You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Our 5 Favorite "Busy" Solos

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

You've heard our favorite simple solos, now it's time for Peter and Adam's favorite complex note-heavy solos. As always, you can hear them in full with our Spotify playlist.Our 5 Favorite "Busy Solos:Michael Brecker - "Syzygy"Art Tatum - "Tiger Rag"Brad Mehldau - "All the Things You Are"Oscar Peterson - "Autumn Leaves"McCoy Tyner - "Afro Blue"BONUSInterested 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey. This is like the sequel to our simple solos, but it's not. It's not. And actually, I'm a little too busy to even deal with you right now. Sorry. Okay. I'm Adam Manis.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Music Advice coming at you. Coming at you today, we're doing our five favorite busy solos. Now, the other day we did our five favorite simple solos. Right. And we thought, let's kick up the energy. Let's do it.

Let's make it happen. Yeah. And so we're starting here with Michael Brecker. I don't even know if I'm going to pronounce this right, but Sizji. Sizji Sizgi. You know, I'm too busy

to even evaluate how you're saying that. But I just had a little break in my schedule so I can actually attend today's episode. Oh, let's check it out.

Okay. Ah. It's from a self-titled 1987 record called Michael Brecker. Yeah. He was just like, this is what we're calling

this record. My name. Yeah. And this is why. Sizji. Yeah, yeah. So what's funny about that is like that's by far

not the most busy Michael Brecker solo. I know. It's like super like busy. But Michael Brecker what a master. man. Miss that cat, man. What a musician and just... Original. Original. And like, you can hear a sound. So influential.

Like, more and more I'm hearing, of course, you know, because I work right after this period. When I first met Michael Berger where I was working with Joshua Redmond, and he was like super kind to Josh and all of us, the younger players. But like, what an influence on Josh. I always forget. All of that generation. Yeah, Chris Potter. Seamus Blake. Oh, my God. Yeah. But that's great stuff. Now, we're going to move on to number two. This is a pianist who is, I don't know if he's really had any influenced.

Art Tatum. Ever heard of this guy? Yeah. This is Tiger Rag. This is from what years is from? Man, I had to look this up because I was just like, I knew it was older that I thought, but shockingly, this is 1933. Just put that in your pipe and smoke that as you're listening.

When you said that before we started, you didn't say exactly 1933. You put an expletive in there. I put it so shocking. Yes, I said darned 1933. No, you did not. Here it is. Tiger Rag. Art Tatum.

She's already busy. Come on, man. Beautifully busy. That's amazing. Huh. I could do that, but I don't want to. Man. Precision.

Busy. Swing. Is we talking about stride the other point? I don't even want to talk about us talking about stride in the presence of this. Here you go. It's getting a little busy. Too busy? Nah.

I love my play by play. Nice his left hand. I mean, when you got it, flauna, you know what I'm saying? My goodness. That's why it's not too busy. Because, I mean, but you nailed it with the, like, the feel. I mean, that's what really shocked me. Not that someone in 1933 could play all that piano.

That could be at any time in history. The syncopation, the groove is unbelievable. And it's kind of ahead of its time, you know, and like, he's sort of in a lot of ways, you know, the missing, not the missing link, but the, that real connection between, you know, stride and modern playing and solo piano. 100%. You know, and then we always view it from the lens of Oscar Peterson and his outsized influence. on Oscar Peterson. But beyond that, just, you know, how this instrument developed

within the swing and the groove. I mean, it's at the Lewis Armstrong kind of level for piano, I would say. It's pretty awesome. It's pretty awesome. I was talking to... And busy AF. I was talking to Jeffrey Heiser about... Like, he had heard a story about Art Tatum. Apparently he just, and this is no surprise,

he just lived on the piano bench. Like, he just spent his days sitting at the piano playing all day long. Right. I mean, so when people are like, how much do I practice? He's like, well, how good do you want to be? You want to be art,

or do you want to be RETA. But, you know, it shows, man. It's like, it's like, I want to say it's like breathing, but it's like breathing the most beautiful breaths you've ever heard, you know. That's right. All right. So we're going to move on. This is, uh, we're going to go all the way up to the 90s here.

This is Brad Maldow's intro from, uh, live at the Village Vanguard volume four. I love how the 90s is sometimes becomes like a really modernist stuff. You know, it's like 30 years ago. We're going to all the way to the 1990s. This intro, though, had a lot of influence on a lot of modern players today. Huge. Got to hear that. crowd noise first thing.

