You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Our Favorite Young Jazz Pianists - #84

Episode Date: April 23, 2018

In this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast, Peter Martin and Adam Maness discuss their favorite young jazz pianists. 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 at podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Today we're going to talk about our favorite young jazz pianists. Oh man, these young cats out here today, they can't play. Well, don't worry. We're going to say young pianist is like 56 and below.

So we're going to stretch it out a little bit. Great. So we have plenty to choose from. No, actually, I think, you know, there's some wonderful young players that I'm hearing all the time. We're going to go through some that I know, but actually, I don't know. I think Adam, you and I, well, you've probably got a pretty good feel, especially for the ones around here, but I don't even know about a lot of great players. So we're definitely going to omit some, but I think even with this list, we're hitting on some nice ones.

Yeah, no, there are a lot of really great young players out there right now. Number one on our list, and I think he's number one for a reason. I know it's just like the first one we kind of thought of, but I really do think Sullivan Fortner is doing some of the most exciting things for, pianist young or old. Honestly, his whole approach, his connection to the history of the music, and pushing it forward and his touch and his voicings and everything is so great. He's great. Who was his first teacher back in New Orleans? I think it's some hack named Peter Martin. Oh, really? Oh, wow. That's not why we listed him first, but no, I love Sullivan. I've known him

since he was 13 years old. He is a fantastic pianist, musician, and person, most importantly. And I just love him to death, and I'm so proud of him. I think he's over 30 now, so I don't even know how young I can call him. But, you know, he went to Oberlin College of Music, School of Music. You know, he's played with Roy Hargrove for years, has his own trios, has some great recordings. So if you haven't heard him, definitely check him out. Next, I'm going to go with Christian Sands. Young pianist, he's a little bit younger, young pianist out of, I want to say Hartford, Connecticut, somewhere in Connecticut.

I've actually been to his hometown. But Christian is just an amazing musician. an incredible technique. He's played with Christian McBride. He has his own trio now. He's played with a bunch of great groups at Smalls and on the New York scene, super smart kid, and really, just really well organized with his approach to the instrument and to the history of the music. And I look for bright things from him for many years to come. Nice. I'm going to push this young man that I've been listening to a lot lately, this guy named Sam Harris. Have you heard any of the stuff yet? I haven't. No. Man, he's got this really great

record. I think it's called interludes. And he is just playing some of the most interesting. It's almost like a deconstructed jazz, you know, like in food, how like you have like an omelet, but it's deconstructed into something. I'm all about the deconstructed an omel. He does this in such a grooving way. I love the way he plays. Sam Harris, shout out, man. Awesome. Nice. I'm going to check him. I'm going to go with Jonathan Battiste. Oh, another young pianist from New Orleans. New Orleans has definitely been fertile ground for pianists coming up. And, you know, I've known him since he was about 14 years old as well. And, you know, a lot of people only know him as sort of a comedian and bandleader on the Colbert show.

But he's an amazing jazz pianist. He's got a great group called Stay Human. But just as a straight jazz pianist, which I know he hasn't been seen doing as much in the last few years. But he's just amazing at that. He played with Roy Hargrove for a while, too. It was on the New York scene. He went, I think he was in one of those first Juilliard jazz programs and super nice kid as well. And really, you know, at the forefront of what has always been a small but important part of jazz,

which is sort of the entertainer and jazz musician, you know, with a really visible sort of TV gig. Yeah. So it's been great to see him develop as well. That's awesome. I'm going to go with Aaron Parks next. Aaron Parks, I mean, he's not that young anymore. He's very young still compared to me. but he's amazing. Absolutely incredible concept and approach

and just a fantastic musician. I think his album is called... This first album is called Travelers. I don't know if it's the first album. But, man, I just ate that album up. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, he's great. Aaron is amazing.

I've actually heard him... I've heard some of his albums, but I've heard him live quite a bit over the last, like, eight to ten years. And he is a very thoughtful performer. I've seen him in different situations like Trio and then, playing with other people's bands and stuff,

and he's just an exciting and thoughtful pianist and performer consummate. That's great. Next, I'm going to go with Emmett Cohen. Nice. Who, young pianist from, he's definitely on the younger side. The younger side of 23, 23, 24, 25, maybe 26, I don't know. But he's from, I want to say Montclair or Jersey City, maybe, somewhere in that Jersey area close to New York,

and really came up with a lot of other great young musicians. that are on the scene in New York now, and then, of course, on the New York scene, you know, with, you know, and someone that's very aware of kind of the master musician, he's always, you know, he's played with Ron Carter. I think he used him on one of his recordings, which is quite a coup and a testimony to Amit because Ron Carter won't jump on any young player's record normally, you know.

