You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Squadin' Up

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

Adam and Peter catch up on travels and experiences after a busy summer playing music. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. You're back. I'm back. Come on, don't make a big song and dance about it. What about this song? The dancing bear is back. I was thinking more like this.

Okay. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Barton. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Jazz. Explained. Explain. Peter, we're back at it.

First time back in the pod front. Yes. Do the people know about the pod front yet? You got to get hit to the pod front. Well, next week or maybe about the time that they hear this, we're going to be on live from the pod front. Actually, no, you know what? what? This might hit, this might drop before we're live next week, right?

I think this is always hard because we're having to project ourselves in the future. This is dropping like Wednesday. So if you're listening to this, it's probably Wednesday. Okay. If it's Thursday and you're listening to it, that's okay. But where you've been? I know, exactly. I love how we like, we act like everyone's just waiting with bated breath. Or maybe they are. But yeah, so next week, this coming week, is it next or this? That's such confusing little. It's this Monday. This, not next Monday.

Some people would say next Monday and I'd be like, oh, so you mean the Monday after this coming Monday. We've done this shtick before, haven't we? I don't know. What about if I said it'll be a fortnight away? That means two weeks. Okay. Yeah.

That's next. That's next. Right. Exactly. But this. But it's the next Monday that's going to occur. The next possible Monday, which is this Monday. Yeah, that's right.

This coming Monday. Why don't we just tell them the date? So today is, we can't even tell them what today is because that's going to, today's the 20th. Yeah. Wednesday the 20th. So it's 25th. 21, 22, 23, 24, 25th.

The 25th. We will be back live. We will be back live on. YouTube. YouTube. Yeah. You'll hear it live on YouTube. We haven't done one in a very long time.

Since we moved, really, I think we did one. And we just saw how bad it looked. But we've got it under control. Actually, it will be under control. That's going to be 4 p.m. Eastern, I believe. 4 p.m. Eastern, we're going to be live. We're going to be just, you know, chatting about some jazz piano related topics. We might even take your questions.

So join us over there on the Open Studio YouTube. That'll be fun. That'll be fun. Yes, but that'll explain, you know, as per your statement about the pod front, people will know better to show them instead of tell them. Man, it's looking good in here. It sounded good in here. We got our speakers up on the ceiling.

Watch that. Boom. We got a big old light here. We're going to need to dial that light in. Yeah, it's all good. Yeah, so we've been a part for about three weeks now. About three weeks. And to our regular listeners of the pod, which we hope you are, if not welcome in,

or as Adam would say, where you been. Where you been? But we did some individual episodes. How do you think that would that be something you might be interested in? Well, we were interested in it. We don't know if the folks, I think the folks enjoyed it. We got some nice comments on those. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, just a little aside here, this, a little sound clip. Would that be something you might be interested in? It's like the number one thing people say to me when they talk about the podcast. You know, like they'll be like, hey, I listen to your podcast. And then like somewhere I could see them trying to work it into the conversation to be like, now would that be something you might be interested in? That's so great. I know.

The fact that we stole that from a. now canceled in two different ways, canceled program. Dated canceled program. That's right. But yeah, no, it's great to be back. It was so great. I just started telling you about some of this. And you're like, we save it for the pot.

Save it for the pod. Yeah, yeah. But got to meet a number of you'll hear at listeners, lovers of the pod. Awesome. What likers of the pod? I mean, it's kind of a mere... I mean, enough to say something. But some folks in Poland, we have a lot of listenership in Poland.

Oh, shout out to Poland. Big shout out to Poland. It's a big jazz country, actually. We stay in the top ten. for a music commentary podcast in this country of Poland. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's like my favorite bottle of water, two, Poland Springs.

That's in Idaho. That's okay. Named after the home country. Germany met some good folks there. Yeah, just kind of everywhere, man. It's always exciting and humbling to meet folks that listen to the pod. But it's good to be back. You are out for a little bit, and I did some solo episodes.

