You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Free Association Episode

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

Peter and Adam decide to put their improvisational skills to the test today as they do an entirely free associative episode.Interested 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.Monday's Open Studio Live Events:1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)4:00 PM - You'll Hear It Live on YouTube6:00 PM - Bass Guided Practice Session with Bob DeBoo on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey there, folks. This is Andrew, long-time producer of the You'll Hear Your Podcast. It's that time of year again. Yes, Black Friday is almost upon us. And you know what that means. Deals, deals, deals, baby. For a limited time, Open Studio is going to be offering Choose What You Pay on our subscriptions. All you got to do is go to Open Studiojazz.com slash YHI to get early access to Black Friday savings. That's Open StudioJazz.com slash YHI. Check the description for a link. Hey, guess what? These deals have already started. Check out some of our subscriptions like the Piano Access Pass, which you can get right now for only $20 a month. You won't see deals like these again anytime soon. So go to open studio jazz.com slash yHI for more info. Thanks for

listening. And now, please enjoy our regularly scheduled programming. You know, Adam, are you ready to do a totally free, freely associated episode in every way? Can we do that? Yeah, yeah. We've done like $500. episodes. It's time to free it up. You want a little beat or something? Give me, give me what you got. What? Adam Maness, Peter Martin, jazz advice, music advice, life advice, what? We're coming at you on a Monday all up in your ears with the podcast. We're talking about John Coltrane, Sunny Rob, how to play the blues, how to play a sharp 11 chord. Sean Jones, what? Christian McBride, they're right here. They're standing right here. No, you could do this. Come on. What?

Ask your questions. Play it on Corty F major six. What? Miles Davis. East St. Louis. We don't have the Cordy going. You'll hear it.

Byron Lovelace. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear it podcast. Random shizz it. Coming all up in your ears. There's no way you're going to let that go to air. That's amazing, man.

I had no idea you had. I mean, I got a little bit of that. You got a little skills. Well, so we literally just came up with this. I surprised Adam. We wanted to just. do a free association thing because we have so many ideas. I mean, Adam, I admire you so much for your musical ideas, but also just, you know, your

thought ideas, your teaching ideas. And we were just going to throw words out with each other, but we decided to do a little bit with music as well. That was fun. And just talk about some things that we love today. I actually, man, I hate to say that I spent some time practicing my freestyle when I was younger. Really?

I was so into it. Yeah. Maybe on the way out, I'll give you a beat. I'll hear a little your free. Because I've never practiced it. No. Chops are not great right now. We'll see what's going to get there.

So we're going to do a little jazz-free, free word association. I think we're going to learn a little bit about each other. That's right. And learn a little bit about how we think musically. I think this could be really fun to see where this goes. You know what? Someone had mentioned in our live broadcast that there's a dice game that Amy Nolte had played. Have you heard about this?

A musical dice game? We should check this out and do this. And I think Adam Neely did it too, where it's like you, I don't know. We should check it out and do this. But for now, we're going to do this a little bit of a free association,

which is something that we can do because there's two of us. That's right. And that's funny because you just mentioned those two iconic jazz influencers, if you will, Adam Neely and A.B.

Nolte, big shot to them. What's up with that? A.Ns. A. You know what I'm saying? That could have been our firm, but we've already used those. So how we're going to do is we're going to say one name

or one word to each other and then we just have to commit to blurting out whatever we're thinking about, whatever our reaction, as it were. It's like a Roershack test of jazz. Yes.

I don't know what that is, but it sounds good. You know, it's like the ink blot. Oh, the ink plot. Oh, that would have been fun. Do you think about that? Okay. And so I'm going to throw in one little wrinkle here, if I can. Okay.

Which is we can also throw, we can speak to each other musically. Oh, I like this. I like this regard. Okay, okay. Maybe we'll get into that. Oh, man. I don't know if it were. So this is going to be interesting, too.

Can we connect language, the English language in our case? No, not always. If you want to speak in Latin or in Latin? French or Portuguese, that's fine. It doesn't have to be English. Oh, no, there's no other languages. It's just sometimes I don't speak English great. Right, English.

