You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Big Question: What Is Swing?

Episode Date: January 1, 2020

On the first episode of 2020, Peter and Adam take a SpeakPipe on one of the most commonly asked questions: what is swing? Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Sign up for You'll Hear It Premium and get access to the SpeakPipe hotline. Just go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/yhiThere's a whole Open Studio course on how to swing - Art of Swing with Reuben Rogers and Ulysses Owens, Jr. Learn tipping techniques on drums and bass from these two masters as they show you the proper technique to get a strong swing every time. For more info, go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/art-of-swingAre you going to the JEN Conference? If so, stop by and say hi to us! From January 7 - 10, Peter and Adam will be doing special live You'll Hear It's, giving away special prizes, and answering any jazz or music questions you want to ask them. Just look for the Open Studio booth (Booth 718) and get your daily jazz advice in person.Support the You'll Hear It podcast by signing up for You'll Hear It Premium! You'll get access to exclusive bonus episodes, the YHI archive of past episodes, giveaways, and much more! Go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/yhi for more info.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey. Is this swinging? Chim-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. Yeah, it's swinging like a rusty fence. I'm Edmunds. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the Yule here at Podcast for some reason.

Daily music advice coming to you in a brand-new decade. January 1, 2020, assuming we're all still here. We are still here. We're projecting in the future. This is not like the millennium. You remember when we went from 99 to 2000? I remember the wheel in the year. The Willianium. What was that?

It was Will Smith's album. That's right. Willim. He was ahead of his time. So the Millennium, there was a big fear that we were not going to be here, but all the computer systems and podcasting equipment was going to shut down. First of all, there was no podcasting equipment in Y2K. Y2K. You don't know about it. You read that on Wikipedia. No, I know about it. You millennial. I was around, man. I was 20 years old.

20, yeah. Come on. Did you play a gig that night on the Millennium? Millennium. I mean, the Millennium. What was it? You know what? Why 2K? I want to say I did. I want to say...

That was a big gig night. It was a big gig night. I want to say... Dopio Pei, as I recall. I was playing at that time with this really awesome parliament funkadelic tribute band, which is really fun, man.

Like, to play all that music, oh, yeah. The big... It was a big band. And we played a bunch of great parties, and that was an especially wild night, I feel. I keep talking. I'm just kidding.

I was really great. Best part about that band is somehow the lead singer whose whole vibe was George Clinton in Parliament Funkadelic. He somehow got us into this warehouse down by the river here in downtown St. Louis. Take me to the river. And I hope I'm not selling him out here. But he got us in this warehouse where all the vintage clothes that come to St. Louis and go to things like Goodwill,

but also like the vintage habadashery and all like the high end vintage clothing stores. It's all in one place down by the river, or at least it was then. And somehow we got a deal where we can go pick out. clothes like vintage 70s clothes for a dollar a pound they just gave us a bunch of big plastic bags and I bought like I think I bought 70 dollars worth of clothes and it was like an entire wardrobe of like you know the polyester bell bottoms and the big butterfly collars and man we were looking good you were looking dope yeah dopeio dope and then you know it's fun being the keys player in a in a P-Funk cover band because you're just doing all the

the flashlight bass lines and all the crazy weird strings yeah you know it's It's fun. That's cool. Yeah. Awesome. Well, we're in yet another decade, so that was, we're reminiscing back two decades ago. But this is exciting. This is 2020.

Thank you guys for being with us on the You'll Hear podcast here. We have a lot of exciting new things. We can't even fully go into all of them. Well, some of them can't. We got the new project. We can't because we don't know fully. No, well, we know about the new podcast because that's actually being built. And it's right next door.

But it's going to be a brand new setup. Super big upgrade. Big upgrade. Two new hosts. That's the biggest upgrade. No, we're going to be the same old host, but upgraded us. New intelligent 2020 style. Are we going to have to like dress up or?

No, we're dressing down. Dressing down? Way down. Way down. Well, not way down. Can I still wear my blues hat? You can wear your blues hat. Okay.

Yeah. But we're going to have some new keyboard set up. We're going to be a little bit more music focused. I mean, we're pretty music focused. But I mean, actual playing music. Well, we're going to have the ability to. We don't know where it's going to go. Yeah, we're going to let it take us.

