You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - One Tune That Defines Each Era in Jazz - #158

Episode Date: July 17, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam tackle the difficult task of choosing a tune or recording that defines an era of jazz. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Manus and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast Daily Jazz advice coming at you coming at you cheerfully with energy yeah with uh we got a new we got a speak pipe which is for those who don't know what a speak pipe is that is when people leave us a voice memo also also known as a voicemail you've been to refer to it as yeah speak pipe we've got a couple new speak pipes awesome we're just going to go through one today you're very chipper over there I see you've got that iced coffee in your hands that you keep saying you're going to share or bring and it still hasn't happened. This seems like a good time to bring that up, right?

You know, Matt, as summer is going on, I've invested in larger and larger iced coffee travel mugs to take with me, and I'm getting more and more jacked up. You are. No, you're investing in your generosity and heart has not increased with the same size that your mug has, though, in terms of sharing with your friend here, but that's okay. Sorry, I'll hear.

I'll bring something in for you. Just show our listeners, though, whenever you hear this noise, that means I'm about to take a... But you hear that in there. That's my real coffee brewing, so... Oh, yeah. See, you have better. coffee than me. Although this is

St. Louis' own sump coffee. I wouldn't know because I haven't gotten to taste your cold. I'll bring some in tomorrow, man. I promise. I'll bring some in tomorrow. Yet you've tasted my coffee. I'm not bitter. I'm not bitter. Like your coffee. Oh, come on. Okay, so let's listen to the question. I think this is from our friend Mark up in Vancouver,

right? Yep. Hello, Peter and Adam. It's Mark in Vancouver. If you wanted to give somebody a quick overview of the different genres of jazz, what song would you choose to represent each genre? Okay, that's a great question, Mark.

Wow, this is going to be a fun kind of challenging thing to do. I don't know. Where should we start? Why don't we go chronologically? I mean, the genres within jazz are always a little bit somewhat arbitrary, but maybe we could try to hit the big ones that are not in dispute at least. Yeah, that sounds good. I mean, if we start with early jazz, I think the song that kind of defines not just early jazz, but maybe jazz would have to be Westin Blues, right?

That's great. is exactly what I was thinking, so we're in sync so far. That kind of defines the whole first part of the music and the potential of what it could become to me. Yeah, and it's the, so this, of course, Louis Armstrong, his solo on West End Blues, the iconic, the great Louis Armstrong. Yeah, that's amazing. And what's so cool about that solo, too, is you could probably plug it into a, you could

plug that solo into a modern rhythm section. It would sound pretty awesome. It would. It would. And then on that track, I think you get really the feel. although that was a very forward-thinking kind of revolutionary type of solo, especially when you look at the trajectory that jazz took afterwards. And there was a certain amount of foreshadowing.

Well, it was foreshadowing because it became so influential on certainly trumpet players, but beyond that just in terms of really the possibilities of how the improvisatory solo could, or improvised solo, I guess I could call it, could really be bent a little bit, you know, timing-wise and the way that phrases could stretch out and everything compare it. I mean, in a way it's not even a great representation of the way people were playing at that time because he was the only one they could play like that. It was so far advanced, yeah. But I mean, I agree.

I think it really typifies that period. And if you were, you know, exposing somebody new that didn't know, oh, this is early jazz, as we would say. Yeah. And maybe we could even, next, we could hop back a little bit before and just sort of rag time, which, you know, it doesn't really matter if you consider that jazz or not. it certainly was a big fluence influence. If it's not the actual beginning of jazz, it's a big influence on early jazz.

And probably like Maple Leaf Rag from Scott Joplin, the great Scott Joplin. Some Joplin, obviously. He was the king of it. Maple Leaf Rag is a good one. Salas is another good one. Yeah. Although that's more of a specific.

That's pretty specific. Yeah. Yeah. I can see Maple Leaf Rag. Yeah. This is interesting. It's going to be interesting to see where we go. So what's next?

What's after the early part? Yeah, if we think ragtime and then kind of early jazz. Well, I think we should probably, I don't know, would we say like New Orleans style, not like this corny Dixieland stuff they're talking about, but I mean, like original New Orleans. Is that its own genre? Yeah, kind of is.

I mean, I would put Lewis Armstrong in there. That's true. You know what I mean? Because he's from New Orleans. Yeah, I mean, you know. So I got, we got that one covered. All right, cool. All right, let's move on to maybe swing, big band era.

Swing. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, I mean. It's kind of got to be Duke Ellington, right? Let's see if we could say the track at the same time. and sync we are. Duke Ellingtons. Take the...

Oh, no. Oh, I was going to say, take the A-Stra. Either one, though. No, I liked yours better. It don't mean to thing. It don't mean to think. Yeah, yeah. But A-Train would work as well.

