You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Solo Analysis: Roy Hargrove- Strasbourg / St. Denis - #58

Episode Date: November 14, 2018

Today on You'll Hear It, Peter and Adam recognize the great trumpet player, Roy Hargrove, by analyzing his solo on the tune "Strasbourg / St. Denis." See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast and something very, very funky. Roy Hargrove Quintet Live at New Morning, Paris. Straussberg-Saint-Den-D-N-Eat. So today we're going to delve in and do a little bit of a just solo and just solo with, more like a musician analysis, I guess we could call it, right? It's solo analysis Wednesday, but we always tend to do, because we're so,

we're so thinking of the big picture at all times. We always tend to go the full-bodied analysis. That's right, right. That's what we'll do today. So, yeah, if you don't know this song, get out from Art of the Rock. That's right. Get online, go to YouTube.com.

Well, you know, and we were talking about, I mean, we wanted to do several tributes to Roy Hargrove, who we, you know, who's untimely lost to the global jazz community, really just the music community, the humanity. We lost this great individual, great trumpeter, great musician, great man, all too soon. But we wanted to do several tributes and kind of both of us have been delving into his music.

A lot of artists have been, I mean, for me, you know, I've always listened to Roy's music for years. He's just one of those artists that I love his music. I mean, I played with him some and love being around his music, but I just love it as a fan, you know. Me too, man. Yeah. Always going back to it. Yeah. And, you know, but it's funny, it's like you take for granted that it's like he's always going to be making music or touring or something.

Right. And he was so prolific recording wise, playing live, playing a jam session. So it's like now it's such a precious thing every note that he played because there won't be more of his notes. There's more inspired by him. And I think, you know, we're really seeing how he's inspired a whole generation. We always think of the younger players for sure. But he inspired the current generation, you know, and even some of. older musicians. I mean, you look at what Sonny Rollins

has come out and set about Roy and stuff, truly an innovator and an inspiration. So we were talking about different recordings and there's so many great things that we could do. But I thought it would be fun to jump on this, which is his most popular video. It's like 3 million

views or whatever of kind of one of his hit songs and it was always great to see Roy. He was really in his element when he was playing live. So that was a fun thing, but this is from the New Morning Jazz Club, which is a fantastic Jazz Club in Paris. And I know Roy played there many, many, many times over the years and love Paris, and Paris love Roy. So we thought this would be a fun one to jump in on.

Yeah, this is such a great track. Like you said, over 3 million views on YouTube. Definitely a hit, a jazz hit, if there ever was one. And let's be clear, look, we're not like, we're not like hit followers here in that we only, Look, if this had 300 views, it would still be great. And we delve into a lot of things that don't necessarily have a lot of views. But this is fun when you get the occasional kind of jazz hit, and it is great music, too. We kind of like to highlight that as well. It's the best of both worlds here.

That's right. And this particular live performance, the band is just killing it. They are. You know, so, yeah, let's dive in, man. Cool. So, I mean, to me, like, I'm going to jump all the way back if it's okay to his intro. St. Denis. Because I love.

It's a fun place. I mean, I just love, like, Roy's, it's so much a part of his music, like his humor and his intelligence and stuff. But there you get a kind of, I mean, this video is great, too, because you get a feel for the club, you know, and, you know, the audience and look at that, the interaction with the audience there behind. That's Gerald Clayton at the piano, a young Gerald Clayton. Young Gerald Clayton. Yeah. Killing this one, too. Yeah.

Great intro. And then check out Roy here. I know he's not playing, but, like, I mean, he's telling you everything. He's there already in terms of the groove. and when he comes in, like his interaction with the audience there, like acknowledgement, Justin Robinson. And then, sorry, I don't want to micromanage this analysis. No, no, no, this is where we're here for, man.

