You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Special Guests: An Interview With "Switched on Pop" (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 27, 2020

Peter and Adam continue their interview with Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding from Switched on Pop in today's episode.Links From This Episode:Dive into the world of pop music and learn about the song craft that goes into writing great pop tunes with the Switched on Pop podcastCheck out Nate and Charlie's new book Switched on Pop: How Popular Music Works, and Why It Matters for more information about critical listeningTake a look at Nate Sloan's opinion piece written for the New York Times: The Glorious Return of FunkWant to hear what Nate, Charlie, and the staff at Switched on Pop are listening to? Have a listen to their Spotify playlistToday's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)8:00 PM - Peter Martin hangs with trumpet master Sean Jones on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkIn light of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, we understand that money is tight for a lot of people right now. That's why we've decided that for the duration of this crisis, we'll be running a Choose What You Pay campaign at Open Studio. Choose whichever course you want and then let us know how much you're willing to pay - that's it. For more info, click this link.Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What else we got? Okay, so can we talk a little bit about funk? Okay, so you guys, you, okay, Nate, you did a great piece for, it was actually an opinion piece, right, for the New York Times that was about the funky break of, and it was a great multimedia situation that the New York Times did. And we'll put a link to this below if it's still up, which I imagine it is in the archives. But it was really just about, you know, kind of connecting back to the origins of it, but a little bit about the resurgence of funk and pop music. how it came about and it was, you know, you broke down, you know, the stuff on the Jonas brothers and you talked about, I think, the, um, Bruno Mars and how that kind of opened the door and stuff. But how do you guys see, like, what's currently happening in pop music, especially like

mega hits and, like, how much is that actually being talked about what that connection is? And, and where do you guys see that going? Well, I think it's worth pointing out here that one thing that was sort of missing from our previous conversation that will take us to maybe a little bit about funk is that jazz of course was at one point pop music right and so I think one of the things that's happening at any given moment is that as much as pop music is trying to maybe push boundaries and find new ways of talking about how it feels to be a young person the music that is primarily the music is targeted to it's all often simultaneously looking forward and looking back and digging on the past especially that we live in a in an era of with so much accessibility to content and that reference and nostalgia is such a big part of art making broadly.

In music, we hear a lot of throwback to funk music. And I think we can even hear in a lot of sort of emerging contemporary hip-hop really thick, complex jazzy chords with great, nasty, sharp elevenths on them. And it might not be the kind of jazz comping that, you know, my pal Nate here would do in a jazz gig, but it's drawing on all those different languages. And there is a great scene of hip-hop producers here in L.A. that had started to look

back to Parliament and other folks. You can definitely look at Kendrick Omer's Mappa Butterfly, where he's working with members of Parliament, right, on that record. And that that sound all of a sudden finds its way back into things that become even more mainstream, Brno Mars and so on. And what you'll find frequently is that the people that are producing these records and performing on these records are incredibly well-versed in what they're doing. So in the case of the Jonas Brothers record, the song called Sucker, you have Homer Steinweiss playing the drums. He played with the Dap Kings, right? He's somebody who, he is a truly funky drummer. He knows

what he's doing. He can, he's got a huge repertoire, he's a wildly talented drummer and the people who are in those sessions know, hey, if you want to get that kind of sound, call up a Homer Steinweiss. Like, most people might not know that's him, but that's what's giving people that groove and that feel. And so I just think it's really important to emphasize that there is this bridging of what's happening in youth contemporary culture, trying to push on these boundaries, but also there's just so much digging up what is happening in the past. And I think young people, especially today, are excited. And honestly, probably not even that interested in necessarily where something comes from, because it's just kind of right there in front of

them on a streaming service and that's a dope sound. Cool. Let's see if we can sample from it or borrow from it and put it in a new language. Oh, man, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's point, point on. And, you know, I think that there's something, you know, in the jazz community, we need to, like, that should be more, that's such a natural part of our vernacular in terms of how we play and how the, the lineage of jazz music came about, you know, improvisation and, and, and picking up on things that are right in front of you. And I think that where there's maybe been a

disservice, well, what I'm doing right now is one of the best things that we do as jazz musicians is like make fun of ourselves and talk about what's wrong when the jazz music. That's another part of our tradition, you know. Most of the art form, actually. That's mostly, right, right, right. But I also think that there's a lot of things that happen that just don't necessarily, people don't make the connection. I'm thinking about Kareem Briggins, you know, who, I mean, when I was playing with Roy Hargrove in the early 90s, when I was like 22, 23 years old and Kareem first came out on the road Subbing for Greg Hutchinson.

