You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The 7 Greatest Jazz Solos*

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

On this episode, Peter and Adam list off the best solos you need to learn, regardless of whether you're a beginner or an advanced player.Links from this episode:Check out all of the tunes mentioned in this episode with our Spotify playlistWatch the "Freddie Freeloader" video and get the PDF with this link hereCheck out our friends over at The Upper Hand PodcastInterested 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

Hey, Adam. Yes. What are the seven greatest jazz solos? Asterix. Wait, what is the asterisk stand for? I knew that was going to throw you off. Okay. Stay tuned.

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Music advice coming at you whenever we're ready to give it to you. Or every Thursday. Weekly, weekly, yeah. Yeah, or every Thursday at 3 a.m. Yeah, yeah, Thursday.

Yeah, yeah. I got aggressive and then I pulled it back. You did. This week's podcast, like every week, is sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJadioJazz.com to check out all of our jazz courses. Peter, what do you got for us today? Well, today we are going to talk about the seven greatest jazz solos. Okay.

Asterix. What's with the asterix, bro? Because I'm always excited by asterisks. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like, no, you know, we're both big sports fans. You're more hockey. I'm more basketball. But we've attended.

Okay. Our last professional sporting event, we actually attended together, I believe. Oh, the basketball game. The NBA game in New Orleans.

That was my first and last NBA game. But it's probably the last thing you've been to. It was awesome. That was such a fun time. That was a fun time. Yeah.

But there would be the question, like when we talk about that, sometimes we get into discussions about what's the greatest game, greatest player? Well, I'd say it's Will Chamberlain, but I have to put an asterisk on it.

Like, always, I love that because you're qualifying it a little bit. Yeah. So you're qualified. these solos then. I'm absolutely qualifying. These are the seven greatest jazz solos for you, you, you as in you, me, you, you, dear listener, everybody to learn today. So wait, I have to learn these today or I can learn these today. Well, these would be the greatest ones for you. Oh, I get it. So this is like, we have a list here of greatest solos, but these are also really handy if we're

learning how to play the music. Exactly. Exactly. And this is also a little bit of a cop-out as, as asterix often are. Say what? Well, I mean, you know. That doesn't sound like that. No, if you make a title, the seven greatest jazz solos, like that's rife for. Oh, my gosh. We should.

Why did you leave out, uh, Mahjama. Why did you leave out Keith Jared? But we've got to do an episode someday of this is the greatest jazz solo of all time. No asterisks. What? And just like, really go dogmatic and like, just plant the flag, you know? That would be a flag, a flag planting day. Today is more of an.

Strix Day, though. So we're really opening ourselves up. But on a serious note, what we're really thinking about here, and look, this should be qualified as much anyway because there's so many great souls. But we're always touting the benefits. I mean, look, that's what the you'll hear concept is based upon. How do you get to the point where you'll hear it or at least have the possibility to be able to hear it?

How do you work on your ears? Yeah, we're trying to... The most effective thing that we're always saying, and we've done so many episodes and are constantly, you know, supporting the concept of learning souls, the joy of learning souls, the joy of the side benefit, if not the primary benefit, being jazz ear training, developing your ears in the specific ways that are going to benefit you as an improvising jazz musicians. And to me and to us, and I think to really, there's a lot of just strong historical evidence of this if you look at great jazz players that we know that we've read about

that. Wait, was that a hint? Are we doing evidence? Oh, we could do that. That wouldn't be a bad one. But I mean the fact that, you know, doing a lot of learning of solos, and notice we're not saying transcribe, not today at least. I mean, we'll talk a little bit about that, but this is really about learning solos. These are great souls to learn. And the other part of the asterisk is more of a positive side, which is these are for any instrument.

Okay, some of them are piano souls. That's great. Some of them are saxophone solos. Yeah, yeah. Some of them, you know, but we even have a bass solo in there. That doesn't mean that even though you don't play bass, you shouldn't learn this solo, though, right? No.

Yeah. O Contrere Montre, Montferre. Yeah. These are solos that we have handpicked that are appropriate for all instruments. I like where your head is at. Because I was just talking to someone about how you can actually really grow a lot

by transcribing instruments that aren't your own. You know, you just learn a lot about, first of all, you learn about other instruments, which can be very, very handy as you play with other instruments. Yeah. But also, like, you know, trumpet players

look at melodic lines, I think, differently than guitarists or pianists do. You know what I mean? Yep. So it's really, really, I think, helpful to see how they look at them. Absolutely. And I mean, the thing I like about it, too, is that whenever you learn a solo on a different instrument, you're immediately taken out of the potential to be doing something that is typical, maybe even stereotypical and comfortable for your instrument.