But check this out, man. I mean, I'm talking about all this stuff about Roy before he even plays. But check out, now for trumpet players, horn players, anyone that has a mobile instrument, we can't really do this on piano or drums or bass. But check out, like, just physically how he approaches starting to play the melody now. Check him out.

confidently Yeah, yeah And then he's like You know, man He's doing it right He's doing it right Yeah, his body language Tells you everything

About what's going to happen And then you know The way Justin and Roy Frays this Together man, perfect Harmony Montez Coleman's East St. Louis finest

Right there I mean just grooving Damn right You know like about Roy's bands Always Is they're not all Roy clones You know what I Like, Justin has a totally different vibe than Roy Hargrove.

You know, Gerald has a different vibe. Tess has his own, like, St. Louis'i vibe. I mean, it's so happening, you know. No, Roy gave a lot of freedom. And, like, the way they're playing this great, great little thing for horn players. Like, the rhythm section is grooving, pushing hard. Like, they are locked in with the horns, like, kind of impenetrable in terms of how they're playing. You know who's on base on this one on this video?

I don't know. I'm ashamed to say I don't know who that is. I don't recognize it. Yeah, I don't know what's happening. But then this tune, like we were just joking about before, it's kind of a vamp, like the whole tune. Yeah. And it's sort of that pentatonic.

Is that a pentatonic scale? I think it sort of sounds like a little... Yeah, most of it is. Yeah. And then, you know, that's going to definitely be in there in the solo. Maybe we should, because that's pretty much the whole of it. No, no, we got to hear the false. Oh, right, right, right.

Oh. What? Tess looks a little angry with the high hat there. that man. A little aggression. A little aggression. Don't you love the way this solo starts? I love the muted piano thing on this. And this is from the original recorded version he does that as well.

And I love how this is kind of a version of the studio version, but like a live version, everything is kind of extended, but it really honors that original version. I'm trying to think like if you put a gun to Taz's head right at this moment, could you get him to stop grooving? No. I don't think so. All right, this is great, but we're doing a Roy Hardrow's solo analysis, so I got to skip ahead. I feel horrible doing that. Check out Gerald Clayton's solo on this.

Yeah, absolutely. It's awesome. It's great. The way he builds it up, the whole time. We'll come back to do with Joe Clayton. Okay. So actually, let me take it back just a little bit. So he really builds up, you know, it's open.

Temple locked in. Check out how Roy comes in. Two, three, four. So he comes in before the chorus starts. Yeah. And normally that's a little bit of a faux pa, especially the way that Clayton is soloing, the way that the piano solo builds up. Like what you would expect to happen is kind of let that build and kind of go over and then wait,

let the applause and then come in. But it's a really skillful thing that Roy does there by coming in because he plays that little phrase kind of real rhythmically in there. But somehow magically, it still allows the solo to end, the applause that kind of happen. and it's almost like a continuous thing setting up his solo then. A lot of listening going on in these few seconds here because you could see that Gerald, he doesn't pull it back, but he goes to chords.

You know, he doesn't do a big line to end it like you might. And Montez, who, you know, I know it's fond of between solos kind of playing through, which is usually very, very hip. To Tess's credit here, he hears what Roy's about to do. He shuts it down. Exactly. You know what I mean? And it kind of, I mean, Roy then sets the tone.

And this is not playing. go check out different live versions the way and we heard him do this a lot there was all different ways they'd come in and out of this so that's an exciting thing especially like if you see the band a band like this several times and then like you don't know how it's going to happen there's different ways to set up the architecture absolutely but listen number one is what we'll say like this is a great example of that and you know and be careful though it like if you want to emulate this this is not for the faint of heart to come in like that because you can come in like you're cutting them off if you don't do it the way he does is perfect though this is

This is grown person listening right here. I'll take it back. Grown person, I like that. He almost finishes his phrase, like a little counter melody. And it's his first phrase. This is so thematic. It's just like pretty trumpets. Man, so the confidence with which he played,

this interaction that gets, you know, like leaving the space and stuff can be very tricky because it's so exposed both on the piano side and then the soul, you know, the trumpet side. And I think they just do a great job of this like back and forth in a very kind of starting out, almost symmetrical way. Yeah.

