You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Current Political "Jazz" Landscape

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam offer their views on a sensitive topic: the Nicholas Payton/Jazz Memes controversy.Calling all pianists - the Piano Access Pass is now available from Open Studio! Save money with this bundle featuring every piano course ever from Open Studio, including teachers such as Peter Martin, Geoffrey Keezer, and Helio Alves. For more info, go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/piano-access-passTo quote every Christmas ad ever, "give the gift of giving" this season with Open Studio's new gifting feature! Help spread the joy of this art form by giving a course or membership to the aspiring jazz musician in your life. For more info and a list of gift-able courses, go to: https://www.openstudiojazz.com/giftsWant every Open Studio course for free? That's right - over 300 hours and 1200 lessons can be yours with free lifetime access! All you have to do is enter Open Studio's 2019 Holiday Giveaway. Go to https://learn.openstudiojazz.com/giveaway/, or watch this video of Peter for more info: https://youtu.be/KsdhVXE5ovILet 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.

Peter, you ready? Yep. Let's dive in. Okay. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily music advice coming at you.

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So what are we talking about today? Well, today... And I'm getting up and leaving. Okay, don't leave yet. We're talking about some controversy that happened in our circles here. Yes. In the last couple weeks.

And we're also kind of... We're re-evaluating, again, our feelings on the word jazz. We've done an episode on the word jazz and how we feel. And we thought we'd kind of come at you as we're... Entering the new year. As people. That's right.

We're two middle-aged white guys, and we have things to say. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, but, but, so I'll just briefly state what the controversy was. Yeah, a little backstory. A couple of weeks ago, there was a meme going around where it was like, I'm going to tell my kids this was that, right? That was the actual words on the meme.

Right, and you would insert, you know, I'm going to tell my kids that, and it could be a picture of Andrew that this is rock and roll, you know, whatever. And so the jazz memes guys who have memed us, they said, I'm going to tell my kids this was jazz. was a picture of Nicholas Payton who has famously disavowed the word jazz. And in fact, then Nicholas Payton went in on them in a hardcore way. And it became, and then the jazz memes guys came back and tried to defend themselves and it didn't go well. That was the no boino part, I thought. I mean, the whole thing was kind of no bueno. And, you know, I thought we could

just kind of talk about it because also we're evolving, not evolving our stance on jazz, but we landed on our last episode about the word that we both didn't like the word. Yeah, we don't like the word. The word is no bueno. Now, you might have heard a say it still because that's what everybody calls it. That's what everyone calls it. We're stuck in that for now, but that doesn't mean we have to always be. Right. And we talked a little bit about BAM, Black American Music, which is what Nicholas Payton has proposed that we change what we call this music. We'll state, first of all, that, you know, we just love the music. Everybody here loves the sound and the music, the feelings of the music we were attracted to as kids. And it's not because

of the name. No. It's not like it's even that cool of the name. Well, most musicians don't like what labels get put on their music anyway for any kind of genre, right? Like, you know, famously. Well, some classical musicians like it because classical, it's so elitist. They love that.

I think music, I think, music, I think, nerdy music listeners like to put things into little boxes, but I think the people that make the music have a hard time classifying. I'll say that. But I think in this case, the name is important because of the history of the word jazz. Right, right. And I think that our only thing, it's not about, like, are we going to take a stance or whatever. I don't feel certainly myself and for us at the podcast,

like we're in no position to be, and I don't want to be the one to be like, this is what should happen. Because I'm not at that level. I mean, I'm part of the music. We're part of the discussion, but we're just a little part of it. You know, there's much bigger players as there should be.

And I would just put out there that, and full disclosure, you know, Nicholas Pate is a, been a friend of mine, and I've known him for a long time. But, I mean, this is not really colored by my personal relationship with him. but I do know him. So I can just say that he is one of the most amazing artists that we have with this music. He is one of the great artists of our time.