Right. And then you did some that I really enjoyed. And the one thing that it's difficult, I don't know if you, and we could trade a few notes on this, I guess, since we both did them. One thing that's difficult on the solo pod is witty banter. It's hard to do witty banter by yourself. I mean, I would argue that we don't really pull it off even together. Hey, well, but at least we show how hard it is to do when we're together. When you do it alone.

And we both, I noticed, took different approaches to this. Yeah. Like, you just didn't even try. Yeah, you made a valid, really good attempt. And somewhat successful attempt at Woody Banter. I just gave up on it. I just went straight for nerdiness. Man, you went very instructional, though.

I would not three on them. It was so great, man. Yours were like, you were like, I'm going to, you know, you know, settle in for something good here because you're about to learn. I always get nervous when I have to do solo ones. So I'm like, all right, I got to bring out the big guns. I got to bring out, like, interesting theory. It's actually how, like, magic 46 systems.

No, like the very first solo episodes I ever did ended up being like one of our most watch YouTube videos because we we were doing, remember we were doing every episode was also going on YouTube. Yeah. And that was the like impetus for getting me to do YouTube videos was because that one solo episode. Yeah. But I like, I try to bring out. Because I don't.

I don't know. I don't know if I just don't trust my personality. You know, no, but it is. I mean, it's just, I think what it is is we're just used to doing it in a certain way. But if you think, I mean, most of the pods that I listen to, they're either interviews or two folks talking or more. Yeah. You know, it's very hard to pull off just a one.

But I thought you did really well. I thought it was a fun change of pace. but it's grazed me back. So you went to Austria. Yes. You went to Vienna. Vienna. You said a few days in Vienna?

Five days in Vienna. That's a long time in Vienna. And no gigs. And it was going to be a total vacation from the piano. But it turned out not to be. Because? Because the Airbnb we stayed in happened to have a piano. Are you serious?

I'm serious. Yeah. I guess it's Vienna. They got to have. It's Vienna. Yeah. It was more of like an atmospheric kind of ambience, nice old piano that was out of tune.

And I didn't practice or anything. but I did play it a little bit. It's why you got to get the guitar out, man. You know, because I went up to Minnesota. There was no piano in sight. Yeah. But I brought the guitar. That's always good.

You could practice. But you can play the guitar. My guitar shops are horrible. That's why you bring it on vacation. That's true. I'd like to learn. Get a little time in. That's cool.

Did you see any good music while you were over there? Yes. So I got to see actually quite a bit of music more than I was sort of expecting. In Vienna was sort of a surprise. I looked at the schedule to see what was happening around town because there's the Vienna Jazz Festival, which is a really cool festival in some great venues that I've played quite at, you know, I don't know, six to eight times over the years. I knew it was around this time. Unfortunately, they canceled it this year. And I didn't get the whole story on that,

but hopefully that'll be back because it's a really, really good festival. But at the Concert House, concert house, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that. Is it H-A-U-S house? It is indeed, yes, with the Viennese German. There was a concert I saw on the schedule of, pianist, friend of the pod. I don't know if she's a friend of the pod. Whomaker, a friend of the pod. Hiromi was performing. That was something you might be interested.

It was something I was interested in. And the folks at the concert house remembered me from my mini, no, my several stellar or at least average performances there over the years and sent over some tickets. Oh, really?

So how many times did you have to say, did you know who I am while you're? No, I just said this is Brad Meldow. But please leave them. I'm so famous leave them in my alter ego Peter Martin's name instead. Absolutely. No, actually the jazz presenter there is a friend and I've known just from playing there over the years. But he's just a really, really nice guy.

We shared some drinks and meals after the concerts. He knows everybody kind of in the jazz touring world. So it's a lot of fun. But he, I didn't even get to see him. He was gone, but he said, yeah, I'll leave some tickets. Let me know what you think, that kind of a thing. This is why when young musicians ask about like, you know, oh, like, what about like hanging or shit?