Vanguard. Got to tune up before you do an eight minute. He's not busy yet. Before you do an eight minute intro, you got to tune up. The bass player. He just put you up at the end of the intro, right? Salsa Hodown feel, right? I like it. Speaking of feel, right, from the art tatum, but

this was, I think, a seminal moment in this kind of feel. He was so good at displacing these triplets. A lot of people started trying to play like this. A lot of people started imitating this. Or they started to be busy like this, but they'd nail the time. They couldn't do it like him. He has such a strong sense of his own time.

That's right. This is cool. It's busy in a different way from the artative. It's compositional still. Yeah. And then like the vertical versus the horizontal. But what a great reminder to us

that like intros can be busy. And the way they play as I recall this later on is like a nice contrast going in and out of it. Yeah. When they finally get into it. Yeah. Yeah. Like Larry, is this Larry Grenadier?

Yes, it is. Yeah. Yeah. After you heard him starting to this, Larry's like, I'm going to the bar. It's only 100 feet away. I'll be back. I'm tuned up.

I'm going to order a Sazerac and drink it and be back in time. No problem. Yeah, man. So Brad Maldow, live at the Village Vanguard, Art of the Trio, Volume 4, live at the Village Vanguard. All the things you are. I iconic intro, I think, at this point. I remember when these records were coming out and, like,

you know, because I was kind of on the scene up in New York a lot. And I was like, man, that's kind of cocky of Brad to like be, because the first one, volume one, I'm like, oh, we'll be the judge if you get another one. And then I heard it. I was like, whoa, it's kind of good, man. Yeah.

Okay. Maybe a volume two. Maybe they should be a lot too. I don't know. If you want to do four or five, it's fine. Next one, Oscar Peterson Trio, Autumn Leaves. Now you have this starting at,

like right around a 40 seconds. Play a little bit at the beginning, too. At least up, like, see, play a little at the beginning. This is our podcast, but we play out of the moment. Exactly. And, you know, there was a bunch of versions that he played this. This one I love because there's the Tatum connection. Busy AF already.

Exactly. He goes next level on this. Huh. But then, you know, there's a melody. And then beautiful. of course. We can probably jump up to about No. Oh no, let's play it. I got 20 seconds left. Come on, man.

Alex is bopping his head, man. Because it feels awesome. We got Alex smiling without curse words. This is the radio. He's got a lot of ornamentation. Is that the most Oscar Peterson moment you ever heard? Yeah, but he's like, it's kind of on 11 on this version of it.

From most of the ones I've heard. Here, bang. It's going to be simple, right? Oh, so simple. It's so cute. It's cute. It's nifty. Oh, it's going to be like that. Just it's going to be swinging.

Watch it. Oh, no, he didn't. Oh, no, he didn't. Oh, you should wait until the second or third course before you play all that, Oscar. Oh, no. Go ahead. Yeah, this would be the highlight of any solo I ever played. He's like, I'm just one of my first course.

Yeah, he's just, this is like the buildup. Yeah, this is the apex for me at any moment. This is the beginning. Maybe of my career. But he'll go simple at any moment, man. He'll care. That's a good lesson, actually. Yeah.

Come on. Just effortlessly glides back and forth. That's the Oscar Peterson Trio, live at CBC Studios, 1960. Autumn leaves. Unfrigan, believable. Yeah, and that's a rare one. I'd heard that long ago, I mean, not long ago, but I was trying to find it because I remember I was like,

man, there was this one where this is the spirit of the live, because I love his arrangement on that autumn leaves. But this one, so we're going to link to this. It's definitely not the most known of the ones, but it might be fun for you guys. It'll be in the playlist. All right. So now our final one, our number five.

Wait, final, really? Yeah, this is it, bud. We got five. These are the five of our favorites. Okay. You have, this is Sting. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, that's bonus. That's the bonus.

Come on, man. We got McCoy Tiner. I didn't even see McCoy. Come on, man. What? Mind blown, our five favorite, five favorite busy solos. You see it now?

I do see it now. Okay. Yeah. So talk about this one. You want me to riff a little bit? Please do. Well, I bring it up. Okay.

So McCoy, Tyner, I was trying to think, I was like, man, who busy, busy, busy, and I didn't think of McCoy. This has not been my day. It's all good. It's all good, dog. So McCoy Tiner, I realized, like, because I learned some of his simpler solos, I forgot how busy he gets.

