You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Set Lists

Episode Date: May 23, 2019

Ever had questions about set lists? Peter and Adam has got you covered. They talk about several topics such as:Big band and small groupHow to organize set listsHow to not have too many bebop or latin in a rowListener's stand pointFlow of a set listULTIMATE TIP: Tune in tomorrowWanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.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, Pete. Hey, man. So I'm thinking we start with blue and green. We go straight into Lush Life. Mm. And then we do the entire point of departure record. I like that set list. I'm Matt De Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the Yule here at podcast. Daily Jazz Advice. Coming at you. Coming at you today, brought to you by Open Studio, of course. Ding. Hello. We need a jingle for like, you know.

Open Studio, Jazzy Jazz. Come get your lessons at Open Studio. Yeah, let's keep working. on that. Okay. I just said we knew. I didn't say I hit the final. If only there were any musicians that worked at the Ombudsmaneeleaders. It helps out. Recording capabilities or something. Stababababado do bit do bit do bit, divibit dappo. Yeah. Emotion and motion is the closest thing to open studio jingle that we have. Yeah. Okay, so today we're taking another speak pipe. If you want to leave us a speak pipe, go to openstidionnetwork.com. No, no, no, no. Don't do

that do that you'll hear it.com? That's right. Go to you'll hear it. And you know what's funny? Do you remember when we were having to beg for speak pipes? We haven't explained what it was. We're like, please, go to your browser. And now we're almost going to have to cut it off soon. No, no, no, don't. No, don't. But get it in soon, though, because we may.

Because I don't want to disappoint people, because I know I said we only answer the good ones. But now we're getting to the point where we have so many good ones. It's going to be hard. We don't want this to be a speak pipe every day. This week is all killer, no filler. Let's check out one from Austin. Hey, guys, Austin from Roanoke here. A while back, you gave me some really good advice about getting established in a smaller city area.

And since then, things have been going pretty well. Got involved in a big band and been to a couple jam sessions, even got a couple Quintech gigs. So I appreciate the advice and encourage me you guys gave them. I have another question now that gigs are starting to pick up. Hopefully you all can give me a little bit of direction with this. I'm wondering how you all approach organizing your set lists. Is it usually a day of thing?

Do you do it a couple weeks in advance? If you do it pretty far in advance, how often does it change? How do you keep things from becoming monotonous? Like not playing too many bebop tunes in a row or too many Latin standards in a row or something like that. And then maybe even a little bit of advice about from the listeners' perspective, how do we as listeners, what do you all expect when you're at a jazz concert? what do you expect to hear from the artist performing. So thank you so much for everything. Look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Keep up the good work. Bye. Wow. Satisfied customer. I know. I mean, like, can we get the, hello? Can we get a poster with a poster child for the. Yeah, I mean, look, his career, and that's going to be our new thing.

Listen to the you'll hear a podcast and you will get gigs basically. No, but thanks, Austin. That's awesome to hear that like some stuff. I mean, look, we're joking on here, but everybody knows. knows. I hope that we really are, you know, we're serious when we give advice. This is really what we believe. This is what we practice. This is what we preach. Yeah. And we really do believe and know that if you apply just some of these concepts. And look, we didn't come up with these. No, none of them. This is stuff we well fuel. Well, no, number one, listen. This is, most of the

stuff we talk about is, is things that were passed down to us. Yeah. Kind of general information that most professional jazz musicians. Oral history. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's great. But it, but it is cool to hear when people do them. I mean, I remember the, it's so fun when you learn something, because it's like teaching is such a funny thing because the success of the teacher or the coach. I mean, I look at a teacher and a coach is very similar, right? And the

success is so much on a certain level derived from the student's performance, but on the other hand, it's totally the student's control. Yeah, yeah. So like, we can say stuff, but then when it becomes magic is when someone takes it and does it, it gets passed along again, and then you become sort of the conduit for other seeing, man, this stuff works and it leads to fun.

and gigs and all that kind of stuff. Totally, man. You know what? For this question, I know we've done an episode, at least one episode on set list before, but it never helps to, never hurts to,

it never helps to, it never helps to talk to a microphone. No, it never hurts to revisit these things and kind of discuss our thoughts on it now. Plus, this is a daily podcast, so revisiting is inevitable. It's inevitable, yeah, yeah. No, but it's interesting, though,

that he asked from the musician's perspective, from the band leader's perspective, and then from the audience perspective, that's something a little bit different that we can talk about. But for me, just to get it going here, when I'm thinking about the set list, I think about both because I think about what kind of set I can put together to inspire the musicians I'm playing with to play their best for the audience. You know what I mean? I like it.