Like, I don't know if I like to hang. I'm always like, just go hang. Right. You never know. You make friends with the promoter. You get to go see Hiromi for free. Exactly. You know.

And that's, that's the good reason to hang with people. Absolutely. Always. But it was great. So she had a very unique program, um, of which I know she's done before,

but I hadn't seen it where it's just piano and string quartet. Uh, and all compositions. My wheelhouse had a wheelhouse. I know. Exactly. No. And for that venue, um,

it was perfect because it's a little bit of a difficult room with amplification, of which they did have some. I actually thought they had a little much, but that's another, I don't know, it sounded really good in there. I almost felt like in that kind of room. You don't need it, right? Yeah. I'm sure they tried that, though, and I'm sure that they did need it. So, I mean, it's, it's, but it was a really good string quartet that had worked together, but they weren't like a string quartet. Yeah.

I think they mostly knew each other, but they were all, like, I think two of them were from London and one was from Germany. Can you mention the string scene in Vienna? I know. Just the freelance scene must be amazing. But none of them were actually from there because they were doing a tour. Oh, okay. And I know she's done this before in Japan because I saw some footage I wanted to learn more about it on YouTube. You can see some of stuff from the Blue Note in Tokyo with another string quartet there.

But she's written this great music. I mean, one of them was like an entire piece that she wrote during the pandemic, specifically for string quartet and piano, of course. she's playing piano. And like, so it's very much set up around her sort of optimizing the way that she plays, but in a really interesting and organic way. And I just, it was, it was delightful. It was a delightful evening, a lot of fun. And then after, after Vienna, did you guys go anywhere else?

Or then was it on tour? So then, yeah, part of the sort of family vacation went to Berlin and did some sort of family, not really genial. Well, we like, we went, we found my grandmother's apartment that she grew up with, you know, back in the early, you know, whatever, 19, she was born in 1903. Oh, amazing. And she was there through like the 20s in Berlin.

And, you know, hear all these stories growing up. So we kind of found that. Wow. Which, yeah. It's special to do with your kids, especially the age your kids are at now where they can really appreciate it. Yeah, yeah.

And my younger son, he speaks German fairly well. So he was able to kind of do a little bit. Yeah. Everybody speaks English there, though. It's just crazy, yeah. But it was fun. And then we heard some music at the Berlin Philharmonic

hall, the filermony, as it's called, which I think is the finest. I'm going on a limb here. Are you prepared for me to go out on limb? I'm ready, yeah. Okay, I would say that is the finest classical orchestra hall. That's what everybody says. That's what everybody says. I've been in all, but I've been in, you know, quite a few.

You know what's legendary about that hall? Were you telling me about this or where our orchestra body is telling us that is the musician's lounge? Oh my God, it's incredible. It has like a bar. It has a bar. But you know what? That's not that unusual.

actually every like Philharmonic hall and concert hall But it's like a regular bar And it's like when you get there for rehearsal and stuff It's like and it's a snack bar too It's like a great espresso bar But then after the concert You can have a little drink with you know

The conductor and fans are very continental VIP's very conno it's fantastic That's right I'm trying to think if there's anywhere in the US That has that I don't think so I mean they'll have bars out in the audience area But yeah there's musicians back for the for the musicians

I don't know if we can handle it here I don't think so The Vanguard has a musician's bar. It's called the bar. That's right. Yeah. Down the street. Yeah.

So then after this, that sounds amazing. So, and we heard there very unique program. I'm so glad we went. We kind of just went because I wanted, I'd been in there and I played in there. I loved it. And I wanted my family to see it. They were really interested. But it was a youth orchestra concert, which I wouldn't necessarily be on my radar.

Yeah. But it was a concert, a joint concert between the Ukrainian youth orchestra, national youth orchestra, and the German national youth orchestra. Oh, amazing. Yeah. I bet that was really good, though. Man, it was so good. I knew it's going to be good.

