You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Our 7 Favorite Non-Jazz Songs to Cover

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

On this episode, Peter and Adam answer a SpeakPipe about their favorite songs to jazz up on a gig. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Go to http://youllhearit.com/podcast/ to leave yours.Our 7 Favorite Non-Jazz Songs to Cover"Everybody Wants to Rule the World""I Can't Help It""Bad Guy""If It's Magic""Élégie in C Minor""Trilhos Urbanos""Between the Bars"Want every Open Studio course for free? That's right - over 300 hours and 1200 lessons can be yours with free lifetime access! All you have to do is enter Open Studio's 2019 Holiday Giveaway. Go to https://learn.openstudiojazz.com/giveaway/, or watch this video of Peter for more info: https://youtu.be/KsdhVXE5ovILet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam, have we officially run out of things to witty banter at this little segment? Indeed. Here's the 2020, bro. Cheers. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you.

Coming at you today, sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open Studio, jazz.com to see all of our amazing courses. Courses by Peter Martin, Jeffrey Keeser, Christian McBride, Gregory Hutchinson, Rubin Rogers, Ulysses Owens. Ulysses. Adam Manus. A little bit for me. There's something for everybody on there,

but especially check out our piano course. There's actually not something for everyone. If you play the Ocarina, we established this last week. It's an arena. Yeah. If you play weird instruments like the Ocarina or the Trombone, there's nothing for you.

I was listening to that episode in case folks missed it. That was actually brought a smile to my face. I don't normally listen to our episode. Do you ever listen to this podcast? Oh, I try not do. Okay. We recommend it for you all, though. No, but the Ocarina,

well, it wasn't the Ocarina episode, but it was funny because you said, I don't wear weird. and hippie instruments around my neck, which was not my experience with the ocarina, but I did a little more digger deep, and it turns out it has, like many things, it has been culturally, what do you call it?

Appropriated or co-opted by a certain hipster element and put around their necks, which was, you know, that's something, man. Yeah, we love to just take things and use them. That's the royal we. Yeah, exactly. What are we talking about today? Today we are talking about our seven favorite non-jazz songs

to cover. I guess we could call this our seven favorite non-jazz cover songs. We could, but I didn't. Before we get into this, this is a speak pipe by the way from John. Before we get into this, let's play some catch-out because you were out of town all last week. Yes. You were in New York City. New York City, the City that never sleeps. You were at this little quiet, unknown spot called the Village Vanguard. A little dive bar downtown. With a local bassist named Christian McPry. That's right. Yeah, he's always available. No, seriously, you had that, from what I understand, an amazing run with Inside Story. Great, Chris McBride, Steve Wilson, Warren, Wolf, Carl Allen. Yes, man. We were, yeah, actually, so it's a quintet and four out of the five are open studio artists, so that was kind of coincidental, but exciting and gratifying. That's great, man.

But it's just, I love the Vanguard, man. That's such a, it's such a historical place. You know, it's changed a little bit over the year since I first played there in, like, 1991. Because you're old. Which is weird. Old A.F. No, it's weird because I'm like 32, so I played there when I was, you know, whatever, seven years old.

No, but they, you know, the actual physical space has changed very little. Yep. But a few things that have changed have actually gotten better. Like they have a new piano there or relatively, well, new since I last played there. Yeah, what is it? It's a Steinway B, which I think they've always had in there. I mean, it's the perfect, I mean, it's the only side, the biggest that could fit. Yeah.

And this one was picked out as it often is, as most jazz venues in New York by Fred Hirsch, who's like the official, like, New York City piano picker. And he does such an amazing job. He's got a great ear. He's got a great ear. and so it's always an honor and a pleasure to be there. It's definitely, I think the, it's my favorite jazz club that I've been in. I haven't been in every jazz club in the world, but I've been a lot.

And to me, it's bar none of the best. It's one of the greatest rooms in the world for anything. It's not the only great jazz club. Let me just say big shout to Snuck Harbor, jazz St. Louis, jazz standard, no particular order, jazz showcase. I mean, there's a lot of great jazz clubs that I love. But that's the one. That's the one. I think so.

