You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Oscar Peterson Solo Reaction and Analysis

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

Peter and Adam do an in-depth analysis on a classic Oscar Peterson tune: "Brotherhood of Man."Links from this episode:Follow along on SoundslicePrefer your podcasts in video form? Watch the YouTube version of this episode hereInterested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. Oscar Peterson, Clark, Terry, who has the better solo on Brotherhood of Man? Oh, oh, you're really pinning me into a corner. You're pinning me down. You know what? Let's explore that today. I'm Adam Annas.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Music, advice, coming at you. Coming at you today, sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open Studio, jazz.com for all your jazz lesson needs. Peter, what's going on, man? Not much, man. How you doing, brother?

Pretty good. We've had a really good run, I feel like, of podcast episodes. You know, We've been doing this podcast for a long time now. How long have we been doing it? Over three years. Yes. But more importantly, like over 700 episodes.

That's crazy. Which is crazy. So, you know, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Peter, we've had stretches, long stretches. Where it wasn't great. You know what? Please sugarcoat it. But this stretch, I feel like the last two or three months, four or five months, even.

Actually, just this whole year of 2021. Yeah. I don't know if it's because we have a spring in our step. There's a vaccine in the air. That's right. Pfizer's in the air. It feels like we're just, is it me? I don't want to, I don't want to dig my own stuff too much.

But are we knocking this out of the park lately? You know what? We were until we started actually saying that you're not. Sorry, sorry. I'm putting some bad. No, no, no. That's my mind. We're having fun.

You know what I think a big part of it has been being able to connect with our dear listeners on YouTube. In fact, we're on YouTube. Big shout out to YouTube. Big shout out to the audio podcast. And if you're listening. to this on the audio, on the original pod, thank you so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you ever want to join us almost every Monday, we're going live over there as we do this.

So it's been a lot of fun to kind of connect with folks, get to know our listeners better. I think that's been a big change this year, right? For sure, yeah. The YouTube thing and just being live with people as we do this is really fun. So if you want to get in on that, come over to the Open Studio YouTube channel Mondays at 4 p.m. Eastern and join us as we record this podcast. Super fun, and we can do a little Q&A afterwards. Sounds good.

Awesome. So today, okay, so do you know this guy named Max Scamese? Yes, I know him very well. I love that guy. He's a great guy. Yeah, one of our most important, if not our most important, team members at Open Studio. He's become a very valuable Open Studio team member. He's kind of our main transcriber. I mean, he definitely is our main transcriber. Yes. I still am clinging on to that because that was what I prided myself in for several years. Yeah, as did I. I mean, this is how you before and me. Yeah, but he's, let's be honest, he's way better than us at this. I mean, he's so good at it.

Well, hold on. By saying better, if you mean quicker and more accurate. Faster, more accurate, dare I say better taste and what to transcribe? He's got it down. Yeah, he's got it. So I asked Max a couple weeks ago, I was like, Max, feed us some cool stuff that we can do on the podcast. Like, transcribe some things that you would like to hear us talk about. Yes.

And we'll kind of give our reaction and analysis. of it. And here's the thing. I know Max listens to the podcast and he knows our taste very well because one of the first things he sent us here was this Oscar Peterson, Clark Terry. I think it's Oscar Peterson plus one. Plus one. Yeah, yeah. Oh, such a great album. That's a beautiful

album. And this is the opening track, Brotherhood of Man. Yes. And he sent us a little bit, not a little bit the beginning and then up through O.P.'s the first choruses of his solo, first two choruses. So I thought we could talk about that and have a listen. We have it transcribed up here on YouTube. We'll also link here in the podcast description

and on YouTube to the SoundSlice page itself on the Open Studio SoundSlice channel so you can check it out. If you don't know SoundSlice, this is really cool. It's where you could put audio or video up and the notation follows along with it on screen. So if you want to check this out

what it looks like in person, follow that link to the SoundSlice. But I thought we could listen and analyze. What do you think? Let's do it. Let's start from the beginning. Okay. I'll put this up here.