I don't speak English, good. Right. But, yeah, we'll see how it goes. Okay. You want to kick it off or you want me to? I'll kick it off. I'll kick it off. And this is in honor of the session that we just had as of this airing.

Kind of blue. Iconic. I mean, I don't even fully know what iconic means, but I know that that's iconic. you know, um, it's just, uh, it's, it's like a, it's a cultural marker at this point in, in my life, I think in the jazz world. I'm, I'm very much at peace with it. And, uh, I love it. Love it to death. I got another one. Okay. Motel. Uh, jazz. That's your, that's the first thing. Yeah. Yeah. I was making a little connection. Moldal. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get it. Okay. Wait, let me give you one now. Okay. Okay. Moldal. Blue. I don't know why that came to mind first, but blue. It might be

because kind of blue is in that. We're only going to say, kind of blue. But actually, you know what else came in there? This came in there. Came in there. Yeah, a little D minor 13. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of, yeah. Nice, nice.

Cool. I'll give you another. That was fair. I literally gave you one back. That's not very interesting. No, no, no. That's great. Now, let me just describe the situation here, if you will.

I'm all up in the ears of the listener. My dear listeners. Back off. Okay. Adam has closed his eyes. He's preparing. He's entering the zone, as we call it. Or in Spanish, they say El Zono.

I don't know if that's correct, but that's what he's entering. And he is ready to receive the word. It's ridiculous. Okay, I'm going to tell you now. You ready? Okay. Christian McBride. Sound.

Sound is the first thing. And you know what? That's not even English wasn't what came to mind, but literally his sound, his quarter note. Yeah. Probably not like this, but something better than this. And it was, you could hear that sound, right? When I think of Christmas, right?

And as he's doing it, smile and effortlessness. He looks like he's just having a conversation with his friends, which he usually is as he's doing this. It just, yeah. Very good. Yeah, joy. Okay.

So I'm going to go. Now, should we be moving more towards... No, let me give you one. Let me give you. I know, that's what I'm saying. But should we be moving more towards just one word? Like, we're doing a lot of explaining both of us, not to blame you? Should we be...

No, no, no. I think it's good. It should just be one word back? No, no, I think it's good. I think just the first instinct, like when you said Chris McBride, sound and I could picture and hear him playing, you know, and it was actually, it looked a lot like that. Yeah, we have a giant picture of him right here. Say what you see.

Okay. All right. I'm entering the zone. Are you ready? I'm going to get interesting on you. I'm going to get controversial. Ready? Bud Powell.

Technique. Okay. Technique. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Like I picked someone that I know is not in your canon because I wanted to see how you felt about, you know.

What do you mean? I love, but I don't talk about him a lot. No, yeah. He's not, he's not in your like top five, right? I know who your top five are and he's not one of them, but he's still obviously amazing, but I just wanted to hear your thoughts on him because we heard a lot about it.

I got one more for you. Okay, well, I'm back into the zone. I'm in the zone. You ready? Yes. You ready? Yeah. Stride piano.

Traditional. Okay. That's neither a positive nor negative. It's just more like deep in the tradition, very piano, like, you know. You know what comes to mind for me? What? Fear.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. Because there's always that moment when you're on, I was on an orchestra gig with the St. Louis Symphony, you know? And they said, play a little stride, buddy. Yeah. It was in the chart. And I was like, are you kidding me in front of all these?

Oh, written stride is so hard. I was like, it was in like the chart the singer had brought with her on her tour or whatever. I was like, I got to read stride right now. Right. I mean, there were core changes. So I just ended up, you know, doing that. Yeah. But I was like, oh, man, I got to play stride in front of like 2,000 people.

That's good. Yeah. I'm on the spot. You know, like we didn't have, we had rehearsal that day. That's what I'm saying. Right.

Yeah. Right. Right. Um, you got another one from me. You want me, we shift back. No,

no, no, no, I got you. Okay. Okay. Okay. You ready?