Yeah, and one of the most highly skilled in a number of ways beyond just his trumpet player. And one of the most intellectually rigorous about the history of the music and what it means. One of the great thinkers of today. I mean, I would only, there's only a couple other musicians that I would put. For sure. That would come to mind like Nicholas that could sit around and have an intelligent discussion. And I'm not one of them. And who also are in that same boat that you wouldn't want to.

follow on the band stand too you know what that's a rare thing right there's some musicians that like can speak so intelligently about this music and i'm fine with following them or proceed whatever right right and so i think that it would and look jazz memes guys we don't know them well but we've interviewed them and we've collabed a little bit with them and they seem like really nice guys and i'm no doubt or you know for the music and everything but i would just say that you know it's important that we give the respect up not in an old-fashioned you know beethoven symphony orchestra way or whatever. I mean, big shout out to Beethoven symphonies. I'm not

I don't want to piss off other people while I you know, no, no, I mean, I'm just saying You're going to get letters from the orchestra folks, though. Yeah, what do you mean? But in terms of like, we don't want to, what was it, we used to say like, lion eyes. It's not about, you know, I mean, even though I would say that, you know, Nicholas is in the lineage of the Charles Mingus and the people he quotes and stuff, like, he's

part of that, you know, I mean, of that level, which is weird because I've known him since he was like 15 years old. But it's just like, when when somebody's speaking that has that kind of street cred, both in terms of playing in intellectualism, you better be careful and you better come, you better not bring a knife to a gunfight. Yeah, they kind of learned that lesson, the hardware, I think.

Yeah, and I don't think, you know, it was super malicious, but that doesn't necessarily excuse it. But you know what? It's a mistake, in my opinion. They made a mistake, no big deal. I do think, you know, with their explanation of stuff, they backpedaled on, I didn't, and look, all this, we didn't look too closely because we didn't want to get in bro.

closely following on. I didn't. I didn't. Because I wasn't so interested, but I think that the fact that they, you know, the jazz memes guys, you know, kind of articulated their stance and maybe apologized a little bit, I don't know, or maybe not, but they didn't invite any. It was a kind of, I'm sorry you feel that way. Okay, so no, no, no, no bueno on that then, but they didn't, no bueno on the way that I'm pronouncing no Bueno, first of all. No, but no Bueno on not allowing comments on that post. I don't know about that. I understand they didn't want to be it to turn into a trolling thing or like a lot of with bad stuff going back and I kind of get that too because the climate of the comment section in the last few were were pretty toxic. So I could see why they did that but it does it doesn't

doesn't it's not a good look. Yeah it's not a good look because it makes it sound like it makes it look like oh we want to be part of the discussion but then it makes it sound like no we are saying this and the case closed and you know it's tough one but look it's not for us to judge this we just did. No, no, but it's not. And it's, it's, it's not a bad discussion. Well, I was just going to say the positives of this is I think that it's really kind of pushed this, this movement forward. Nicholas Payton's movement to like replace jazz with Bam. Yeah.

The discussion, at least, is way more forefront in the last few weeks than it has been in the last few years. Right. And the seriousness, and it's because of the way that he came in, that Nicholas came in with these quotes from these legends from Siddi Bichet and. Blue Gallington and Miles and Charles Mingus and Coltrane about their feelings on the word. Like direct quotes. The direct quotes. And for me. And not three words.

Like whole two, three sentences. And I mean, I've read Nicholas's original article from, I think, eight or nine years ago about this or whatever. But this, for some reason, this round nailed this home of like, oh, snap, are we, are we effing this up? Exactly. You know what I mean? We're effing this up, aren't? Yeah, you can argue with me, but you can also argue with Sidney Mishie, Charles Miggis. Because they're not alive anymore, but their words live.

on. And their music lives on, more importantly. It was a little, it was a little a tectonic plate shift for me as far as like how I think about that word now. Yeah. And I don't know. I don't know if I'll go back to... I don't like the word. And I mean, you probably noticed around here, you know, we've been using it less and less. We don't want to, we're not the ones. It's not up to us to, you know,

we are not nearly important in us. I mean, you'll hear a podcast is so important. But it turns out we're not important enough to have... What are those two, two middle, age white dudes opinion. Yeah, I mean, really, come on. Yeah, for sure. But I mean, ultimately, I think that it's great when the musicians, when great artists like a Nicholas.