You know, he was like 19 years old from Detroit and just, you know, trying to be a jazz cap, but we always, you know, stay tight. And he's been someone that's always been able to bridge these worlds. You know, jazz and, you know, playing with Diana Krawl and then the hardcore jazz folks. And then also

probably being, you know, one of the closest kind of direct lineages to Jay Dilla and that sound. And really just that concept of production and stuff. And I think that those things have always been there in jazz. and we haven't necessarily celebrated them enough, talked about them.

I don't know, maybe nobody cares anyway. But at least in our little world, I think it's a very interesting thing how it does affect the music. And I agree, Charlie, it's like young people today, there's such an openness and, you know, it's a beautiful thing because of the accessibility. There isn't they're like,

man, we've got to wait for that album and go down and wait for it to drop and pick it up. It's there, and there is a willingness for it. Yeah, I just wanted to add, you know, I think one thing that often people might separate it's the thought that one thing that jazz privileges is proficiency and mastery of one's instrument, and that is undeniably true. But one thing I hear, as I've gotten deeper into knowing pop music, there are often masteries of skills that might not be acknowledged as a traditional instrument.

And you mentioned J. Dillow, I think it's a great example of somebody who samples from jazz drummers and funk drummers, into a machine that he transformed the way to play that machine by taking quantization off, and then drummers like Questlove from the root start borrowing from his sound, you could even look at the way in which contemporary trap music gives us this whole new vocabulary of subdividing beats on a high hat, you can now hear jazz drummers copying. And so there's actually this, there is a lot of communication between the technology and how it gets then incorporated back into these other languages. And I just find that the more we go into these divisions and differences in these Venn diagrams,

actually they start to collapse. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm talking with Greg Hutchinson all the time. He's one of my best friends. Back to when we were teenagers and he's always like, you know, now he's living in Italy and he'll hit me up on, you know, video chat and he's got his MPC there and he's like, I'm still trying to figure this thing out.

I'm still trying, you know, like, you know, when you hit a certain level, I think especially with, with drummers and stuff, there's such a, there's such a universal, you know, connection between all of them and. Well, before we go out, guys, You know, as we're all, as we're all still locked down here where we are, and I'm sure you are as well. Any recommendations for our audience listening recommendations? Are you listening to anything special right now that our folks might want to check out?

Yeah, Charlie, why do you kick it off, Charlie? What I should do is I should pull up. We have a really great playlist that we keep together on Spotify as the team sort of like the team playlist of everything that we listen to. And so one thing we'll do is we'll definitely show. that with you. I've been loving a couple of records. I really like there's this new Haim song, which I'm temporarily forgetting the name of and will have in like three seconds. It has this, it's called I Know Alone. And it has this great tension between consonants and dissonance. I actually think it's one of the most dissonant and sort of complex songs that sounds like it's just

the poppyest, breeziest, easiest thing. And I love the tension that it builds in order to do that. Lately, I've been listening to a lot of the music of Venetius Cantuaria, the Brazilian guitarist and singer, especially his collaboration with Bill Frizzell called Lagrimas Mexicana. Cool. That's great. And then, yeah, we'll have a link on this show for that playlist, if that's cool, with you guys. All right. That'll be cool. One of the fun things that we do in our show is that we try to connect to.

things across music history and across genre. So certainly jazz makes it in the show. We have a lot of classical references. Nate will often come into our weekly production meeting and we'll be like, what are you listening to? And people are like, I'm listening to Kashi 69. I'm listening to Kampetrius. I'm listening to the new Megan the Stallion song.

And then he's like, oh, I've been listening to a lot like Ravel and Debussy. And so that's also in our playlist. And they're connected. Like we hear the continuity across eras, whether it's intentional or not, But music is just this big blob of people trying on so many different kinds of musicalities. We love bringing them together in all sorts of fun and sometimes unexpected ways. Just maybe one more fun reference was like, we did a piece on this song, Doja Cat Say So. It's the biggest song on TikTok.

It's one of the most successful songs on the charts right now. And this song is fundamentally based off of Sheik's Good Times. And that took us down this total rabbit hole of going into disco and funk. all the references that they're pulling from. It takes us into James Brown. And that music is so close to intersecting with so many other things that are happening contemporaneously in jazz that, yeah, it does. As a listener, I find it very gratifying to see where things collapse and there's where there's overlap. But I'm also really interested in the way in which things are separate and serving different communities.