Like sometimes I know that if I've been doing a lot of gigs with the same group of musicians or whatever, that changing it up big time can cause a spark that I know will. Among that particular personnel. Yeah, among like if we've been doing things. three gigs in a row, you know, I'm not going to start with the same thing for the third gig or whatever. Now, I may like, if there was a great ender or something or something that really worked the night before, the set before, I might be like, yeah, let's do that again. You know what I mean? Thinking about the audience. But I think it's good to think about both these things. Yeah, for sure. I agree. I was going to say, I think Austin kind of hit upon a big sort of guiding principle

that I believe in, in his question, almost answering his own question in terms of when he said, even thinking about it from the listener standpoint. Now, most people when they talk about trying to learn how to put together a good set, I don't know, it's so obvious to me that it's for the listener. So like you reverse, you work your way back from that. Not from the beginning of like, I want to prove, in other words, if you're looking from the beginning, it's like, okay, how do we put a set together that will make the band sound good and then the audience will like or whatever,

as opposed to looking at the sort of end result of being like, where do we want the audience to be like what's the journey we want them to go on and how to replace things then within there but a lot of people don't really think about the audience they just think about what they want to play and they they'll always say oh yeah I'm thinking about the audience because I'm going to sound good on this so the audience is going to like it and it's yeah exactly it's it's like there's a difference between what is fun for you what is satisfying because that can be as a player as a player and even as a band like as a little collective I think the thing about it though is like once you really get the mindset of of

putting on a great show, and I hate to use the word show in a way, but I love to use it. And another way, because that's what this is. This is show business. This is, yeah, it's jazz and it's serious and all that. But it's not. It's entertainment. And so putting on, like once you can line up your, you and the personnel around you that you're leading into like a really strong and edifying performance for you as a listener,

then it's going to actually be the same as the listener. Totally. You just have to get your mindset out of like what's fun for me as a jazz nerd pianist. Yeah. Because that's not fun because you're not playing, unless you're playing at a jazz nerd convention. Yeah.

Which we've been known to do. I mean, look, we're jazz nerds, but that doesn't mean the audiences. So we have to put that mindset of the listener on. But even if you come at it with, you know, what would I want to hear at this concert? What would I want to hear at this club? What would I want to hear at this restaurant or cafe? Yeah. That's going to be better than what would I want to play.

Right. You know what I mean? Like, if I were to come in here and not know this band, what would I, what would I be like, oh, that's cool. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. That could change how you think about it a little bit.

Right. And then, you know, use what you have, you know, available to you to kind of mold your best set list. Now, there are certainly like, you know, we talked about sort of the flow of set list before. There's that we could get into. But yeah, I like the idea of we probably should. We should, we should for sure. But, you know, starting with having a look around the room, getting a feel for the space. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Giving a feel for who's there. Yeah. There's nothing ever wrong with that. I mean, I hate to say that like we should all be in this. Well, now you're speaking to something that he kind of brought up about like when you do it before a couple weeks in advance, whatever. So there has to be flexibility then you can't. Well, you can maybe set a, like, and I'll do this a lot, like set a kind of general or even I usually have it in my mind unless it's like totally new players and I know it has to like be set out.

Right. I'll have a general flow how that set. I might have that written. It may just be in my mind if I can remember it. And then kind of at the gig like right before the gig. We actually did this yesterday with the show with James Carter, you know, because. it was such a we haven't played together in so long and like he i think he wanted we didn't even talk about it but he wanted to get a feel for the room i did too so we waited till like five minutes before

the show to finalize the set list and i think that can have some advantages for sure but that's kind of advanced level because you can also get so nervous like when you're more when you don't have a lot of experience with this you got to do a little bit earlier so that you don't like get so nervous and make a mistake in how you're putting the set i think you work your way up maybe at first 45 minutes before it's considered last minute and then next time 30 you know what i mean i've I've done it like as we're walking to the stage. Yeah, yeah. Just looking out at the, like, I remember we did a fundraiser here at Jazz St. Louis, right?

And there was a, it was a crowd of fundraiser types. And you figured it was going to be, but you weren't sure. So, but the trio that I was working with, we'd been doing a bunch of like heavy originals, right? Like either very slow and dissonant or like some burning stuff and I had those fresh on my mind. Yeah. And as we're walking up and I, I stare back into the faces of so many baby boomers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, you know, we had something in mind to start with.

And I was like, no, let's do Steely Dan's Black Cow. Yeah, right. And you know what? Then after that, we went into one of the originals, but we had them in the palm of our hand the whole night. That's kind of getting into the flow of the set vibe too. Because we do, we'll do that, you know, a Steely Dan's tune if I see a bunch of baby movies, but we still do it in a way that is true to us. We're not like, hip jazz nerd way.