Okay. So in other words, if I'm a pianist, as I am, and I've learned a whole bunch of Herbie Hancock's soul, They're all going to be great, but I will start to learn enough about his style and how he likes to position his hands and the kind of, you know, things that he wants to do that are just purely pianistic and they're wonderful and we can learn so much from that. But they're still going to always be pianistic because he's one of our most pianistic or one of our greatest pianists. Exactly. As soon as I go to another instrument, I'm having to add in that other layer of taking what they're playing musically only. Yeah. and apply that and use my own pianistic skills to pull out of the instrument that same kind of

swing and groove and musical feeling. And so that works on another part of our brain and our musicality along with the ear training that's really part of your training, but it's another thing along with the more traditional parts of ear training identifying intervals and chords and stuff like that that we learn from the solo transcription, solo learning process, I should say. All right. Well, I love it. So the seven greatest solo. jazz solos to learn today. Seven greatest jazz solos to learn today. So what's number one?

And you know what? To be honest, it applies to tomorrow too. I don't know about next week. You don't have to learn all seven today. You don't have to do them all seven. I mean, now a month from now, I don't know. There might be some better ones. So this list has a shelf life, but it's longer than today.

Okay, well, let's kick it off. What do we got for the first one? Okay, so for number one, and these are in not, these are not ranked order. They are just, because they're all great. We have Olio from Live of the Black Hawk. I believe this is Saturday night, or no, probably Friday night, Miles Davis. And so, oh, am I playing it from over here?

Yeah, I can play it from over here if you like. I got you. I got you. Come on. I guess I should have probably thought about where the solos are within the context. But you know what? We're going to get that. Okay, let's just start at the beginning. So we hear the melody, at least on this one too. No, no, no, no, no, no.

That doesn't sound like, sorry. I got you. I got you. Here's Oliolio Live at the blue. That was just to throw you off. Yeah. that line right there that's going to be a challenge I'm going to put it out there full there's a lot of challenge here

yeah yeah can go ahead no I was going to say this is this would be a great one for any tune or sound slice transcription I would say absolutely and you know traditionally I've been a little bit dogmatic against I but I'm glad you said that was exactly what I was thinking you can slow this puppy down because actually it's fast it's hard to hear yeah and there's some there's some kecks yeah and then the way that you kind of grade this for what your level is um is to say okay if you if you're pretty high level

ear training and experience with learning solos. Like, you could learn this in real time. Maybe the whole solos, except that line we just heard. But if we jump back here to... So once you learn, he's got a lot of whole tone moving chromatically kind of things. Once you pick those up, you can actually, if you're more advanced,

learn this without slowing it down. You need to slow it down, no problem. And then this is probably the second chorus now. Second bridge. But if you go back to the beginning of that second chorus, check it out. Yeah. It's just a clinic on playing melodically, but at a very fast tempo. That's really hard to do in Miles and Master at it, of course.

Exactly. And so that's a phrase there where it's going to be a little bit easier. Like it's pretty easy. It's diatonic within the B flat. He's floating above. He's not trying to play every single change like he was in the first chorus. So you'll be able to get those notes. But then you want to be concentrating on the first.

phrasing playing along with the recording Bittie dee, boo. Of course, it's going to be harder on the piano. Oh, there you go. There you go. All right, cool. Now, we're not going to be able to listen to the complete solos of everything, but we'll see how far.

I love Miles Solos for learning, man. Yeah. Just because of... This part's really easy to learn because he's laying out. That's what I'm saying. Space, phrasing. So that kind of stuff, really exciting to learn that on different instruments.

You might be like, oh, I can't do that like on a trumpet. No, but you can approximate it. And that's where you can really start to discover new things that are not typical for your instrument. It can be very exciting to infuse into your playing. I love it. Great choice. Yeah.

All right. So I think we got enough of that. I mean, that's just a great solo. It's one of the more challenging. I wanted to kind of come out the gate with something a little bit challenging. That's great. But there you go. Cool.

Next, we're going to jump around, I think like we said on this. Yeah. And we're going to go with Kenny Kirkland. I love it. So we are going to go to pianists now. Nothing wrong with that? Nothing wrong with going to piano. I think this is the only pianists.