I mean, that's a defining moment, too. Right. You know. Cool. All right. Well, that's good. I mean, look, there's a lot of big band stuff we could have... Yeah, we could be totally wrong on all this.

But I think, you know, it's good to paint in broad strokes or whatever. If you're giving someone a playlist to, like, define this era with one track, it's, first of all, it's nearly impossible to do. But suddenly it's kind of a good exercise to sort of define the sound to you. Yeah. Let's move on to B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B. I mean, I think that it's got to be Charlie Parker. We talk about defining the sound. I mean, not that you couldn't. I mean, Dizzy.

Well, so let's do one that's with Dizzy. Well, we're kind of talking about songs or tracks. Now, now I got confused. Which one are we talking about? We're talking about both, right? We're talking about songs. Yeah. Songs. Okay, so, uh, oh, that's, no, but on the Lewis-Arms story, we really talked about the West End Blues.

It could be a track. It could be a specific track, sure. Okay, thanks. I don't know. We're just making this up as we go along, man. What are you thinking? I mean, maybe ornithology? Ornithology, I was going to say maybe confirmation. Maybe Night and Tunisia, it's a specific feel, but that's Bebop, man.

I like Nightingia, too, because that, yeah, it's definitely Bebop, but it's got a little bit of different grooves, and it kind of foreshadows some things that were, you know, influences, and certainly, you know, does it Gillespie, you know, his take on Bebop and his participation, but then him being so involved. with, you know, bringing in the Afro-Cuban sounds, you know, Latin rhythms and stuff, and really being at the forefront of that, which really was a big part of bebop. I mean, we forget. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I like that, not in Tunisia. So how about some, like, sort of post-bop, the hard-bop 50s-bop stuff?

Oh, now you're up in my wheelhouse. I know, right? I don't know. Yeah, maybe. I have no idea. That's a tough one. Maybe some Sonny Rollins or some, you know what I mean? Like, one of those kind of like, like, they're kind of still came from the bebop generation, played with Charlie Parker. Yeah, yeah. A little bit younger, though.

But post-bop, but still with the, maybe like the, what's the, dwee, beep, pooh-dee, tenor madness. Tenor madness. Yeah. That might be a good defining one for the sort of hard-boppish,

younger cats for those. And it's a blues, and it's definitely got that sound. It almost kind of puts you into that period when you're playing it, you know, just the pacing of the melody and how it fits in with the blues. I mean, you could even go to some of the Miles Davis stuff

from that era. You know, the work and steaming. Mid-50s, steaming relaxing. Relaxing. Cooking. Totally. Those records, to me, definitely define that sound of like, we're playing standards, we're swinging the hell out of them. Right, but they're not playing it in, it's not into that like real kind of going crazy period, but it's definitely not bebop.

Right. And so I agree. Those records are just, you know, like Olio. Well, isn't that written by Sonny Rollins? It is, but made famous by Miles probably more than Sonny's version. Yeah. You know, and it's funny because now we're going to start to run into definitely some popular multi-genres because I'm thinking of Horace Silver and Art Blakey, some of that stuff in that era and that grooving stuff,

you know, where it starts to like the boogaloo start taking shape in the late 50s. And all those people you just mentioned, too, certainly even go back into Bebop. And Miles did as well, really started in the bebop period. Okay, well, you'll hear it. Let's not get too bogged down the weeds here. Let's just move on to cool jazz and call it a day. Cool jazz.

For the 50s, yeah. Right. I mean, it's got to be Gil Evans, right? Oh, kind of blue, man. Oh, kind of blue, of course. That's what I meant. I mean, it could be, though, it could be one of the Gil Evans-Miles-Davis collaborations. Yeah, I was thinking like sketches of Spain.

Yeah. But, no, I like, I mean, kind of blue. Kind of blue is... But that's an album. That's an album. Yeah. I mean, you know... So what?

So what? How about that? Because then we're almost getting into some of those so-called modal jazz. Yeah, that's a transition. But I think it defines the era. It certainly does. Yeah. When we start going through this, you start to see what an outsides

influence on the sound of these periods Miles Davis is we don't want to keep referring to these because we can't think of anything better but we truly can't think of anything better I mean as we're going forward here I'm already thinking there are a couple more albums of tracks of his that could define the next two errors three errors could we define by Miles Davis albums it could be a total of five or six honestly it's pretty amazing it is amazing well so after the cool period we're going to have more of the like the new sound right as Amiririo Baraka called it like the more outstile stuff that starts happening, which you could go miles here as well in his second great

quartet, any of those tracks. Right. So is that period, I'm just thinking like, so if we talked about, you're talking about Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, the quintet stuff. That quintet. But I think a track that more defines that period is probably lonely woman from Ornette Coleman. I was just going to mention Ornette, I was going to say Shape of Jazz. Is that on Shape of Jazz?

