You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Old School Or New School?

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Adam and Peter compare their experiences of learning music to the average students of today. Were things better then or now? Unlock your FREE Open Studio trial to become a better player today.Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. Are you old school or are you new school? You know what? I want to be new school, but I feel like I may have some old school tendencies. I think this episode might expose things. What I know I'm not is a boomer. Ah.

I don't know about you, though. Well, I went to the new school, class of 2004. Never graduated. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Music, explained, and delivered. Delivered to you via Open Studio.

Go to OpenStudioJazz.com for all your jazz lesson needs. Start your free trial today, 14-day free trial. Peter. I want to give people a little bit of a pre-Easter egg for this episode. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. If...

It's not close to East... Well, no, you know what an Easter egg is, though? Yeah, I do. You know, you... So, in case, we start to bore you with what we're talking about. That would never happen. We know that's not going to happen. But for some of you, it may happen.

Just make a note of how close... We're talking to our microphones. I'm self-conscious, like crazy about a couple of things, about my shirt, sitting weird, and about the microphone. Because we were told to reposition. Yeah, reposition our mics. Yeah. And we're really used to coming up on the mics,

but we're supposed to be staying conscious of not being too close to the microphone. Yeah. So I feel like I'm very stiff right now. And this is a thing, you know, singers, like this is a big part of their gig. It's like, where are you going to put the mic? They know all about that. Whatever. But anyway, it would be interesting.

to see if we kind of drift back to our normal position. You're already closer than me. Am I? Well, no, I'm just trying to. Okay, sorry. It's weird. A thousand episodes. You've got to use to one way.

Yeah, yeah. We'll see how goes. What are we talking about today? Well, we are talking. Yeah, we are talking about old school versus new school. What does that mean in the jazz world, in the music world, in the learning about music, appreciating music? I thought it would be really interesting.

Some of the stuff we were, you know, thrown around in the warm up pen, as we said. say, like, if you're coming up playing music now, I mean, we're all learning all the time, of course, but like if you are really in those formative teenage years, perhaps, early 20s, mid-20s, whatever, like, what's different now about being a musician, a creative musician? What's better? What's worse? I don't want to be, I don't know, I don't want to rep us as like curmudgins and say everything was better back in the old days because obviously some things are better today. Internet access is better today because there was none when we were in our, in our teens. Zero.

But how does that affect how one learns music, how one connects with other people? What are the connections that are needed that maybe aren't needed? You know, what was it like when we're coming up and what is it like for the kids today? Yeah. I have an old friend who doesn't like the term coming up. Every time he hears it, he brussels. He's like, coming up. It feels like, oh, I was coming up.

I'm like, yeah, but we're just talking about growing up. Right. Well, now they say like on the come up. On the come-up. I like that better. Which means exactly the same thing. Man, I don't know. Like, I think this could be an interesting discussion

because you and I are close in age, obviously, and we come from the same place here in St. Louis. Chastown, USA. Where we started our, yeah, Chastown, USA. Where we started our musical journey. And we're continuing it. I know. But we're also a part of, in a small way here with Open Studio,

we're a part of, like, you know, continuing the tradition of, of teaching what we know, but in a very different format, in a format that we did not have when we were young. No. And I think we're always, especially here at Open Studio as we talk about music

and want to communicate music, I don't know about you, but I'm always thinking about like, what were the most impactful ways that I absorbed music when I was young and I was learning how to play? Right. And is there a way to recreate that

in this sort of digital delivery, you know, mostly one-sided service, although we'll talk about how we've kind of gotten around that, especially since the pandemic with things like Open Studio Pro and the mentor sessions and these sort of like face-to-face Zoom situations. And I know a ton of people do like Skype and Zoom lessons and all that stuff. But I think there's those differences.

I think there's the difference we've talked about, at least, you know, on my end. And I know you have similar stories of like it was just harder to get all kinds of information. So it was harder to get information about like what I, what were the albums to listen to? Yeah. It was harder to then get those albums. Like sometimes someone would be like, hey, go check out this record. And like, it was hard to find. Right.

You know what I mean? Like physically, like where am I going to drive to find this? Yeah, totally. And especially if you aren't in a major metropolitan area. You know, I was like in High Ridge, Missouri. So I would come into St. Louis to buy records, which wasn't. You had to gas up though. You do have to.

I mean, it's not super far. But it's like, it's far enough that I couldn't go to any record shop in, High Ridge. There were no record shops. There was like a Kmart. Right. And they usually didn't have Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane at the Kmart and High Ridge. Yeah. Spoiler alert. But I think those kind of differences, we're seeing now what the impact is, I think. But then I think there are, and which I think

are all positive. Like we're seeing, I think, kids that can play and are exposed to so many different kinds of music. But then I think there are some, like, interesting drawbacks, too. like there's a good chance that my daughter, who's 14, has listened to more, has, she certainly has more access to, but has listened to more different kinds of music than someone like Charlie Parker had access to and listened to. Right. In her short life, because she's a Spotify hound.

She like can't get enough of Spotify. And she knows all of these crazy genres and all this stuff. And she's really exposed to a lot of music. Is that a good thing to develop your own voice? like, you know, like with your limitations and forcing you to go deep, I think these are all, can all be conversations we can have around this topic, you know? Absolutely. And I'm just realizing, like a lot of times we want to break this down into kind of a binary thing.