Yeah. You know, because like the U.S. You know, national youth orchestras is really good. It's killing. And big shout out to Sean Jones, friend of the pod, guests of the pod. Yeah. Right now, you know, there is a jazz big band national youth orchestra, the NYU. Oh, and Sean Jones is leading that.

Sean Jones is leading. He's been doing it for quite a few, three or four or five years now. They're also very good. They are incredible. Yeah, yeah. So I know they're touring around some this summer. That's under the auspices of Carnegie Hall. Ever heard of it?

I have. But I would imagine with just the history of musicians out of both of those countries, Germany and Ukraine, the level of the young musicians had to be. Yeah, it was good. And their youth orchestras are a little younger than ours. I think it went up to like 19 or 20. So it's young. I mean, I know here like a lot of times it'll go into like mid-20s or something. But it was just great. It was about two-thirds Ukrainian and one-third German. And they had been playing this concert. They were going to be doing it in Odessa, of course, before. Russian invasion and all this garbage that's going on over there and they were able to pull it together and do it in this amazing hall It's very touching, you know. That's very cool. Well, and back to the hall at Berlin. So in a shopping cart

on my computer right now is this like string sample pack of the Berlin Philharmonic Oh, God. In their hall. Wait, put, I think it's in their hall. Yeah. I know. I know. We need to buy it because it's like it sounds so good. Yeah. It just sounds like how strings, how an orchestra should sound. Like it's in your head. You know how like a great Steinway D

at Carnegie Hall just sounds like how a piano should sound. Put that in your shopping cart too by the this is good It's not bad. It's a Yamaha. That's a Yamaha. Shout out to KeyScape. Still waiting for that sponsorship. It was a Yamaha that Haromi played. She's all into the Yamaha ecosystem. She's a Yamaha

artist. She played a beautiful Yamaha at the concert house. We should do a Haromi appreciation post. Yeah, we should get her on the pod. We should get her on the pod. We're yeah, Haromi. So yeah, but you know, I just encourage folks. What was fun was, you know, like, it's kind of like when you're at a place, go see some local theater. Eat some local food. Totally. Listen to some local music. So like

you're in Berlin, of course. How was the food, by the way? Oh, the food was great. Yeah. It wouldn't be up. You know, we're doing all the weird vegan stuff. But they got a good hashtag plant-based scene over there. Berlin is probably the best, uh, vegan, for vegan restaurants. It's probably number one in the world. It's not number one. It's number two behind. Oh my gosh. You guys were loving it. New York. Yeah, no, it was, that's part of the reason we want. And Vienna is right up there. too. I mean, it's a serious scene there.

But yeah, it's like, you know, check out local stuff. And in terms of music, I know we're jazz explained and all that kind of stuff. But, um, oh, you know, you said, he said, hold on. Oh, is this our sponsor? I was giving you a warning. Okay, I forgot about this. We are sponsored by Open Studio.

Wait. We're out of practice, man. All right, scrap this whole episode. No, no, no, no. All right. Hold on. Just hold on a second. Hold on. That wasn't so hard. we do it now I remember. Good. So we're not scrapping the episode, right? Yeah. So anyway, like I was saying, check out the local music, you know, and of course check out the jazz. That's what we want to do. But it's just so fun to hear different things. And then after that, you were on the road with McBride, right? Yeah. So then that went right into a pretty

intense kind of nine, 10 days, seven, eight gigs, sort of every night. Jazz festivals. Shout out to all the folks that I met and saw a bunch of great musicians and groups. I mean, Herbie Hancock's over there tour and got to see Well, I couldn't even see the show because they were playing at the same time at Norsey Jazz Festival in Routher name, which is this massive festival It's got everybody, you know, just Doing their thing. Saw Chris Thomas, friend of the pod He was on tour with, you know, Melody Gardot?