Are we going to listen to the melody? Did you get the context? Well, yeah, we want to vibe it out. Yeah, let's vibe. We want to vibe. We have 41 seconds of vibe coming at you. Let's do it. So here's the thing about sounds like.

It's a little glitchy. It will loop if you click and drag like I just did. That's right. Let's try it again. Which is actually a great feature, but not what we're intended to do now. We may show that a little later though. Yeah. Oh, we definitely will.

Here it is again. So swinging. Come on now. I rate that in A plus. Get out of town with that. What? And then is it possible that Clark even exceeds? I don't even want to say it like that.

What? But this is what? I mean, Clark Terry, come on. Come on. Come on. I know we're focusing on Oscar Peterson, but just to let you guys know, Clark Terry's solo is just magnificent after that point.

I mean, Oscar Peterson brings it there. Isn't this so much fun, though, to be able to see it happening on a notation? If you are a notation nerd, this is really, really fun to watch it happening. Let's just check out. Maybe we just go section by section and just talk a little bit about what's going.

Let's listen to the whole solo one more time all the way through. Yep. Okay. Okay. What did I just say, though, Peter? Let's listen to the whole solo once more all the way through. Oh, the whole thing? Let's go.

Okay, cool. Two choruses, then we'll go all the way through. I got a lot to say about that. I know. Come on. Okay. Okay, we'll go back now. So killer.

So killer. Okay. The arc of that. That's just two choruses, right? Just two choruses. Yeah. Check it out. Here's from the top.

Yeah. Just stop me, Peter, when you're ready to stop. Okay. Okay. So, you know, one thing to think about this. So, but now somebody might, when you look at that, you're like, oh, just a blue scale, right? It's just a part of a blue scale. So where he diverges is down on that six, which is great.

That's a real kind of O.P. thing to do. But if you check out Ed Thigpan and Ray Brown, well, Ed Thigpan with the feel that he does, Oscar Peterson is doing this triplet thing very much. much like, but do but did you like like locked in all that time. Yeah, yeah, but Ed Thigman comes in not in triplets. Like it's so locked in. He can play, but you, that guy. I mean, it's got a little bit of a triplet feel to part of it.

But it's just coming in to feel, I believe. If you can play it again and correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, but that got game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it just goes to show like when you are locked in, you can, you're allowing the musicians around you. And Oscar Peterson Trio, to me, plays very orchestrally in. their contributions. It's never like Oscar Peterson's solo. It's almost like everybody's

contributing to one solo that yes is the piano solo, but it's an equal kind of a thing. And so when people say like, well, Oscar was boring and he has a lot of technique, but he's just running up and down, you know, blue scales or whatever playing flashy stuff, I always kind of bristle a little bit. I bristle a little bit. I do too. You know what I'm saying? Because first of all, that's some BS. But when we look at, well, what would make this greater than just? Like if the drummer came, bang, bang, bang, you know, that's corny. You've turned something great into something corny.

And so when you're playing with that kind of precision and nuance, too, he's not like, it's not like, it's not metronomic or robotic or anything like that. It's just killer. Yeah, any drummers listening or watching, again, take note of that film. First of all, just shout out to Ed, thank you for this film. Great. And then notice, too. So O.P.

So O.P. is playing on the one. Right, as is notated expertly by Max here. I believe Ed Thickpan is anticipating the one with that and a four. And again, it still works. See, people think, like, how do you coordinate these things? And there wasn't a better coordinated trio. And they've been playing together a long time at this point. But that actually frees you up from having to always hit those things together.

Yeah, for sure. So I want to talk about the next phrase. Okay. Okay. There's so much. Every phrase has something. So this, this, he's got this. This little crunch here.

Yeah. So this phrase here to me is an Oscar Peterson fingerprint phrase. That, at the end of that second bar of the form. Here we're in E flat, right? So starting on the fourth, like these basically, right, down in E flat major triad. But approaching each one of those. I think he does it. Does he do it then in the left hand?

Yeah. Let's hear that again. Let's hear that again. We could also slow it down if we wanted to. Oh, I see what's going on. It's almost like a little counter, like a little underbalanced counter melody there with the left hand. Yeah, let's hear that again.