Like, there's the way it was and then there's the way it is now. So like you say, for your daughter, listening to Spotify, I'm assuming that there was a lot of algorithmic discovery that she's gone through. like that's the way maybe she's finding new artists. Yeah. And so we think about, well, we didn't have that, but we actually did. Like, think about who told you to go hunt down whatever record you were looking for that you couldn't find at the Kmart.

Like that was its own form of an algorithm. You know, it was like a tribe or it could be a cult almost, you know, if it goes, if it goes dark, you know. Well, that's the thing is you had to meet the right people. Right, right. But I mean, there's still like, oh, this is, I want to be part of this. Now, maybe at first you hear something. something you like, just like the algorithms work now.

So, oh, I like this. And then you start listening to it. And then the algorithm picks up on that. Well, if you like this, maybe you'll like this. And it starts exposing you to other things. And then there's that discovery phase. But we went through that as well. I know for me, sometimes it was physically on the albums.

Like I something caught my ear about my dad's Miles Davis record. And then I'm looking at the back of it. I was like, wait, who's on this? And it says Herbie Hancock. I was like, wait, I know Herbie Hancock because I just saw him on MTV. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You start to make the, but it was like you had to work a little harder. It wasn't just served up.

Okay, now, see, we need to ring the bell every time we do an old man boomer kind of statement. Like, back on the day, I had to walk uphill to get that damn record. So this is now the boomer bell for this episode. Okay, let's be on that boomer bell because we need to be aware of when we might be, you know, showing our boomer bias. Boomer bias. By the way, I love that shirt today. That boomer shirt. No, I'm just kidding.

That was, I'm just testing the bell, buddy. I do like that shirt. It's nice. Thank you. So. But you know what I'm saying? Like there was an algorithm back then. There was...

But it wasn't so global. It was like, I know this guy Maurice and he's telling me to go check out this album. Well, that's what it was. It was just simpler. But I'm saying it was still, it wasn't as random. Well, it was more serendipitous, but it wasn't necessarily more random. In fact, it might have even been more focused at that time. Because like you had to, you had to work.

Oh, boy, I can see myself. And the boomer bell's going to go. No, but it's like we had to work hard. We had to work harder. Like, there is an element of easy come, easy go, right? Yeah. So, like, you had to drive in and get that record. You're going to treat that differently than just your daughter now on Spotify playing the next thing.

Oh, I like that. Thumbs up. And then going on to the next thing, you know? Yeah, that's true. And I think that as listeners, that affects us, but it especially affects us. And I'm not even saying, like, for better for worse. I'm just saying it's different and it does have a different kind of trickle-down effect on an individual basis, but then for the scene, especially when you're talking about like the jazz scene where it's already very insular and probably too insulated.

And like people are afraid to say certain things. It's clickish and it's cultish. Or it can be. And it can be like, this is ours, gatekeeping, jazz police, all these things. Like those kind of stay constant, like how their manifest changes from generation to generation. But you think people weren't talking about the jazz police back in the 50s and the 60s? I mean, all those issues were there then as well. But I do think one thing that, you know, if you're younger today

and you're trying to learn the music, any music, not just jazz, but anything, there is no gate, really, if you are into it. Like, if you want to learn about it, there's no, the only gate is can you afford internet access? That's really it. And then you can really learn as much as your curiosity can take you. Right. You know, whereas it could be, and actually it was intentionally gatekeeping.

I don't know. if you knew musicians like this, but I knew musicians who did not want to talk about, they didn't want anybody knowing their secrets, quote, right? They didn't want to, you know, they didn't want people seeing them play sometimes, like what their hands were doing. Right. It was the thing with the trumpet players where they, like, you know, have the handkerchief or, like, have their hand over so they couldn't see the fingerings of things that they did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is really interesting. I mean, it makes sense because it was incredibly competitive. Wow. You know, it still is competitive, but it was like, it was more of like,

this is my proprietary sound. Right. And so maybe, you know, maybe some people who talk about that are kind of right. Yeah, but those elements

have also always been, like we think, oh, with the internet, that busted it wide open and even if somebody was trying to, like you, the horse is out of the barn, there's nothing you can do anymore.

But I would imagine when, well, for sure, when recordings started, like that changed all different kinds of music scenes because then it was like, oh, you're giving away the secret. Someone can listen to it

and then listen to it again. Yeah. You know, it was a lot clunkier than what we can do now, of course. But even, like, they're written down on the page, you know, like, once the music wasn't, like, you didn't have to be there in the moment.

They looked at the written pages like, oh, we have a, like, the equivalent of what later you'd think of as a recording. We've got a document of this. And we can look at it and analyze and steal, you know, box voice leading or whatever. And I'm sure that there was, you know, wasn't what that movie, Amadeus was about? Like the angry, salty guy, salieri, who was like, you know, don't steal my cords that I stole from Mozart, actually.

