You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Our Individual Development

Episode Date: April 30, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam answer a SpeakPipe about their personal milestones in their own music careers. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.Today's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download - a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Cage, and John Cage. Visit https://www.oxfordamerican.org/yhi today for a special subscription discount!Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.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, Peter. Hey, man. I'm super tweaking right now. Yeah, I noticed that. Can barely talk. Yeah, what are you tweaking on? I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Jazz Advice, fully caffeinated. Oh, my gosh. Fully caffeinated. Buddy, I'm starting to shake. I know, but then I notice you're like, go make some more coffee as well. Aren't you there already? Yeah, Sam's making coffee right now.

Okay. Yeah, for our listeners who don't know, we usually record a block of these. We don't sit down. Oh, sorry. They think it's every day. No, no, no, we record a block. and you're leaving town soon, so we're trying to record a big block of you.

Yeah, we're doing 100. We're doing 100 today. This is why I'm freaking out. My heart's about to explode out of my chest. We just do a couple of it. But we're going to make it happen. Today's episode of the You'll Hearer podcast is sponsored by the Oxford American. Make sure you take a minute to visit

Oxfordamerican.org. You'll find all kinds of musical goodies, including a feature on John Coltrane, an interview with Les McCann, a video feature about a lifelong collector of 78 RPMs and much more. Again, that's Oxford American. slash y h i and be sure to sign up for the oxford americans e-newsletter so you don't miss out on important music announcements events and other musical happenings in the oxford american universe love the oxford american

that's episode is also brought you by folgers old jes in your cup today's episode is brought to you by sump coffee and i want to give a huge shout out to my boys over there at sump who are making it for me every every morning on the logo my cappuccino for the youtube for the youtube's that's the skeleton And scarier, scarier than the coffee. He's the weird thing about the sump guy. No.

I took our boy Jay Boogie, John Ellis there once. Oh. We're walking in and the guy who owns the sump, the beard,

the sump guy. He's like outside working on some, you know, some woodworking or something. And he looks at John Ellis and he goes, John, they know each other.

They've known each other for a long time. Anyway, it was really a small world after all kind of thing. Anyway, we got a speak pipe today.

Oh, man. We are speak piping. We got a speak pipe from Daniel. All right. Hey, guys, it's Dan. I wanted to take up the speakpipe challenge. Love the podcast. I wondered if you could talk about your own individual development as penis,

because I feel like you haven't really gone through back from the early days to where you are now. And I wanted to hear about some milestones and you're playing. And, you know, when you felt like you were progressing, the first tune that you learned, learned, stuff like that, because I often find that I get in a rut, and so I want to know how do I make that leap to the next level of piano development and musical development. So thanks very much for your input and love the show. Little milestones. A little milestones. A little milestones. That was your first tune? No, no way. You know what my first tune that I ever learned was, like out of a real book? It's a weird

tune, easy to love. Oh, tough one. It's a tough tune. Easy to love, hard to play. I've had lessons with the icon around here in St. Louis, Carol Beth True. Yes, as did I. Yeah, I think every jazz pianist in the last 30 years has had started with lessons with Carol Beth.

That's right. She's got a great system for bringing young musicians up. But she gave me easy to love as my first real book tune to learn. And it doesn't, you know, that's not like a logical kind of tune. There's some weird turns in there. Yep. Yeah, anyway. So I think my first tune, I mean,

you know, even before an official jazz tune was a song called Long Long ago. A classic in the in the Suzuki method. Oh, you're going way, I mean, if we're going way back. Well, I know it wasn't the first song I played,

but it was the first one I tried to make jazzy. Jeremy Davenport, who I was friends with and grew up with from a very young age, six or seven, it is, a trumpet player, great trumpeter in New Orleans. Yeah. And we decided to do like a jazzy version Because we heard, like, we hadn't even really heard that much jazz.

I mean, I'd heard it in my house, like, on record, but, like, live jazz. But we had a pretty good, like, high school jazz band, and we were in middle school. We weren't even in middle school. We were still, like, elementary. But we did a little jazzy version of it, which is, like, really hilarious, you know. But that was sort of the first attempts of jazz. But then when I was in seventh grade, we organized a little combo. We were in, like, the stage band at Brittany Woods Middle School, U-City.

The U. And we, not to be confused with the university. in Miami, the real you. But we did a song called Whole Lot of Blues. Whole lot of... Sounds like a bluesy.

It was a bluesy fiasco. And it was written by Marty Page. I don't know if you're familiar with him. No. Great arranger. Yeah, you better go to Google on that one, big guy. I remember my first real jazz band tune,

Sammy Nestico's. A warm breeze. Oh, a warm breeze, of course. Yeah, I did that in high school jazz band. I remember. man, the trumpet players, maybe the trombone players. They always have a joke back there, but it was like a warm waft. Some kind of fart joke. Yeah, yeah.