Let's hear it again. That's so swinging. So here's the thing with this, and I think about this with Oscar Peterson's playing all the time. Like, there's nothing harmonically sophisticated. I mean, he's literally just hanging out here around E flat, but he set it up with this. Yeah.

That crunch with the sixth on top, another Oscar Peterson, I think, fingerprint thing is that sixth on top, which I almost think of that is like that major blues scale that Warren Wolf talks about. Yes. Like the C blues scale. Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he's setting that up of coming before the intro. You know, as opposed to do. So for those who don't know what we're talking about, So if we're playing an E flat here, you could play the E flat blues scale, as he does there at the... But you could also, you hear Oscar Peterson do and a lot of other players here, you could play the C blues scale. So you hear Oscar do all these bluesy double stops. He's using both. Sometimes he'll...

Yep. Sometimes he'll do... Right. You know, that kind of sound, which is what's happening here. And I think a big differentiator or just, you know, option he goes to with the bluesy double stop on top here is between the set. He's not doing it yet, but between, yes, the octave, but also between the seventh and the six. Yeah. Yeah.

King of the bluesy double stop. Yeah. We haven't talked about bluesy double stops in a while. So if you don't know what a bluesy double stops, it's that. It's using two notes and ones. Double stop on a string instrument is playing two strings at once. We've been talking about that for the piano. Let's hear it again.

Let's keep going here. Okay. At thing time with that bass drum, bar eight and a four. What? What? What? Bam. Bass drum.

Let's turn it into an Ed Thigpin appreciation post here. So check this out. Okay, so you think he's up there with his thumb on G for that? Let's see. You think he's getting that with four and five. I think he's going five on the G and then maybe three on the A flat. Is that possible? Either way, it's tricky.

Yeah, I think he might be doing two, one, one, two, two, two. Like starting on two on the E flat, right? Two, one, two, three, five, and then three. Woo, that is tough, man. That's what I would do. I love it. Again, just outlining here a lot of E flat major. Yep.

Right? Even on, you know, whatever, F minor seven. And then C there. So, and then on that G minor seven, this is a little chromatic run down here. So these are so important, I think, for all of us to understand that between a major third, you have an evenly, in 4-4, you have even eighth notes, four-eighth notes between a major third. Yeah. So you can actually factor that into how you target things, like going from, like, if you want to land on a chord tone of C-7, which would be B,

you know you could start a major third above. Or vice versa. Right. And you can tell he's already kind of maybe thinking of that C-7. because of that comping and the left hand. Yeah, exactly. He might just be thinking of C-7. Right, exactly.

And then if you think about the C-7, it's like the upper extension up to the ninth. Like the ninth to the seventh, right? Exactly. Let's hear that again. Let's hear that phrase. This is good stuff, man. And he kind of, he sort of dances.

Like the phrasing on that, I'm exaggerating. And making it sound corny. I mean, it is that. You hear him talking. Listen to him talking as he's singing. You hear him lay back that last phrase there. Yeah, that's C-7.

Yeah, totally. So this is how important singing is. Oscar Peterson sings through 99% of his solos. That's right. It's why they sound so swinging. That's why the 1% of his solo is so bad. Ons sung-up. Okay, right there.

Bidink gang. Yeah. So, that's super important. That's very important. That's where he's the most like, Bancank, that's like, stick, can't, come on. He's like, here's where we are.

Yeah, because before he's like, I'm kind of elegantly prancing, perhaps through the skate park and all of that. And then stupid do, but do, do, but do. You know, like, don't, you know, don't get a twisted. I'm back.

And he pulls back. Bajank. You know what I'm saying? On that E flat. He's setting you up. Yeah. Okay, couple of things to note through there. Let's listen to that again.

That's some advanced work right there. Yeah. That's like a little flourish on top of a top hat. So again, we're dealing with what we could call the two blues scales. I don't know if he's thinking about it like this. There's that major, right, that C blues scale. Yep. And then right into the E flat.

