel like Artatum except Art Tatum? You know, it feels Artatim-esque, artatimish, right? It feels artatimish, but it's not quite there. And then this has nothing to do with Jesus, but just the NAM vibe is not for me. Like the idea of spending a day in a conference center with music instrument manufacturers and people trying to chop out to gain.

Instagram. He's probably the only one they're shopping out la Art Tatum. And I know Steve he's done some stuff at NAM. And there's loads of great musicians go to NAM and they love it and whatever. But it just seems so anti- music.

We're going to NAM. Let's go to NAM. And let's bitch about NAM. Let's do an anti-NAM show at NAM. I'm sure they're very nice people at NAM. Hey, listen, I love gear as much as the next guy. There goes all of our sponsorships and endorsements. No, man.

You know what I'm saying. Like, come on. This is a bit of a... Everyone's got badges on. It's a bit of a... There's the NAM... Hey, hey. Hey, you know, the NAM point.

You know what I mean? I mean, it just feels a little bit of a... But wouldn't you say, Hesus Malina, it's probably the only one they're trying to chop out with Artatim on a Nord? That's a little bit on Nourg. No, no, no.

I don't think he's the only one there trying to chop out with Art Tatum on a Nord. I'm sure there's other people trying to chop out with Art Tatum. He's probably the closest that can have it. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

But the other thing with this, I'll say this. Check it out. The way he's playing stride, this is, I'm getting nitpicky, because there's nothing wrong with this, but he,

let me take it back a little in this second. So you see what he was just doing there? He's doing, and it's not cheating, but this is some of the easier way to really be at Temple to nail stride. Instead of doing straight, you know,

yeah, I got it, you got it, you got it, you got it, you got it. Hold on, let me pull it out here.

So that's not great, but that's pretty good. Jumping. Oh, hold on. Oh, can you see it in all this glory? I'm just saying like if you're, like if you're jumping down and maybe even octaves, you know, or even just single notes.

Let's get the full. He's doing that. So it's as opposed to where you're just moving up and down, you know, check it out. So he's doing some, but he's not moving that far. So, I mean, it's smart. Like you're, you know. You're increasing your probability when you don't go of not missing stuff, right? I mean, but, but you know, you check out Artatim.

There's a lot more bigger leaps, you know, especially going back to Scott Joplin, you know, Jellymoremoremore. I didn't even know you could really do that. That's amazing. I can't. And that was spontaneous. That's the smart thing. Going on a live podcast and just start playing random stride that you hear a really good 19-year-old.

This guy's got nerves of steel. He's ice in his veins. But again, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the way he's doing this. Yeah, you are. No, I'm just saying full disclosure, like, if you're going to only

lean on your technique, the music has to be there too, and then you can do whatever you want. And I'm not saying the music isn't there, but the groove and the, you know what I mean? And like he's mugging for the camera and stuff, that's fine.

But you can, like, there's some things you can push the other parts of the musicality than just the technique over the edge that you can push into, I think,

to really elevate the overall performance. Yeah. And maybe he's going to. I mean, I'm stopping after 42 seconds. Watching this, and again, and nothing against Jesus, who's obviously a genius,

to be able to get this far, this fast. But watching this kind of display at NAM, I mean, I would rather watch Sullivan Fortner drink a cup of coffee. I'll be honest. That's how cool for that. I'm serious. Okay, well, let's just watch a little while. Then we're going to go to a later thing,

because to be fair, he's very young. That's a great run. See? He's jumping, but not all the time. And look, playing this on the note, I want to hear him do this on a piano. Do you have anything on a real piano? I think I do here.

I'd love to hear the same because I think he's a Nord artist. Yeah. And we love, that's an incredible piano song. One of the best I've heard. You got a Nord right here, buddy. I'm playing on a Nord. But not like that. Let's check this out.

This is on piano, yeah, to be fair. And this is later, too, a couple years later. So he's not old. This I like. This I heard one time, Ninth Tunisia. Oh. Yeah, I like this.

This is the, the, I know, I'm not to just scroll up. Uh Who's this on drums? Roney Casper. Uh. That's killing. Yeah. I mean, it's got a little bit of a frantic vibe, but it's got cool energy.

I prefer him on the acoustic piano, I have to say. Woo. Great arrangement. I mean, this time is rock solid here. Feel is right on. Ah. And this is like his, you know, you can see. I would watch this all day.

Oh, come on. now. It's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Who can do that? But you know what? The way, to me, that break is not as impressive. That's pretty impressive.