So, well, I mean, look, we're going back. These are actually first tunes, but he was, Dan was asking about our individual development with milestones. I think those early tunes and those early experiences, if it's high school band or whatever, are certainly developmental milestones. I think, you know, for me, my development was very much came from just sort of a childhood of being around music a lot in general. So not even, it kind of became about jazz at a certain point, but it was never like, oh, I'm getting into jazz because I did hear it a fair amount growing up. I didn't like grow up in a jazz household, but I heard the music a fair amount.

And so when it kind of connected, and I'm sure this wasn't like just at one moment, but it felt like it probably was, I'm sure it wasn't. But it's like at whatever time when I was like, wow, I like that, You know, it's kind of like if something is sitting there and you walk by it all the time, you don't think about it. But at a certain point, you're like, wow, that's a nice plant there. I want to be a horticulturist or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't just happen like that.

But at a certain point, I connected with it, the sound or something. And I can remember like kind of early things that I heard. But then in terms of trying to play it, yeah, like even just trying to be jazzy on the piano, whatever I thought that was. And then for me, it was like my individual development was very much tied in with like a social thing because my friends were all trying to play. I was very lucky when it came to that because I was also. so hanging out with some other group that was not as, I mean, you know, when I was coming up and probably you're a little younger, but maybe you two still, it was like, I mean, the late 70s, early 80s, man, it was like a free-for-all. We had bikes. We were riding on. We were doing a lot of

stuff we shouldn't have been doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So once we kind of started playing music and we kind of formed a band, then it became about that. I became like obsessive about like, I want to try to play. And that's hard when you're young to learn to play jazz, even if you can play this. So I was like way more developed as a pianist as I was like jazz. I didn't know what like a B-flat 7 versus a dominant 7. And, like, my dad could help me some, but he didn't, he knew the sound of jazz and he knew music theory, but he was always thinking like a classical theory. Yeah, yeah.

And so he's like, that's the wrong seventh. Make it dominant 7th. Both your parents are musicians. Both my parents are musicians, right. Your dad played viola here in the St. Louis Symphony for years and years. Right. And your mom is a Suzuki. Suzuki.

Yeah. And so that was a big part of my development, too, like the violin playing coming up in the Suzuki thing because I learned to play by ear because she taught very traditional like Suzuki. I mean, she studied with Suzuki in Japan. Cool. And it was like, you don't learn to read me. It was super hardcore. I mean, I did know how to read because I was doing piano too, but, you know.

I think the social element of it is pretty important. Yeah. And I think it can really have a huge amount. I mean, I always tell people who are asking me, how do I progress in jazz, that you need three things. You need a real curiosity for the music and a desire to want to understand it. You need really good personal instruction. And then you need a community.

that can help you that can be like you should check that out or you should not do that or you should check out this band you know what I mean like that kind of thing no matter what you're doing yeah if that's if that's art or painting or you know what I mean it's like yeah jazz whatever you need that kind of community and so you are lucky that I mean you the community that you grew up with is like Chris Thomas and Jeremy Davenport and like Todd Williams it's like a crazy yeah crazy group of of cats out of U City during that time is amazing Marty Ehrlich he was a little older than us, but I mean, he came up for the same high school and Ronnie Barrage. Ronnie Barrage, you all just kind of swirled around together. It's great, man. Yeah. I had a great community, too.

Like, no one that was like a heavy, heavy jazz cat, I was definitely with only one of my friends that were into jazz. There were a lot of, like, rock and roll guys and metal guys that I was friends with. This is Jeffco. You know what I mean? It was like, yeah, totally. But that music is great, too.

And we would learn all the Van Halen stuff. but for me it really locked in when I started gigging when I was 15 out in St. Louis here and then I met other jazz musicians. You know what I mean? And then you find your people close to your age who are like, have you checked out Miles's plugged nickel and like, I don't even know what that is?

You know, and you go and you check it out or whatever. Then you play gigs and you try to do it. You fail miserably. But doing it, that I think is a big part in individual development is who you find to be part of your scene and then doing it together. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. You said at 15 now, you know, coming to St. Louis and doing gigs, that actually was a huge part of my development around the same age. Like I was actually a club right on the corner from here that doesn't exist anymore when I was, I must have been 15. I was playing with Freddie Washington. Playing with Freddie this weekend. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, it's like, so that's kind of more like the elders. Yeah. I think that we really both benefited on the St. Louis scene. It's not as heralded. I mean, people that know, no, this is a great community of musicians. Yeah. And a very giving and like. We're lucky to have that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, all the way, it's starting with, you know, Clark Terry and everything from the years of that.

Yeah. There's been a part of the tradition here is, is of helping the next generation. So I think, yeah, having your peers is great, but it's even better when you have a little bit of the elders, you know, because then you actually can hear out it's supposed to be done. When you're with your peers, you're kind of struggling together, which is fun too. But huge parts of my development. There's certain, a few things, I think in general, like it's like peaks and valleys. And it's never like, oh, I had this breakthrough and then I was good. I think that's usually more the Hollywood version.