We're going to let the music take us where it will, right? The Flying D. That's all I'm saying. And we've got a brand new YouTube channel. I'm just going to put it all out there. Oh, yeah. Tell me about the YouTube channel. I don't know the timing of this, but you can kind of hunt around. We're not going to push it quite yet.

But if you find it, feel free to subscribe there. And we're going to, we've always put these up on the YouTube's. And we have a great following there. On the YouTube's. Yeah, we're going multiple. We're going YouTube's all around the world's. And we might even do a little, we might open things up to the community for a little translation because we've had some interest in that. And there's a feature on there.

I don't know if you know about this where. Anybody, well, we hope they're a native speaker of that can go through and put a translation up in their native tongue if they so desire. So we're going to open that up on the YouTube's in case anybody wants to do that because we do have a lot of listeners around the world. They're amazing. They mostly listen in English due to the fact that we speak in English. Barely. Barely. We got a speak pipe here from Peter.

Hey. And it's a Peter we know. Okay. Not me. No. Because Peter's traveled together. Oh, wait. I got the headphones on.

Hold on. Yeah, get the headphones off. This is from our friend Peter Palermo Across the street at the Sheldon Concert Hall Putting his name out there Yeah Yeah That's Peter

Okay Okay Hi guys Peter Long time listener First time caller You guys talk about swing a lot I hear so many jazz musicians Talk about swing

But I would like to hear you talk about What swing is What makes it swing When is it not swinging And that's it. And he's out. He's a busy guy. He is a busy guy.

He asked and we're going to answer it. Thank you, Peter, for the question. Okay, what makes it, okay, what is swing? I heard three questions. Yep. All related, obviously. What is swing? Yep.

What makes it swing? Uh-huh. And when is it not swinging? Is that the last one? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Should we tackle the first one?

What is swing? Yeah, it should be easy. Yeah. Not controversial. Do you have Websters pulled up? Yeah. You know, okay, this, I think, first of all is

obviously difficult to answer and you know the classic is listen to we should put the time up we're going to do that I don't have it right in front of me the Oscar Peterson trio playing Tintendale There's a particular place in that

in which I always say that defines swing so that's a little bit of a cop-out so we're going to go a little deeper but I would just refer everybody to that and if we're allowed to we're going to I think we can't we can do that now we're going to drift in just to hear that. Let's take a listen.

Now that's swing, right? For sure. You know, so now what is it that makes that swing? Okay, yeah. So Ray Brown, Ed Thigpan, Oscar Peterson's swinging. I think coming out of a different groove, you get to get to really, because they're always swinging. It's not like, why is that swinging more than other things?

They're coming out of a groove. There's a simplicity to it there so we can really hear what those elements are. But it could be very easy for somebody to sort of transcribe that or to play a that exact same drum groove or bass notes and it wouldn't be swinging, right? So that's where the rub is, I would say. We have our sound slice feature here where we can have the computer play

what the notes that you were playing very swingingly and the computer plays them in it is not swinging. AI has not been matched up with swing, but it's coming. The robots are coming for us, you know? No, but so I think that they're, it really is almost sort of over-end, analyzed and given too much significance and like I like to demystify as opposed to make it as like this this this like private mystical thing that no one can get to

it's actually one of the easier elements I think of jazz music um is the swing and what we're talking about and look what is swing in terms of different grooves I don't even I have a very I think we have a very expansive view in terms of that yeah it can be a lot of but we're talking about the kind of obvious typical ding ding ding to dang dang dang you know but do do do do do do Like I'm not a good singer, but I know what a swinging baseline sounds like. And it's really not that hard for you to make it swinging. But ding, ding, ding, ding.

There's the time in the temple, not metronomic, but in a steady groove. That's an important element to it. There's the stability of each of the quarter notes in the baseline. And this would be manifested no matter what you're playing. Because a lot of times we think, oh, it's so easy to describe how a swinging baseline feels. that can be, you know, transferred to a way a trumpet player. So if the bass is, bo-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d.

This does not sound swinging now that I'm doing it. But you know what I'm saying. I do know what you're saying. But the bass line, we're always hearing that. That's like the foundation of so. But ding, ding, ding, ding. And this whole thing of like, well, it's only swinging if it's going, ding, ding, ding, ding.

No. Two, three, four, one, two. That's not swinging. No. Now, I do think that it can work to have a slight emphasis on the two and four, right? But ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You like my? I do.