And then we had last night our big 442s, Peter Martin, Brian Owen's Christmas, spectacular here. at Washington University in St. Louis at the 560 Music Center. Shout out to everybody who came and attended. We had a huge crowd. It was super fun. Folks were turned away.

I don't know if you know about that. I had an angry call from a friend of my mothers who shall remain nameless that you know as well that was trying to get tickets and they could not get tickets. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, no, we got snowed out on Monday

because the big snowstorm that hit here in the Midwest. Four inches. Can't handle it, St. Louis. But, you know, we had a great time. Again, thanks to everybody who came. Thanks to all our special guests. Yes. Okay, so let's check out the speak pipe from John. Hey, Peter and Adam. It's John from California.

I just had a question for you guys. I was listening to Chick Korea's Trilogy II album from last year, and they did a really cool version of Stevie Wonder's Past Time Paradise. And it got me wondering, what are some of your guys' favorite non-jazz jazz songs or jazz covers of, you know, cool songs from other genres that are not your typical standard. I'd love to hear you guys' input.

Thank you very much. Love the podcast. Bye. So that's a great question. You know, I don't know about you, but this is... I really make an effort to not play all jazz standards with my trio specifically. You know, when we got, when we started this

Thursday run at Thurman's, I wanted to be like the world's hippest bar band and do... that anybody, because this is a neighborhood spot, anybody in the neighborhood would kind of know the tune. No one knows days of wine and roses. No one cares about that. Stale.

Yeah. So I wanted to do tunes that you could hear on FM radio. Big shout out to Henry Mancini, by the way. Yeah, Henry Mancini is dope. But do them in a way that was, you know, true to us. So I have a whole, you know, our whole set is pop tunes. So I have a few of my favorites in here. Awesome.

And you always throw in some stuff. Yeah. Well, I think it's fun. like, and I mean, look, none of these tunes are like that I throw in in probably you two. I mean, they're probably from, you know, are not necessarily our childhood, but from past years. So it's not like we're pulling out stuff,

although we've been known to pull out. I got a recent, I got a summertime hit from just this last summer. So I stand corrected. I should look at the board first. But, you know, it's, I think what we're looking for is that, that sweet spot of intersection of things that have musical interest to us and some sort of resonance there and that we think some might pull some people in in the audience and give them something to be drawn into the music not that we're trying

to trap them or anything but we're trying to give them a combination of you know improv and ingenuity and newness but along with something a melody or rhythm or something that's got a little familiarity to them and you know what's interesting as i'm looking down our list here is that you know we always like to think like oh this is like a new thing that we're doing here but i think pretty much every one of these that we have on our list has been covered by other jazz musicians than us record like they're not jazz standards but these are tunes that you can hear of like examples of jazz musicians covering yeah and I wonder when it when does it become a jazz standard because I think in some ways remember

when Herbie had that record in like the mid the late 90s new standards I love that record and it's kind of like that sort of puts a stamp on it especially when you like as you say several people recorded in a so-called jazz context sure there's a couple on here that you, I think, could be considered, you know, standards of jazz musicians playing them if they're not jazz fans. Let's jump right in. So we'll jump right in. The hit for my trio, every time we start this tune, people, like, you can see them perk up

a little bit. And it's tears for fears. Everybody wants to rule the world. So, again, this was my jam. This was done by, I think, the bad plus, a cool version of this. We do a more, like, grooving version, I think, than their sort of avant-garde. version but I love playing this one man it's great you have a great arrangement and that's kind of coming out I would say like a herbie even chick Korea sort of approach to yeah definitely there's

some chick you know we do that thing in seven on the bridge so yeah for sure we did a little two piano on that as I recall we did we included that on our two piano concert at jazz St. Louis that's a great one um number two I'm going to pull out a little gentleman by the name of steven wonder stevie wonder originally official name stevelyn Morris I was going to say It's not Stephen. It's Stevelyn. Stevelyn, yeah. Stage name, Stevie Wonder.