But they're not afraid to stay right. I mean, you know, harmonically, they're staying right in that kind of pentatonic sound there. And then when they do make alterations, it's just little things, but rhythmically it's right in there, very riff-based. This is a couple of people who've played together quite a bit during this time.

Yeah, yeah. You know, they were able to anticipate. Yeah, and I mean, Roy was the kind of musician that, in terms of comping behind him, Like, you know, really listening and staying on your toes and you sort of playing your best as a piano accompanist could really be rewarded because he would play, like he was always listening and leaving space when it needed to be played. If he came in on top, you could keep doing what you're doing and he was going to fit. Like his ears were so big. Like he could really make you better as an accompanist.

That sounds fun. Can we back it up about 10, five seconds? Because I want to make a point of this, or this phrasey place. Before this. Right here. Okay. Okay, so that's a hip hop quote right there. That's don't push us because we're close.

Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he brings it down. Bronx style. That's the beat from that, from that song. And, like, you know, that's what we were kind of talking about when we did our tribute episode, Roy, is his ability. Right before that, he does like a fairly classic, like bebop, you know, going to the to the sharp 11 on the dominant chord. And then he comes in with a, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, da, dun. Yeah.

You know, like a soul hip hop. quote right there yeah and just seamless it never feels like he's like it's it's it's you know going left and right and juxtaposed in the wrong way totally organic that's that that that's and so he's doing some stuff look I'm not a trumpet player but you know he's playing around with some like really like articulated rhythmic stuff here because that fits in the style but then every once and a while I mean fairly often like he's just hitting on some big fat like you know trumpets you know with trumpet tones like I think he went down to that e-fi flat or when a concert

E flat and kind of sat on that gave it a little vibrato and kind of pulled the rhythm off of it a little bit which is a really fun thing to do because it never has to be one thing you know. Phraises are tightening up the phrases. He's starting to tighten up the phrases.

Okay, big shout out to that. Gerald Clayton, what he played there. Some perfect comping on those E flat octas right here. There's not a lot of space. That was good. That's A player stuff right there. Totally. Because, I mean, you're already hearing, as you said, he's lengthening out the phrases,

less space in between. And so rhythmically, the way things are going, either the drums or the piano or both, like the bass is getting a little kind of busy in there, but he can do that on those lower frequencies. You've got to sort of pick your moments to get that same level of interaction that you had at the beginning. You start interacting less with, I think, the soloists, even though you still are hearing that, and you're interacting with the form.

He's marking the top of that form right there, the topic going back to, you know, of a phrase. Exactly. And that's an important bit of this. And look, if he hadn't played that, it still would have been great. But oh, so cool that you get that in there. Now, another thing I'm starting to notice here, you know, we always talk about sort of taking what the tune gives you when you're setting up a solo's kind of advanced, you know, improvisation. This tune being basically, you know, one harmonic area, you know, a flat major, just kind of, you know, moving through this sort of turnaround with that brief little six. kind of F like almost sounds like an F-13 flat-9 kind of thing.

But basically it's all within that diatonic thing. So what Roy I think is doing in setting up the solo is he's using all the other elements except for harmony, you know, rhythm, you know, in terms of how he develops the melody and how he develops the theme of the solo. And then it doesn't mean you can't use harmony. And what happens is like lesser players sometimes will be like, oh, there's no harmonic. There's no changes there. So I can't do anything cool harmonically so I can only use rhythm and melody.

what it is is you can actually be very dramatic once you shift off. And the few times he shifts off of that diatonic harmony, it's like really connected with the melody, I mean, yeah, the melody and the rhythm, but in a really cool and dramatic way that you don't have to even over-enunciate because the tune is sitting in that area. So anytime you leave it, it's already going to have the drama built in. That's right. So let's make note if we can remember of some of those places. Okay, so there, three phrases, the same.

He played him twice exactly the same. and then he kind of shifted it over rhythmically. A lot of confidence in being able to play something when you know you're playing right in the groove, repeat it, especially over a tune like this. Totally. Play it again. Extended it.

