You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Brad Mehldau/Rick Beato Interview

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Join Adam and Peter as they tune into the newest Brad Mehldau interview with Rick Beato. ↓ Links from the pod ↓Open Studio Pro | WAITLISTOur latest video on Brad...The Rick Beato / Brad Mehldau InterviewHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

I'm impressed. See what I'm talking about? Exactly. I'm Adam Anis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Keys. Hey, explain.

Keyes explained. Coming out today. More coming out today. I love it so much. Coming at you today, sponsored by Open Studio. Today we're talking about one of our favorite keys player, friend of the show. Yes.

The great Brad Meldon, who had a terrific interview with the great Rick Biotto. Right. And we're going to talk a little bit about that. We thought we'd play a little bit down. But first, we got to apologize. No, no, no. I didn't know we were doing this.

But here's what Melda. You didn't know we were. were doing dear prudence. Well, no, I mean, once you start, yeah, yeah, I'm familiar. Once you started the vamp, I was like, oh, that's Beatles, right? Yeah, yeah. I didn't know we were supposed to be imitating Brad Mildow. Yeah, well, that was a bad imitation.

Here's the thing. Every time I start to do some kind of Meldowish thing, I start to go into an imitation and then I just totally lose my focus because I'm like, I start laughing at like, that's Brad. Fanboy? A little bit of a fan boy, for sure. 100% fan boy. But it's funny because I don't think when we go into that, see, my, I always go back

to the Brad Meldow with Christopher Holiday Days. That's how far I go back in terms of hearing. Christopher Holiday, wow. Are you familiar with this? No, I don't know. Saxophonist. Yeah, that was the first time I heard Brad. It's back in New York in the late 80s, early 90s? Late 80s, maybe 90, 90, something like that. Yeah. Chris Holliday was a young and upcoming

bebopin alto player. Yeah. And that's what Brad was doing. He was not doing this style of stuff, but. So we'll link to this full interview. This is an interview with Rick Biotto and Brad Maldow called the greatest jazz pianist of our generation, right? Humbly titled. Humbley titled.

Which isn't too far from the truth, honestly, because Brad has been such an influence over so many jazz pianists. Yeah, I mean, you could certainly make the case. It's not out of the, you know. It is, he's up there for sure. Yeah. For his tradition. I got no problem with that title.

It's interesting. I think that, you know, we're going to talk about it, but I think that Rick did such a wonderful job. Like his interview skills have gotten so interesting. And, you know, it's funny. Like, I always figure when somebody, like what is the mix to be a great interview between oh he or she is asking the question i was just wanted to have answered that's right but to me the next level is like oh that's actually what i want

to hear him ask and i didn't even think of that didn't even think about that's even better sometimes the obvious questions are fine but he's really good at kind of leading down a pathway with genuine curiosity yeah and and love for what brad does and i think brought out one of the one of the better for what everybody he's interviewing does like he's He's been, for me, like, and this is, we'll just, we'll get to Brad in a minute, but just talking about Rick Biotto and his YouTube channel, which, you know, we know a little bit, not on that level, about coming up with a music YouTube channel and how hard it is and how difficult it is to make the content great. And especially interviews and especially with the caliber of people that he's been interviewing. I think, you know, his channel was really good when it was the 20 greatest guitar intros and the, and the little music theory whiteboard sessions. Remember those?

Oh, yeah. Those are so interesting and so great. But I think this era of Rick Biotto where he's interviewing Sting and Brad Meldow and Pat Mathini and Pat Mathini and all these amazing, you know, legendary musicians, Joni Mitchell, like all these people, I think is his best era. I think this is what he is actually best at. It's a super interesting. He's good at all that other shit too. So this is really impressive. Absolutely. It's a super interesting lane that he's riding in. It's not his only lane, but it's a very interesting one. It's one that he's well suited. It's one that he's put a lot of. thought, of course, he has such a interesting background, I think, in music and well-rounded in a number of areas that, but even when he comes to something as specific and potentially bespoke as Brad Meldow is, you know, he still brings that like attention to detail in terms of, I mean, he's not up there, you know, asking these generalized questions about what do you

think of the music industry? You know, like he's really asking interesting, you know, you can tell he's a fan. Yeah. But he's also probing in there in just the way that engages me as a viewer. He has a lot of knowledge about the artist. Obviously, he just has a lot of baseline knowledge about music in general and musicians. But also his knowledge of music theory can be very helpful. As we're going to see in this interview.

