You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Our Mt. Rushmore of Jazz Pianists - #66

Episode Date: April 6, 2018

Today, we answer a voicemail question from listener, Dan, about our favorite jazz pianists of all time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Manus and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Today we're going to give you our Mount Rushmore of jazz piano and our Mount Rushmore of jazz. Wait, no, there's only one Mount Rushmore in real life. Yeah, these are going to be, get your chisels ready. These are going to be interchangeable. That's ridiculous.

Hey, this is by a listener request. We've got to give the people what they want. Oh, it's by a listener. Absolutely. We'll do whatever. Okay. All right, so let's check this out. We got a voice message from Dan.

Just to remind everybody, go to you'll hearat.com, and you can leave us. us a voice question and we'll answer it if we feel like it. Yeah, that's right. Hey, Peter, this is Dan. I wondered if you could answer the question, you and Adam, what is your Mount Rushmore of Jazz? So the four people you put on Mount Rushmore and also I'd like you to do it for jazz piano.

So run for jazz and run for jazz piano. And you'll hear it. Thanks. Cool, thanks, Dan. I mean, that's a great question. And kind of a hard question. I don't know, should we go boring or should we go, we should go boring. Well, first I was just thinking, let's, he's talking about four.

Let's do seven, because we always like to do seven. That's kind of our thing at this point. Although how many are on the actual Mount Rush. I mean, there's only four on the actual, yeah. So we're going to have to squeeze in seven. Have you been to Mount Rushmore? I never have. My parents have been.

Okay. I don't know. So I know it's big. I recently saw North by Northwest in the movie for probably seventh time. And it looks massive compared to the size of Kerry Grant. So I think we can fit seven pianists and seven jazz musicians. Yeah, you know, and some of these musicians probably should have a statue somewhere in America for what they did for American culture. And let's be honest here.

Absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, I think even if we do seven for both, we're still going to be leaving some giants of the music out. Yeah, let's stick with like boring traditional, but like in a good way. I mean, we got a boring. Okay. This is the Mount Rushmore's. Got it, got it. Okay, so let's start with the pianist.

And I'm going to start out here with those of you that know me at all or even have a cursory. understanding of what I'm about, this will be obvious, Herbie Hancock. Really? Yeah. Mount Rushmore, finished. That's right. No, I mean, that's just who first comes to mind when I think about giants of jazz piano and, you know, Chicago native just, I really think, innovator and just, you know, not only

innovator of the music and innovator of piano stylings of the music, but just a constant innovative presence in the music for what going on 50, 60 years. now and still doing his thing. So if we're going to get the chills out and redo Mount Rushmore, Herbie better be up there. I mean, you know you should be on the Mount Rushmore when almost every single young jazz pianists has a part of them from you.

You know what I mean? There's no getting around that. Everyone you hear, even more traditional cats still have some Herbie thing that they like to do because it's such a specific sound. He changed that instrument for us. He's kind of the Thomas Jefferson of... He is, actually.

Jefferson on Mount Rushmore? I don't think so, man. We have no understanding. We know a way more about the Jazz Mount Rush more than the real one. If there were seven, he would have made it. He might be on there. Is he on there? I could name one person on there.

Oh, man. We probably should have Googled that before we started this episode. Okay, so that's number one. What are you up for number two? Number two, sorry. Number two is Thelonius Monk. I mean, such an individual artist, so specific to jazz and to that era and still like his own voice had his own really distinct style of of piano

playing amazing composer obviously really changed not just jazz but for a while music and art in that era and uh you know we wouldn't have jazz jazz would not be the same right now if it weren't for monk no it's a i mean it's a great choice it could equally have been on just the greatest jazz artist so i'm not going to argue with you too much on that but you know put where you will. So number three. You could do a whole separate third mountain rush more for people who are in both. I wonder if the piano one would be like a mounted below and it's like considered lesser from the big jazz artist. Yeah right. I mean, hey, we're following the listener's question. Number three, I'm going to go Art Tatum here because, you know, I mean, jazz piano,

his great recording piano starts here. I mean, that says it all. You know, jazz piano, he really kind of sits at that pivot point within the music where he brought in all these, the early influences and then was at the beginning of really the modern stylings and was a bridge somewhat to certain players, but then also had such an advanced transcendental style that he almost couldn't, I mean, he couldn't be imitated. So he was almost less influential than he could have been had he not been so, you know, technically and musically advanced for his time, for any time. So he almost stands alone much as our Mark Rushmore is starting to kind of stand on its Mount Tatum. Mount Tatum, right. I mean, not only was he, he's certainly the most, uh,

technically proficient jazz pianist of all time. There's no doubt about that just because no one else can do what he does. But he may be on the top, you know, three or four of pianists of any style ever, including classical pianists, which is amazing. But, you know, many classical musicians consider him to be equal with Vladimir Horowitz and all that stuff. You know, I mean, really singular. I mean, tune in next week for our seven, our Mount Rushmore of just pianists. And then the week after, our seven greatest pianos that we've ever played.

to individual keys. Okay. So what are we up to now? One, two, three, four. Number four is the great Bill Evans. Stylistically, really brought a new color to the instrument, brought in, you know, a lot of influence from French composers and classical music, you know, really had some innovations on voicing and feel was a huge part of Miles Davis's, you know, most fertile period. And really like a distinct voice amongst jazz pianists, still imitated greatly today. Yeah, and I mean, I would say Bill Evans, I don't think there was ever, you know, to this day, a more influential pianist to other greats that are probably going to appear on Mount Rushmore as well.