And his, I Can't Help It, which was, of course, recorded, made popular by the late great Michael Jackson. And a lot of people don't know that's a Stevie tune. But that's what I really love playing. I think it lands itself. And you have a great arrangement on that one, too. Well, yeah, I mean, it's not a lot of arranging on it. It's basically just playing it. But, yeah, it's a little bit of a thing.

But I think that's one of those tunes. You can kind of just play it down and have some fun, and it really opens up easily. You know, it's not like a forced open. With all these, too, there's, you know, with any good composition or pop tune or whatever, there's little moments that as jazz positions, we can kind of grab and make our own. Yeah. And just looking down this list and thinking about the way you play, I can't help it. Like, yeah, you play it certainly close to the vest to MJ's recorded version, but you have your own little things that you put on there. And like the, the Two Years or Fears one, I put, you know, do the thing in seven, like I said.

Yeah. Like, I think something for our listeners to think about is, is does this like is this something that I want to is this melody compelling to me can I can I play this but can I make this my own a little bit yes it's important I mean that's part of our job as creative musicians I think is to make it our own to not like just destroy it of course and making unrecognizable but you can depending on like if you go with the organic flow of what's there and the material melody harmony rhythm you can stretch parts of it a lot you got to kind to be a tastemaker as you do it yeah there's a sweet spot

between destroying it and being a elevator music, smooth jazz cover of it, where it's just like you're totally replicating the beat and everything and just playing it. I don't think it's good for as creative musicians to do. It's not like, oh, we're above. Look, we've both done mini cover band gigs as we were growing up.

There's nothing wrong with that. But that's trying to duplicate what's on. You gotta have a singer if there's, I mean, like everything kind of, you wanna make it sound as much as possible. That's about giving a memory to the audience of something else that they heard once and like to take them back there.

I think we can tap into a little bit of that with some effective use of these tunes and that people are like, oh, yeah, what's that? That tears for fears. But then it's like, wow, where are they going to take it? And then that's kind of the audience for this kind of music, I think, really wants that. They want that creativity. And when you pull them in there, then you can go crazy on the next tune by giving them something totally new and original or maybe like a Wayne tune or something that they might not know.

But this is kind of a nice entry point. So my next one, our number three, is Billy Eilish's bad guy, which we've been covering for the last couple of months. That's right. she's quite the phenom out there, YouTube and elsewhere. The first time I heard the song, I was like, man, there's something in that that I can do. And this is another one with it as soon as we, not as soon as we start it.

It takes a little bit for people to be like, wait, is this bad guy? You can see it kind of happen and sweep the audience. And you've got to be kind of under a certain demo to, like our crowd last night might not have picked up on that if you'd pull that out. It might have been a small percentage. Yeah, yeah.

But so it's kind of like you're stealing candy from a, I wasn't say from a baby, but from a 16-year-old, right? But no, it's good. Strong material. Strong material. All right. Number four, one, two, three, four. Bam, we've got, oh, I kind of doubled up on Stevie Wonder, but you know what?

We could have done a whole list of Steve Wonder. We could have. I decided to put another one in. And this was just because I recorded this a while ago, and a lot of people enjoy the recording, if it's magic. That's great. Which is one of his just most beautiful and, you know, very harmonized. This is more along the lines of a lot of, you know, complex melody and complex harmony.

structure is relatively simple, but there's like a lot built in to the tune that it's almost like a, you know, like a great jazz standard ballad where there's like all this sort of stuff, you don't have to do a lot with it. That section where it goes to the minor, then, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

So great, man. It's beautiful. So my next one, this is not a pop tune or a stevie wonder tune or anything. This is standard, though. This is Gabrielle Forre's Elogy and C minor, originally written for cello and or, Mr.

Gaborgé. It's the first time I heard our friend Bjorn Rannheim played this with the St. Louis Symphony. I remember thinking that the melody, it sounds like something that Brad Meldow would play. Yes. I'm sure. Keith Jarrett, perhaps.