You like this? Yeah, no, it's a great pantomime of a bass. It's a little bigger. So you can have a little bit, but that's not even really necessary. But I think that steady groove, that confident groove, it's like a danceable thing. It's steady. Have I said steady enough? You have, but you know what?

I think you made a really important point when you said steady groove, but not metronomic. Because to me, swing, no matter what the groove, whether that's a straight, you know, straight ahead swing, you know, two feel or four feel. Yeah. Or say like, Adi Rubiro playing a Maraca too, you know, like a Brazilian groove that is obviously swinging. Yeah.

To me what makes it is this combination, right, of super solid and steady. Yeah. And then some humanness where you add syncopation and you pull and push. against the rhythm. That's where the swing comes in. Syncopation. That's where the rub is. I think swing and syncopation go hand in hand.

You can't just have square rhythms played steady and that's swing. That's not how that works. I am not swinging. I am a square robot trying to play jazz. You know, the music that was awesome. The music that that pulls us in, pulls us in because there's so much humanity to it. There's so much soul and feeling and

the intangible qualities of art that make us smile and feel good or feel terrible. Yeah. But that only happens by that rub between, you know, in this case, the rhythmic rub on and off the beat against it, behind it. We had Ulysses Owens Jr. and Ruben Rogers in here shooting their course, the art of swing available now at the studio at jazz.com. They're putting it out there with that.

I mean, but they go kind of deep into it and they talk about that a lot, that they're, you know, while we're, we're all on the same steady grid. we are pulling and pushing each other back and forth on it and that's what makes it swing and then you add in syncopation which syncopation is not just playing like you said on two and four or off beats or down beats it's this combination

of downbeat upbeat yeah you know it's that play the play between the two dramatic flare adding some anticipations your boy Rick flare yeah who setting people up and then you know defying expectations that is what syncopation means to me combined with this push pull against the steady groove.

This is why things like, you know, like a funk groove, like P-Funk groove can feel swinging, you know, it's because, I mean, it's not like a swing rhythm, but it has the same elements. It's why a samba can feel swinging because it has this push-pull against this steady beat, you know, and has syncopation that makes you, sets you up for one thing and then deliver something else, and that feels awesome. And I think that the dance element, and I can even see, like, as you're describing, I can't describe it without moving. Yeah.

It's hard enough. I think that's important, even though, you know, traditionally the jazz historians and, you know, sort of jazz theorists sometimes will say, like, the music in the swing era was a dance music. And then B-Bob came along and it became an intellectual heroin-induced club music or whatever. And that's BS, right? I think that the music has always had that dance element. And, you know, yes, the music changed and post-bop and whatever you want to call it, you know. But I think that the element of the groove of swing, which has basically not changed since the earliest forms of this music that you can hear up until the way people play now with not even getting into these more, these other kinds of grooves with the international flare and stuff, just with your kind of basic 4-4. But even if it's like a five, you know, do bink dink, bobo do-bo do-bo-doo-dubi-diby-diby.

That's got a dance element to it. The example you used of Tintendayo. even the part before they go to the swing, to the tip in, was swinging. Exactly. The way they played it, the push and the pool, the Afri Cuban feel, the way they were playing it was swinging because they had the syncopation, they had that push pull against the rhythm.

Speaking of dancing to bebop, so when I was at the new school, I had a great class, a combo class with Joe Chambers. And he talked about, we were playing some people. Joe can go dark though. He can go dark. I hope he was being positive, Jill. He was a gruff dude. But I learned so much from him, just being around with it.

Genius. And he talked about when he was a kid, they would dance in their basements to bebop. Like, you know, like have a party and be dancing as a party to beb. They call it a bebop dance party? And then he kind of, you know, he demonstrated a little bit. And I was like, that looks like bebop. Like you could see the moves, you know.

Anybody who's ever played, I was speaking into that P-Funk cover band, that's, I kind of actually learned a lot about music, watching people dance to the music I was playing. Yeah. Because you can see how that works. Right now, I've been. in this tango band for a few years. And sometimes we get to play

Malangas with dancers. And there's nothing better than seeing if your phrasing is working because you can see it in the dancers. You can see how they're moving to it. You know what I mean? So there's like immediate feedback and there's this historic connection

between music and dance that is unavoidable. I think it's important. And I think maybe some of you might think it's a little bit of a cop-out when we say, you know, how do you know if it's swinging, if you can dance to it? But I would just say that

I really believe in that. Maybe not like, or I'm doing this specific dance, but at least like you want to tap your foot. You feel something. There's a groove there. It loosens your hips. Yeah, exactly. I mean, like that's really. Now, can you say that about any good music?