No, we have two pianists. Yeah, we're two pianists. A little hint there for you. Yeah. We have some great pianists, but in terms of the actual souls. So this is Kenny Kirkland. Solo on Delphield's Dilemma

from Black Codes from the Underground, 1985. And the song starts for the... That's the beginning. Woo! nice fun stuff there and I'm going to jump right up to the piano solo all the souls are great

went in brand for good solos but we're going to be focusing on the candy Kirkland there's a little hint there's a three four bar in this June come on don't you want to know that don't you want to learn that who that's gonna be that's a lot of Liddy and fun right there we call that G Liddy and Fun all up in there

that's so good so yeah this solo is just can we just keep looking at it and the great thing about this all this stuff so far he does into some stuff that's going to be a little harder on other instruments, but it's all playable with slight adaptation on any instruments. So, I mean, just think about if you're like an alto player and you've learned a Kenny Kirkland soul, come on now. How exciting is that?

Trombone. Give it a go. I didn't say anybody. No, but I mean, maybe. I mean, there's some really talented trombones. There are. Probably play that, yeah. And you can certainly take parts of it too.

That's another thing. Like, we've gotten, I've become a big softie at him. I'm not going to lie. I accept any tune or amazing slowdowner. You can just learn parts of solo. I used to be so dark in the dogma. You don't even have to learn the left hand anymore. Oh, Peter.

Don't be an animal about it. Come on, man. Anyway, I think that's a great solo to learn. Highly recommend Delphio's Dilemma. Kenny Kirkland. Okay, next. You ready? Ready to move on?

Let's go. Okay, we're going to a classic solo. I think this has been listed before on this very podcast. I'm just, I'm looking at this list. I think these are all kind of classics in their own way, right? Well, I mean, dude, it's the, it's the greatest jazz solos to learn. We can't go with some chump solo. I mean, there's some classics and then there's some classics. This is a classic. This is a classic. I mean, this, we probably

referred to as the greatest jazz solo of all time, possibly the first great jazz solo. It's a lot of different things. But this is really super valuable and probably from what we've heard so far, the most accessible on any instrument, except the original instrument is on for anyone to learn, I would say. It's one of those solos that's probably easier to learn on anything but trumpet. And this is the great Louis Armstrong's West End Blues. Okay, stop right there. Go learn that. That's all you got to know.

You know what I'm saying? But learn it like with the exact phrasing, the exact phrasing, as close as you can, but mainly just the feel. The notes are not going to be that hard to get. The reason I said I think it's harder on trumpet than anything is because you're going to be competing against Lewis Armstrong. And I think if anything, you know, whether you love a style, I don't know anybody that hates his style, but some people are like, ah, that's old and dated.

Well, whatever. The idea that you can glean from this. There's nothing that dated about what he just did, though. I don't think so. Timeless that stuff is. But I've heard, you know, some of these kids are saying, no, it's not the kids. It's probably some other people.

But check this out. I mean, it's just this next phrase here. If you can learn to play that on your instrument and phrase it like that, you will know what swing is. Now, you don't have to play just like that and that way. But people are like, how do I know when I'm swinging? and whatever. You got to have a reference point,

like a commonality to this. And then there's so many different ways to adapt it. But that's kind of like your OG swing feel there. So you're getting it from the source. Love it. Yeah.

So we'll keep listening a little bit more. Yeah. And I mean, just that phrase, be da, bo, do, be da, ba, blah. Like, when you get that, like, in terms of this, just like, you know, how to navigate

melody with that really nuanced and advanced harmonic information within there. Like that's a great example of that. And you don't have to even understand it on that deep of a level. But just like that phrase gives you that outlining of the harmony within the melodic phrase in a way that you can apply that to so many different parts of you're playing in a really intuitive way.

Beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful. And it goes on and on from that. We're not going to go all. I mean, it's a great solo. It's a great soul. And of course, we'll have a link here to the Spotify playlist that we have for this

episode. Yeah. We have many Spotify playlist over on our Spotify channel to check that out. What do you got for number four? And I would just say, too, for the Spotify or wherever you listen to this, it's so important. If you're going to learn these souls, the first thing to do is what, Adam? Sing them, listen to them. Listen.

Over and over again. We haven't done that in a while. Look, he's off his game. Number one? Listen. Yeah. So, I mean, play the playlist like for days or weeks or whatever. So you can sing along with these.