Yeah, yeah. Well, wasn't Mozart, the younger one? Yeah, well, it made him even more bitter. Which made him, I doubt, yeah. That relationship is timeless. It's timeless, right, right. I think it's interesting, man. What about, like, when you were young, when you were learning the music, like, what do you think were some of the most impactful lessons that you took away that kind of wouldn't happen now? Like, do you ever think about that?

Like, I think about that sometimes. I think about, actually, there was just that video. this happened at Smalls. Who's the drummer, like kicked someone off the drum set? No, Anthony Wanzi kicked off the drummer. Yeah, which is the check. Was sitting in. Yeah, check out the video.

It's crazy. But that was not uncommon. Right. Like that now that seems so wild. Yeah. But that happened pretty regularly. Right. Around like, you know, the BB's jam session back in the 90s or whatever.

Yeah. People were getting kicked off the piano all the time. Right. Someone would come in and someone specifically that I want to mention, we'd be like, move. Right. And we'd kick him off. And it happened a lot.

And it wasn't, it was for the music, but that just, that kind of attitude doesn't happen. So you think it happened more than it does now? Yeah. Because people are, it's just, people are kinder. It's not because of the algorithm. It's because, uh, no, no. It's a whole different kind of culture around. It's less, you know, like we talk about like one of the mentors that we both had when we were

younger was Willie Aiken's, you know, legendary tenor sax. here in St. Louis. And that kind of instruction, he was very direct. He cared about you. Yeah. But he cared about the music. And he cared about you learning the music. Yeah. He always, Willie was this type of musician who always had a very young band around. Right. Very much a teacher from the stage, from the bandstand. And not like a teacher like, here's the chords you should be playing and here's the scale that we're using. None of that. But if I was comping something that he thought was not good, he would just turn around and say tacit, meaning stop playing. Right.

And like, I don't want to tell you to stop, but tacit. Yeah. And if he liked what you would, what you were doing, he would give you more and more space to do what you were doing. And so that was like the way that you would be learning. And he was, he wouldn't cut corners with that either. Like there was a drummer that joined the band that he didn't let the drummer, who's now like a well-established drummer.

But he didn't, and he was just starting out. He was a kid. 17. And he didn't let him solo for the first six months he was in the band because he was like, you got to learn how to swing first. Right. You got to learn how to work the ride when I'm playing before you get to solo. Yeah. And that was like an incredible thing to witness as another young musician that's sort of like commitment to the music and to sharing it via, you know, here's, here's what we're doing and here's what we're not doing. But it's very much a form of gatekeeping. Yeah. Right. So, but in a, and there was. There was.

There's a lot of love there too though. It wasn't this like angry thing. It was a- It was educational. It was. He cared, like I said, he not only cared about the music, but he did care about the young musicians and his band. He just cared that we were doing things in the right, quote, in the right way, right?

We learned the music in the way that it's meant to be learned. And it seems like it's evolved to the point where that still happens some, but not as much and it's more, there's so much more. potential for difficulties with that for like they're being you know hard feelings and like somebody being discouraged although that certainly happened back then too and not just with willie aiken but with these type of like well-meaning and really masterful players that are doing a great service to the music and to the community in general because you're like those are some of the most important i mean think all the you know yourself myself montez like all these musicians that were able to benefit from that

and then go on and teach other younger people and play in the community. I mean, it's got a ripple effect that's really a beautiful thing. But there's also, like, some people were discouraged by that. I'm sure. I'm like, oh, you told me to test and I'm going to quit or whatever. But that was also a time, and certainly even going back before that, there was more of it where it was just like, you know, suck it up, buttercup, you know, sink or swim. You want to play this music.

You've got to respect it. You've got to. And like, is that still the prevalent feeling in the jazz community? I know a lot of older guys and gals. feel that way, but it's not as acceptable to kind of be like that, I feel like. Yeah, no, I totally agree. Because like the Smalls incident, there was a lot of, it wasn't like, oh, yeah, Anthony Wansy is, he's a great player.

You know, he's in our generation. I mean, he's one of the best players out here. And I would have thought everyone would be like, thank you. And some people were, but some people were like, that's so disrespectful. Everybody our age. Yeah, that's true. Who had been through similar things. But, I mean, I don't think he had anything.

I don't know that whole thing. And it's funny you said go see it because I was like, because I'm like, we don't want to have controversy. But this is another problem. Like, people didn't use to care about controversy in terms of like somebody like a Willie Akins

wasn't thinking about like, yeah. I mean, he was actually a very gentle person in general. So he wasn't just like, like some stories that you hear about musicians where it's just like throwing the symbol across the stage. Like, get off the band that you suck,

even if they did. Yeah, no, he wasn't like that. But he also wasn't like, I've seen that, but Right, right. But he wasn't going to be like, oh, that guy looks like he's very sensitive. Maybe I won't tell him to task it. I don't think he didn't strike me as that either.

No. No, there was a sort of sink or swim kind of vibe, which I think is helpful as a performer. I think now you have that in the, I think in the jazz programs somewhat. Like it's super variable amongst the teachers. Depending I think on the teacher. Yeah.

But even they are like very much having to navigate the dynamic of like, especially if it's a private lesson, stuff. It's like, how far can I push? How far can I not? And look, this is really anecdotal. Don't take any of this. But this is for me talking to my musician friends that are teaching in those situations. Yeah. Where they're like, yeah, you just have to be careful because they're at a very, very fragile time. And that was all true when we were coming up. Just nobody gave a shit back then. Yeah, I wonder though, you know, man, one thing that I think.