Yeah. And with the rhythm and the direction, it's a little bit of a surrey with the fringe on top there. It is a little bit of the surgery. But again, thinking about that, you have that E flat blue. scale that C blue scale he's kind of like swinging between both of those at will very Opie thing to do here again a third surrey on the fringe of third surrey with the fringe and again a back to that C blue scale on that a flat this should be good this should be good yeah I didn't hear that I know well check out the way he's doing it it's it's like

it's almost well what we'll get there to a second no you and I should play it and just forget Oscar. Man, it sounds horrible the way I'm like, you're wrong, Max. Nobody's right. That's right. I'm stealing that. I can tell you right now, that's going to happen. That's hard.

I've never done that before. This is also Oscar Peterson fingerprint coming up here on the F7. I can't see the bar number, right before the top of the form. 18, 18. Again, so thinking like that C blue scale. Yeah. It gives you a major sound. but it still has all of those blue notes that.

And I would almost say it may be a limitation of any notational system. I think that's a triplet. The rhythm here is it. That's a triplet that's starting on two. Like it would be a quarter note triplet starting on one, but it's shifted all over one. It's a little bit hard to note. Trying to notate such swinging players like this is. Yeah.

It's futile. It is futile. There's a point where you just like, we're going to get what looks cleanest And what are, you know, especially in sound slice where we can literally hear it happening. Yeah. Just listen to it. Yeah, you just want to get in the ballpark because you're never going to have, you don't want to have the precision. Let's check out this next phrase here.

Okay, exact same. He's just doing that thing again, going between those two and then to the E flat. Yep. I mean, this is a great lesson in, you know, here we are. We have, he's using two, I don't even say scales because that sounds so. It's like two areas. Two harmonic areas. Two harmonic areas.

This majorish harmonic. And then that sort of... And he's always using the E-flat blues scaled territory last. Yeah. Because it's more punctuated. It's harsher. It's not as major sounding or happy sounding. It puts an exclamation point on things.

And it's a little bit bringing it home, even though it is a little bit harsher. It's a little bit... It is. It brings it home. It can go on the journey and then bang. You bring it back to the blues. Totally, man.

No need to talk about that. We can skip a little bit. over that. No need to discuss that. Let's hear it again. Should we slow that down? Yeah. We should probably slow that down.

Okay, so much to talk about. Peter, where do you want to start with that? Well, I would just say the main thing. I mean, there's a lot of different, like, this is a great kind of thing to learn how to play a really hip double time, you know, 16th note line, which you can just kind of work it out slowly, you know, and play it. But think about the whole direction of the thing because it's a lot of notes, but obviously it goes by quickly.

your double time. But check out how it ends. Because a lot of times we'll get all that. And it's almost like the thing. If you don't know where you're going, you don't know. No, no, if you don't know where you've been. But you also got to know where you're going. And the way that it ends, this is the last, this is bar 25. That's what I was drawing to. Right here, boom, that B flat in 26. Like that's actually the culmination of the whole thing. And in terms of where you need to get, if you have to skip some notes or gloss over something, you've got to hit that end of one. rhythmically correct. Because check out how he does.

Like, it all leads to that. Deong. Skit on. It is. You know what I'm saying? It is the... Maybe we listen to... Deon.

Yep. If you think about like... So, da-dga-d-d-d-d-d-go. So, da-d-do-d-d-d-d-go. Yeah, exactly. It is a drum part. Like, you'd be better off skipping a couple notes, but making sure you hit that bang-gong

than kind of getting there and being a little bit late on that. I think this is, I think this is, again, Max, trying to be maybe a little too accurate. I think he's, Oscar's going. for. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So this is a, this is, there's a couple of, of just sort of classic sort of, uh, B-bop, hard-bop tropes here. So a lot of

that kind of thing throughout this. Does it a couple times. Again here. Yeah. Like, so if, yeah, in the key of E flat. But still playing around a little bit

with the C blues and the E-flats kind of, you know, superimposed in there. Always in there. But for any pianist listening or watching that, uh, if you're in the key of E-flat, this,

that's your friend buddy it just lays so easily on E flat and you can go anywhere from it. It's a little enclosure thing let's take it back up to speed 100% let's listen to that again at full speed because

the notes are one thing but the fact that he's doing it at this tempo is a whole other business and then again so check out what happens after this it's the same thing that happened in the other I think this is the Same part.