So we don't want to universalize and say, well, it's all just music. but rather like it's functioning and in conversation like all different kinds of culture. And I like, I just encourage people turning their ear to that kind of listening in addition to listening to our favorite things and just enjoying them on our own. Yeah, man. Well, and I think it was Nate or what do you mention at the beginning about really keying into who is the audience? And I know I've heard you guys do that on many, you know, some of your episodes where where you're really cluing into it. analysis of that where like like who who is this for how is it being interpreted what is the what is the meaning of the groove what is the meaning of of this tension resolution and all that it's it's just a

a very fascinating thing and and a rabbit hole to go down and to be able to interpret and feel music in such an interesting way in in many ways much more interesting than c sharp 13 sharp 11 you know which is just it's just it's like an engineering way of putting it you're don't insult the audience again i know i know sorry i don't mean I love getting geeky in that same way. Like, it can be really fun. But I think I just always remember to think about, well, in service of what, right? I really enjoy, I don't know, maybe you've all spoken with, maybe your listeners, watch some of Adam Neely's videos.

He's one of the top YouTubers who does music theory analysis. He's an great jazz player. And I love watching his reharm videos because, first of all, he's outstandingly talented, far beyond anything I could ever do as a songwriter and producer. But when he does reharms of pop songs, he really thinks through what is each core. trying to accomplish. How is it in communication with the emotional feeling of the performer, the lyric? How does it fit the entire arc of the song? And so I think we just need to remember that even though a really great voicing can be

interesting in and of itself, it's just another form of human communication. And so thinking about like what is it doing? How is it working with us? I think that's really important as a performer, as a listener, anyone who's enjoying music, it's fundamentally about communicating something. And so it can be fun to communicate about technicality and jargon and theory, because that's a way of advancing our abilities. But ultimately, that has to be submissive to whatever the larger meaning of the work is. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, actually, you know, we're the, you'll hear a podcast. So we're very,

like, I mean, we, yeah, we talk about the chorus stuff, but it's, it's really about hearing the music, feeling the music. And, you know, I think that you guys do such a wonderful job. I encourage everyone, check out the podcast. And I'll just, I'll just say it's like, you know, when you do an analysis of a Beyonce song to be able to find the tensions and the resolutions and the different feelings that are brought out from that, that's like the opposite of being lazy and talking about the different outfits she wears in the video. Like, that's the obvious stuff. And, you know, what that does to somebody who's viewing it. And that's great and everything. And that's a whole other kind of analysis. but the intelligence and the ingenuity that you guys bring to this very musical analysis of all the great pop music.

And, you know, I mean, I think that you guys also just really, you know, in bold me to remember something I've always believed in this. There's great pop music of every era. It's so fun to be like, oh, the 80s sucked, you know, like when I was coming up. The 80s had no, man, the 80s had great pop music. I mean, great, you know, L. DeBarge and these songs are totally, you know, Every era has great stuff. He's going to say, isn't that your wheelhouse, dude? What are you talking about?

Exactly. That's what I'm saying. I'm talking about the haters right now. See, come on. Well, we're going to have your Spotify playlist here. Look for that in the description, the Switched on Pop Spotify playlist. So you can check out everything that Nate and Charlie and their whole team are listening to. And thank you guys so much for joining us.

Just super fascinating conversation. And go check out the Switched on Pop podcast. Yeah, I'll just say Switched on Pop is a very rare thing. and something we share in common, this is a bona fide five-star podcast. I don't know if you guys know that. We check our ratings every day because we're super insecure, you know.

But you guys like that you'll hear a podcast. I mean, I'm not talking about 4.99, 4.97. I mean, I checked it today. It is a 5.0 with a lot of ratings and reviews. So congrats on that because that really means something. Do you want to read some of their reviews on the air? No, that's better. No, we're not doing that.

No, they're good. They're all Vox, man. They got people that come over and fan them and read them their ratings. That's not true. That's how they do it. But thanks so much, Nate. Thanks so much, Charlie. Let's keep the discussion going and all the best to you guys and Switch to On Pop.

Pleasure speaking with you. Thanks so much for having us. This has been really fun. Yeah, good stuff. Thanks, guys. Bye. And until tomorrow, you'll hear it.