Sure. Yeah, so she was being big headliners and stuff everywhere and just, yeah, it was fun. Ron Carter, the maestro was out of the artist Ron Carter. Exactly, was out on an extensive tour. Great to see him. and but yeah North Sea Jazz Festival Nice Jazz Festival

hadn't been there in years it's a much smaller festival than it used to be but still really good and then Pisa some smaller festivals which was fun down in Italy

Pisa Jazz Festival yeah they have a problem with one of their towers is leaning but that's another story yeah so let me ask you a question

man so we'll leave our listeners maybe with a little bit of a nugget of some kind of jazz because you know this is jazz explained or well we're explaining

what happened over the last few weeks but I'm wondering you talk about just fresh off the road. Yeah. Like for people who might be running into similar problems, like, I mean, I know you're playing festivals and the pianos are usually pretty good in a lot of these places. But like, just tell me, like, any experiences with pianos on this trip that you were like,

ah, okay, like, this is a problem or monitors or anything like that about just the touring and the festival scene, especially with a band like Inside Straight, where you have to be on it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, do you find that these. like summer festivals where you don't have much time sometimes can like mess with your flow like this? And if so, what are you doing about it?

So I think that, you know, an important thing is really approaching these kinds of performances with all that in mind that there's an unpredictability there. You might get a chance to play the piano. There was a couple of gigs. I couldn't even touch the piano until we're starting to get... Well, I was able to play a few notes beforehand

kind of line check. But, you know, it's weird because like the audience is there. You don't want to be like, you know, running scales and stuff. But just basically, you know, having a mindset of flexibility and openness and like, wow, this is going to be fun because I don't know what's going to happen. Well, let me ask you question. When you have that line check, right, where you just have a few moments. What do you play? You don't run.

I mean, it'll just be like just a few chords. I'll sort of like, you know, you know, check out the different registers just to make sure I can get some kind of feel for like, how is it even. Is it, you know, is something. I mean, a lot of times that's even as much about checking the monitor to make sure it's not like. Super loud. Yeah. Now, we had a really good sound engineer traveling with us, so he's sort of checking all that too, but it's a lot when you have 30 minutes to get everything set up or whatever. So I do want to go out there and just sort of, but that's just sort of the bare minimum at those things.

And it's a large ensemble with vibes and everything. Right. You've got a lot to worry about there as far as sound like goes. But you know, like I think I try to keep it simple, even though sometimes it's not a perfect setup. But like, so I don't use, I don't have anybody in my monitors except a little bit of piano. And sometimes I don't even have the piano. And the only reason I have the piano in the monitor. Now, this doesn't work for everybody.

And a lot of people are like, well, what if I can't hear the vibes or whatever? Well, you got to listen closer. You know what I mean? And so part of the reason is when if you know you can get the monitor is perfect and you've got a lot of time to work on it, you've got a monitor engineer and everything, then it's great. You can get everything. But the reality is it's, especially these festivals, it's not going to be perfect.

So I almost find it better to at least acoustically, it is what it is. You don't have to worry about like, you know, on the front. first tune motioning this up that that down and I find that now this group sets up close yeah so that's an advantage it's very helpful is Christian McBride in is he close to you is he like yes I mean you know the hardest thing is if it's a nine foot piano which oftentimes it is that makes him a little bit further but I can hear him that's usually the only thing I'll put in my monitor if I need something extra interesting is a little base oh that would be with this group that would be the last thing I'd need I can always hear the base you know I mean not only accruc from him from his

amp and he's got the mic on it yeah from the house yeah from the house yeah The vibes sometimes I mean I can always hear I can't hear part but I'm like you don't have to hear every people get so hung up on like I have to hear every little thing that's happening It's like you can't process all that anyway Just have a good time try to remain flexible

And the times when I kind of screwed that up On this tour Is when I did the opposite of that So we call it opposite day Peter doesn't follow so we're playing in Perugia Which is one of my favorite festivals In the Umbria Jazz Festival Oh yeah yeah

