You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Our Most Embarrassing Moments on Stage

Episode Date: January 2, 2020

Today, Peter and Adam answer a listener's SpeakPipe on if they have any stories about making a fool of themselves on stage. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Sign up for You'll Hear It Premium and get access to the SpeakPipe hotline. Just go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/yhiAre you going to the JEN Conference? If so, stop by and say hi to us! From January 7 - 10, Peter and Adam will be doing special live You'll Hear It's, giving away special prizes, and answering any jazz or music questions you want to ask them. Just look for the Open Studio booth (Booth 718) and get your daily jazz advice in person.Support the You'll Hear It podcast by signing up for You'll Hear It Premium! You'll get access to exclusive bonus episodes, the YHI archive of past episodes, giveaways, and much more! Go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/yhi for more info.Let 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. Yeah. Why are you in such a hurried mood today? Well, because, you know, I got to pick up my kids from vacation care. Is that like a new? What next will they think of vacation care? It's a whole new world out here in 2020, bro. That's right.

I'm Adam Annisbrough. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Daily music advice coming at you. Coming at you, day two of 2020. That's right. I'm already bored. How's your 2020 going to?

I'm super bored of it. already, man. I'm ready to go. Bower 2020. But next week, you're not going to be bored. Because you're going to knowledge. Have you been to knowledge? That was a funny one.

That was good. Yeah, listen to the end of last. You didn't have a lot of time, but you still like, you just bathed in an S&L bath there. Yeah, listen to the end of yesterday's podcast. So otherwise, you'll just not really understand what's happening. Would you please not break the old podcave before we build the new podcast? Well, go ahead and while I fix this current podcast, go ahead and tell them about the old pod, I mean the new pod cave. I won't.

What I am going to tell them about is that, well, we are getting a new pod cave. We're having a double flying V keyboard. We are. We're going to call it the dopeio V. Dude. Man, this thing is defective. The mics are breaking down here, man. Yeah, that's okay. Keep bantering. What I want to talk about is the gen conference, because we'll be

at the Jen Conference. This time next week. We'll be at Booth 718. If you're in Nallands, come by and visit us. Peter is giving a keynote address on Tuesday the 7th at 3 p.m. at the Foster 2 room. We're doing a live...

FDR wrapped up with Casey Nystatt in this key. That's what's going to be happening. I don't want to oversell it. I don't want to oversell it. I'll have a piano there. In case I panic, I'm just going to start playing piano. We're going to do a live you'll hear it

recording. Thursday, the 9th at 3.30 p.m. at the Strand 3 room, come by for some you'll hear at swag, some open studio swag. We're going to do a Q&A episode. Yeah, you might even end up on a you'll hear it episode. That'd be fun. Yeah, that would be fun. Yeah, we can pass the mic around.

We're going to be screening. for visuals and intellect. Visuals? Yeah, you got to look right and you've got to be asking the right thing. All right, well, wear your Sunday best. We'll check what local laws allow in terms of our evaluation, but we're looking forward to that. We're looking forward to meeting a bunch of you.

We've both been meeting people in our travels the last few months, this whole last decade. But we haven't really been out with our people this decade yet. Dude, I was at a urinal, and someone was like, you'll hear it. I was like that. That's weird. Super awkward. Yeah. We have a fun speak pipe today.

This is a holdover from when we had the speak pipe open. Speak pipe is closed. Close down. Shut her down. This is from John. Okay. Hey, Adam. Hey, Peter.

This is John from California. I know you guys are pretty well established as musicians now, but I would love to hear some horror stories from the past, maybe some of the most disastrous or embarrassing moments that you guys have had on stage at a gig. Or just some of the biggest mistakes you guys made when you were younger. So hopefully people like me can learn from it. Thank you. Bye.

That's a great question. This can be a long episode. I know. You know what? There's a, I have a ton of... Tell your kids to stay in vacation camp or whatever. No, I have a ton of stories. I think anytime you're young and coming up, you have a wild cocktail of hubris.

Yeah. Overconfidence. And vodka. And naivete, where you do some dumb. stuff on stage off the bandstand and I have some good ones man like the first thing that comes to mine is

I'm liking it already I mean anytime I was playing with like an older musician or whatever and I got a little too big for my britches especially if they were guys like Willie Aiken's or something like that he would just turn around and say tacit yeah and that was so embarrassing I bet he didn't say

tacit so gently like he didn't say it gently he was he was blowing a Coltrane-esque solo and he would just be like, jazz it. That's right. But actually, one of the most embarrassing moments from my youth was

I had one of those those stools for my keyboard. I was playing, I was, I think 16, and I was playing a gig at the Casino St. Charles. I know, jealous.

And so I brought my keyboard and I had one of those little keyboard stools. You know, it's like a bench. I had one now, actually. But I had left it. I was on the way, and I had a pickup truck at the time,

and I didn't put the tonneau cover back on and it started raining. And it was raining. bench. It was a long gig. It was like six hours long. I was also a very big boy. I was a 280 pound teenager. I was, you know, pre-kito Adam. Right.