And then, like, as you're learning one, be listening. to the next one. Even if you're just doing it phrase by phrase or chorus by course. But before you even starting these solos, you really can do yourself a service to have, you know, certainly listen to the point where you know it already. You might not know where any of the notes are,

but you can sing along with it and know what's happening. Yeah, really making your own playlist can be very handy for this too, of having like a transcription playlist going at all times where you're absorbing things, sometimes for weeks or months before you actually get down to the business of learning it. Really handy to have.

You know what we call it. Getting down to the bidness. To the bidness, right. But you want to prep. You want to spend your time prepping. It pays off in the end. Who's dogmatic now? This guy.

Who's got two thumbs and is dogmatic? Okay, good. So now we're going to move on to number four. And this is one that we've talked about often as probably the most recommended, if not the greatest. Or you can give it all sorts of superlatives. But I think we've recommended this solo. more than ever, but we're always talking about it for pianists.

And I wanted to just look at it a little bit from the lens of any instrument. Because as we said earlier, I feel like we're not transcribing enough other things. So if you're a horn player and you've been wanting to delve into some piano solos, I think this is one of the most successful, a singer, a drummer, vibraphose, really any instrument. And this is, of course, the great Freddie Freeloader solo by the great Whit Kelly from a certain record called K-O-B. K-O-B, Cobb, Jimmy Cobb. No, that's different kind of blue. Although Jimmy Cobb is on this.

So this solo, and do we have the transcription of it here? We do. We have, I mean, we've had this transcription. Look at that. That's nice. Yeah, yeah. Can we just listen to it? We can listen to it.

And then we'll link to this video. This is from an open studio YouTube video. This is your transcription of it. This is. I, dare I say, it's the definitive. Oh, you know, maybe we can do this. And then we can go here. No?

Do we want to do that? Oh, that looks great. Look at that. So this is, I think it's, the only reason I transcribe this, because I'd learned this long ago, but a couple years ago I transcribed because I was a little bit frustrated with some of the transcriptions I was seeing.

They were either overly detailed or not detailed enough. So hopefully I hit the middle ground. And if you're watching this on YouTube, we'll put a link below where you can get a free copy of this, I believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's check it out. Okay.

So I've got, I'm glad I put some of those accents in, hopefully not too many, but they're kind of important. So, okay, so I think that, you know, there's a lot of different things in the solo, but the accents, the simplicity, the, like, right, even hear what you're seeing. Here I am. Like in that bar that's on screen now, do you do, what is that? So those transitions between 16th notes and 8th notes, triplets, this is a clinic in that, you know, and so for all instruments, like once you learn how to do that, you can really, and you don't. don't have to do it just like Wink Kelly. It's not about that. But this is a way to do that,

and it's a way to hear it, and it's a way to pull that into your playing as a possibility. And it's such an essential thing. And so a lot of people will be like, well, I can't play those octaves, so this is more for pianist, you know. But that's, you know, you just play the single line. It's really more about the musicality, the melodic ideas, the way that he lays these phrases into that groove and the way that he plays with the rhythm section, which is applicable to all instruments. That's really great, man. And you're trying to description is spot on. Don't overthink your accents at all.

I think you did the right thing there. And the staccatoes and slurs as well. Yeah, I hope so. I mean, my thing is like, don't make it overly fussy, but put some in. Look, you can never, and you never need to explain every part.

That's why we have the recordings. And not everything needs to be in the page. Otherwise, we just get rid of the recordings and everyone can sit and play it just like that. It's not a visual art form at all. It's not a visual art form. But this one's fun to kind of look at,

and especially for like looking at some of the left-hand voicing and stuff for pianists specifically. But this is a great one to learn phrase by phrase, chorus by course. I believe it's four choruses. This is probably the most accessible of all the solos. I mean, West End Blues, you could say, of the ones we're doing today. I got one number seven that's probably. It's going to blow my mind.

No, it's very accessible. That's true. That is true. All right. So now should we move to something completely different? Let's do it. Okay. So this is next we have Roy Hargrove.

Ever heard of him? I have. Okay. And this one I wanted to put in because I think a lot of people don't probably haven't heard it. Well, you might have heard it, but you might not be thinking about it as a great solo to learn. But this is one because it's over kind of a vamp or more of a static harmonic situation that you can take, because I'm not dogmatic anymore. I'm going to allow this. You can take like just individual phrases, sections.