Yeah, we're not like breaking out like. you know something artificial right right so i think that that um well yeah plus those the potential donors there literally have their check like let's see how it sounds i'm either gonna write the check or not that's a whole other kind of pressure totally yeah no but i think that absolutely so thinking about the audience and getting and look audiences the beautiful thing about jazz is i mean i've gone to a lot of different kinds of performances in a lot of different places and i mean i consider myself a listener i mean certainly i've been around way more gigs on stage and but I really, I love to go hear music, so I do it when I can.

But I feel like your typical jazz performance is 75, 80% of the time is a very diverse audience in terms of age and background and expectations, which is great because then when you come and see, when it's not like this kind of fundraiser sort of thing, it can kind of give you license. I mean, it almost makes it harder because that, yeah, you can come out and be like, oh, but what if you come out and see all different kinds

and feel all different kinds of vibe, you know? But the great thing about it is, you know, most, It's very rare we're in a situation, I think, playing jazz, like when it's an actual jazz game, when there isn't at least some expectation of the audience and willingness of the audience to be challenged. I agree. So that can always be, as much as I'm saying, this is show business and make it about the audience, that's part of making it about the audience. It's like, how are you going to challenge them?

And ultimately, a set, you know, to kind of step up into the clouds a little bit for you, Austin here. I think it's a story. It's like a beginning to end story. it's a movie, it's a play, it's an opera. Every set list is just representing a set of music. And to the audience, they're going on a journey that maybe they know it's 90 minutes, 70, whatever the length is. I mean, hopefully they don't even really know. And it just when it gets to the end, it feels like it's the end.

But that's up to you. Like that's actually the goal of putting the set together. Now, if there's certain things in terms of stylistic, because you notice about that's worked in. But there still has to be, and whether it's totally planned or you're making it up as you go. and when you're in a with a group of musicians that has a big repertoire and everybody knows the music you don't even need a set list. That's when it gets really fun and

sometimes it won't work but usually if you got the you'll know when you get to that point but there's nothing wrong with I mean I'm using I don't know how often even with your trio you're using set list never okay yeah but you're at that point where yeah we're at a point where I can literally call things you know as we're going and

but I wouldn't you say too though having a big repertoire help is essential for that yes you have to have all those tunes under your belt ready to go at any time. And then you have to have the confidence. The leader has to have the confidence to make a feel and on, on the spot, you know, assessment of like what needs to be. It's almost like we talk about it in your solo.

It's like you start your solo. You can't have the thing planned out the argument. But you got to let the moment happen. And that's very much kind of that's a micro level on the macro level. That's what putting the set together. Totally. And there's definitely, you know, it's the same as kind of getting the energy of a room during your solo.

It's getting the energy of the room during the gig. Right. And being able to read that set. There's a huge advantage if you can make it happen. Right. And it's very simple. If people clap and get up and stand, play more of the same stuff. So let's talk set openers.

Because I think for me, the set opener is the most important part. Yes. It sets the tone. It sets the vibe. It sets the energy in the room for whatever you're doing. I have, I follow, try to follow my instinct on the set opener as much as possible. Like I said, like trying to read the energy of the room where people are at. And there are some times where it's like, if we're playing a packed house and, and, like,

everybody knows us and the place went crazy when they introduced us, I might start out something very, very intense and soft, right? I love that. I know that they're going to be in there with us. They're not going to start talking. You know what I mean? Something like that. If we're in, you know, a bar or something and no one knows this probably,

but I know we're going to, like, we could blow this doors off here if we start right. And so I'll start with something like super high energy to get everybody's attention. Yeah. So everybody's like, oh, snap, like, who are they? Yeah. So that kind of decision, sometimes if it's like kind of a mix of all these things, it's just like, oh, let's do something kind of get comfortable. You know what I mean? Yeah. All these are options. What I'm seeing is in common with all those, though, for the opener. And I totally use this as well and agree is about doing something for the situation that brings the listeners into you. Like it's almost like a call to prayer or something called to prayer. You know, it's like, okay, this is the time. This is, you know, and I see a lot of people make a mistake in programming the first tune in. situations where they're coming out, hitting so hard thinking, oh, I'm going to let them know