And that was the first time 1994, big shout out to Paulo Fasioly, that I ever played a Fasiole. The pianos were barely known, and he was provided some pianos there to kind of, you know, promote the pianos or whatever. And so I think every time I've played there, I've always played Fasio, and I always look forward to it. So I was like, I can't wait. And we're playing in the opera house there, which is kind of one of the media, like, they have a really big outdoor venue that's a little bit generic because it's just like a stage

set up with a lot of, it's a really beautiful thing, but it's not in the old town. but there's an old theater more lackey which is like an old opera house in the town you know in the little cobbl that's the stone you know beautiful

and so I was excited that we're playing there and I'm like oh man if Fazio's gonna be so I'm like looking forward to this the whole thing we get there to the sound check Steinway

no Fazzioli oh yes for whatever reason they didn't have one and so it was a great piano but I kind of like it just you should never get too hyped up

about something you know like set your expectations low and then not that a Steinbner way is low, of course. But that was one thing. It kind of messed with me that whole day because I was a little disappointed.

And I mean, I think I still played well, but it was on my mind in a way that it didn't need to be. So I think it's good to approach things of like, yes, you want to have a certain instrument. You ask for this, whatever. But don't be, you know, I wouldn't even say don't be a diva. Just make it so that everything is like an unexpected pleasure for you. Like everything is sort of additive. Oh, wow.

They have a fazo that's so cool. Don't go in expecting it or feeling like you deserve it. whatever. Just a stymway. Yeah, exactly, because then you can get into a stupid thing

like that. But also just you're mentally preparing for something and you've got to kind of reprogram your brain and put energy into, like I really try to control my energy

because a lot of times I'll do stuff on these, like we're traveling, so you have to do the travel. And then like ideally you travel and then get in and just sleep up until the gig, but a lot of times I'm like,

I got to go see this cool town. I want to go for run or whatever. So I'm already kind of like, but, Mentally, and just in terms of my mental energy and creative energy, I'm very much thinking about that 90-minute gig I got to play. I get to play. Yeah.

And trying to have everything so I can put my best foot forward for that. And so these kind of like expectations and sort of ancillary things that don't really have anything to do with the music, what kind of piano it is, the monitors and all that can sort of get in the way of you doing your job if you're not careful. So other than that, I feel like I did pretty good. Man, you want to hear a funny story about Umbria? Yes. I think it was in that little theater where they have the festival. This wasn't for the festival.

So I was playing over there. I think it was my very first time in Italy. And it was our very first gig. And I was super jet lag. And it was a great show. And we had a great time with the audience. And we get off the stage. And then I was the last person off stage because, you know, I was basketball.

No, but, you know, the bass player took off out the backstage door to go smoke. And the singer goes in the back room. And but the audience is still going. Oh, yeah. And so there's, and they keep going. And so the promoters like, they want an encore, you know. And so I was, he was like,

go get everybody. They want an encore. I'm super jet lag. I'm like super tired. But I'm kind of amped up. And I go to get everybody and they were kind of huddle around this back door. And I just I was like kind of jogging like, hey guys, they want and up. And I fell forward, literally fell flat on my face,

just like covered in backstage grime and dirt. You know what I mean? Was you trip on something? I just tripped on my own two feet, Peter. I just tripped on own nerves and excitement and then we had to go back out for the encore and I'm just like completely you know frazzled wrists are like in serious dislocated and then there's the whole like you know the hang after no that's just the the the the ego shattering of just falling on your face the first I'll be giggle I kind of fell on my face a little bit afterwards set the tone for the tour I'm sure well it's super great to have you back man yeah it sounds uh sounds amazing and uh yeah

We have a string here where we have you for a bit. So we'll do some more you'll hear it's coming up. Thanks, everybody, for being here today. And until next time, you'll hear it.