Yeah, totally. So I was like, yeah, I'm stealing this. Yeah. We're going to cover that. And I just love playing this tune, man. It's such a beautiful melody. And the changes really work well. I mean, it could be just something.

Like, it could be a radio head song. It could be a radio head song. It could be a Stevie song, depending on what you throw on there. It's really cool. I think great music has so many, not obvious, just inherent organic connections on so many different levels that we get so caught up in the stylistic things. And I think as jazz musicians,

it's an important role that we have is to make some of these connections because we come at most of this, you know, kind of looking through the prism of, like, creativity and seeing all the different possibilities of these different things. should be kind of the ones breaking down these barriers and like it's almost against this whole thing of like what i don't like is when people get into this thing of like oh this is so great it's like a great bach fugue or like a great no it's like great music is not about a period or a geography or definitely not an individual this is like something that it's like beautiful plants or

animals or something in the world they look different and there's different styles but there's more in common with them around the world than there's a part in like anyone who's lucky to kind of tap into that beauty of music. It's like, let's do it. Preach, brother. Yeah, come on now. Can I get an amen? Cool.

One, two, three, four, five, six. Oh, we're up to number six. So this one is, this was a great idea that you have before we went on. Catana Velosos, Trios Arbanos, great Brazilian songwriter, singer-songwriter, practitioner of brilliant Brazilian music. And I don't even know exactly what style you would call this. But this isn't something you would hear like a Brazilian song. Brazilian jazz artist do.

It's not like a Basanova where there's like a lot of functional harmony and all that stuff. This is really a song, a folk song almost. Yeah, exactly Brazilian OG folk song. But we've played it duo piano and had a lot of fun with it.

We were introduced to it by Elio Alves when we did his recording. He's got a great arrangement on it. This is a gorgeous melody. Gorgeous melody. Beautiful lyric and stuff that you can kind of channeling the instrumental. And yeah, there you go.

And finally, number seven, our last one. This is one of the first, like, kind of not jazz songs I ever tried to cover and made an arrangement of. This is Elliot Smith's Between the Bars. Elliot Smith was an amazing, amazing singer-songwriter from the late 90s to the early 2000s,

who unfortunately passed away way too young. And this Between the Bars has been covered a bit, I think famously by that sort of pop jazz singer, Madeline Peru, you know what we talk about? Canadian? Quebec. maybe. Maybe from Vancouver, possibly.

Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Anyway, the track that she made was produced by Larry Goldings. I just, I love the production of it and fell in love with Elliot Smith's version as well. And then fell in love with all of Elliot Smith's music and the way he writes songs. And so it's a special song to me. I love it.

Nice. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Well, there we are. We are still in 2019, but we are nailing it like a. It's 2020. You know what I'm saying?

Man, do you know we're about to... I don't know what that meant. Do you know what we're about to do? We're about to leave a decade. Yeah. I know we talked about this. Andrew is not an agreement with this, correct? No, but we are going into the 20s.

There's no doubt about it. This is about to be the roaring 20s. This is going to be the heyday of the Y'all here at Pockades. We're just getting started, yo. Are we? Yeah. We've already run out of intros, man. That was an aberration today.

Tomorrow we're going to... He started in 2018. So one thing, we'll just alert the folks for instead of our usual sponsorship plug at this time is we are taking sponsorships for New Year. Did you know that? No. We had some wonderful sponsors. Some of them are making a comeback at the beginning of the year which is going to be exciting

but we are inviting, we're opening things up. Now this is only for like products or services that we really believe in. Wait so if someone just wanted to sponsor an episode and be like, I love you Diane. They couldn't do that. We're for that. I mean like

we do a little bit of background research on the individual. Yeah, I mean we're not trying to You know, Shelley, will you marry me? Oh, we'll totally do that. Sponsored by Derek. That was going to be expensive. I think it could be a cheap one.

No, but if you have a business or an organization or something you think would fit in with our audience, please, we'd like you to contact Andrew because he's in charge of all such things. Is that right? Well, he will funnel it to the right person. Andrew at openstudio network. Dot com.

So there you go. Until tomorrow. You'll hear it.