You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Our 7 Favorite Compers - #87

Episode Date: April 26, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam list 7 of their favorite comping pianists of all time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Today we're going to talk about our seven favorite compers. What the heck is a comper? Comper. It sounds like, is that some sort of like third-rate coder that checks the computer code or something?

Set it down to the compor and then to the actuary. I think it was like a transformer when I was a kid, a little action figure. Did you like the red or the green compor? The green comp. Yeah. Well, maybe we should explain what comping is and what a compor does before we kind of get into this list. Yeah, I mean, that's somebody who comps, accompanies. I believe it derives from the Latin to a company.

A companyist, Maximus. That's right. Yeah, comping, we're always talking about comping. I don't actually, have we ever used the word compor? Because this is coming from a question on the you'll hear it.com page. I've never used compor in my life. No, yeah, that's why it sounds so awkward when we say it. But we totally know what Albert was talking about.

He said, hi, Adam and Peter. I'm loving the daily podcast. Here are just a couple questions I had for future podcasts, and this is his first question. Who are your favorite compers, pianists, and why? So, you know, we put together a little list as we're apt to do, and lo and behold, it came out to seven. Yeah, so if you don't know what comping is exactly,

it's when a pianist or a guitarist or a vibes player will actually play the chords. We're improvising the chords and the rhythms of the chord changes behind a soloist or behind a vocalist. It's funny because we call somebody who accompanies a comp or do we call somebody who improvises a visor? I'm going to start. That sounds hip. Does it, though? I'm a jazz visor.

Short for improv. Jazz a visor. That's right. All right. You want to start it out? Yeah, I'm going to start with my favorite compor of all time. That's the incredible Hank Jones. Well, you know, it's funny.

I love Hank Jones, but just before you go on, we said we've never used the word compor. And now you're so familiar. You're so comfortable with you. You're like my favorite coper. Well, he was comping behind some of my favorite visors. in the history of jazz. That's right. No, Hank Jones, to me, he had these, like, really weighty, meaty voicings,

and he had such a strong rhythmic sensibility. He had such great ideas. He always had the perfect taste of where to put his voicings. And to me, he made every band he was in swing just a little bit harder with his comping. I love the way he comps. I've ripped it off so much. Yeah, to me, he's my ultimate. favorite.

Yeah, he's, I mean, you can't argue with that at all. For number two, I'm going to go with Herbie Hancock. And, you know, the thing that I love about his comping, I think the most, is that he's kind of a challenging comper in that, like, he will, he's certainly supportive, but he's not afraid in the right situation when it sounds right and when it works right to really give some, you know, stir up the pot a little bit and give some challenging material to the soloist. So, I mean, I hear him do this mostly with master visors, as we say, you know, like Wayne Shorter or something. So, I mean, it totally makes sense the situations that he does at

Miles Davis. I mean, you know, but I think especially with Wayne, he really, he's such a great listener, Herbie Hancock, that, you know, he's able to combine that with some, you know, challenging kind of, you know, harmonic ideas that must be just so fun to run with. And I think, you know, we're always sort of, you know, walking that line between being supportive. and being inspiring as we're comping. And that's a big part of the art of comping. And Herbie definitely, at the right times, I think, you know, veers into that side of really pushing the envelope, which I love.

Yeah, it's the art form of comping, right, is that balance between you're with the soloist and you're making them sound good, and then you're sort of gently leading them places maybe they're not hearing, and it's a real fun game you can play. I love that choice of Herbie. Yeah, I mean, I think it's like, you know,

almost like when you're talking, with someone or somebody else is sort of leading the discussion, but you can sort of ask the questions or suggest the things, much as we do on our award-winning podcast here. You know, our little banser back and forth, but it's that art of being supportive, but also giving something at the right time. Yeah, it's a big part of it. No one had bigger ears than Herbie or has bigger ears than Herbie for that. It's awesome.

I'm going to go with controversial choice here, and that's Bill Levens, I think, is it? No, Bill Evans. Bill Evans. Of course, the great Bill Evans. I said the great. Lionizing again. No, of course, Bill Evans is on this list because he is on some of the most classic jazz recordings of all time, and his role on those recordings was primarily to comp behind, you know,

I'm thinking, of course, Miles Davis and kind of blue in all those recordings and what he brought to that. His voicing's, his voice leading, you know, every voice goes somewhere when you look at, like, the transcriptions of his comping. Yeah. You know, his voice leading is just so superb and really brought. this sense of classical music into accompanying other musicians, the sense of harmony and of individual voices moving. Game changer, I would say. Absolute game changer. Number four, I'm going to go with what might be seen a little bit as a controversial choice, not for his greatness as a visor, but maybe his overlooked abilities

as a compor, and that would be Oscar Peterson. See, this one is interesting because Oscar Peterson, to me, he, I mean, He has that art of soloing as a copper. Right. He doesn't really stop soloing when he comps either sometimes. But it works. It works. It works.

And you know what? I've tried to do the same thing. And I've gotten almost fired off some gigs for doing that. It's really hard, man. And I mean, you know what? Oscar Peterson would do this with like Ella Fitzgerald, I think, the most. I think it was because he was the most comfortable. But like Ella would come in and start soloing.