That's what it takes. Yeah, can be a part of leading the conversation. That's what we need. We don't want the bench players, no offense to the bench players, being the ones driving this discussion. And I think that ultimately how the fans and the people listening to this,

I mean, this is very inside baseball, I think for them, there's probably not a lot of interest in this. Nobody really cares outside of our small community, but it's a big deal in our small community. Yeah, and when things, are offensive. That's a big deal.

Both Sam and Alexis have like peeked their heads around the corner and been like this. Yeah, yeah. To non-middle-aged white guys. To like open their eyes. Andrew's looking at me over his glasses right now. Yeah, but no, I think it's, I mean, I think for us to not talk about it openly would be super awkward. So hopefully us talking with the audience. And look, by now, probably most of our listeners are like, let's talk about the music again.

Which is what I think that we're last. Our audience is like, what's the fingering for the left hand? Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, big shout out to. whatever that formula music formerly known as jazz if we could go Prince with this

you know what I'm saying Big shout out No no but you know what big let's say this Big shout out to growth in an upward trajectory and moving forward And change you know what I mean Every time that you know what I do love about this It's like this is about progress with this kind of creative music

That we used to call jazz or some people are Whatever it is black American music whatever I mean we know what it sounds like And like let's push the things forward It's not in a way of like you know, just lionizing and keeping it in a museum and saying, this is so precious, no one can make fun of it.

No, that's not what anybody's saying. Let's get it right. Do you think that Black American music will be, you know, in 30 years? Do you think that's what we're going? I have no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if it, I mean, it wouldn't shock me at all. And I'd be kind of surprised

if it stayed jazz for the next three years. I mean, I think there's so many things change with the music, which is great. You know, I'm more interested in, like, what's changing with the sound of the music and, like, kind of trying to monitor of that and hopefully be a part of that and pushing that forwards.

I mean, this stuff is ultimately, I think, not that important. People that make the music actually don't care at all what they call the music. They're just making their own music. I think it's not important unless it's something offensive like this. And a lot of people who don't fully understand that or don't... But nobody's thinking like, oh, like no great artists

is thinking like, I'm making this kind of music. Like, they're just making the music that's in their head, right? They're not labeling it is something that artists aren't great at. But you're right, with the word that has this history of racism, It's got to go. Yeah, and I think that, you know, you've always seen pushback in many different genres, or not even genres, just different art forms. You talk about, you know, visual art and music.

I mean, music is something that anyone who makes music never has a problem with saying, I make music. Most don't. I mean, you've got to get seriously avant-garde to be like, no, I'm not a musician, but you're playing a saxophone. No, this is, this is beyond, don't call it music. I vibrate air in certain frequencies. But everybody, but then when you get beyond that and you start labeling things,

I mean, great artists always are going to bristle at that, which is what makes them great. For sure. And so there's nothing wrong with that and having that discussion. Except for me, I've been really focused on becoming the best trans hop artist I can possibly be. That's right. Well, I'll tell you, the biggest... I'm square in that genre. You know, the biggest problem I think I have with the word jazz and how it's used.

Not the biggest problem, but... Here we go. No, no, no. The Utah Jazz. Come on, man. Oh, that is whack. That's super whack. And don't they have something jazzing over?

How did New Orleans not soothe the South Lake City for taking the whole... And then in New Orleans, Hornets. And they went from like the most soulful place in the country to like... Be careful. Okay. Yep. All right. See, we were doing good, but, you know.

Sorry. Sorry, Utah. You'll hear it. You don't.