Come on. What is he doing again? Can we transcribe that real quick? So it's a... Yeah, whatever. Yeah, it's good. I mean, it's good and it's not easy to do. So what he's doing there is this little gem, which we've talked about in the show

before. So it is just 4-3-2-1. That kind of thing. Let's see how the time is on that, though. Because that's the thing like... It's still clean A. All right Okay

Now we're getting this kind of play We talked about this on the Domi and Jady Beck thing Like really good playing and stuff But what this is very different Than like coming out of the tradition of jazz And I'm not talking about I'm talking about the improvisational spirit

I'm not talking about the groove or fusion Or funk or straight ahead or whatever I like the baseline But the spirit of like Okay now we're gonna we're gonna create something With a solo like there's gonna be some kind of Yeah Like element that happens that's going to craft because of what's happening in the studio or what's happening in the moment or the drummer is going to play something or the bass.

Like this seems so programmed. It's so good. But it's not like it's not interactive in a way. Like there's a loss of humanity. It's not no humanity to it. But there's a loss of a connection of like what's going to occur like maybe a little bit of raggediness would be nice. Not in the time, but just in terms of like how things are sculpted. Like make a story.

Make a human story. not just like, you know, where it's very, did you like that? I did like it a lot. Where it's very... It does seem a little bit... Programmed. It seems programmed.

In an attempt to... Like he's so into what he's doing, everybody's doing their thing. Are they listening to each other? And it's impressive, but you get to... And then you get to the swing. I mean, it's kind of swinging, but there's no interactivity.

There's nothing that is happening. Maybe they'll get to it later. it's meant to be impressive. It's meant to impress. Like is anything going to stop him from playing what he's playing? This is the thing here. That's Kaelin. Yeah, but that was planned out.

It was planned out. But here's the thing. This is where I think what we were talking about, can we go back to the full screen? Yes, sir. So when we were talking about with the way the medium has changed the music, right, that's where I think this is happening. It's not even just Hazers Molina or J.D. and Domi Beck or whatever it is.

It's that you can't, There's not time to develop something between two people in the 35 seconds he's got to solo. Or it was less than that. It was like 20 seconds. Well, the four years of his career so far. Well, no, no, no. But like, so it takes, that's short is what I'm saying. It's super short.

But it takes, it takes, it takes patience. And it takes actually a lot of space, man. How many live shows do you go to where people cram in that many notes in the first course of what they're doing? Almost never. You know, the most noty player that I've seen in the past five years has been Benny Green. And it's not like that. Like it's not.

Duly noted. You know what I'm saying, though? It was a noteworthy performance. It was a noteworthy performance. Take note. It was noty, but in a way that was grounded in what was happening around him. And that feels like noty for notes sake. Right.

You know? Right. There's a big difference. But I think that's the medium. I think you have to be on Instagram. I think you have to be on TikTok. Right. You have 60 seconds to get your thing or people are going to scroll past.

Dude, I mean, think about- influence it when it's a three-minute and 41-second YouTube video, too? Absolutely. I mean, think about what we do even here at Open Studio with, we try to be real with our YouTube videos. Like, we're not trying for click bake or whatever, but what we also need to get your eyes on our videos for the first minute and have you stay, or else nobody else will see it. That's true. Like, if you don't stay for a minute on YouTube videos, YouTube doesn't show them to anybody. So we have to do things to make people stay for at least a minute so that it shows it to more than my mom.

On which she, moms are great. Moms are great. Mom, she'll watch all day. Mom's can mess up a algorithm. Hey, listen, I'm a parent now too. My kids had a YouTube channel. I'm watching every second of every video. Right. They could come on and there's just an empty chair for an hour. We would still wait

for our little baby to come on. Yeah, totally. But you bring up an interesting point because this, what we're checking out now, this is a performance. This is not a story or a tutorial.

But they performed it for a video. Right, but is there any chance, like I'm just looking, so three minutes and 41 seconds, is there any chance that something would have happened when they recorded this that he wouldn't,

Jesus wouldn't have played the number of notes he did it during that first course? Like, or is that just a given? Because there should be something. Why does it have to be a given, though? Why couldn't you just start it off with just like a...

And let something bubble up and happen. Right. That's what I'm saying. There's no chance of that. Is that because it's just a stylistic thing that's been programmed him because of the IG nature? So that even when you can stretch out a little bit more, you're not used to it. It's hard to say too because like if you can do that, why wouldn't you do that? You know?

Yeah. But maybe, you know what? This is connecting with a big audience. Maybe this is what people want to hear. Maybe they don't want to hear the interactivity at 465. thousand. I mean, not that that's, but I'm saying people like, I think it would be disingenuous of us, disingenuous of us to say, oh, this is no good. These are people listening for 10 seconds or whatever. This isn't a real audience. No, people like this. And that makes it a valid statement that he's doing.