Changes. He always takes advantage of that six guard. How important is that moment? Yeah. So that, I think, really comes out of that. That's Lewis Armstrong in a way. You know, like when you rhythmically, when you're playing so precise and like in the groove,

and then you just relax and play some very trumpety kind of clarion call on top of everything, where you're taking this phrase and you're just like laying it all out there. I think masters of any instrument understand the strengths of their instrument, you know, and how to use them. I get so annoyed when like a saxophone player won't ever play anything pretty ever. And I'm like, come on, man, I can't do that. It's like a cello.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, why would you not want to be able to be able to, at least have that in your bag to pull out every so often. And I think Roy totally understands and appreciates that here. And he's like, you know, what I can do that no one else can do with this big, fat, you know, sea or whatever that was and just like, lean into it. Yeah, yeah. Put some vibrato at the end of the phrase. Come down very pretty.

I mean, he's even like lifting his trumpet up a little bit there. Totally. No, I mean, it's like such a great phrase. If we played that on piano, it would sound a aid, but it's not going to be. There's stuff he's playing before. I mean, now that's like piano stuff. Totally. And we can all, I mean, we can casino lick it all day. Exactly. Yeah. Don't make us go to the casino, baby. We'll do it.

We'll do it. That's great. Bebop, which is really, that was Roy's like, you know. But so I think, you know, he was such a master Bbop player, but it would be great for, you know, horn players, pianists, anybody to check out the way he plays these lines because he doesn't, when he goes into the Bbop, it's more of like a harmonic and melodic thing. He doesn't change the rhythmic approach to what he's playing. playing before. Because that can sound corny if you do that. If you're like, Stababab

Badoo Bhoop, but he's right in the groove with the Bbop flavor, so it doesn't sound out of place. Yeah, he understands how Bbop fits into this particular groove. Yeah. And he doesn't think Tess would let him do that anyway, the way he looks right now. Tess is now popping that scenario. Man. So at that moment, because, you know, there's such a short cycle on the choruses to this, and obviously it's building up. We already got that from the piano solo, and this is a trumpet solo so you know it's going to build up and he's done Roy's on such a great job of already starting to build out this was kind of a cool thing

he kind of brought it down just a little bit here it's like whoa whoa we're not there yet yeah give me a little more time yeah and it gives it a nice nice flow to the architecture I know exactly what he's doing here yeah this is a cue to the drummer yeah get in there with me right you know and open it and I guess has heard it those eight bars there where he starts getting into that one note thing. That's, he is Q and Tess to, like, get in there rhythmically. He plays a whole chorus on F, I think. Oh, is it after this?

It's after this. Okay. Oh, yeah, that's the... All right. All right, right. Come on, man. Get it together. For our sake.

And this one, too. You get a lot of trumpet history right there. Oh. Blues. Hints at the next chorus. It's going to come. He just hit it at it with that F. He's like, let's build it here.

And he brings it down a little bit, right? But you can see Montess starts to interact with that note. And now it's all out. Oh. Oh. Hi, up. That dude is only kind of into it. I know.

It's very French. Yeah. Keep going. And I love this. I hate to even stop. But just like, I don't want to talk over any of this. It's so great. But even, like, at the age,

A Pax here, a lot of trumpet players would feel like they have to play constantly, grab a breath, K Pond. Like, he's still leaving space because of what's happening around him. And like, he's totally in the moment. And if you look at him, he's like out his eyes closed and you think he's not, he's so aware of what's happening around him and fitting. Yeah, he's the soloist. Yeah, he's on top. But he's just, he's letting it come to him. There's a lot happening.

So he's leaving that space. This is a great lesson, I think, for for younger players, for players who are maybe in the more immediate level. when you're playing with people, when you're building these things like this, that is a great lesson. Yes. You know, that's one that it took me a little bit to learn, you know, and to pull back, not pull back, but you don't have to play everything all the time, even when it's big.