You can kind of decide what parts you like. You can pick and choose. This is a buffet. This is a buffet. A buffet? A buffet? A buffet? What did you just say?

Well, it's like, I don't want to be too French and, you know, buffet. It's a buffet. He said a buffet. This is a buffet. Is that the correct pronunciation? Amazing. A buffet. So you can pick and choose.

Of course, you're going to learn more if you learn the whole thing, but this is not one that you need to be as dogmatic. Because there's just a lot of really cool things. There's a lot of great outside playing, mostly groove. We're into a different kind of a groove, but still very much applicable to most of the stuff. Anything that we're playing jazz. It's not about the groove. It's about how you lay into it. And so nobody did it.

better than Roy. So we're going to start. His solo, as I recall, starts pretty early on because this is just sort of a jam type of situation. But this is Pastor T from his wonderful R.H. Factor album, Hard Groove. We're already into it. I mean, so already. Boop, boop bo, I'm good. That's great. Boob-de-bib-de-bop. Like what you'll learn about. And this is, this was nice because the notes, at least at the beginning, are somewhat accessible. But the, rhythmic precision may not be as like that's the thing that you're working on but that's the joy of it when you're transcribing these kind of things you want to be thinking about i mean you don't have to think about what you're going to get out of it because if the more accurate you are with learning it by

ear you're going to get the benefits of it you know it's going to seep into you but if you can kind of be thinking about like why am i learning this like what what makes this unique what makes this solo great to learn that'll help i think as well yeah we are big advocates for learning these by ear not really writing them out but really just playing along that's when we say transcribe. That's why I'm glad you said seven greatest gestals to learn today and not to transcribe. Because transcribe implies writing it out and

we don't want to do that. We want to play along with these records if we can. That's right. I mean, not to say that if you learned it and then wrote it out, as we've talked about before, you wouldn't get something out of it, but you're going to get 90% of your knowledge base, I would say, from learning it. So let's just...

See, already you got a great idea from Roy. Thank you, Roy Hart. Boop, boop, ba. Bap. He's syncopated, he offset that already, that same question and an answer. How many times can you apply that? Okay, that's kind of your first

outside phrase there. So like, you know, you can really pick and choose what you want to learn and how you want to learn this one. Was there a player who is ever more of a natural? And by a natural, I mean, you know, there's nothing contrived about his playing at all. It just seems just like he's here hanging and talking.

Exactly. It's the same vibe as when he's playing. And it's that kind of. I totally agree. It's that kind of authenticity that is like he's so uncontrived or ill-contrived that even when he plays something that for 99% of the population would come out sounding. I think ill-contrived would not be good. Ill-conceived.

That was an ill-conceived use of that vernacular by myself, I would say. But the fact that Roy can play stuff that other people play sounds contrived. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. But when he plays it because he's such an uncontrived. player to your point that he can just be authentic because we all want to and look as we learn to play and get better in this music i think that we we shed a lot of our inhibitions as far as like oh i don't

want to play that because i don't want people to think i sound in this way like you don't get to be an advanced player thinking like that you have to be fearless and part of being fearless and you're playing is being willing to play something that could sound contrived you know and if that means be bid do be deba then that's what you play do you ever play that well only when it's when it's discontrived Do I play that? You're going to decontrive that phrase. Yeah, sorry. Was that reconrived, what I just said?

If we have any faults that we use contrived in too many different ways. I mean, phrasing, construction, building, build up the building blocks, space, take it out, go up to the upper limits, bring it back home, bridge, Dopeo blues. He went Dopeo blues. Yeah. I mean, it's all there. Because he went Dopeo blues. He went, like, he stacked one blues on top of another blues scale formation there.

So, I mean, this is so much fun stuff. And then the joy, I mean, you never get tired of listen to that. And you just feel like you're right there on the edge of the stage. It's amazing. I don't. I don't know. Good stuff. How are we doing here?

It's pretty good list, man. That's not bad, man. It might have been the last minute, but I brought it. You know, when I lacked in preparation, I made up for in quality. You're a pro, you're a pro. Okay, so we've got two more and full disclosure. Number seven is going to blow your mind. It is a bassist and it was presented by not yours, Julie,

yours, Julie, Adam Manus. But first, this is a recommendation for our friend, of the podcast, early guest. I don't know if you remember that in the other room. Sean Weil. Yeah, Sean Wants out to Sean, brother Sean out of the south side of Chicago. And this is, I'm so glad he mentioned this because I was thinking about, like, we got to have a Charlie Parker solo on this.

