You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Our 7 Favorite Jazz Musician Cameos on Non-jazz albums - #130

Episode Date: June 8, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam list their favorite cameos by jazz musicians on non-jazz albums. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Mness and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast daily jazz advice coming at you every day every day well we are thinking about taking weekends off I think we I think we're going to have to eventually yeah yeah but you know everyone needs a little vacation well today no matter what day of the week this happens to fall on we're going to be talking about our seven favorite jazz musician cameos on non-jazz albums is that too long of a title that I'm could you say that again and like our seven favorite jazz musician cameos on non-jazz albums.

Yeah. I mean, I get it, but wow, that's really wordy. You're such a word-smith. Well, thank you. Well, we'll just, we'll dive in, and I think you'll get the idea of it. I'll take your word for it. Word up. You'll hear it.

That's right. Okay, so number one on my seven favorite jazz position cameos on non-jazz albums is Herbie Hancock's awesome roads playing on Stevie Wonder's As. Oh, yeah. This is from Songs in the Key of Life. This is one of my favorite Stevie tunes, although there's, There's literally dozens, if not hundreds of favorite Stevie tunes. But Herbie, he doesn't actually, he plays a little bit of a solo, maybe eight bars or something,

but it's like the stuff he's doing around Stevie. He does some Herbie stuff on that. Boo-to-do-bo-to-bo-oo-bo-ee. I remember that. Herbie's got the herbie stuff down, yeah. On the roads. He's on the roads. It's so herbie-ish.

That's a great track. Yeah, it's really, really cool. Good, good stuff. All right, well, number two, I'm just thinking about Stevie Wonder then. And there's, you know, to me, the most famous one for a jazz solo, because it's trumpet, is Dizzy Gillespie on Do I Do. Yeah. Like the Herbie one on As, I didn't know that until way later that that was Herbie.

You have to kind of look it up. Yeah. But my sister was like big Stevie Wonder fan, and she's three years older than me. And so when Do I Do I Do Came out, and I think Do I Do was on Music, which was like the sort of best up with some new tracks. Yeah. If it wasn't on that, it was like right around that time. So I was pretty young and kind of listened to pop music.

It was on the radio. And Do I Do was played a lot. It was a big hit, but they cut off. Most of the stations would cut it off before it got, because it was like three and a half minutes, four minutes, whatever. And then there's this great Dizzy Gillespie solo, and Stevie kind of says like, you know, play Dizzy. And I think he even mentions his name.

Yeah, he says, like, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, exactly. And but you never heard that on the radio. And so you had to get like the B side going. But it's a great Dizzy solo. I mean, his sound on there. And he's like right in the group. And I mean, Stevie Wonder is basically a jazz musician, right?

Basically, I mean, I've seen Stevie Wonder play giant steps several times. Well, I mean, he's basically just invented his own genre of jazz, which is Stevie tunes. He had a great quote about, I mean, he's so respectful and interested in jazz, music and musicians using them in these prominent places. But he had a great quote or something I heard that he said was that, you know, jazz musicians are great. He's like, you know, a great jazz musician can have like ten ideas for a great tune. in just one solo. But I think that there was a lot of wisdom in that as well. That's really cool.

All right. So number three, this is Michael Brecker on Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years. That's from the album, Still Crazy after all these years. He plays an unbelievably powerful solo. I think it's only maybe eight bars. Babadu-dwa. Everybody can sing it. It's so, so good.

And it just, like, at the climax of the tune, and then after that, it kind of goes, it settles back down. It's such a great song, such a well-written, well-crafted song. And Brecker's playing on that just fits perfectly. I mean, Brecker was so, I mean, to be able to play just the right amount in a short period of time like that, but then he could also solo for 12 minutes and play a whole bunch of stuff. I mean, just truly a complete musician. Totally.