Yeah. Because that influenced all those guys, too. That's right. And that was a little earlier, too. It was a little earlier. And that really defined. Like, they started copping that. Right.

You know, these great players heard that sound when they came, when that trio came to, the quartet came to New York, you know, and really stirred some stuff about. I like it. I love that.

And it brought a little bit of that West Coast cool. I mean, it was definitely, you know, new sound and new approach and very influential. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great record. That's good.

I love it. Lonely woman. All right, so where we want to go after the new sound? Well, I think we're kind of going into like some fusion or funk. Maybe we'll kind of almost have funk and fusion is I love kind of separating those in a way because I think like well now back to

miles like um water babies which is a little funkier bitches brew bitches brew i mean that's the iconic you know kind of fusiony this is a sub era though because it almost got a little psychedelic there the 67 eight nine you know what i mean before like it got super funky right it was open and it was like uh it was definitely more loose than it became with yeah and wandishi that one dishi that Dishi, that's, I would say that for fusion in a lot of ways, kind of typifies, you know, that, that would be a great place to define sort of the genre. I mean, a genre that is very difficult to find. I mean, then you talk about return to forever, kind of iconic fusion record, you know, and sound, you know, sort of sound. I can see you're physically becoming uneasy

once we get to these. We're making some hard choices here. I don't know why I care so much. I know. And then funk, I mean, I think you got to talk about like chameleon. Yeah, the headhunters. Yeah, headhunters, that particular track. Yeah, any of them. But I think that one... Camellian for sure. Yeah, and then now you're getting into an interesting influence in that I think, you know,

I certainly came up in this period and maybe you caught the tail end of it where, like, Camillion was like the big band, middle school and high school big band. If you didn't play it, you heard it. So you got like a whole generation of jazz musicians coming up in programs. Marching Band. I mean, I remember we did it in marching band when I was doing like symbols. Totally. Camillion.

So really, it's... that kind of a, you know, that kind of approach to playing funk in a jazz situation and that kind of a groove was really a specific kind of thing within the fusion movement, I see. Yeah. All right. So that'll bring us to like the late 70s, early 80s. Yeah. Now where we, what are we even defining?

Like the Young Lions period? Well, we're almost there. But I think we might be in the sort of beginnings of smooth jazz. Ooh. You know, danger, danger zone. Well, maybe. I mean. Well, no, you know what?

So we could look at like, okay, what about? Mr. Magic, Grover, Washington, Jr. That's got to be in here, right? Now, that defines, to me, smooth jazz, the way I like to remember smooth jazz as before it got too smoothed over, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. I mean, that's a great, I mean, I love Grover.

I love his playing. I love his approach to smooth jazz. I mean, you could even go back to Miles again with the human nature. Yeah, yeah. That was incredibly. That was a little later, though. It was a little later. It was like 83 or 4, maybe, maybe, 84?

Yeah. Yeah, but that was very influential on a lot of smooth jazz players, a lot of straight ahead guys, too. It was. It was. But now we're definitely encroaching on the lion's den. The lion's dead. We are, here the lions roar.

In the jungle. I mean, for me, you know, and this is such a personal thing because we're getting into some areas where the new tracks, talk about, you know, songs really had a big impact on me in real time as they were released. But I would say, Went Marseilles, Blackcolds from the Underground, Frisinnian man, that particular song, what Kenny Kirkland plays on that, what everybody's playing. Jeff Wath, just their whole approach. I mean, that just defines that period to me.

So that would be my pick on that. But then, like all these, there's so many other great. No, that's a good one. Great ones. All right, so that takes us to the 90s. Now, there's a few ways we can go in the 90s. You know, you know what I would say? Kenny Garrett songbook, that record.

Everybody was into that. I think that defines the 90s because you get that influence coming out of, I guess it's kind of post, would you say? post, wow, a lot of activity going on here. Hey guys, we're doing a podcast here. We are in an office here. That's true. We are an operating studio. But it defines the influence

of the Young Lions movement. But it really does have a 90 sound. And again, like this was a, that was a period. I was kind of my period to really learn how to play the music in real time on gigs and stuff and try to participate in the sound. I just know everybody who was listening to that, and it seemed very

modern at the time. I mean, I still listen to that record a lot. That's great. Yeah. Okay, I mean, we might have to throw in some like, I mean, from my generation when I was in high school, it was the Joshua Redmond era that, actually that you were in, the line at the Village Vanguard was very, very influential on us.