Yeah, probably. So that's our biggest cop-out. It's like if you're listening to, you know, Beethoven's Sixth Symphony or what's the one? It's not like a steady kind of groove, but it's the same kind of like you get that little. you get something, you get that good feeling that is definitely associated with dance or whatever. So you know, what is

swing? We don't know, but we know when we hear it. See, we knew it was going to come back to that. I actually think we did a pretty okay job defining some of the crucial. This is 20-20s. You know, it's the jazz age, you know what I'm saying? The roaring 20s. The Great Depression's right around the corner.

That's a incapacion. That's a manifestation. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing, too, like swing. So we were talking about even starting from that baseline, and we need to get into the question of what is not swinging, that's everything that doesn't feel good and doesn't make you want it to have your feet. But no, this idea of like, but do-dun-d-dun-dun-d-d-d-gig-go. Like even within a baseline, you can get like some syncopation.

You don't necessarily need it because you're already using your imagination as to what's going to go on it. But like if a bass player is playing by themselves, you know, but do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-c-d-d-d-d-d-. Like, drop some bombs. Oh, hello. That's all you need. The better you do it, that's all. And even like a pooh-p-p-pum-it-it's not just a shampop-pah-pum, like a classical trip.

It's like stucat and, like, there's a syncopation built into that. Let's just do a whole episode where we trade sycopation. Let's do it right now. I mean, we have kind of have been. Okay. But dung-dun-dun-ding-ding ding ding ding ding ding-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-ch-d-d-ch-d-d-d-d-d-. Yeah, yeah. We have so much better range than our actual base.

We both pulled out the dicapit. shrapa ba b'a bum bum bo jabba da boob do but no i think babadababoo so i think that yeah i would just encourage everybody hopefully if nothing else you know we we want to demestify swim because this is just like this should be i think we do a disservice in the so-called jazz academic world when we make this into like this big mystery this is something that i think a listener should be able to know and have credit for understanding just as much as a practitioner. You know what I mean? There shouldn't be this big separation.

Just like a tango, a great tango dancer is going to understand on an intuitive level, just like a great tango musician. They may not be able to break down the technical connection between the harmonic form and the rhythmic intensity and all that. But they don't need to because they understand that in a way that's actually deeper, like from a dance, from a human standpoint.

Oh, they're very dogmatic about it too. The dancers really need it to be feeling the right way. Yeah, yeah. So, okay, let's just talk a little bit about what is not swinging. And I would just say, you know, there's things that are not swinging, and there's things that break up the swing. I think most musicians that I've heard that can swing kind of consistently rarely don't swing, so to speak.

I don't know. There's some controversy. There's some great musician. I won't mention his or her name that really believes like, man, this is swinging. No, now it's not swinging. Like I kind of feel like there's different ways to play in different styles and approaches. But if you're generally swinging, it's kind of like an accent. or an a genre or a way of speaking or whatever.

Yeah, you're going to kind of not speak as well someday, but whatever your accent is is what it is. And if that includes kind of a swinging thing, that's going to come out no matter what. For sure. It's part of your style. And it's changed stylistically over the years, but it's still kind of a fundamental principle.

You know, Lewis Armstrong, Jacob Collier. They both use these same elements. But they're both swinging. Like, speaking of swinging Louis Armstrong, he can swing with like a whole note held out somehow. I don't know how he does that. He could turn a rusty gate into a finely gliding WD40 situation. Yeah, and, you know, a lot of, like, he was such a powerful force,

cultural and musical force that he kind of defined, Lewis Armstrong really defined in a lot of ways what we, I mean, not necessarily what we think of swing, because I don't know that it was codified in a way, and there was people before him that certainly were swinging. He modernized it. He modernized it in a way that really still lasts, even if people don't like, well, I never really listen to him.

him, you, you, you, you latched on to that, like, the same way, like, Shakespeare affected English. Sure. You don't have to study it. Like, it just comes to you. So it's just a force. There's the same beats. There's the same structure.

And we still hear his swing today. Yeah. All over the place. It's amazing. And then I would just, we don't have to go a lot on the negative as far as what's not swinging. I think that there's a stiffness sometimes the way that people play that, to me, is not really swing.