Sorry, that was. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, we can also look at this as like, you know, yeah, like, like maybe there was some very good things about that sort of like direct approach. but also there could have been some damaging things with that as well that like we probably maybe don't want to expose the younger generations to and that's probably a good thing that we're past some of this stuff. But I do I do wonder though about like and this is not just for like young people this is for me too. It's for anybody who's living currently.

Like I think sometimes we have almost too much control over what we put out over what our playing and learning situation is. Yeah. So by that, I mean, like, you know, if we put out something here at Open Studio, there's a real temptation to make sure that it's absolutely spot on perfect. Yeah. Before it goes anywhere.

Like, and that means, like, we have as many takes as we need, and that means we can edit it later. Yeah. Like, this is why when... Even in this conversation, now I'm thinking, like, wait, well, like, you... Yeah, yeah, yeah. For better, for worse, full transparency,

we are stuck, and I wouldn't say it's all bad, but it's a reality. Like, we've joked about it, like, the mic's always on. Like, it starts, like when you're on a mic so much, when you're playing, when you're teaching, when you're having to be, you know, just like, like what we say, conscious of the mic placement or whatever,

it's like you're always thinking, let, it's not like, let me be careful, because I think we're very, especially in this podcast, we're super candid, this is what we believe. And we've, we've made some missteps before on things that we've had to walk back. For sure. We very rarely edit something out.

We do occasionally. We're like, you know what, let's take that out. Not because it's not what we felt, but it could be, it could cause just, you know, strain or an uncomfortableness for us. And I mean, not even uncomfortableness. And see, there I may be taking it too far. But it could cause some strife or misunderstanding in our audience that is not productive. No.

You know, yeah, that's the line that we talk about walking all the time. But that's what I'm saying. It's like, because everything is, first of all, we control everything that we put out. Right. Right. And then also everything we put out is available to everyone all the time. Right. Right. So there's an added pressure there of like, well, we don't want to have that video up because it didn't really work. And like we didn't communicate the way we wanted to communicate. Or people took it so like so much as the gospel. Yeah. That we didn't think. Like even we come on here and say something. It's like, oh, thanks so much. Finally somebody said it. That's what I believe. And we're like, well, wait. We're thinking, yeah, well, we believe this. But we didn't necessarily mean that for everybody. So like we have to caveat things or say like, you know, that's why we have our.

The debauchees on a big $100,000. Debociay and DeBosier. We're constantly checking with them. Yeah. And it's just like sometimes we just are talking and things don't come out in the way that, you know what I mean? And then it's like you're continuing to talk or continuing to play. This can get into the playing too.

Luckily it's not as much of a thing for me with that, but it does happen sometimes. I went through the whole yips. Yeah. Where you're thinking about what you just played, but you're having to charge on or what you just said as you charge, it's very hard to be productive and transparent. and, you know, in the moment with the discussion when you're having to think about that. So, yes, we have the ability to edit this, but we kind of, we treat everything like it's alive.

Because sometimes I'll even forget, wait, are we on live? Or we go live all the time. We do whatever. Like, you have to kind of treat everything as like, this is who I am. And, I mean, I try to rely on and have grace for myself and for everybody else. Like, when I'm watching YouTube, like, that's why I'm a huge YouTube. I love YouTube, Sue me, okay? Talk to my attorneys down in South Louisiana.

I'm watching stuff all the time. But like when I see anything, even if it's something I don't agree with or something that I think wasn't done well with a YouTuber that I know or didn't know, like I would never go into the comments and like try to rip them a new one. See, like I just said something out. Should I have said that? Yeah. I don't know. I just kind of came out. But you know what I'm saying?

I wouldn't come. Cut that. I wouldn't like light into them because. Melodyne that, please. Melodyne that. Right. Like I have an understanding of like when you're here, you say something. you know, you screw up sometimes.

And like, part of the immediacy of this, it's so connected to like how we're trying to play music, you know, and teach music and like be in the moment and develop your ears and all that. And part of that is like, you're going to screw up sometimes. This is what I'm talking about. And there's people just waiting to pounce on that. But is this for all of us. And again,

this is not just, not just a generational thing, but for all of us who are existing right now making music in this environment, like, I don't know if it's healthy that like everything is around all the time. Because it kind of forces us to, to, like, not be able to fail. You know what I mean? Or, like, you really have to develop super thick skin in order to put things out, especially if you get just a small

audience even, you're going to get your critics. And that can be very hard. And I think your first instinct, when you start putting stuff out and people start paying attention, is to really make sure, okay, everything I put out has got to be, like, agreed upon by everybody that it's good to say and I can't. It's like the social media picture of like it has to be me at the beach with my beautiful family all of us being so lot and then as soon the picture is that I hate you, you know.

Back to reality. Yeah. It just seems like there's not a lot of room for especially developing musicians to like make some mistakes and figure some stuff out, you know? Yeah. At least without all the pressure. That's what I'm saying. And I wonder sometimes, you know,

we had that whole series and we had some of the controversy around that, the OGs, listen to IG's. What is it? Do not look at it. Let's not talk about it. No, it was a good series. It was a fun series.