But also Beyond and Timeless Tales. Yes. You know, those two albums. Well, I think Timeless was past 2000, maybe? It might have been. Yeah, so that would be a good one for the, we could bring that to the current period. You could. were in the 2013. I'll also say that for a lot of people,

Brad Meldow's all the things you are track. A lot of people were into that intro and were trans, you know, like I remember that specifically. That's a good one actually. And that really defines, although that's probably, is that still 90s? That's late 90s.

Yeah, that's late 90s. Yeah, that's on like Trio volume three or four maybe. Right, right. Yeah, that's a good track to define. So certainly for Trio, late 90s early. New Yorkie, you know what I mean? Yeah, a little bit of Euro influence.

A little Euro influence for sure. Right. All right, now we're in the 2000s, and we're getting, we're getting spread out. I mean, we probably could hit up some Roy Hargrove, you know. Yep. Ear food. Ear food. That's a great record.

A couple of things on there that would work. Yep. I don't know. What do you think? I think that's, I think that one's a good, you know, like this St. Denis, Strasbourg, Saint Denis is, you like my little French accent there. I was in France last week. It seemed legit. Way, way.

That track, I think. that might be a nice kind of closing place for us, because I think it does in some ways bring us up to today, even though that was probably 10 years ago, eight years ago or something. But that kind of sound, it's kind of like a circular thing because for Roy, and look, for these last couple periods, there's Roy records we could have listed. Totally. And actually, we've omitted a lot of people.

We really have, obviously. But I would say that track kind of shows certainly the influence of the young lions kind of period on Roy, which I know was a personal thing. but he really kind of brought back some roots in the music, not only Roy, but I mean, that exemplifies bringing back all these earlier routes that we talked about, you know, post-bop, you know, the groove stuff, you know, some of the funk stuff, and really back to the kind of a, I don't want to overstate it, but kind of a bridge back to Louis Armstrong and Westin Blues. Yeah, man.

Like, you know, Roy's joy for playing this music just coming out and everything and it really being a connection of these genres. Yeah, they're interesting. And we sort of devolved into talking about periods, but I think that that's good because all this music is connected and all this great music that's within jazz. Yeah, this is a hard task to do. I like that pick, though, because of, I mean, it's become a jam session tune now, which is amazing to me, you know.

And shout out to Montez Coleman, our friend. That's right. Local San Luis. What's up? Yeah. Killing it on that track. Good stuff. Well.

Well, thank you. Was that Mark in Vancouver? That was Mark in Vancouver. Yeah. Thanks, Mark. Thanks always for the questions. Appreciate it. Yep.

Blowing in from the north. That's right. Good stuff happening up in Vancouver. Cool. British Columbia. Did you know that? That is the province that Vancouver resides in. BC. Well, a little factoid on Vancouver, though. Here we go. Have you been to Vancouver Island? No. My wife went a few years ago. Okay. Have you been to Vancouver though? No.

Did you know they're not, the Vancouver is not on Vancouver Island? That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. But you know what it is? Those Canadians, it's not, they're always a little smarter than us. So they figured out they're more advanced than us. So we think it doesn't. make any sense but in a few years it will isn't vancouver the island the one where like you drive on the other side of the road they have this like archaic driving rules from the british yeah maybe i think no i mean i've been there i don't remember them being on the other side there's some island up there where it's like you go and you take a ferry and then you have to go on the other side of it you have to drive on the left it could be it could be because you do have to there's no bridges i don't believe

like you either helicopter or ferry you know who would know mark mark mark let us know yeah please let us know mark mark's probably like why i ask a question i don't want the false history of my country of Pacific Northwest. Speaking of listeners, I don't know if you've noticed we've been getting some nice reviews lately. Have we? Yes. Yeah.

I don't know. They just kind of sprung up on my phone here. So we had one just a couple days ago, July 10th, from Chris Deck in Germany, giving us a little bit of German love there. What's up? What do you call it? How do you say? Watch out now. Danka.

Dankashen. Dankashen. To Chris Deck. He says, Bless you. Great. Great day. daily jazz advice. Thank you so much for your great daily jazz show. It's short and sweet,

you know, five stars. I like that one. It's not over the top. I like it. Yeah. And then we've got Goose Goose Rapa, Goose Rafa from the UK. The Perfect Compliment, Short and Sweet Jazz Insight from the Pros. The Perfect Complimental to Lessons at Open Studio. Great tips, wise words, witty banter from two genuine jazz piano maestro. Oh, stop. Oh, yeah. Jazz Piano Maestroes. Sometimes they even manage to use their catchphrase at an appropriate moment. You'll hear it. Oh, is that too soon? Nice job, gentlemen.

You'll hear it.