And we didn't used to call you big guy for nothing. We get to the fourth set. The stool had been wet. I think something with the particle board had broken down somehow. And also, I had just gone to the commissary to eat a bunch of toasted ravioli. And we're on the stage. It was like a proper stage with

lights and everything. And I sit down, and there's a crowd and the keyboard bench fails. Structural failure. Is water soluble. And I just went down hard and it was so embarrassing, man. All right. Well, I thought I had some good embarrassing stories, but they don't, they're not like, you know, as slapstick as that perhaps. Sorry, I went big on the first.

Although I have, you know what? A couple times I've almost like been on tight stage. That's always a thing, even if the particle board is not falling apart, you know, the piano bench at the village vanguard. The piano, where it's normally set up, you're within inches from going into the lap of one of the patrons there. There's a fine line between swinging out with the band and being in the lap of a Japanese tourist, you know.

It only takes one close call for you to really check where the end of that, you know, where the feet are at the edge of the stage. But no, one thing, you know, I actually, you know, all joking aside, I, like, embarrassing moments and I like the way you described it as, like, having a lot of hubris and then going down. It's like the whole classic, like, you're up high and then you're knock back down, you know. Because if you're kind of meek and quiet, it's never going to be that embarrassing because you're not even noticed in the first.

Of course. You've got to be cocky and then get knocked down. And that's the best. That's the only way to get knocked down properly is to be super confident going in and just, you know. But really, like, there's been a lot of like learning experiences, I think. I mean, when you're younger and it's like, oh, you're embarrassed. But like, those are the things that really get you to the point where you're, you know, kind of learning something. memorable and they usually kind of slap you into action.

So the one that first came to mind was I was playing with Steve Kirby, great bassist from St. Louis and I was in high school, but I was on the younger side. I think I was like a freshman. But he used to have this regular gig at a, and I forget the name of it. I can picture it was like a storefront kind of bar club, almost like a Thurman's but in Suleart. And sometimes we do it like with Chris Cheat because Chris

Cheek creates saxophones from St. Louis to him and Steve were roommates and I play with them, but they were older than me. Like they were, you know, four or five years older and could really play. Steve was probably a little older than that and I could like barely play like if everything was perfect and I knew the tune and I was feeling good

I could sound okay you know but you know you throw anything off and so the main thing with playing with Steve Kirby was there's no drums and so like Steve was and still is I just saw him and heard him in New York it's like a super solid bass player huge cordonet

huge cordon so like I'm playing with him everything's going good and then all of a sudden I solo I'm like oh I'm feeling good and then all of a sudden it's time for him to soul so there goes the base And there goes the time as well because I had no idea how to now that's a difficult thing I've just figured it out but like how to accompany a good bass player when there's no drums. And I mean I just I still remember like just the feeling of embarrassment now most people

weren't even listening. It probably didn't matter. But in my mind it was like the most it was like I was stripped down and naked in my underwear in front of the audience. It's a great lesson. That's a great lesson. Yeah. I have a good and hopefully this will ring true for you that maybe you've been in similar scenarios. But when you're on a bill, like a multiple bill, and you're just not the right fit. Like, you're the one that's not the right fit. Right, right. So playing a gig with the lovely Aaron Bodie,

who we both have worked with. I worked with her for a long time. And Aaron, you know, she has this her own style. She's very, she looks really good at her thing. Yep. And it's a very straight ahead, not straight ahead jazz, but like Nora Jones-ish is who she gets compared to, like a pop sound and she's got a very pure, straight voice.

But it's very, like, pleasant and kind of an innocent sound, right? we were on a festival here in St. Louis and we were sharing a bill with Murphy Lee who's in Nellie's crew, the rapper Nellie from St. Louis. And then there was another group who also like, you know, like a St. Louis,

like pretty hardcore hip-hop group. Like two dudes. They were both big fat guys. And they were on right before us. They had no shirts on. They were probably 300 pounds each. They were dancing around the stage. Did they sit on a part?

article board piano bench by any chance. No, that would have been hilarious, but they were not funny people. Were they packing? Like, just tattooed everywhere and just like really aggressive sounding music, right? They were the opposite of aerobody. And the complete opposite of what was about to happen. Culturally and musically. And so the crowd is with them.

And they have the crowd. And it was like, you know, like that trap kind of thing. It was like really loud. And then we get up with our Nora Jones set. Now that alone is enough to cause panic, right? But there was a local DJ hosting, emceeing the event. And so as we're getting set up, she is introducing Aaron. And she's like, now she starts by saying, now listen up.

You're about to hear some quality jazz. And I want you to learn something. Oh, no. Like she starts like yelling at the kids to quiet down and pay attention. Right. You're going to appreciate this music. Yeah. And it's time to go to school.

I was like, I think we should bail. they're going to throw batteries at us. Like, this is not going to. We, I just turned to the drummer who is my friend, Danny Shear, who lives in New York now, but I just turned to him and I was like, hit the drums as hard as you can. Whatever you do. Do not play jazz. Just hit the snare drum as hard as you can.