Yeah, it was really fun. We were just listening to, like, you know, tons of young musicians who are famous on, specifically on social media, kind of first and foremost. Yeah. JD Back and Domi, that kind of thing, right? Flashy Musilina. Jesus Malina. We did one on. Jacob Collier.

We did one on, which was weird, right? Like, all of these, we kind of, like, were like, okay. Like, it was just kind of like an interesting vibe. I wasn't expecting. but like I do think that like all those folks are so amazing that they're everything they play is going to sound great no matter you know one take but like I think a lot of developing musicians see those people and they feel like oh man everything I do now has to be at that level interesting and I just wonder if it's like and us too like older musicians who are trying to do stuff too we feel that I feel like you feel that sort of pressure of like everything you put out has to be a banger and I just want everybody to be to be. totally conscious of open studio and notice that everything we put out is not a total banger. No, we try to, as we mentioned before, we try to leave up stuff that kind of doesn't even paint us in a great light. We're not super worried about that. We don't do that great though.

Like I'm just thinking about myself, like I had a short out recently that I haven't done this style much and we haven't even talked about this, but it was like it was doing, you know, I was trying to inspire with some hand independent stuff. But, you know, we're time-boxed into 60 seconds on these shorts, you know, which we love that in a way. We lean into that. But part of that is like you've got to get that information in there. And so I wanted to demonstrate this thing. And when I do that kind of thing, sometimes it comes across as, look at me, look how great I am.

I'm Peter. And I don't mean it to do that, but upon looking at it again. If your biggest fault is you're too good. But I'm, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, for 60 seconds. No, I'm, okay. No, but I'm saying like, I don't think that's a good video. I really don't because it's not really a performance.

I'm talking. I mean, it's fine what I'm playing and and, but it's not like it doesn't impress to inspire. It comes across as just trying to impress to impress. And that's not what I meant, but that doesn't matter if that's, if that's how it comes across to somebody. Because most of these videos are not being seen by just our closest friends. I think your intentions. Well, look at the comments, buddy. I think your intentions are, are relevant.

And I agree. Yeah, but it doesn't mean that they're relevant, but doesn't mean they're germane to somebody's reaction that's going through and just watching it in their feed. And we could talk about it. Is that the problem that people are like, oh, this sucks, put it in, then going to the next one. Oh, that's the greatest thing ever loved you then to the next one.

There's that whole problem too. But if you dig it, what does it matter what people react to? Like that's what I'm saying. Like, I've turned the corner. But we're trying to do something specific with, like for me, it's like to inspire, to elevate the conversation. To bring some, like, I feel like, I have this love-hate relationship with social media because I think it's so corrosive and divisive. And look, many people have waxed eloquently about this way better than I can.

I mean, this is, I mean, like, it rewards controversy and arguing and it's, you know, trolling and, hey, of course all that. And so, like, for my thing is like, well, I can do some things that are positive in this world. And so what's nice about it is that it can amplify some of those things. But, and I've done that before, you've done them. We have great success, I think. It's one of my proudest things, and it's free. We're giving it away. But sometimes when there's videos like that,

to a certain segment of the people, it discourages them. Because it makes it seem like, first of all, what I'm doing is not that hard. There's ways to, when you get the sound going and stuff. Another humble brag. No, I'm saying it really isn't it. But it's smoke and mirrors. It's like I could go to the beach and put on a swim trunks.

I was going to say a bikini, but that would be weird. It would be fine. Yeah, buddy. I like where this episode is that. I could go put on a ring and ding ding. Join me at the beach and destined, big guy. No, so I mean, I could put a bathing suit on. And with makeup and actual smoke and mirrors and some photoshopping,

I could look really attractive in said bathing suit by the beach, tan and muscular and all that. And then as soon as it was done, I go, and then like the reality isn't that. And I think that that's the way that kind of video comes across. a little bit. You're still Peter Martin. It seems unapproachable.

And it's not, I'm telling, it's not, what I meant to be like is you can do this. And like, you know what? I kind of hide behind. And I think we do this in general. Like, at least in my mind is that I make these shorts, we never edit and we don't edit them at all. Like, they're done in real time. We add things to them, but we don't do any timeline edits where we're like cutting. Yeah, we don't start and stop.

And even some of our longer YouTube videos. Like, if it looks like it's not edited, it's not edited. We don't do any like, oh, give me get the first part then. So I'm like, it's not going to be. I listen to that. I'm like, it actually isn't perfect. That's what I mean by. It's not that impressive. It's not as like airbrushed as it could be. But it still comes across to people like that. And then it gets people thinking like, some people are like, oh, they just put that together. You can't really do that. And I'm like, I'm not even trying to make that.

What I'm trying to say is like there's fun ways that we can practice hand independence. And if you, if you commit to this, you can get to this level. Like I'm trying to make it approachable. Yeah. And like give away. Like we're talking about the gatekeeper. Take it away. And it comes across to at least a segment of the people. as gatekeeping. It's just like, oh, you're showing something that I'm never going to be able to do. That's the picture.