Say what you see. Say what you see. Say what you hear. Hear it before you see it. Before you hear it. That's right. Speaking of Rick. So, yeah, before we get too deep into the video, too, we started off with dear prudence there

because I thought it's a great example of one of the things. themes of the video that Brad talks about, which is his influence from guitar music. So they start off the video, and we're not going to watch this clip, but I thought it was a really interesting part. Watch the whole video, but at the very beginning,

they talk about, like, what's the difference between what you do and doing all the covers of, like, Elliot Smith and the Beatles and Jimmy Hendrix and folks like that, radio head. And Brad said, well, what's in common is there's guitar. There's a lot of open strings.

And I think Dear Prudence, is a great example of that. We just have this like, yeah, G major triad on top, and then this one line moving down. That's a very, you can hear that so clearly as a guitarist,

like how easy that is to do to make happen, how natural that is on the instrument. And it's something that I think Brad Meldow has been really, you know, especially in the 90s, was very forward thinking and copying. Yeah. And has now become a whole other stream of jazz piano

like so many jazz pianists have copied Brad Meldow, that has kind of become its own style almost. Right. That sort of like taking cues from guitars, open strings, bands that are fronted by guitars that are primarily guitar as opposed to, you know, more piano-based stuff.

Well, and just on that point, to lean into the potential hyperbole of the title, the greatest jazz pianist of our generation, could it have been the most influential jazz pianist of our generation? And our generation is always a tricky thing. Because like, what do we, like, that's such a, you know, possessive thing to be like, you know, our generation.

What are we talking about? People that look like Rick around middle-aged or whatever. Are we talking about those that are in their prime, those that are coming up now? But if you talk about the kind of Gen X as we broke it down, like pianist, influential, I think is always, I mean, greatest, there's so many, you know, just wonderful pianists that we could name. I think that Brad might even bristle at that greatest jazz. but you can be a little bit more objective. We could be a little more objective about influential. Like, because you came, you know, I was not as much influenced by Brad,

although I was somewhat, but as more of a contemporary. And that doesn't mean that you can't be influenced, but because of the way things kind of went. But I was influenced in terms of like, I came right after him on the Joshua Redmond gig. So, like, I was learning those tunes off the record listening to Brad, like transcribing, maybe not like his souls, but like the way he played. I remember learning that music.

So there was an influence there. But you were very influenced, even from like a conceptual standpoint of like what a piano trio could be. Absolutely. Like what direction? How do you pull these different forces together to create that? Totally.

And I think a lot of musicians my age had a similar influence. We talk about a lot here about the great Robert Glasper, who is another now super influential musician. But, you know, Robert, who's more around my age, you know, you could tell it took some cues as he was learning this music from Brad who's a little bit older than him,

obviously made it weigh his own thing and did a whole different thing with it, but that's how deep, I think, Brad Meldow's influence goes, is on almost every, certainly pianists, but on almost every musician that's come after him,

there's some sort of lineage there. And then, like you said, like greatest pianist, I mean, isn't Gonzalo about your, both of your ages? Isn't he just the greatest? Pretty good. Just from piano playing standpoint,

like there's plenty of great pianists, but like I think influences. I think Gonzalo also very influential, but I think Brad has this very wide net of influence to people younger than him. And I think it's always interesting to think about like someone that's just a little older. Like I know for me, Kenny Kirkland, although maybe he was a little bit more separation in age between you and Brad say or Glasspar and Brad. But like, I mean, it's one thing to be like I'm in the most influential panels of me as Oscar Peterson or Mead Lux Lewis. Like, of course, those were greats.