And what a master. Like, he's really coming out, if not in a stylistic way, truly in a lineage of effective busy playing from Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, I think, you know, in a way that, like, Kirby Hancock, who we don't have all this list because we, I guess we're talking about him too much. And, you know, can you do that? But he had some busy moments. But, like, actually, McCoy had a lot.

of busy moments. But so well-crafted, we didn't really think about this. So this one, and I was trying to find, because I've always been a fan of the way he played over Afro-Blue in, you know, like 65, 64, that period with the classic Coltrane quartet, Jimmy Garrison on bass, of course, Elvin Jones on drums. And this one is from Live at the Half Note. There's a couple other really good ones. The first one I heard and I had the album was live at Birdland, which is great, but the piano was so out of tune, which is fine. And he's playing pretty busy, but on this one, he gets super busy. And it's straight up McCoy Way too.

And it's straight up McCoy Way. Also live at Stockholm is great too, but let's check out live at the half note. This is McCoy sold. So started at 42 approximately. Gotcha. And I mean, Elvin is certainly helping with the busyness just all up in there. This quartet could get busy in a great way. Intensity level starts at 11.

Oh, nine. Oh. Busy bunch? Hashtake busy lunch? Question mark. This guy's got no time for anything. And the left hand, busy. Heavy, busy.

But the way, I mean, the syncopation. Blues, blues. Even little riffs are busy. Left hand is relentless. It never lets up. Ah, uh. A whole trio busy. Man, don't even attempt this if you want on your game.

This is very, do not get this busy. Expert level kind of stuff. This is like a chef that throws in like 30 ingredients. You better know what you're doing. McCoy, why are you so busy, man? That's McCoy, Tyner. with the John Coltrane.

McCoy, you know, it's funny, as much as we talk about Herbie and Chick and Art Teno, all these great, for me, you know, when I really, like, I don't talk about McCoy enough

because, like, he was actually kind of my, I mean, Herbie for sure, but McCoy on record was the first, like pianist that I connected with on on such a visceral level and just like a love of music.

You know, it is weird. I want to do that. I want to do that sound, man. I was the same way. Yeah. Real McCoy,

all the Coltrane stuff. And we don't actually talk about him nearly as much as he's been an influence on either. And he's still out here, man. And what a kind spirit. I mean, look, I have not heard a great jazz musician that then I got the, when I did get, if I got the joy of meeting them, that they weren't just the sweetest people and generous and just like their music.

You don't get to be great that easy. I mean, Buddy Rich are heard it's in a hole, but that could be. Notorious. Ray Charles, perhaps, but for sure. Well, that's it. Those are our five. Wait, wait, we got more, man. Why you skip?

Oh, so we're not going to do cold. Oh, okay, we did Cold Train already. Got you. You had Coltrane on here. here too. Yeah, but we ran out of... One, two, three, four. Oh, yeah, you're right, we got five. We got a bonus coming up in a minute. We got a bonus coming up. This is just joined an A-F today. I love it. I'm a little off my game today. But you know what? We've

even did the episode. It's busy, right? I've already played a bitch's brew session. Man, I'm going to tell you, there's some busy stuff on that. Yeah, there is. So, um, this was really exciting. This combined with the other day, a couple days ago, we did the simple solos. This really lets you know, look, we could, we could also play probably for just about everybody, some very simple solos, certainly McCoy, Lonnie's Of all these people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so something to think about is, like, do it at the right time.

This is, this Afrobleu is from, you know, live recording, and then, you know, they would do certain ballads and stuff. Like, to be able to have that range of your playing, especially as a pianist because you have the ability, I mean, McCoy, Arte. I mean, they're talking about using every range of the piano. Like, how do you use your musical taste to get busy, as they say? So, a lot of fun stuff. Well, go to openstudiojazz.com to check out our busy courses. Yeah, our dashboard is kind of busy. We're going to choose to having a busy dashboard.

we have this new ESP elements of solo piano with Jeffrey Kieser. There's some busy AF stuff going on here. We could have had Kisier on here. I know. Kisers are great busy and simple play. He can do both. He's very hands-on. Right. He's very hands-on.

You got to hand it to him the way he plays with. Okay. Sorry, we're going to go out on the bonus. I want a hand-up, not a hand-down. We're going to go on the bonus. This is Sting. This is, yeah, Kenny Kirkland's solo on. This is your boy.

Well, I just love this solo. And this, Kenny could get super busy and, like, rhythmic. This one actually, we'll see how far we get, because he starts to get really busy later. simple, but I love the way it starts. So we got to start it there. Four 16, my friend. Sting, bring on the night. This is from a live album? Yeah. Yeah, this is the, this is from the, from the movie. Of the movie. Yeah, you didn't grow up in 80s, so you don't remember this. This is a big moment. Bramford Marsalis, Omar Hakeem. You'll hear it.