You know, it's like the teenage kid that's looking at the other Instagram photos in is like, I'm not worthy because I don't look that way. I think you should check those comments again because we, first of all, this is the... Oh, that's exactly the one. I want to go back and read those comments again.

That sounds fun. This is the poison of social media is, I guarantee you, the vast majority of like 95% of the comments on the video are super positive and like, wow, that's amazing. I'm so inspired. and there's probably like two or three comments

where like show it off or whatever and those are the ones that you're latching on to this is what people who are making any content today on any level of any age have to deal with is like you are going to be dealing with essentially well we've both gone through that some jokesters who are trolls trolls who are just out to like put some negativity in the world for some reason

I would say that's different and I'll say this because yeah we for sure expose that and that really is trolls these I wouldn't say are troll I don't even know what a troll I know what a troll is underground but but I'm saying like this is more, I think that there really are, and maybe it is just two or three people out of 50,000, so that's great, but there are some people that are discouraged and they're not trying to, like, I'm not offended by those things and I'm not like, and I don't really get offended, as you know,

at this point. But even if there's a couple, like, I'm just, I'm saying you're probably remembering this way harsher than it actually is. Like the reaction to the video is probably closer to what you were shooting for, and you are, because this is what humans do, you are latching on to the thing that is a big threat to, to, to, you idea of this, which is natural to do. Buddy, believe me. No one knows that better than me, too. Like, I put out shorts as well and, like, they can be overwhelmingly positive when one person's like, you suck. That's not modal interchange. I'm like, but that's what I'm saying. This is not,

this is not a, I failed. I failed it. No, no, but this is not a you suck. This is actually, wow, you're great. Thanks a lot for discouraging me. And I'm like, it just doesn't feel good. Yeah. That's it. That's a man. I will say, though, man, like, I definitely with, with, you know, Again, and this is relevant whether you're putting out music or educational content or really any posting of any kind, even like gig posting or whatever. Like I turned a corner on this a couple of years ago with specifically with the things that I've been putting out with Open Studio last year probably, making shorts, where I stopped trying to make things that I thought people would like. And I started making things that were like me discovering things with people. And this actually goes, I think, hand in hand with playing. Like, I played a gig last night at the beautiful Missouri Botanical Garden.

It was a lovely night. It was a great gig. Got married at that place. Did you really? Yeah. Oh, congrats. Not yesterday. No, 26 years ago.

Okay, great. No, but I was in the set break, I kind of realized I was like, my whole shift on performing, whether that's a short or even this gig, I was thinking about this too, is like, I feel like now I'm more on the let's go on a journey together. Like I'm learning this with you, right? Like I'm kind of discovering, you know, these like modal interchange things that we talked about last week. Yeah. I'm like practicing things that I am super curious about in front of you and trying to explain why I think they're so cool.

And maybe like, maybe we could try them like this. Maybe they work like this. Have you ever heard someone do it like this? Earth, Wind and Fire. Does it like this? like doing that kind of thing. It's like it becomes more of a discussion. And it's a lot more open and vulnerable, I think, than like, this is the shit right here.

And I'm the baddest dude ever. And to me, like, stop trying, stopping trying to appear like I know what I'm talking about. And just go on this like, we're going to go on this together. And it happens even as I play now and I get older. And I think like, honestly, social media kind of messed me up for this for a while. But like, now I've kind of come out of this. And like, even if I'm taking a solo and I'm playing a gig, it's more of that like, let's see what happens here. Let's go on this journey together.

Yeah. As opposed to playing things that I think are going to impress. I think that whole thing is really tricky right now because also like when I say social media messed me up for this. Like you don't know, sometimes you're playing a gig and it's not just the gig. Like people are recording it. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's going to go up on YouTube or Instagram.

Everything is live. Everything is live. The thing you play could be recorded, and that can really mess with you. And, like, that's what I'm saying. It's like, right now is a really, compared to when we grew up, when we came up on the come up. Right. Like when so much of what we did, nobody heard. Like, even important things to us.

I played big gigs when I was young for like, you know, people that I respected, with people that I respected, they're like 20 people heard. Right. You know what I mean? And I could just have that space. Well, just think about like if there was a live performance, even it was a lot of people or not. And there was some recording, like those things became the things of legends. Like, do you have a cassette of that gig? I think so.

Or somebody else, like, and people would talk about the gig, even if they weren't there. Right. Because it would get passed along the information about it. And then it would be like this, this, you know, this ethereal thing that might be somewhere, you know, even if it was 20 people, you know, that it builds up as a legend and changes over time as well. Yeah. That's really interesting, right? Yeah. So I think that this brings up an interesting point.

that's very specifically related, I think, to how we could relate as a jazz musician. Because if the olden days, here we go. Well, you know, when we were coming up, you know, we're not, we're almost worried more about like we want more people to hear us. Like, oh, I wish, I'm playing good tonight. There's only 20 people here. Now I got to do this again some other time.