Right, right, right. So he's very aware of the history, great player, always learning, always has interesting questions for myself, whenever I get a chance to hang with them. Super nice kid. That's cool. I'm going to call Audible here. I just remembered one of the most played pianists that I've been listening to this last year

is this really young pianist out of New York, Glenn Zaleski. He's from upstate New York, but he lives in New York City now. And Glenn is like, man, he just has this crazy great feel and time. He has an amazing concept on the instrument. He put out a trio record called My Ideal, which is absolutely gorgeous. And then I think just last week he put out a solo record. And it's just spectacular. Clint Zaleski.

If you haven't heard him, check him out. Nice. Nice. I'm going to jump back to New Orleans because I want to make sure. Well, I mean, you know what? I could have done a list. I should have done my own list of my favorite young New Orleans jazz pianists. Totally.

But we're going all over the place. And that is Courtney Bryant. Courtney is a wonderful pianist that I've also known for many years. but I would be having her, and all these people on the list, even if I didn't know them personally. But I used to teach her a little bit when she was in high school, but mostly she just developed through her own, you know, talents and just dedication to the music. She's super smart. She's also a scholar of the music. She's a professor, full professor at Tulane now.

She used to teach at Princeton. I think she got her doctorate from like, I want to say Columbia or Manhattan School music. She went to Oberlin as well. Fantastic player, composer. are very accomplished in a number of ways and I'm super proud of her and love when I get a chance to just hear her just straight up play jazz piano as well. Nice. I'm going to, I think I'm going to round up my list with a hometown favorite here. Okay. Lawrence Fields. Nice. Yeah. Lawrence has been playing with, I think he's been playing with Joe Livano a lot lately. And he is, he's truly

amazing on the instrument. He always has been. I mean, I've been seeing him since he was a little kid around here. And it's so great to see him do these great things on such a national and international level. Right. All right. So I'm going to get out of St. Louis and New Orleans because I got a little bit stuck there and go with one of my favorite players, young players. I'm putting young in quotes now. Robert Glasper, because I actually think his birthday was yesterday. I want to say like 40. Yeah, he's 40. So young. Young spirit. Young spirit. I actually saw it recently. He don't even look that young He looks good for 40, but he don't look young. No, but I think Robert is a great player.

Funny guy, one of the funniest jazz musicians. We need to get Robert on, you'll hear it. That'd be amazing. We could elevate our humor game a lot. Very funny guy, really, very innovative, but just an amazing pianist and good friend and a great player out of Houston. Yeah, he was, we were at the new school around the same time, you and Robert, and you knew he was in the building because you would just.

just hear uproarious laughter somewhere. Yeah, yeah. Because he had a group of people around and just making everybody, you know, crack up. And also happens to be, you know, one of the most innovative and popular jazz musicians the past 15 years. Yep. So maybe we'll end on just as an antidote to the not so young anymore, Robert Glasper, Joey Alexander.

Is he young still, though? Joey's not as young as he used to be. It's every day. 13, yeah. Yeah, I think he's 14 or 15 or something. But Joey is just a very, and you know, it's very easy to sort of just discard him as a novelty, and it is novel what he's doing, but he's a great player. That's true.

I mean, he's a great, great player, very accomplished, very mature for his years, and it's really exciting. It seems, I don't know him well, but I, you know, know some great musicians that he has had play with him, and everybody says, you know, super nice kid, very mature, respectful, and just, Great player. Awesome. Yep. Well, I think that's a pretty solid list of young-ish players. Yeah, we ran the gamut from young to us.

Not so good. Well, remember, You'll Hear it. You'll Hear it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast. If you liked what you heard, please leave a rating or review. Yeah, I liked what I heard. I'm going to leave five stars, but you guys can do whatever you want. Today's episode was brought you by Open Studio, Jazz Lessons from Jazz Legends.

Check out our brand new. all access pass all access what is that like one or two courses you get dude i said all access it's access to everything every course hundreds thousands tens of thousands of last let me let me let's of that back up back up definitely hundreds we're getting close to a thousand everything from christian mcbride peter martin ramara lobombo gregory hutchinson miles davis wait hold lugs lewis jelly roll morton just getting ridiculous no some of those the first couple we've got them check us out openstudio network dot com