we're here, whatever, but you're kind of bad, like you're, you can't play something that you haven't prepped the audience's ears to hear you. I mean, of course you can. You can do anything. If you play it well, it's going to work. I mean, playing well can cover up a multitude of sins of settlers. You can kind of just be random. But all the better if you program it and make the story unfold in a way that makes sense. And there's definitely options. It's not like programmatic or anything, there's options. But I think that that first thing, you need to warm up, just like we need to kind of warm up. Yeah, we warm up backstage, whatever, but you got to warm up the audience's ears. And I like this idea of getting them to draw in a little bit. I love the thing of like if

the situation allows to play something very intense and quiet because that, I mean, unless it's going to be like a party kind of gig. If it's going to be a listening gig, let people know that from the beginning. Be confident with that. Yeah, but you're setting that tone. And maybe that's where, that's just the point of departure where you're going from there. I've heard gigs where, where it were two scenarios. They came out completely burning. And then it only got more intense. And I was like, what?

Right, right. I'm thinking of like a Sean Jones gig that I saw here. And it was incredible. And then I've seen gigs where they came out completely burning and it never got better than that. Right. You know what I mean? That was like the highlight of the night.

Yeah, I don't like that. I don't know either because it doesn't take me anywhere throughout the set. Now, that, you know, you have to consider this. Like, is your other stuff as, as attention getting as that? I was so worried yesterday. We started with, James Carter, incredible saxophonist, you know, from Detroit.

He can only go up, though. I mean, I was like, no, I knew that. I mean, I've known him since we were in high school. I've known him a long time. And he's, I mean, he's literally a monster on this. I mean, his technique is the blues, the, I mean, he can play like the corneous thing and make it sound great and then play three notes at a time and the beat. I mean, it's like a flurry of greatness.

Yeah. But he came out and like at the last minute we do the set. He's like, let's start with Caravan. And we'd actually rehearsed it right before that. And I was like, cool. but he came out and like just started playing an intro that was so over the top and just like and so the my trio came in your trio our trio came in like I mean we had to just come in like so it was like a battery on the senses of the audience and I was like oh my god this is going to be a disaster

and I'm looking at people I'm like where do we go but the thing was it actually prepared people for how what was about to happen and then when we got to like a beautiful ballad it was like you know and it's totally that's why it can't be programmed always the same there's all different ways to skin this can Always the same. Yeah. It's always a horrible term. No, it's always something that you can, if you're doing it right, you can read and change on the fly, man. But I do think that, you know, your point about make the first song have something to do with the expectations of what you're going to be doing.

Don't do a total fake out. And don't make it so much of a warm up that you're patronizing. Like, oh, we've got to get you ready for what's coming next. And we're going to get a little more challenge. It's not about that. Yeah, yeah. And now one thing I learned from Christian McBride and a lot of people have done this really good is, like, like Josh Redmond was great at this.

I remember years ago, he puts a lot of thought into the set list and he was always very programmatic about it. Is like do something on the first tune that like people can kind of snap their fingers. Something with some kind of groove. I mean, it could be swing, it could be anything, but like something that from a groove standpoint is easy to latch on to. Totally. You know.

Making us feel good out of the gate. Especially if tune number two, you want to really go in there. Right. You know. I mean, if you're going to go in there later with some really fast, challenging stuff, then you can kind of get away with doing a lot of different things.

You got to buy yourself some goodwill. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that can kind of warm up both the players, and it's always not that different, you know, from what we need to do to get into the thing. But that's kind of a good trick. I'll use that sometimes. It's like first tune kind of grooving, maybe blues or whatever, something that's like, that you know the band's going to sound good on, even if it's an off night for whatever reason, then something challenging. The second thing, to keep everybody engaged, the listeners, whatever. Then you're setting yourself up, depending on how long the set is for tune number three or two number four, probably number three. nice meaty ballad

which some people think is a little bit too early but normally especially if you're stretching out bigger quintet whatever that's going to be about time because I do think like the really intensely listening things the meat of the story needs to be in the middle somewhere I don't think it works at the beginning unless it's two sets maybe I don't know

but to me like that needs to come because it's a story and like you're getting to that meat and you need that ending something needs to end it and if you end on that intensity it's a little bit I don't know yeah the ending so let's about two things here, right? So the ballads, the slow things, and the ending.

Yeah, right? There's, so I agree with you that the ballot could really go anywhere. And sometimes I'll, I'll have that in mind reading the room too, is like, when are they ready for this? Right. Because some tunes, you know, if you're playing open and you're listening or whatever, take a turn where they get real intense. Yeah. Maybe you weren't planning on that in the set or whatever. And it's like, oh, you know what? Let's bring them down.