And hopefully this person that might be able to get me a gig here or whatever. Now anybody can put their stuff up. And look, the reality is when we say, Anybody can put their stuff up in millions? No, that's not the way it works. You can put up your stuff online, but it's such an echo chamber, and there's just so much stuff going on

that even really big name artists from yesteryear or from today, great stuff gets missed, you know? Whereas back in the day, it was like, oh, did you hear about this? Oh, I missed it. I got to travel up to Chicago next time they come close. But I think isn't this a very specific thing about jazz

and a couple of other genres of music is that because it's meant to be in the room, because it's different every time it's live? This isn't like we're making low-fi hip-hop, and we've got to find the right Dilla groove here, and then we post it. No, but you know what I mean? Like, it's not, like, that's not how the music advances.

Right. Music advances live in person, and it's always kind of been like that. I mean, we talk about recordings here, but, like, it's always been about the gigs. That's where the music really develops and really thrives. Even when recordings started, they weren't long enough to capture what was actually happening in the clubs.

It was always better live. It was always better life. And I think that still is the case, but it's through this different thing now of like if you're able to put you know if you're young artist coming up and you can play well and you want to like reach an audience

or just do your thing or contribute your art to the world or whatever like yeah you're going to be putting some energy into doing gigs but most of these young people are not putting I mean first of all there's not as many places to play but that's actually the truth I mean that's a boomer thing to say but it's just that's just factual in terms of like I remember when I moved to New York

I studied when I first started at the new school I studied with this great pianist named Leon Ledgerwood. You know, Leon? No, I know the name. She's fantastic. Yeah. And she was telling me that when she first moved to New York, she got a gig in, like, Long Island for like a month at a club.

It was like a club date for a month. Right. In her trio or whatever, you know what I mean? Yeah. And she was like, that doesn't really happen anymore. And this is like 2001. Right, right. So now we have 23 years of further degradation.

Yeah. But that was like a common thing. You would get like these long stretches of gigs or you would just, there were just tons of gigs. Right. But it's interesting. because so, okay, so now young artists are

you know, kind of tailoring their thing for like an online shorts or whatever, like the medium that you can get your stuff out there. Emmett Cohen Live in Emmett Cohen's place. I mean, I did that with the Friday night thing. Like, you know, we're going to find a way to get our stuff out there depending upon the circumstances.

And I think that's great. And I think, you know, a lot of older artists, you know, Brussels sprouted against that, bristled on that because, you know, You know, it's like, well, back of the day, we had to pack up our amp into the, you know. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But the reality is like, well, think about when we were like passing out flyers to do our Cicero's gig,

trying to get three people to come to it, trying to beg for the gig and like the build up to that and everything. We would have to play it a little device and like have our little crappy band play some of them. Come join us. Yeah. Possibly build up a following. I would much rather do that than stand in the corner of Skinker and Delmar handing out flyers. Right, right. Hey, that was a big drug quarter, too, you know.

Well, we stand around. But we are not drug addicts or proponents of that. See, we're always living in the moment. Anymore. Whoa. Do you hear a bass drum? Yeah, we're about to do the trio GPS. Okay, cool.

So, but yeah, we would have loved to have that, right? But then, of course, the pendulums, and then we talked to young, we talked to young, and this today, the younger musicians. That's getting annoying. It's really, I'm going to stop. You know what? We've already had this experiment. But we did, you'll hear it live.

Remember we had the Peter Martin bespoke bell? Right. Don't put my name on. It was yours too. I know. It was my idea. And about three bells in, the whole audience was like, are we still doing this? So what do we do?

We kept dingy it. We doubled down. But, you know, you talk to a lot of young jazz musicians and I love, like, playing with them and I've been doing more of that, which is great. And kind of seeing the world from their eyes. But we have this commonality, this meeting point of the music, which, like, I think the young players are just like us. Like that hasn't changed.

Like jazz musicians are weird and quirky and like kind of obstinate and like we're going to fight the man and we're going to, you know. It takes that kind of spirit. It does. And that spirit's still there. For sure. But they're very much like, oh, we wish it could be like when you guys were coming up. And I was like, ah, I wish it was like what you guys have. Like there's this weird kind of like, no, no, no, we want that.

And I'm like, look at all that you have like to be able to push your career to be proactive about getting your music out there to have these tools. But there's a dark side to it. there's there's an out of control there's a lack of curation there's like there's the the too much information so you're going to get lost and if you really want to you know and we we see some young or youngish artists like that that are not necessarily getting lost in the shuffle totally but they're not getting as much hype as they would have in the old days where it really was based more about your playing I'm not going to ring the bell but that is something that has changed like how you appear online how you look to a degree

and more like how you play and how you highlight the things that you do does matter more now than it used to be like when you get up with a Willie Aiken's or even like the first time I played with you know a number of different artists and even as like I started to a betty Carter

I'm just like you got to bring it and she's going to like knock you down a few pegs if you don't during the gig at a big 10,000 person festival in France where I'm like oh my god I can't believe I'm here but I'm like oh I'm just a little you know and there's a video of that I mean like that got me scared

when somebody put it on YouTube recently that live at Vienne and it was like my first tour in Europe and I'm 20 and I'm playing with Can you pull that up? I might be able to I think so. But it was like that brought back a lot of fear and anxiety to me I was saying in a good way but like fear and anxiety is not viewed that way

these days. What about like what about the what about the actual not just like the culture around the playing but what about the actual learning of the music? You know what I mean? Like what we learn. Yeah. Because I feel like there's been a huge swing like when I was learning the music in the 90s things like

stride piano like basically like all the things Emmett is all about yeah and that whole generation actually there's like really gone back to pre-bop you know like getting deeper into that which is amazing that was like it wasn't really on the table right for a lot of us it was so focused on like herbie and Kenny Kirkland and Brad Meldow and people like that that like you don't hear those players playing like you know, anything like it was almost passe to do something like that. Cecile and Sullivan,

going back and doing some things like some forgotten or never known Tin Pan Alley songs. Yeah, yeah, that whole thing. That was not, I don't know if younger folks realized but that like for maybe it was a specific time, But it really wasn't something that was cool. Like it wasn't something that was like the younger musicians were into. Everybody's into like Chick and Herbie and the Pentaton.