That's true. I mean, you talk about, you know, contemporaries and all the players after him, Herbie Hancock, Winton Kelly, Chick-Korea, Keith Jarrett, Brad Meldow, many of the modern players. I mean, you know, you're talking about somebody. you know, like Herbie, but a little bit before Herbie, that just has an outsized impact on pianists in particular. That's true. I don't know how many times a horn player when I asked like, hey, what should I be doing here? They're like, oh, just do some kind of Bill Evans voicing thing, you know? Right, right. All right. Well, I'm going to go next on number five.

I'm going to jump a little bit more modern since he's on my mind now and go with Keith Jarrett. And so because I feel like we're getting so traditional and so obvious, I don't want anyone saying those are obvious choices. And I mean, Keith Jarrett. it maybe isn't the most obvious choice, but it's just a master at jazz piano. I love him. He's had a huge influence because he's, you know, probably along with just a handful, small handful of other pianists has, you know, hit people beyond your standard jazz audience in a way that's very effective and organic and welcoming to the music.

Master, of course, of the solo piano of the trio, just a wonderful player, a wonderful classical player. I mean, I probably spent nearly as much time listening to his classical recordings over the years as his jazz recordings. I've never heard him play live classical, but I've heard him several times jazz. I mean, just the consummate performer and perfectionist in terms of the instrument

and the music. And so, there he is. Yeah, how rare is that for, I mean, you never hardly see that, a jazz pianist that has classical recordings that are actually really good. Yeah, exactly. I mean, probably almost everybody else on this list was classically training. I could have done that. But, you know, Not like that, though.

That's pretty remarkable. All right. So next on our list number six is Chick Korea. The amazing Chick Korea. Talk about a distinct sound. His own sound really, you know, again, when Chick came on the scene like nothing, anybody had ever heard, you know, you think of those lines, right? Those rhythmic lines.

It almost sounds like a drummer playing on a keyboard. It's so precise. And the angular shapes in his lines and his melodic lines, his comping. You know, my first thought when I think of Chick-Rea. I know a lot of people think of like electric band chick, but I always think of Now He Sings, Now He Sobs. I think that's one of the best trio records ever. Yeah.

I think it really, especially it was like 1968 or nine or something. What would a Mount Rushmore of the seven greatest trio recordings look like that? Would that be the actual LPs up there, car? That would be interesting. That would be pretty good. Well, if there was, Now We Sing, Nany Subs would probably be on that. I wouldn't argue with it. Yeah.

That's great. So I think we're up to number seven now. So number seven, I'm going to go with perhaps a surprising choice, but one I'm very passionate about, which is Shirley Horn. Shirley Horn, of course, is known probably a little bit more as, well, no, definitely more as a vocalist, especially for her kind of resurgence later in her career. But I think she's one of the finest jazz pianists ever, you know, to touch the keyboard. You know, some of the most memorable recordings of her are amazing, but I think back to some live performances I heard of her, where, I mean, it was just the finest piano playing I've ever heard, you know, going back to anything.

And, you know, she was amazing, of course, at a company herself, but just the way that she played the piano. And I mean, okay, I'm going to cheat a little bit and add a number eight. Can we go with, can we go with one more up here since we're chisling away? I mean, we already have like four months. That would be Nina Simone. And that's somebody, I mean, we're talking about just, you know, pianist and some wouldn't even consider her strictly a jazz pianist. And it's only not because she was not a master of jazz piano, but because she was first and foremost the classical pianist. but also could play blues and a number of different styles.

But, you know, her and Shirley Hornet, I know Shirley Hornet, I know Shirley One was influenced, certainly by Nina Simone in many ways. But, yeah, so sorry, added on two there, but they're giants. No, that's really, really great. And I think, you know, yeah, I mean, if you listen to Nina Simone that I wish I knew what it was like to be free, I think that's the title of that song,

you know, the gospel influence song. I mean, the piano playing on that is so strong, and the voice leading is so good. I mean, I know it's like a church style, but it fits in our genre for sure. Yeah, and those of you that haven't gotten a chance to check out, there's a great documentary about Nina Simone that's on Netflix. I believe it was actually produced or presented at least by Netflix if you just

search on that. I think it's available in most countries as well. There's just some extraordinary. I mean, it's very interesting from the perspective of her life story, which was very dramatic, but there's some amazing footage of her just playing the piano. Yeah. You'll hear it for sure. Oh, we have...

Well, you know what I have... I think we should come back for a part of... two for this. I think we should. Yeah, this is too important. Talking about a national monument here, man. And plus, now that we've chiseled, we've got to leave it for at least a day. Let it set. Yeah, so Dan, so we're going to be back tomorrow for part two, which is non-pianists, so jazz musicians in general and are, are we doing seven for this, too? We're going to go seven. Seven headed Mount Rushmore. Okay. So until then,

you'll hear it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast. You can go to you'll hear it.com to get more information, submit a question, or just say hello. Wait, you can do that. Absolutely. All right, and if you like what you heard, please leave a review and a rating below. Thanks.