But there were, like, there were some pivotal moments for me in my development. I would just like to, there might be of interest. One, actually, a couple of them were based upon when I was sitting in. I got a chance when I was, I think, like, yeah, maybe 15 or 14, 15. I think I was 15. I had met Wint and Marsalis like the year before through my dad when he played with the symphony. And then he came back, we came back a couple times, but he came back with his own band here. and I kind of kept in touch.

He gave me his number. It was like, if you ever any questions, I was like, cool, I'm going to call him up. And when I came back, he kind of had me playing the dressing room or something, but he asked me to sit in on the gig. And I was like, what? I was like, oh, this would be cool. But he didn't, like, say what or whatever? And I didn't even know if it was going to happen. So I was kind of hovering around backstage.

And then, you know, at a certain point halfway or two-thirds away through the show. He's like, yeah, right now, right now, we like to feature a young, up-and-coming pianist, you know, Peter Martin. And I came out and people kind of like, who's this kid, boo? No, they did. But I still didn't know what we were going to play. And so I was like, and so he's like, wait, it was like, let's do soft leaves in a morning sunrise. And I didn't know it. But I think I'd heard it.

But I either he didn't give me time or I was too sheepish to say it. And so we just sort of, he just sort of started. I was like, whoa. And so that was my first time kind of being under pressure not knowing something. And I probably had heard it. But after we started and I think Winton could tell I didn't really know. and he kind of came over after he played the melody and I think it was like saxophone soloing

and sort of called out the changes in my year, you know, but I learned it. So like you talk about a milestone for learning to development, but that was, I think the first time I started to get some confidence and like, wow, I can fake my way through some stuff and still kind of, like so by the time I got to the piano solo, I could kind of get through it or whatever. Yeah.

And do you get a standing O? No. Not a standing O, but not, no booze. That's got. So it was right there down the middle. You know, I don't know about for you. I'm sure this is the case for you, but for me, I was not a great practicer at first.

You know, I didn't have a great idea of how to get better and how to practice. And so I think a really key for me was when I figured out how to practice to actually make improvements and how to develop a routine like that. And listen, it's always getting, it's always being tweaked and refined. And depending on where you are in your life, you know, it's at different places. But I think that can be a real, a real stepping stone is figuring out how to practice. Yeah. Yeah.

in a way that actually takes you from where you are to where you need to be. And we talked about that endlessly on this podcast about different ways to do that. Keep a practice journal, have goals, try to meet those goals, keep a regular appointment at your instrument. All that stuff is huge to making progress and to developing, you know, your individuality. Yeah, I think that's big. I would second that for sure. That's certainly part of my experience, too, the exciting stories and breakthroughs are good.

but it's really the, in terms of personal development, I think, on an individual level, it is separate from the community and all that. It's like, when did you start to put in the pieces that actually caused you to have some kind of exponential growth? Because the more you learn and the more you're in a community and you hear really good players and different things, it's like, wow, how am I going to get there

to the point I could do that? Well, I remember when this happened, I think I was senior in high school maybe, and I was always like, you know, I was always the best pianist. wherever I went in high school, right? I wasn't that good, but it was like I had this natural thing for it. So I got, I was not lazy, but I just didn't think I needed to practice as much as I actually

needed to practice. Right, right. And I remember going to Sprules to see Willie Aiken's, remember that? Yeah. On a Saturday afternoon, and Montez Coleman was playing, and he was so much better than me. And we, I sat in, and he, like, basically. Now he's in your trio. No, no, but he was like, not throwing shade, but it was definitely like, you need to get

your stuff together. And I was talking to him afterwards and I was like, so what are you doing? He's like, I practice all the time. I'm getting ready to move to New York and I'm practicing all the time. And I was like, this guy sounds amazing. You were like, oh, that's a thing? I was like, yeah.

Oh, like, oh, because I figured like, oh, you're so good. You probably don't practice. Like that was what was in my mind, right? It's like, you don't need to because you're just a genius musician. You know, some BS thing that teenagers tell themselves. But that was a real turning point as far as like, oh, if you want to be at a top level, you have to work at it every day. Yeah.

I mean, I, you know, I've kind of always known like, because I've had some of good examples, but I've had to be reminded so many times of that. And I think, you know, you can really start to understand it if you look outside of music. It's very easy to kind of personalize it or make comparisons in terms of what you think that you know. But, I mean, you know, go to like an NBA basketball game

or really high-level college game and go see how much warm-up and stuff is going on by, like, the best players. And if you think, wow, they're an animal, they're so great. Oh, man. Now, they're disciplined. Fundamental practicing. Fundamentals, yeah. And so, yeah, that's a great thing that we can be doing all the time, of course.

Yeah, you, I mean, having that classical background that your parents have, I'm sure, helped with that from a young age. That's a great thing to have for sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Good. All right. Well, that was fun. Yeah, it was great.

Keep up the speak pipes. We actually just had one come in as we were talking. Did you know that? You're kidding me. No, maybe we'll hit that tomorrow. All right. Well, until tomorrow. You'll hear it.