I mean, I think Ethan Iverson has a great blog post on this about there's a whole generation of just like everybody's into Herbie. Like, you know, and we're part of that. Right. That's our age. Herbie who? I know. Herbie Nichols. But yeah, Herbie Nichols.

No. Herbie the love. Herbie Hancock. But man, it's, that has been, I think, the biggest shift. Yeah. Is watching the sort of like post Meldow, post-Glass. influence into throwing it way back, probably starting

with Jason Moran, honestly. Right. Of like really looking backwards in that way. For that generation, obviously there were people doing it in the 90s. I'm not saying it were. But it becoming a trend.

It becoming this trend where the younger musicians like are studying people like Willie the Lion Smith and Teddy Wilson and people like this that are sort of like we started with Bud Powell and move forward. You know what I mean?

Right. In general. That is pretty, I mean, some people started with chick move forward. I know. Because like fusion was still this. I'll say some people started with chick like like return to forever or even like the electric band. That's right.

Yeah, that's right. And went forward from there. Which is cool. I mean, that's not like fusion is dead or anything. But like you know what I mean? Like this whole trend of younger musicians really going deeper past bebop. Yeah. I think that's been the biggest seismic shift, at least pianistically.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a, it's that. That's probably, I would say, a productive byproduct or kind of result of having the availability of everything. That's true. To be able to hear it. To be able to dig deep and to be able to like go for like a thing. Yeah, they were. Because those labels weren't around that originally made it.

So like there weren't sometimes CD pressings of those kinds of artists. And I mean, look, you could always find this stuff. But when everything is available and then some like all it takes is one or two people doing it in a cool way. And then you got other young players come up. be like, oh, let me check that out. And then they can admit, like, they're not going to get distracted. I mean, of course, they're going to get distracted, I think. But if they go on that rabbit hole right then, it's all there.

They don't have to drive into town and find the, you know, record store. So like when you strike while the iron's hot, that kind of is rewarded with a deep dive nowadays because you can get all that stuff. Somebody mentions something or it's like they hear Emma Cohen like on, I mean, I'm just, I didn't realize how influential that series was on younger players. Oh, yeah. Because to me, it felt like, I mean, I knew it was, doing well and it was really well put together and he always had great guess it was interesting

yeah but i didn't realize till later because everybody was totally insult well not everybody but i mean during the pandemic like a lot of young players weren't in school they were you know doing their class on zoom and then that was their only that would have been their opportunity to maybe go out and hear live music that's right but they actually started to hear and be able to keep up with like a serial version an episodic um thing like you would go to say see a local musician at a jam session or at a gig every week for the first time ever because before that they they that wasn't happening online live I mean a little bit but not like it did were exploded um and then most young people before the pandemic weren't going out to clubs anyway because there's not as many places to play and because

they're online and they're and they're watching you know IGers or whatever so that kind of maybe push things in a kind of positive way if you're like a young and upcoming like jazz player to be like oh let me learn these standards let me Willie Lyon Smith who's that Is that somebody I need to know? This guy knows. You know, that sounds cool or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really interesting.

It's really, that part has been really fascinating. Yeah. But I still think that, and we've talked about this before, but I feel like I start to understand it more when we have these kinds of discussions. I'd love to hear what the audience thinks about this. Please leave on any of this, like because, and we really appreciate, since we've been doing the longer form, I don't know if you know about this. We've switched formats.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But since we've been doing that, we've been getting some great comments. and just really insightful and kind of therapeutic for me in terms of like how we approach yeah makes me want to go to therapy these comments um but the idea my brother oh you're sick um what was that going to say oh yeah so back in the day the thing that has changed with going on a deep dive now if you're a young person you can do this.

that, but you've got to be disciplined because you've got so many more distractions. But this is the same thing everybody's dealing with, right? We still deal with this. Oh, I'm going to go check out this. Pull up to, you know, but the thing is when you're coming up on the come up, like that you have to find, it's so important for you to find that distraction-free zone to develop your ears, to develop your musical taste, to develop your musical sense of, like, like these, fundamental things that you're going to take for the rest of your life.

It's like if you want to go into, you know, making money or being a finance person or something, at a certain point, you have to learn like compounding interests, like these foundational things. The musicians and athletes seem to never learn for some reason because we're learning other things. Not to say you can't learn it later, but if you're distracted when you're learning that at the beginning, you know, it's going to be tough for you. You got that Betty Carter video? I don't look back boomer.