You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Solo Analysis- Christian McBride "Pier One Import" - #73

Episode Date: December 5, 2018

Get hip to this! On today's episode of You'll Hear It, Peter and Adam analyze Christian McBride's solo on his new groovy tune "Pier One Import." See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Ennis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to The You'll Hear at podcast. Daily Jazz advice and occasional solo analysis coming at you. It is Wednesday. And you're listening to right now Christian McBride's New John, a brand new album, and this is the track Pier 1 Import, which is a hilarious name.

Love the store, love the song. But Christian takes a great bass solo on this track. and I thought we could check it out. Nice. We're doing this mostly because he's literally right next door to us. Yes. Playing concerts all week here at Jazz St. Louis. And I thought it'd be cool.

Yep. I don't think we've done a bass solo yet. No, I don't think so. Yeah, let's get into it. Okay. So as you could hear, the tune itself, kind of a modalish, you know, rockus. Yeah.

Would they ever play this in a Pier 1 import store? Never. No, it's way. Do those still exist, by the way? No. There might be one actually in like Sunset Hills. Okay. I don't know.

Anyway, let's check out this solo here. We're going to cut to the end of saxophone solo. Here we go. The lick. Yeah. All right. So one of the reasons why I wanted to pick this solo this week is because I really love that it's a bass solo, but none of the energy gets lost. In fact, they still do all the horn backgrounds.

The drummer is still playing with sticks and still playing. playing the groove just, you know, with the same intensity as the other solos. And of course, you know, it's, that's easy to do when Christian can play a basically a saxophone solo over it. But, you know, the language here, the modern language that he plays. I mean, we always think of McBride as like, you know, he's got that bluesy sound and he can really get down. And that happens on this, this album a little bit. But this is a great example of, I think modern jazz language that he has and can do with his facility better than almost anybody.

It's just incredible. Yeah, and I mean, I think, you know, this point of the energy being there during the bass solo, it's such a pet peeve of mine when that doesn't happen because you're already losing the foundation and the energy of the actual baseline or whatever that is happening there. So when you lose that from the other instruments,

it's just debilitating kind of to the groove. Totally. And so, you know, I think Christians, certainly in this solo, and I've heard him solo in a lot of different kind of situations, he does such a great job of, like, bringing the energy and bringing a certain amount. It's almost like he's imagining

what's happening with the baseline that isn't there. And still, and playing in a way like he's playing over on top of that. Then as a listener, he puts that in your head. Yeah. Because you don't feel that lack of anything, you know what I mean? Yeah.

It's just like one of those things, you know, like even we talk about like with solo piano playing and stuff when, you know, even if you're not walking a baseline or playing anything down there, you're hearing that and feeling that. You're hearing that. And then you play in a way that you hear it and feel it in your imagination. You can actually give that to the listener. And so when everybody commits to doing that, especially from the bass chair, then you all of a sudden realize that you're not missing anything. You're not focused on that at all. I think that's super important for any drummers or pianists listening out there, that keeping that intensity is so important. And I mean, one trick for me to develop it, you know, just until we got to the point where it became sort of second nature, was just really to imagine that you're hearing it. Like, actually hear it in your mind, you know, that baseline going on. And obviously for a great bass player, it's a little easier to imagine that

because they're used to playing it, I think. But I mean, I think what's so striking about the solo, I mean, there's a bunch of things and a bunch of just really inside bass baseball stuff. Christian's a big baseball fan too. But he starts out the solo, maybe we could even just listen to the very beginning

because the way he structures the solo because the harmony is not moving that much is very important because you have to create the architecture. And it's such a great shape to the soul. I was going to say that architecture of the solo is just spot on. He outlines the changes. That's the first thing he does.

And so you know what to expect. Yeah. He sets you up so that he could take you out. Yeah. And there's an openness with no piano there that he's very attuned to, I think, the way he even plays those first phrases, you know, where, you know, he's, I wouldn't even say he's outlining the harmony, but he's hitting at it. But he's mainly just playing super thematic stuff that's kind of outlining the architecture of the form. That's right. Let's hear it again from the beginning.