I mean, he's got fans. People enjoy this. We like some of it, you know? Totally. Yeah. We're just reacting. I like the whole arrangement and the groove and everything. It feels great. And what he's doing is amazing. Yeah. But you're right. It's not. it's not what we love about improvised music. I want to make that connection. I want to be, look, we came up listening to Chickoria, Herbie Hancock, Whitney Kelly, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, you know,

but, you know, also Stevie Wonder and Donnie Hathaway and Journey and just like a lot of different things. So it's not that we're like, oh, you're playing 19 Tunisia. You got to do it like Dizzy Gillespie. No, not at 49 at the half note up in Harlem. And, you know, no. But it's also like there's a place that we're coming from. that is not a stylistic thing

it's a creative thing it's like it's a possibility it's like wow man this music is open yeah like give it some space like let's see where we can go with it it's not just a technique yeah your technique is killing but you're coming from a long line of pianist in this music that goes back

to before stuff was even recorded in New Orleans to Scott Joplin around the corner from here to Artatum to Oscar Peterson to the Lonis Monk the Lois Monk had an incredible technique you never heard him doing so many notes didn't need to, you know. Yeah.

Now, I'm not saying that age 20, nobody's going to be Thelonius Mug. It's not that. But will we look back on this and be like, this is the chick career of our generation? I don't know. Well, that's the thing is I think what we're discovering is we delve into more of these IG artists is that the medium itself is changing the music more than the artists are. Yeah. Like he's playing for the medium because this is what people are digging, right?

And I think he's probably adjusting what he's doing. And this is, and it's what he's seeing as well, right? It's his, it's not what we saw. There was a lot more space and time and, and patience happening in the music that we were seeing live. Right. So it's really interesting, man. I think we should do Justin Lee Schultz next because also I just want to get props to Jesus and Domini and Jadie Beck and Lewis Cole and everybody we've, and Dave Collier, of course,

and everybody been watching before. At the very least, it's a weird time to try to put stuff out. And they've figured some stuff out here that we can all take. And we've definitely, you know, been influenced by. some of these much younger artists as far as like what we do here at Open Studio and how we the quality that we try to present things in the video quality,

the intention behind it, right? And that's not to nothing. That ain't nothing. Especially nowadays. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think, look, because it's And mad respect. We wouldn't be, we wouldn't be reacting to this stuff if we weren't interested in it, if we didn't respect it,

and if we didn't think that there was really something there. Whether or not it's for us, first of all, it's never like yes or no. I mean, some things are like, nah, I'm just, I mean, this is quality stuff. This is like this is the real deal So regardless of how we say of like What expectations we bring or what we want to hear And I want to play just one more thing if it's cool

Just because I want to give Jesus a there is a video I have from just a few days ago Which I think would be interesting It's gonna be quick No but the other thing is like when we were coming up You know You mentioned coming up in this time Does Jesus Molina have a chance to play with a Betty Carter Or an Arr Blakey or a Miles Davis?

in the way that we did. That's what would be interesting. Like, it would be fun to see Jesus playing with, like, Marcus Miller or something like that. Yeah. Or, like, David Sandborn. You know what I mean? Like, in a club or a theater with like a, maybe he does.

I don't know. I haven't, I've never seen him come through our part of the country. So I've never known him. But that'll be the next thing because that's, that element. And look, it was missing for everybody during the pandemic with less performances, less touring and everything. And so I know it's harder for these young artists coming of age now because it's like they're playing stuff on the internet was the only place to play it you know and so mad respect to like

sticking to it and doing it instead of just sitting around watching tv during the time they're creating stuff you know jacob coyer created a whole opera uh based upon you know with take six and an orchestra and i was gonna say so what about jacob going back to jacob and his i know you want to play one more thing but he does have a sort of these sort of mentors i mean he's hanging with herbie he's hanging with quincy jones he's hanging with take six you know what i mean yeah i mean he's a super talented dude and hesu's i'm sure i'm sure you're sure is hanging with them too. I wanted just maybe to play this on our way out or we can just listen to a little because this is Spain. It's from a couple of weeks ago live at Berkeley. And so I want to

give a chance when you have such a young artist to give them to kind of show what they're up to now and because we're talking about Chicka Rio. So we love this tune, right? I haven't seen this by the way. Or heard this. Two drummers. So hot right now. Two drummers. So hot right now. Huh. Crazy. I don't know. What do you think of that? Sorry, I didn't mean it totally. I enjoy that. You like that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, normally I would be like, wow, really, do you need to rearrange a great arrangement?

But I kind of like, like, don't just get up there. Take this great tune from this great artist that everybody loves, but do your own thing with it. You know, I like that. No? You want the original. I do. Is he making his own original music, too, Jesus? I think so.

I'm not sure. I don't know what's happening, man. I know. Should we do more research? Are we overly researching this? All right. Well, thank you guys for listening. And we hope you enjoyed the overly, look, we don't like to overly pamper or research for our audience, right?

Definitely not. No. So we have a very special treat, so stick around. We're going to do our usual ending, but please don't leave. Until next time. You'll hear it.