Oh, that's great. So number four, I'm going to kind of call an audible here and say Brian Blade on a number of records. Now, I just was kind of reunited with Brian and working with him, so he's always kind of on my mind. He's one of my favorite musicians and favorite people and really pivotal to my development. We're the same age and kind of met when we were 20 years old, and he really influenced me in a lot of great ways. But he's been on a bunch of records, you know, like Joni Mitchell or kind of collaborations, almost Bob Dylan. He recorded with Emmylou Harris. and then he's done a bunch of stuff

with the guy, the guitarist, whose name I'm blanking on, who actually produced the... Daniel Lanwa. Right, as well, Daniel Lanwa. Nora Jones recently, you know, he's been on her last couple of records and played with her.

And Brian does such a great job in these kind of non-jazz situations of playing the appropriate, you know, groove and sound, but always being himself and, like, infusing his concept of drumming, his concept of music, to the situation in such a cool and an organic way, you know, there's, there's, there's,

there's a reason that these great pop folk icons seek him out and seek him out, um, to be a part of their thing because he brings this kind of authenticity, groove. He doesn't necessarily come in as a jazz drummer. He just comes in as a great musician. No, this one is, I think, the most impressive of our whole list because, you know, it's one thing for Dizzy to blow over some two fives on a Stevie tune or, you know, Michael Brecker to, to, you know, to, eight bars on some major seven chords and they do a great job and they sound awesome. But Brian Blade is going in there playing these whole albums with Bob Dylan and Emily Lou Harris playing the drums.

You know, not just blowing over eight bars, but like really having a major part of the sound of the album, the groove of the album and still sounding like Brian Blade somehow. Right. You know, there's no, when I hear him with your trio playing Broadmoor, you know, something definitely more in the jazz realm and then playing with Nora Jones or Emily Lou Harris, there's not, he still sounds like him. Yeah. Peter Martin, Nora Jones, Bob Dylan.

It's all the same. Exactly. It's pretty incredible. Well, I'm thinking now, maybe a reference point a little bit in terms of coming and playing on the records is Steve Gad. Oh, yeah. Who, you know, for a long period, you know, played with, you know, all these great session sessions of kind of iconic records and stuff and really came in. Although he's not necessarily seen as coming from a jazz place, but he's a great jazz drum. He's just a great player as well. Yeah, yeah.

It's really interesting. Yeah, I think when you look at it. at Blades' all music page, it's crazy because it's, you know, it's like Samuel, Bob Dylan. Seven crisscross albums. Yeah, David Benny, Emmy Lou Harris. Like, it's so varied. So that takes us to number five. And this is kind of another, this is not a particular tune, but this is Robert Glasper's appearance on five tracks on Kendrick Lamar's to Pimp a Butterfly album. You know, brilliant groundbreaking album from just a few years ago.

and Robert Glasper had his fingerprints, as it were, all over that. And it's a really interesting thing. I was reading an interview with him where he's talking about it. And, you know, when he got in there, they asked him specifically like, all right, well, you know, that second track, we want you to swing. You know, we want like a Kenny Kirkland vibe from the 80s. And he's like, which was ironic because I don't really do that in my old music. Like, that's not where his sound is in jazz.

But he did it and he sound killing. And he did a bunch of other stuff on that record. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's on more than just, I think officially five tracks. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't a couple other things on there from what I heard. But I agree. I think that's a great album, and I think he's another one that really kind of comes, doesn't change up. He's him, you know, and he brings his thing to the different situations. Number six, I'm going to go with Joshua Redmond on Michelle Indegiochello's mid-90s classic piece Beyond Passion.

It's a great album. And this is just kind of selfish thing, too, because it's one of my favorite albums. And Josh is, like, he's not a huge part of this album, but sort of like Brecker. He's definitely coming from that thing. It's like when he comes in and he's got some great effects on his sax, like he's playing his own thing, but the way they place his sound is what really connects it with the record. And, I mean, it's a great album. And there's actually a bunch of kind of cameos by, if not jazz musicians, certainly people that have been associated with jazz, Louis Conti. Gene Lake is playing incredible drums on that record.