Yeah. That's a good spot. Sometimes I'll even end with a ballot if I think that's the right choice, you know, if it's like, I feel like if we go all in on some something huge right now. It'll just be a letdown. Let's do the ballad and let's take it out. Like grown people. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like confident grown music. Yeah, totally. I go to listen to the St. Louis Symphony and not everything ends on a big bum-bum, you know? A lot of, especially modern composers, and in a much more subdued way, and I think it's very effective. I think so too. So just to kind of wrap up, I think a general, I mean, we can't cover every little thing, but these are some good ideas. I think an overall thing that you can.

Take especially when you get to the more advanced level of or really if you just want to try some on the gig Set list creation is you know well no this is good for any time even if you have a set set list because you have to be able to make adjustments just like in a solo whatever Totally but that is I really believe in as you're finishing a tune and people are clapping Like that's the time instead of being like yeah high five everybody like as a leader or whoever's calling the thing like really try to be in the moment in present we talk about meditation meditation where that's where meditating and being able to focus really comes in handy because what you're trying to do is just let the moment tell you what to play next. Yeah. And this sounds way more mystical than it is. But what you'll actually tell is like a certain temple will just sort of feel right. And then hopefully. And so what I used to do and I still do it if I don't

have like a regular group and it's a different thing. Like I would make a set list, but then I'd have the tunes broken up like ballads, medium temple, blues, groove or whatever, whatever categories they naturally fall into. And then when I'd finish the tune and people, people clap and it's like what is the moment need next then I then I've got some choices there if I if I can't think of them I'm like okay needs kind of a medium swinger what's the tunes that we can do that's great then that's a way to kind of organically because it's the same thing of like then the audience you're kind of reading their minds in a way because you're acting like a listener is what it is yeah yeah and it also it's cool because it makes it like all this a lot easier

too totally I mean if you're a surgeon like could you imagine like you're being thrown in you're a surgeon at him you have to take all your you'll hear it and piano and jazz training and they give you some like and terrifying thought it's a Somebody's really scary. I should not be allowed. Yeah, but it's like, but they're like, there's just one step you need to do, but you're the only one can do it. And you see like open hearts certain. The heart.

Pause. You can be? But you see a heart there and it's connecting. You're like, what do I do? I'm like, well, I guess I'll take it and just put it in. That's it. You did it. You know, you stuck the thing bag of it.

But I mean, sometimes it isn't that hard. You know, it doesn't always have to be. And you know what, Austin? Another piece of advice? Just our final pro tip here, our ultimate. Listen. That's right. Oh, we got to get back on our ultimate tips.

Come on now. Listen, listen. When you're out hearing, you know, great music in your area, listen to how the people you admire put together the sets. Sets. Listen to live albums. Actually, I've got an ultimate tip. We're going to put it to end.

Okay. Well, let's just say here, leave us to speak pipe, but you'll hear it.com. Go to open studio network. com to check out these amazing courses. And our ultimate tip is? Well, no, I'm going like this to say, keep going, because I'm trying to think of the ultimate tip.

And then you know what? Tell them about the ratings. We do love a rating and review. We're not ashamed of it. We like seven stars. Now, that is impossible. most systems, but you can write it in. And many people have, and we appreciate it. We really do appreciate that you'll hear it fans that have given us seven stars. And, you know, leave a nice

review. Tell the folks what you like. It helps spread the word about the old jazz podcast. That's right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. This is the ultimate tip for, and this is really based upon number one listen, but how it applies to this question of set lists. You know, in your little practice journal or whatever, as you, this is just another skill we want to develop to do good set lists. You know, go to gigs or listen to them. on NPR or on YouTube. I mean, there's all different places, even if you don't have access to great jazz locally.

Take a trip to New York, whatever you're in Rona, going to Baltimore, great clubs there now. The Keystone Corner just reopened in Baltimore. Yeah, that's awesome. But make a note of things that work and that don't work. There you go. And when you're doing that to try to learn for your set list,

important to remember both, but also don't get so much base, you know, hung up on, oh, they started with this tune. Try to think about they started with this. Like, what's the attribute about it that made it work were made it an hour. Was it kind of a swing or was it kind of a nice groove? Was it too challenging? You know, so because

it's not about like, oh, I can start with that because it's not about the tune. It's about the vibe, the audience, these things. But start keeping some notes and then as you're putting a set list together, you'll have some reference. You won't just be sort of blank slate. Because it's like anything. We're going to learn from others. Another little bonus ultimate tip. Can I get a bonus?

Yeah, please do. All right. Um, no, should make them come back tomorrow? Let's make him come back tomorrow, man. This is a long episode. I will start at the beginning tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the ultimate bonus tip for putting a set list again. So tune in tomorrow and you'll hear it.