Like, if you're kind of trying to play within the tradition, not like a narrow tradition, like anywhere sort of in the, in the, in the, in the jet. or creative space, and there's a way of playing where it's either so loose. I mean, I love playing loose. There's ways to really swing

and, like, very flexible beat and everything, but there's almost like an inattention to detail and a lack of self-awareness to weigh. And this is usually, no, knock, this is more like less experienced players, really, that happens quite,

and they usually know, like, if you listen, you kind of know if you're locked in or not to the swing. And so, yeah, there's definitely a lot of stuff when you're, when you, but it's just like anything. It's just like learning to play in tune,

learning to play, you know, on the piano, we don't worry about playing a tune because that's not part of our thing. The piano is either internal out. I keep a tuning wrench with me at all times. Well, yeah, so you're better the most. But like for trumpet player, like that's a, you spend a lot of time, like, locking it, and then your ears acclimate.

So, I mean, it's very much the same way with swing. First, you have to kind of hear it and feel it, and that's the part I want people to know is easy. Yeah. Like, you can hear and tell if something is swinging just as well as me, I think. Yeah. And so now, whether or not you can play,

yeah, that takes some skill and some. some time or whatever, but it's no different than learning to play in tune. It's no different different than playing in different keys and you can get better at it. And then it starts to become automatic and then it's fun. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you, Peter, for the question. That's right.

It's a great eternal question in this music and happy to give our two cents on. And I would just say, like, from it, I don't even know if he was asking so much from a classical standpoint, but this is something we definitely get from classical musicians. There's two things classical musicians often ask, like, oh, man, how do you, like they love jazz and want to play it. Yeah. Oh, but how do I learn how to swing? That seems so like that is just a matter of experience. I don't think there's anything innately like from a classical training

because I went through a lot of that that trained you against it. But there's not necessarily something built in. I mean, there's like built in how to learn to play the instrument. But the approach to the groove is very different. It's not like 180 degrees different, but it's like 90 degrees different in a lot of jazz music and a lot of classical. And obviously there's a lot of influences on each other. But you look at something like Stravince.

and a lot of bar talk. I mean a lot, I was going to say modern composers. That's like last century. That's a lot of time. But you have a lot of influence, Ravel, from jazz and coming over. And also just from kind of like blues and groove-based music that was very influential on these composers. And so you hear those elements in there and you hear them executed very well by conductors

and players and stuff. So it just kind of, to me, shows to the humanity of music and influences and how anybody can play good music, you know, for sure. For sure. Cool. Hey, visit us at Jen, if you're going to be a Jen in New Orleans. We haven't gone yet? The birthplace of swing.

No, we haven't gone yet. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's, I'm looking forward to that. We're going to lock in. We're going to lock in. You can see Peter on the seventh for his TED talk. You can see Peter and I for our live.

You'll hear it on the ninth. Come get some you'll hear it and open studio swag. Yeah, visit us at booth 718. And we're doing a big giveaway for Adam Manus's blues hat. No. No, we're not. No, we're not. Are you kidding?

You got a couple of those, don't you? We could. That's my only one. Does blues, music? Okay. Anyway. Well, until we see you in New Orleans. Oh, gosh. You'll hear it.

Almost one o'clock. I don't think they're coming. Well, should we just call on a night? Whatever, let's just go. Hey. Hello, my sexies. Deirdre. Reynolds.

We've been waiting around for hours. Oh, sorry, we're moving so slow. We just got back from Nalans. You know, moving like a gator down Bubbin Street. Blame Nalens. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. Nollins? No. You know, when you've been to Nalans,

the slow gets inside you and it sticks to your bones. Like Nalans molasses. I grew up in New Orleans, and I've never heard of Nalans molasses. Have y'all been to Nalans? He just said he was from there. Yeah, you were there for two days. Oh, my God, you've got to go to Nalans.

You know, it is filled with juicy, and squalling trumpets and tiny little crawledities. You put Paris in a swamp and that's Nalans in a nutshell, baby. Can we get the check? Even the mosquitoes, they sashay through the Nolans air. Oh, and when they bite you, you don't go ow. You go... Ooh.

Is that true, Phil? No, not at all. They're just mosquitoes. When they bite you, you say, ow, not... Oh! Thank you.