And Oscar Peterson was, I mean, he'd tone it down a little bit from his solo, but not much. Like, he'd kind of keep going. But it was almost like a. you know, what do they call it, a polyphony, like in early New Orleans jazz where those, like, great solo solo solo at the same time, but it somehow kind of works, like they're so in sync. And Oscar Peterson has been known as kind of a busy compor,

but for all the right reasons, I think. It's really interesting, those, like Lewis Armstrong, Elefitts, Gerald Records, where it's Oscar Peterson Trio backing them. I mean, he's just blowing through the head and through their solos, but he has such great ears and such great taste, and it really, I mean, Sometimes it can be a bit much, but often it just really enhances everything.

When I think he's just such a great listener, and he reacts, he reacted so quick in the moment that he could get away with it too. So, like, the less that you can hear, the more careful you have to be. That's right. The more you can hear on the spot, just like with talking with someone and interjecting, the more skillful you are added, the more you can get away with doing it, and he's a master of that. And I think another thing that kind of helps is his amazing technique, his incredible touch. Yeah. It always felt light, even when he was playing a lot of notes. It wasn't heavy.

Absolutely. That's great. So that brings us to, I think, you know, again, one of the great conference of all time and very original voice in accompanying other musicians, and that's the lonious monk. I mean, he was playing through other people's solos in a different way because he usually just keep playing the melody as they're soloing. Right. Kind of pull them back into, hey, don't forget what's going on here.

But they were usually his awesome, rhythmic, amazing, sparse melodies, and it just works. And it also is a great lesson. and in, you know, when we talk about when you're vising, which I'm comfortably throwing out there now regularly, when you're vising, you can pull from the melody, but it's the same thing with comping. You can pull from the melody, and it's always going to work because that's the tune you're playing, man.

Yeah, and I think Thelonius Monk really, his comping came from the standpoint of very keen sense of the architecture of the tune and really delineating that constantly with his, comping and his vising and then and then not being not being yeah it's amazing how nomenclature just bam it just happens it's there um or as we call it clature forget it but um no i think you know he he was able to so clearly delineate um the architecture and the form and the connection with the melody and and then really doing it in kind of a blatant way that i would be afraid to do.

And he got a little bit of trouble sometimes. I know that Miles Davis was not really fond of Monk's comping because he wanted more space behind it. And he wanted another thing. And even like on Bag's Groove, I think told him to lay out as far as comping. Wow. But it was a cool thing then like when Monk came in and started soloing after Miles' of Soul.

Like you can tell he really heard what he was playing and like connected with that in a way that contrasted the souls but connected the overall performance in a brilliant way. I almost think of Monk's comping style. It's almost like he's a really great drummer. The way a drummer can define the sections of a tune and lift people up at the right time. Absolutely. Very, very good at that.

Yep, yep. Cool. So that brings us to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. We're chugging along here with our comperts. This is Nat King Cole. So this is, actually, you mentioned him as we were putting this list together, and I'm so glad you did because I almost would have forgotten him and just his piano skills in general, you know,

because he got pulled away into the singing and the acting. He's a superstar. He's a superstar, yeah. But, I mean, just a master of pianist and his comping. Like, you're talking about comping with guitar and for guitar. That's one of the hardest things to do. I don't think it's been done better than Nat King Cole. Great voice leading.

You know, some of my favorite recordings with Nat King Cole are him, you know, doing a trio with Lester Young and Buddy Rich. and he just sounds so swinging with no bass player even. But his comping, his root position voicing is his comping is voice leading again, so strong. And then later on in his own trio, again, that voice leading between him and the guitar is so orchestrated and beautiful and nice. And his touch, he really had like, you know, even though the music wasn't that old at that time, he had all that history in it. Yeah. And it still sounded modern.

Well, yeah, and then, I mean, I would say, too, is comping behind vocals, which leads us to, I'm a kind of. to make a preemptive call in Audible here for number seven because Oh, you'll hear it, you'll hear it. As we started talking about Nak and Cole, it made me think of Shirley Horn, who actually, of all these great compers and great visors, you know,

comp visors, if you could do both, you know. But I would say Shirley Horn, to me, I think, is just my favorite. I don't know, you can't say any of these are the best. That's stupid to say that. But for me, I think she's my favorite compor to a vocalist, to herself.

Incredibly tasteful. Yeah. Yeah, everything sounds awesome. I mean, yeah, and you could say, well, you have an advantage. when you're accompanying yourself because you know what you're doing, but it's not that easy. It's not that easy.

You know, it's easy to do it badly. We've seen plenty of examples. But I mean, Shirley Horn's piano skills were, I think, you know, kind of overlooked maybe along the lines of an act can call or something because such a wonderful singer, known for that. But, I mean, she really played with herself singing almost the entire time. She very rarely had that kind of separation. So she really mastered it.

And I actually got to see her live a couple times where she was comping for some other singers and other players, and it was equally brilliant. So I can tell you it's not just that she knows how to comp behind herself. Wow. I think that's a great list. Albert, hope that this gives you some inspiration to go listen to some people who we think are the best compers behind not just visors, but lists, which is now... Do comper's ever wear like a visor when they go out to play tennis?

That would be interesting. Corny, but interesting. Yeah, and if you guys have some, I'm sure you have some other ones that we didn't have room for, or maybe some unconventional ones we love to hear from you on that. You can go to OpenStudioNetwork.com or you can go to You'll Hearit.com. They both end up at the same place. You've got a place you can leave a comment, ask a question, all that good stuff. That's right.

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