Yeah. Same section that he went, that he did this. Right? Yep. He does, what does he do? Big E flat there. Yep. Scoot.

I can't even get it to sound anywhere close to that. Hold on. The limitations of the old ham radio. I love that thing at the end here. I want to talk about the thing in there. I want to check out this, this run here. Which one? On the B flat 7.

A little whole toneish, augmented. But with the ninth, I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really sweet. Yeah. And then coming out of this, Like that's such a brilliant little rhythmically architectural, perfect way to come out of it because you've built up the double time stuff.

Tiki-d-d-d-d-d-d-dank on. So instead of going, Piqu-d-d-d-d-dick-d-d-d-d-dank, which would be cool, but not nearly as hip as shifting over to the triplets. Still with that kind of precision thing. But if you think about the 16th notes double time, all that section,

And then by, you know, the next, the last, whatever that is, bar 27, you're going to be boop-dip-soo-boop, you know, back into that eighth note kind of a feel. Yeah. That little flurry going up in 26 becomes the transition rhythmically. You don't need it rhythmically, but it's almost like an architecture thing in terms of like a transition between the section. It's like a rhythmic bridge between those two different lines. Yeah. He's taking us back. He's taking us back for sure.

But it's not an abrupt kind of thing. I mean, it could have been, but that's not what's needed there, you know? Slides right in. So this bit of language here, and this is a bit of language from that A-flat-7. So this is the four-cord, right? Yep. Everybody watching should have some knowledge of this little idea here, right? Because it's so handy.

Like that cadence, right? 4-5 diminished to the one, right? But what do you do over it, right? So this, again, look at the, I mean, that's all, that's A-flat, but listen, listen to that. It's that C blues. And it's still focused around melodically around E-flat, which is what the tune is. It's still like. That's an important bit there.

Totally, Peter. All right, let's bring it home. Let's bring it home. Okay. See, same thing there. They didn't hit that right together. I believe Ed Thickman played the And of Four again. But it works.

Dockham. Check it out at the beginning of the stop. Yeah. Someone told that at Thickman to hit on And of Four. And he was like, eh, no. Well, I mean, sometimes, and I don't know if he does it in here, that was, that's definitely something. This is the exciting thing about this. You can go check this out in the Oscar Peterson Trio over the years how they played around with this.

Because it wasn't like, oh, I didn't know you were going to play Nip four. Oh, I'm sorry. I did it this next time we'll get it right no it was like it works both ways it has a different meaning when you're playing it together there's a time to do that and later on in this you'll hear them play together yeah but ultimately everybody's trying to make their contribution to the overall orchestration of this trio plus one situation yeah and there's many different ways to get there right and they can work at the same time everybody has the confidence to play what they're hearing and then the the end result is greater than the you know the sum of the hole is greater than the

pieces and I think it's a great example and no one should ever feel like oh next time I got a he's playing on the aniform no sometimes it's not supposed to be played together you know until you get into a ridiculous analysis like we're doing now most people wouldn't even notice that that's not together what it's together in is the groove and the underlying form they're both with that it doesn't feel not together exactly yeah yeah by the way if max is watching or listening we would like Clark Terry's solo next yeah plus Oscar Peterson's accompaniment please All right, Max. Full comp.

Thanks, man. Thanks. You'll hear it. You'll hear it. Let's listen to this one more time. Again, check out the link to the sound size page that's yours to take home with you as you were. And, you know, hit the like and subscribe button if this is your thing. Well, if you love Oscar Peterson, like our channel, right?

I don't know. I'm so glad he doesn't have a cell. Here we go. I don't want it to stop. All right. So Max, Max, maybe Clark Terry's solo plus Oscar's comments. That would be great. Thank you everybody for tuning in.

These are fun, man. We should do more of these. Yeah. Oh yeah, we're going to do more. Send us in the comments or in the reviews. Let us know who you would like to hear us analyze and react to and transcribe for you. Maybe drop those on the YouTube video for this. Even if you didn't watch it on the YouTube.

Yeah, let us know. We'll pin a comment here to remind you too. There you go. Yeah, man. Until tomorrow. You'll hear it.