Of course. Because greatest solos, but also just so value packed with information. We always love that intersection of stuff that's so fun to listen to, but also to learn and learn from as we're learning the solo. But Charlie Parker, because he's so fundamental in how he's set up and so influential in terms of that bebop language that his. been used. I mean, you certainly hear it all the way up to Roy Hargrove and all the way up to today, the great young players, really the foundation of that, that, you know, how can you leave them off? But this solo is a little bit unusual in that I don't think a lot of people learn this except for Saxonal players, but it's great. And he just told me about it today,

and I'm going to go learn this. This is my next Charlie Parker soul. I'm going to tell you that. And this is, I didn't know what time it was from his wonderful Charlie Parker with strings. Please ignore the obo, focus on the alto. Oh, you want to listen to that oboe again? I'm good, I'm good. I mean, big shout to Mitch Miller. Oh, what a tone. That's a tongue.

So we're at this, you know, going into the bridge here. You have two A's. I would recommend this is, this is, I mean, you can't go wrong with learning any of this stuff. Like where you're going to, I'm not going to learn the head or just the solo. We normally talk about just the soul. This is one I would recommend learning the head as well. Again, especially for non-saxophone players. I mean, for saxophone players, I mean, it's next level.

But for everybody to learn the way that he had little subtle changes to his phrasing and approach, structural approach to playing the melody. And this is, you know, often played as a ballad. And it's, I mean, this is kind of a ballad for during that time when they were trying to fit it into, I mean, it is. It's a walking ballad. But the way that he phrases this and uses the time and the little bit of very simple flourishes on there, the way he's playing, I think are so valuable to developing your vocabulary to like,

how do you play these, you know, these melodies in a way that's interesting without just improvising over them? You know, like really getting the essence of the melody, but putting your own stamp on it. I think that Charlie Parker was fantastic at that. I don't know. I love Charlie Parker. I agree. I agree. And you picked a good one. Actually, Sean picked a good one. Well, yeah, okay. I hate to give Sean too much credit there. No, this is a great one. It's not one I think we would have picked, but a perfect one to learn today. Right. So let me just jump to the solo a little bit on here. I mean, the head's all great. because they kind of go back apart the string.

And let me just say it. Hold on. I didn't want to, I should have thrown shade on Mitch Miller. It's the lines that were assigned to him, and he might have been the arranger now that I think of it. What are you talking about? Don't want to throw shit on Mitch Miller.

No, I mean, he's playing very well. It's just such an awkward. Is he? Yeah, he is. I guess so. No, I mean, it's like, it's in tune. It's a little bit dated, obo. I don't know.

That's what you want people to talk about. I'm not an oboe expert. Did they play in tune? They were in tune? I'm saying he's playing the right notes assigned to him It's very hard to play on another horn In between Charlie Parker lines When he's improvising and you're playing a little bit of a stale line

Perhaps that's a little bit awkward I don't know I don't like it though I'm gonna admit that is that wrong of me I mean the name of the album is Charlie Parker with strings Yeah I don't remember an oboe Having a set of strings on it It's all I'm saying and the strings sound beautiful Yeah the strings are killer

And I know show it on the elbow, too. I love it as the instrument. I just don't. You got Charles Parker on the reeds. I know. We're already trying to fit into just a few minutes. There's no time to waste. So one would have thought.

But you know what? Hindsight is 2020. That's very easy. We are armchair arrangers on this, Adam. Like, we're, it's easy for us to sit back in our comfortable pod suite here and judge, lest we not be judged with, no, you're not buying it. I'm not buying it. You're a better arranger than that.

Oh, thanks. Here we go. Okay, right there that, I mean, come on. Going into double time and it's just, oh, so gracefully coming out of it. And that's not a hard line to learn. I mean, that's like, I mean, it's not, you know, I haven't learned it yet, but I'm going to learn it. You know what it is? You know what it bugs me about specifically the Mitch Miller part of this album?

Dude, I'm talking about how great those. I know. I look at the glass is half empty, Ben. Once you hear Bird blow on this, you're like, why would they ever do anything but that? You know what I mean? Like having the string, the string arranging is spot on. It's chef's kiss.