Benny Malpin does some great, I guess it's bass clarinet, and Federico Pena does some great. I mean, there's a lot of good things happening on that record. She's another one. She's essentially a jazz music. Exactly, yes, and that was a little bit of a cheat on this one. Wow, Wausen's on there. Oh, yeah, that's the best. So that takes us to our last one, number seven.

And this is an entire album made up of jazz musicians, and it's David Bowie's final record, Black Star. It's an absolutely gorgeous record. Bowie till the end of his life, pushing boundaries and doing interesting things. The band for the entire record is Donnie McCaslin, Jason Linder, Tim Lefevre, Mark Giuliana, and Ben Mander. How do you pronounce it?

I don't know. Lefevre? Lefevre? Yeah. Dutch Belgian. Amazing collection of young-ish jazz musicians out of New York that David Bowie got hooked up with via, I think via Maria Schneider. I was going to say via Smalls.

Yeah, no, no, I mean, it seems like it. But they kill it on this. I mean, Mark Giuliana is such an amazing drummer with, you know, such a specific sound. And anybody would fall in love with that. And obviously Bowie did. And to, I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be, you know, one minute you're playing at Smalls or in a Brooklyn, a dank Brooklyn basement somewhere, you know, even when you're a big name like some of these cats.

But then you're, to play on a David Bowie album, that's a whole other thing. That's a whole other world. And his last record at that. And his last record. And a good record. A good record. And, you know, at a time when he was really thinking of art.

I mean, he always was. Oh, yeah. But in terms of artistic statements and complete albums and that kind of thing. Can I throw a bonus in? Please. All right. So this will be 7.5. And this is one I just remembered Roy Hargrove on DeAngelo's Black Messiah, his last record.

Whole album is fantastic. Roy kills it, though. And I think a lot of people kind of slept on it a little bit in that... They wanted voodoo too. That's what they wanted. They wanted voodoo too, right. But I mean, you know what? That was many years ago, and I think it's a good record.

I think Roy just plays some great stuff on there. That's awesome. I'm going to do a 7.5.8. Okay, got it. And that's back to Paul Simon. That's Phil Woods on Have a Good Time. From... I think it's also from...

What album is that from? Anyway, if you remember the album from Have a Good Time is on... it might be on still crazy actually anyway, Fullwood's just burns at the end. I didn't know that was him I can't even remember that. He does these like B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Hawda. Yeah, but like just like... But good.

But very good. Oh, that's cool. I love this list. We should do another one like this. This is really fun to find these cameos. Our seven favorite jazz musician cameos on non-jazz albums, one of our longer titles. I love this list too. I hope we press record today. So if you like what you heard, please relieve a rating and review below. We appreciate the five-star ratings, and we appreciate all the reviews we've been getting. Really awesome to hear your comments on it. Okay. Go ahead. It's not possible.

And then if you want to suggest a topic for an episode or to just pop in and say, hi, you can go to you'll hear it.com. I keep tapping my leg, like, as I'm reinforcing things. I like it. I'm like a mom trying to reinforce points home to their kid. You know what I was just thinking. You've finally broken me of the whole six-star review. you think I'm giving up on that. I'm not giving up on it, but I'm not going to like ram it down everyone's throat. I'm moving on to something else now. You want to hear about it? Yeah, yeah. Adam. Okay. Um, we have 44 ratings right now. Not that I go and check this every hour to, you know, five star average, which I love. Dude is so into the vanity status. No, I think we want to,

I want a hundred. I want a hundred ratings. Okay. By tomorrow. All right. You'll, you know, you heard it. No, can we get to 100? Can you all help us out with that? And, you know, the reviews are are really fun. Can I just read one here? This is from Bandman 76. What do you do? Okay, might not be a real name, just so you know. Bandman, probably born in 76, though. I would imagine.

You weren't alive in 76, were you? No. Okay, for those of you out there that remember, 1976, it was a very interesting year. I remember it. I was six years old, five, six years old, and it was the bicentennial of our nation, the United States of America. I don't know.

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