Yeah. And it ended up being okay. But it was like, man, that was disastrous. Yeah. Now, was Nellie was not involved, though. It was just a Murphy Lee kind of. So Murphy Lee was headlining and he didn't show up. Murphy didn't.

Oh, well, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. Fun fact. Ellie's a distant relative of yours truly here. So I'm glad you didn't despair as my family any further. I love Murphy Lee. I think they're both great.

Just not the right situation there. Was not the right situation. Got it. Okay. Can I, the story that that actually brought up, like for me, not that I haven't had embarrassing other situations,

but that's duo with Steve Kirby always, you know. But that did get me like that whipped me in the shape as far as I didn't figure it out, but I knew I had to figure out how to play in that situation. That's why I love those kind of things. is like how you're going to survive, you know. I got a really good one after me. Oh, no, why don't you go ahead, actually, because my next one isn't that great.

Are you tying your shoe? That's important for when you're on a podcast. Sorry. So I was... Yeah, one foot out the door. I was just thinking. I was just thinking. So this is a great, horrible gig horror story.

So I was living in New York, and a friend of mine, this tennis saxophone player, Matt Parker, got a gig at a wedding, upstate New York. And it paid really well. And so he put a group together. We all went up there.

And the deal was, as we were going to play, like New Orleans style, like, you know. Nalind style. Was it New Orleans or Nalids style? It was like trad jazz style, right? Nalids.

Yeah, and I'm trying to remember this right, but from what I can remember, we played and it did not go well. We played the processional music, and they were not happy. Yeah. And apparently the groom had booked us and didn't tell his wife

that she would be walking down the aisle to, like, trad jazz. How do people, I mean, it's like the most important day their life, you think. How do they get themselves in that situation? I hope I remember that. But I just remember just the look of horror on the family's faces. Yeah.

If you don't know, Trajazz is coming at you. It can be a jarring experience. That's right, right. Well, I'll just close out the stories on this one because I just thought of it. We were hired. We had a little band. We were in high school, a little jazz band. And we didn't know a lot of tunes.

And everything we knew was kind of modern or funk, basically. We did some gigs, like kind of party gigs and stuff. This is when you could still do that, like private gigs, people's basements and stuff. And we knew enough like funk and current R&B pop songs to get through the gig, even though we didn't have a singer. So we had to go straight instrumental on that. We knew some like Stevie Wonder stuff and the kiss of the day.

But we had a big hole, and that was anything like before 1961. We maybe knew a little bebop, but that wasn't going to be that valuable. But we got this gig for a high school reunion. And we're like stupid kids. We don't like know what decade or what age. We're just like, wow, we got a gig. We didn't even know what it. We never knew what any gig paid.

We just wanted to play so bad, you know. And so it turned out, it was through like one of the guys in the band's dad or somebody called and was like, oh, I heard they have a band and they play for this high school reunion. And it was for a university city high school. So we're like, cool. We kind of culturally know what's happening. We go to school there. So it turned out it was like the 50th high school reunion.

So at that time in the 80s. Yes, exactly. That would put it back in. So they were like, oh, I heard they play jazz. Yeah. cool yeah we play jazz not their kind of jazz we didn't play um so we get there and you know they're as hostile as you can be in an older age but you know the hostility level can get there jeff anderson was actually playing bass with us that evening even though he was a lot old he kind of saved

us because we didn't even know like what do they want to hear like uh like we didn't even really know jazz anyway yeah but we definitely didn't know like big band error like guide you to like maybe you should play in the mood yeah so that's what we did we played in the mood the whole night because it's like a blues and it was the only we didn't really know it And he's like playing the melody for Jeremy. Oh my God. From the bass. I would pay so much money to see a video of you, Jeremy Davenport and Jeff Anderson,

playing in the mood. It was really, Dave Berger was playing drunk. I mean, it was a disaster. And we barely got out of there with our life. But, you know, you live and you learn. We should do another one of these soon because I have so much more. This could be a whole thing. There's so many great ones.

That's right. That's right. You know what you talk about. Well, next week, we're going to, can we still say it or have we gone yet? No, we haven't gone yet. We're going to... Nalans. Nalins.

We're going to New Orleans. We're getting crowded ass and skaters. We're going to New Orleans. New Orleans. No, you do not say it. We're going to New Orleans, Louisiana. New Orleans. We'll be at the Jen Conference there.

We'll be at Booth 718. Come by and say hi. You can make it sound so generic. Booth 718 in the... We'll be at Booth 718 in Sector 2. No, it's going to be fun. It's going to be... You see the line of a Chucho Val that's going to be there.

I'm like whenever he's in the city or the building, music is elevated. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, all right. So, until then, until you're. Come by our booth in sector three, section 173, booth 718. Hello, my name is Peter Martin.

I am eight. Okay, I have I arrived at booth seven one eight. To use syncopation, simply, uh, t, uh, t, uh, uh, yo, that doesn't sound right. You'll hear it.