Love it. But I think the obo's too much. Really? You've been so unclear. Okay. Just keep playing the solo. I didn't mean to go off on a tangent. I mean,

this is like, this is gold for your bebop vocab. You know, don't just think about the fast, crazy Charlie Parker solos that you're like, that's never accessible. This is accessible.

This is not going to be an easy learn, but you take this bad boy phrase by phrase. That's a fun week. That's a valuable fun week for you. For sure. That's a great week. Yeah. Yeah.

And if you play the obo, it's going to seem like you should learn the obo solo. No, learn the Charlie Parker solo. Big shout out to Mitch Miller. It's not necessary. That's not necessary. There's not an oboe there? I don't know. Like a bass oboe or something.

All right. So that's, yeah. I mean, it speaks for itself. We overspoke about it. And Charlie Parker with strings, I didn't know what time it was. So this brings us to getting close to the end. And we're going to have a quick. This is our sponsor music.

It's the You'll Hear It Podcast. Sponsored by JudeoJazz.com. Why am I talking like this? Because we're trying to play at the same time. It's not as easy as it looks. You don't play it a little bit on the podcast. Oh, I just realized I'm not supposed to be playing with my injured hand.

I can't stop. I can't stop me. Don't tell Dr. Chuck. Yeah, I better stop. Oh, that's amazing. So I just kind of... Yeah, so had a little bit of a hand injury. Hey, buddy.

My first time playing the game. Fish got to swim. You're a piano player. That wasn't smart. Anyway, that's how much I love you guys and Adam and our dear listeners and Open Studio Jazz. Big shout out to Open Studio for sponsoring us week after week with our beautiful pod suite here. And we are giving you, we gave you six of the seven greatest jazz souls asterix today for you to learn. We're about to give you number seven.

And this is an exciting one because we're going to go into. an area that actually I've learned a well I haven't learned very many bass solos I can think of two I learned over the years yeah but I learned a lot of baselines I got obsessed with like transcribing bass lines at a certain period and because I was doing I love transcribing or learning as we say um and I just wanted to hear that register and I don't know it was something about the logic of the way great bass lines was put together and I was playing some solo piano gigs and I wanted to learn how to walk a bass, although later on that didn't really become a important part I felt like of my style,

but I wanted to learn how to do it. So I've transcribe a lot of baselines, but way more than bass solos. Well, you know what it is about base solos? It's so great basis. They're always so great basis. They're always so connected with the changes, with the root, right? That's their, it's in their soul to provide that bottom end for you, that in their solos, I can always

hear the changes so clearly in base solos. Great bass solos, again. Absolutely. And so I think there's a lot to be learned. Would you mind, could we just go out on this track, because if people don't know this album, don't sleep on the 1991 Greens from Benny Green. This is the title track. And we should just listen to, I think we should listen to all of it up through the bass solo,

if you don't mind. It's not very long, and it's a blues, it's really fun track. And just to hear Benny's solo on it, too, is kind of fun. Yeah, and look, this is Christian McBride, of course, Benny Green and Carl Allen, right? Carl Allen, yeah. Yeah.

So. By the way, when we were recording Christians, last course when Carl and Christian were there. I know this record so well. And their other album that they did, I think they had two others with Benning Green. Yeah. And it was so hard for me not to like, so guys, in 1991 on Greens when you guys played, you know, it was so hard to, yeah, sorry.

It was hard to like not nerd out on them. That's right, right. But I would just say that, you know, the great thing about this, I think, and I love this record, but probably Benny, well, for sure Christian would, if we had called him right before, which I usually could have done. he's in my iPhone you know what I'm saying just the text away but no but if I had asked Christian like look

we want to feature one of your solos what do you think is your best solo first of all he'd be like don't do not use what yeah so because he's a humble guy but great soloist but I can guarantee you if I pressed him on it this would not be the solo that he would recommend he'd be like I didn't know what I was doing back then but it's so good though but it's so good

and this just further proves like we not only are our own worst critic we are our own worst cheerily leader and really bigger than that, we're the worst ones to really judge the worth and the, you know, the trajectory of what we think is important that we play. We always assume that something later is going to be better because we know more, we learn more. We look back and it's so easy to see what we didn't know at that time.

But I think this is a fantastic solo. So big shout out to Christian McBride and Benny Green and Carl Allen. Apologies, Christian, if this is the one that you would have played. But there you go. We like it. We like it. E-L. All right, everybody. Thanks. Thanks a lot. You'll hear it. Green's. You'll hear it. Oh, I'm supposed to be playing it. There you go.