But like we relate to them in such a. different way. Although Oscar Peterson, I did get to meet and see him live a couple of times. So there is that. But sometimes when there's like that longer separation, yes, they're very influenced. But there's nothing like seeing somebody that's right ahead. I mean, Wint Marcellus was so influential on my generation, partly because like he was just a few years older doing these things, like interacting with us in a way. He didn't seem like there wasn't the separation of generations, even though we know that jazz music is wonderful for bringing together multiple generations and different types of people around the world and all these kinds of things. But there's

nothing like somebody five to ten years older than you. It's five to ten years. That's the sweet spot. And for me it was Brad, it was you. It was Jeffrey Kieser. It was Eric Lewis. It was all these guys who were about your age, right? And I'm not much younger than you. I think we're six or seven years apart. Yeah, seven years. But that's like right in the sweet spot because I'm like 15, 16. Seven years is also the sweet spot for the extreme amount of knowledge differentiation. You'll learn that over the next seven years. I know. But Jackie Terrace on. Like, I remember being 16 and hearing Jackie Tarasen and Ed Simon and Jason Moran. Well, I guess he's a little more. No, Jason Moran is about five years older than me. But when I moved to New York, he was doing, like, these are the people when you're like 15, 16,

17, 18 and you want to be, you're truly an aspiring jazz musician. You're seeing people actually doing it who are around your age, but a little bit older. That's, I think, very, very powerful. Yeah. For me, I mean, Kenny Kirkland, Marcus Roberts. much there for me. See, all those guys have, they're in the same for me. They're the same as Oscar and Bill Evans. Because they already have already existed.

And watching Brad Melow ascend, you're like, that's, he's ours. You know, he's our generations. Right. Yeah. And I think that's where that five to 10 years, that's a very five,

maybe even 12, 15th. That's a great sort of sweet spot, you know. Yeah. Well, let's check out a little bit of this. Yeah. Video here. I've got a couple of,

I got about three places queued up. You know what I love to. I just want to throw out there about what Rick does in this interview is like he's very, I think, pure and honest to the music and to the artistry of, in this case, Brad Mello. But in like all of his interviews, he stays very clear in terms of like what he's asking and what he's trying to pull out of the artist and doesn't, he doesn't act any differently towards Brad as he does towards like Pat Mathini or Ron Carter, who are maybe, I mean, maybe Pat Mathini is more like his contemporary, but Ron Carter,

of course as an elder statesman. Like he's approaching it from a musical and artist standpoint. You know, like in terms of like, so in other words, he doesn't come to Brad and be like, okay, you're a young guy. I know you're really good and whatever. I mean, of course, he's not going to do that. Probably not the same age, right? Rick and Brad?

No, no, no. Rick, we'll be a little bit older, yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like, you wouldn't know that. Like, that's a great interview. When there is no, like, oh, he's talking differently because he's a little younger. Oh, he's talking differently because they're the same age.

Or he's talking differently because they're older. Like he's really on a level playing field in terms of like I'm coming to you understanding you as an artist the music you make I want to learn more about that that inquisitiveness that transcends generations, you know. Let's check out some of the cool musical moments here from this interview. Two of the tracks that were just released. This is him talking about Chris Potter and Brian. Chris Potter's new album. John Patate Chishis. Oh, yeah.

Great. Great. So I noticed that your comping is different. You use more triads and things like that. more than you would have comped maybe 20 years ago. Interesting. Do you notice a difference or have you even thought about that? It could be the factor of what I find a challenge playing with a monster like Chris Potter,

who it's sort of like how Sonny Rollins didn't use piano players too much, right? Because it's almost the feeling I guess he didn't need them. So Chris is covering so much harmonic material in the soul. solo itself, it's all there. You know, the melody is there and the harmony is all in the line. Yes. And it's very dense. So maybe what you

want to find when you're comping with him is that he doesn't need your support. He doesn't need you to fill him out. But maybe something that's key in the phrase or the chord or the tune that might give it more of a story to tell in that sense.

So I just think this is incredible advice for... lesson. Incredible advice for pianists who are comping and just noticing, first of all, the level one is like noticing the difference between Chris Potter and another saxophonists who might need more

harmonic support or demand more harmonic support. But that level of sensitivity I think is something we can all immediately take with us to the bandstand of like listening, asking yourself, what is needed in this situation? Yeah, I'm really interested to hear this record because I've always felt like,

well, I was reminded recently that Brad is such a great comper. Right? And because, you know, he's so known for solo playing and trio playing and, you know, different situations where maybe, well, with his trio, I think he does great comping. Yeah, he just saw that. I mean, like, you know, behind base or just in terms of interactivity, like, he's very, like, he really listens. Of course, all the typical skills you would need to do that. But plays interesting things and has a really cool concept on it, too, you know.