That was a Simpsons quote. Yeah. Just a lot of just extreme clarity to what he's playing. Yeah. You know, and confidence in terms of like each one of the lines. And then he's getting into like a longer continuous line very quickly. Yeah. You know, but I think part of that too is like listening because the horn lines come in.

And it starts out as like background lines. But then, you know, pretty quickly those become counterpoint. Yeah. Single line things in the subject. It kind of devolves quickly. So it's like Christian has structured the solo. in a way that's almost foreshadowing, I think, of that. Yeah.

I mean, whether he thought about that or not, I don't know. It's just kind of like a musical cohesion there that's great. He's the hit man. He's setting you up to knock you down. Exactly. And that little jumping down to, you know, the actual bass register. I mean, this is very high up on the G string and stuff. Yeah.

I'm a sucker for. It's a good thing I don't play bass because I would totally overuse that. Oh, yeah. I'm a sucker for that. It's a good stuff. He remains, like, very melodic when he goes down to the bottom register of bass. Some bass players, like, reverse. to just like pedal tones and stuff.

Like he keeps the cohesion going. He totally set that up. Yeah. And totally set up that end of that solo in such a brilliant way. It was almost like a drum fill at the solo at the bass. Yeah, at the base, totally.

I mean, but you can do that on the base. I think this is really a testament too to the power of sound and the clarity of his sound and how on the base it's extremely important because he can get away with stuff because of how good it sounds.

and how clear it is that maybe some other players can't. And I mean, I love the way Christian adjusts his playing, I mean, not just in the solo, but with this relatively new group, the new John, without piano. He, I mean, I think there's adjustments that everybody makes, certainly drums and the horns, but from the bass chair, he really makes those necessary small, subtle musical adjustments

to their not being a piano there where it doesn't, I mean, I hate to even say this for us as pianists. I'm like, you always miss the piano. Of course. But actually, you don't. And a lot of that has become kind of the way that Christians play, not only on the solos,

but the way he kind of structured this whole band. And it's a very organic approach to taking away an instrument without totally stylistically devolving into something else. Well, and it's also a great lesson just because even if there were a piano in this band,

would it be better if they were playing little clusters around what he's doing? Maybe not. Now. Maybe we don't have to arrange ourselves into every single moment. You know what I mean? It's a lesson for pianist, too,

that like sometimes it's okay to just not play because it can be yeah it can be very very effective yeah and i mean christian is definitely the kind of bass player that given a little bit more space without the piano comping you can um you know the clarity of his ideas and and the the kind of um you know evolution of how he hears lines within the harmony and then kind of develops them really you know melodically with subtle little things i mean yeah you can hear that when the piano's comping too but he's making just enough adjustments to make it even more interesting when you can kind of draw your ear

and this kind of a group, you know, with a lot of kind of piano lists or drum list, whenever you take one instrument out of a situation that seems to be typically there, it's an opportunity to make some, not to redo everything, but to kind of, you know, rethink in little subtle ways

and interesting ways. Like how are we going to place in those elements that normally the piano would do it without imitating it? And it comes from different places in interesting ways. Yeah. Man, that's really, really good stuff. Yeah.

So this is like one of those I-8 bass solos is what we're saying, just to summarize. It's just okay. That's as good as a bass solo can be. Right. Okay, I just got a text from Christian McBride. He must hear us talking about it. His nose is itching. Oh, man.

That's great. So cool. Yeah. So definitely check, I mean, check this album out. It's a great record. And the good thing about this is they're touring pretty heavy right now. That's right. So if they're coming to a town near you, go check them out.

Yeah. Christian McBride, the new John. Yeah, and if you want to have a... On Mac Avenue Records, right? Yeah, on Mac Avenue. If you want to have a little discussion about this solo analysis or bass solos in general, where are they going? They're going to YouTube.com slash Open Studio Network.

And you can see this episode there and join us in the comments. Adam and I are committing. Are we committing? Yeah, we're going to try to really check in there. You already put it out there. Yeah, no, I want to talk to folks, see what they have to say. But that'll be a nice place for us to do it in the comments there. with you too.

Cool. Well, until then, you'll hear it.