Yeah, even when you're at like your best and your highest and the crowd's going crazy, it's very easy to be like, yeah, me, me, it's still the group. And you can still rely on every, and not only you should, you, not only you can, you should. Way more effective. Yeah. Way more effective. I put it back a little bit because I like it.

Okay, something cool is going to happen here, but this is another, this is kind of a miles thing that it reminds me of, in that he's going for stuff that he can play, but it's hard. You know, he's up at the register, he's played a whole bunch that night, and he's not really missing anything, but he's stretching. So the excitement level, as opposed to just playing exactly, and this can be for any instrument. It's like, go for some shit.

You know, it doesn't have to be perfect. Like, he goes for a phrase, maybe just cacks a little, then does it again? How much more thrilling is that than when he hits? Now, I'm not talking about the time, like he is in there on the time. You know, and so that's what locks it in, but it's like, have that confidence. That's what this music is about. That's what the joy is about.

Just like you're excited to talk to someone, you know, don't hold back and be careful about what you're saying. Let it all hang out. I mean, it'd be easy to go down and play lower now, but, and you can see, he's working. He's working. Look at that. So, I mean, what a cool thing. Like, I think what happened there with that. they were like, oh, that's all he's got.

And he was like, no, I can keep going. Come on. And I mean, I love, like, that tells you everything you need to know about Roar. His reaction to Montez when Montes kind of like, let up and then came back in. But he was like, no, come on. But I mean, like, the joy and just the really reckless abandon, which with they're playing. But the control part of it is the skill level. Like, if you look at all that he plays, like, as he's starting to get to that really

challenging trumpet stuff, and look, he's making it look easy to a certain degree. I mean, Roar was a small guy. So it's like, you see the. trumpet there, but I mean what he just did from a trumpet standpoint, you get a classical trumpet player and you show them that they're like, wow, that was a lot, you know. It's a lot. But he got very, like, he wasn't doing a whole bunch, like, he got very focused in terms of executing that stuff, you know, and the music meant to keep going more.

And I think they were kind of like, oh, he's put so much, let's break it down. You know it's going to brand. He's like, no, I want to keep going. I want to keep going. The music wants to keep going. Yeah, I think one of the things that strikes me about this solo and that the fact that it's the live performance really, it really showcases what's so great about this music. You know, and he really showcased what's so good about this music, the spontaneity,

the energy, you know, the risk that you can take, you know. And I mean, this solo had it all, and he had that all all the time. And so, man, I mean, that's, that's the essence of this. I almost feel embarrassed that we were talking about chords or pentatinez because that's what this is about. Totally. Yeah. But those things go into building that, but it's like, you know, he takes.

those things and crafts them in a way that I think should be inviting for all of us. Like we can all be Roy Hargrove and if you're trumpet player, this could be very intimidating because in some ways this is like the perfect solo, like the perfect way to play and like he checks a lot of boxes on that. But you know, if you think about it from the listener's standpoint, from the other musicians standpoint, this is a very inviting, a very warm place that they're playing. I was just going to say, you know, another striking thing about this that I think all of us jazz could take note of is how fun this solo is.

Exactly. I mean, that's what it's about. That's why it has 3 million views. Exactly. Yeah. And a big shout out. We're not even going to play it now because we're at the end of the solo, but to Justin Robinson for having to go up and play it.

And he plays a very nice solo after this, but to have to come after that, that's not easy. I mean, to come after trumpet is always hard because that's the peak of the band. But that's the gig. That's the gig. Yeah. So, yeah, man. We love you, Roy. We miss you.

and thank you for this. And, you know, I think it's important for us to remember when we lose someone that's an artist, we lose them. But the beautiful thing is they've left behind this legacy. So let's celebrate that. I know everybody is. I mean, it's because everybody, you know, I mean, who wouldn't want to, but it's a, it's a great gift that, and legacy that he left behind, you know, through his recorded legacy,

through the musicians that work with him, his compositions, all those things. It's a gift. Seriously, it is a gift. very, very lucky to have all this music that he made and just, you know, very thankful for that. So yeah, until next time. You'll hear it.