He's, like all great accompaniness, I think his strength is his presence. So he's very, very present. He's very obviously very in tuned with what's happening around him. I remember hanging out with Doug Weiss, great bassist, amazing bassist. And this was back when I was at the new school and Doug was teaching, I think it was the Wayne Chorter ensemble that we were all in with Doug. He was awesome. Wayne was at the new school at the same time as well? No.

We were studying Wayne's music. But anyway, Doug had been playing with Brad Meldow at that point, you know, filling in for Larry on some things. And we were all like, what is it? What makes him so great? because we were all fanboys or whatever. And he's like, the difference between Brad and a lot of other musicians is his just incredible attention to the moment. His incredible commitment to staying present with you for the entire night. He's there every moment with you for the entire night.

And this is paying off here. Let's kind of hear how he finishes up this thought. No, it's not as dense in praxis. It's just like with Charlie Parker. Right. You take away the music, everything is there. You know what the progression is. Like in Bach.

You don't. Like, Bach is kind of the model. Because it's like if we've got, let's say... So now he's talking about filling out the line harmonically. Or maybe the most famous that everyone... So it's an arpeggiation, which means spelling out a chord that I could play. That if I was comping behind Chris, I'd play a chord. But if it's already there in the line, it's doing two things.

It's giving me the harmony, but it's also a nice melody, you know? So it's kind of both. You know, I love the way Brad talks. It's like the way he writes. Like that wonderful response he put on our previous video. We'll link to that video. We did a little breakdown of him in like the late 90s, you know. But what he's saying is really deep and I think kind of important,

especially if you're into this kind of stuff. Totally. To approach into piano like we like to think about it. But it's very simple and unpretentious actually. Totally. because it's so deep what he's saying it might on the surface seem pretentious but like the way that he's saying is very simple and clear and just like accurate and very deep I think I know I think he would be a great teacher oh absolutely yeah it would be great to get him here at open studio I don't know that would be wonderful anybody knows no but I mean it's like he has he has the pianistic abilities and obviously the musical nuances and like the concepts to just speak in a way that we'd be like and he's like and he's like he's He's a really smart guy, obviously, too. But he could kind of talk in a way that made no sense to anyone.

And you'd be like, well, no wonder I can't play like him. But, I mean, like, he's just sort of breaking it down. It's a very simple way that he's a very simple and accurate. And that's hard to do, actually. Yeah, I love it. Caleb, can you bring up that little chart I made for this next section? So this is Jimmy Hendrix's Hey Joe. And they're talking about Brad's cover of it.

And he talks about how he approaches the harmony here. And I thought it was really, really interesting. And again, very simple. Yeah. But when you hear him do it, it's like, is that all he's doing? and it kind of is, which is amazing. Maybe I'll start changing something that Kenny Werner, one of my teachers, was great. He would talk about changing the function of the chord.

So the top line I have here is the original changes, and the bottom line is what he does to change. I still my bass motion. It's still a C chord, a G chord, and a D, but maybe I'm going to change the nature of the chord, the function. So here I'll do it the first time just the way it usually is, and then start to change the kind of chord it is. That beautiful? Yeah. Maybe put a little Aeolian vibe. and the flat six there.

And then do some voice leading within that on each chord. So those kind of things. I love that. Good wrist movement. Yeah, yeah. So just starting out with like basic, right, just the basic tribes, but then getting into what you might do. And I love that he talks about the Aeolian here,

because this is a very bradism. So when he goes to the minor, it might be that, but you hear this. He's going to imply that Aeolian thing, right? Key of E-Flemon. as a way to just change up how he's, there's a lot of sussing, there was a lot of voice leading going on in the way he was doing it. And he was doing these five tuplet things too, which is a whole other level. But he's just explaining it so simply. There's a lot more, of course,

there's some, there's details. But he's not, he's letting that kind of come out organically in the music. No, there's like 50 years of voice leading training happening within that, but it's, pretty awesome. So that's, uh, make the complicated sounds, sounds simple. That's, that's the masters do. Exactly right. And there's one more area that I wanted to touch on here where he talks about sort of the evolution of the harmony of jazz and specifically the pacing on this interview is fantastic.

Yeah, it's a long. It's a long, I think it's like an hour and a half. Yeah. It's like 90 minutes. Which is hard to pull off. The pacing is on point. It's super worth it though. I highly recommend you just take your time and watch the whole thing. Wait, Rick, you've got a YouTube plaque in the background. How did that get there? Oh, yeah. Interesting. Like, well, it's a more complex, yeah.

That's a really interesting intersection there. So you go from Coltrane, right? And then you have Wayne almost at the same time, two years later, you know, Giant Sips 1960, then you get to speak no evil that record. Yeah. Jazz harmony changed because of why. Why did it change there in the 60s? From Coltrane

to these other kinds of sounds? No. Yeah. Just they were searching for things. What do you think about that? I think it's that thing we're about. It's just originality and genius. But certainly you can see it in the figure of John Coltrane himself and the trajectory in a short time of these records he made.

And for me, the one that's so inspiring is the run of records that I think, maybe you know, correct me if I'm wrong, were made in a few sessions, maybe over a two-week period that's Coltrane Sound, Coltrane plays the blues. But so then he's got, let's say, a Coltrane sound, he's got a standard, the knight has a thousand eyes. Oh, yeah. So he's already taken it from this, and now he's going to puttapoint. But still, we're in that harmony.

But there's something here that's already looking forward to where he's going to go in a few years, which is going to be big chunks of pedal points. I just want to pause it here and just say, this is so brilliant what he's saying here, is like noticing, and we all can kind of get this, but I love this point of watching John Coltrane's evolution. His, this Coltrane sound, I don't know if you know Coltrane sound. Yeah, I love Coltrane. It's one of my favorite John Coltrane albums, especially from that era, great album cover. Yeah.

But to me, it is this transition between Giant Steps and Love Supreme Crescent era. Like, you can hear it happening in all the pedal points and then as Brad's going to allude to, he's still kind of working through his functional harmony era. But it's, it's amazing to hear Brad talk like this and and recognize these things so clearly. So for me, you know, and thinking back to when I first met Brad and this stuff, we were all, like, like listening to Blade and Chris Thomas and Joshua, Brad, that whole little circle, whatever, it makes sense. But I love that he's picked out such a, this is what I'm saying. Like, he really knows how to focus in on simple and accurate and clear.

Like, this is a very, this is one of Coltrane's most simple things that he did in terms of put it in the pedal point, but he's able to just show it. I mean, like, he could have been like some, you know. But he's 100% correct. This is that pedal point. Some more complicated. Is the precursor to Crescent. Right.

It's starting to. trajectory that you can hear. The heavy lines of the sheet, right? So that we're just like making things a lot broader, a lot, giving him a lot more room to put colors in there. Let's hear how he continues. But then it's going to be, as it goes on, it's going to be more his sound. It's going to be more modal over pedal points.

And then he gets to the bridge and, you know, but he's going to put some giant steps in there. So he's doing that, he's at this tipping point. He's starting to find it. It's so exciting to hear those records. Like the Coltrain plays, the blues is also great right. I think that's Mr. Day, maybe. Yeah. Willie Akinz used to play this one.

So it's the blues and it really feels like the blues, but it's something mixelonian. Mixalodian. Mixalodian, yeah. And the other thing I love about this record is McCoy Tyner, who for me is... Mixalotian. I just got that.

The great influence. And it's these records. And it's before he does this... Before he was into playing all the fourth voices, and he played... Right. He did... A whole...

Totally different vocabulary. Yeah, it's thirds, right? Yes. And it's softer, and it's... Yes. And then it's interesting because he kind of leaves it. And then he goes on and he finds this fourth thing, and it's great.

But yeah, so I think that's just this progression that happened. In a few singular... musicians, you know, and to see how it's concurrent with Wayne and what he's doing and the way he's writing. Man, this is like a jazz history harmonic bedtime story.

The way he's saying, I want to hear this, man. And again, like, shout out to Rick Beato for conducting this interview, for leading these questions and this discussion in this great way. Leading questions. Yeah, I mean, not like, he's not like leading question, but he is, he is definitely like steering this Brad, who's the greatest jazz pianists of your

generation? Is it you? Hint, it's BM, are his, uh, shout out to Rick and shout out to Brad and go check out the whole interview and yeah we'll link to it below until next time you'll hear it.