Yeah. Green Dolphin Street. Marijuana. Woo. I mean, because I, I'm not a, I'm not a weed guy,

but that's not why I pop, but, you know, there's, there's, there used to be code word. Yeah. Do you want to play Green Dolphin Street after the

gig. Yeah. And I always thought that was so funny and stupid, you know, so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for me, it was always, do you want to play cocaine by Eric Clapton? So much more direct. Not much hidden in there.

It would like, do you want to watch the movie powder after the gig? Wait, give me on Green Dauphin Street again. I'll give you another one. Okay. Green Dolphin Street. Live at the plaza. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Sounds so weird on the road. Bill Evans intro. Yeah. Actually, is that live at the plaza? Whatever that Columbus. 58. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, I got one for you. Okay. Are you ready? Yeah. Estate. Ooh. That for some reason struck me as... Minor 11.

C minor 11. C minor 11. So that would have been B minor 11. Close. Yeah, but that's the sound. That minor 11 sound, I could hear the strings come in. You know that classic Zhao and then the brush. Oh, so great.

So great. Estate. Yes. All down there. Yeah. Estate. Nice. Interesting.

Oh, let me try one of that for you. Okay. Stars. Oh, stars. Just a little glimmer. Little glimmer. Like little speed, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool.

You know, we've been going out stargazing in our yard, which we didn't think, we always think we're in the city like you guys. And we are in the city like you guys. But I don't know if it's been just clear lately, but we've made able to see stars, you know, like from going out of the street and stuff. Yeah. That's a little twinkling. You know what star?

You're looking to me like, what are a star? You're such a city guy. We don't have stars in my part of the city. But that's what I thought with our part of the city, which is not that far from you, but it turns out that you do possibly. Let me give you another one. Oh, I was wondering if you were going to go to that, actually.

Is that what you were thinking? No, but as soon as I played it, that's what I thought too. The Aquas de Marcos, right? E over D. Yeah. Aquas of March. Antonio Carlos Jobim. All right, I got one for you.

Basanova heavy on this podcast. That's right. Let's see. Oh, here we go. Jamiriqui, space cowboy. Ooh. Oh, come on. Busted.

Busted. Let's go. A brown. No. Not my key. Isn't that great, though, how just certain iconic sounds just take you to a certain place, you know? Yeah. Oh, yeah, I got another one for you.

Okay. Okay. Oh, yeah. Michael Jackson. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's fun. That's fun.

Okay. Oh, this is good. Okay, how about this? This might be a whole sequence here. You ready? Okay. I'll read it Franklin. Yeah. Yeah, I read the Franklin.

It's funny. I was just talking with some folks about her piano playing and how that's such a... I mean, it's not really overlooked. Everybody knew she could play, but she just excelled musically in so many areas, but I always loved her piano playing. Did you ever see that?

She obviously had such a great church feel, but she had really good technique, too. I don't know if you'd notice that. and so she could always played too yeah later in life did you see the thing at the Kennedy center with the obamas where she's playing and she's she's on the piano for the first half kill it yeah and she always had like a I could tell she had a real affinity

for the instrument you know even though people didn't see her as that first but it's that lineage of you know I put it with Shirley Horn and and you know Nina Simone of course probably Nina Simone next level in terms of piano playing just with her technique and everything but Great stuff. Let's do a few more. Let's do this.

This is really fun. We should do this on the regular. I love this. Okay. The audience has probably bored the tears, but for me, this is... No, this is fun. It's entertaining us. Okay, I've got one for you.

All right. No, I was going to go controversial a little bit. Okay. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm not controversial. I'm going into zone. I want to pick things that you never talk about so...

Okay. This is your time to needle me. Some insight here. To Adam Neely me. I don't know what that means. That's where I break it down for you very clearly with a very entertaining video. Lots of jump. cuts. You ready? Yeah. Big band.

Not a fan. I can tell by the inhale. Yeah. The inhalation. Not a fan. He's through the teeth. Okay. Now, in saying that, let me qualify this. There's some big band recordings. You love Paul Whiteman. Okay. Who? Not a fan. Actually, I don't even know. I kind of know what he represents. I'm not a fan of that. But, no, I mean, having said that, I'm a huge fan of, I should say I'm not a fan to clarify of playing in a big man.

And it's just a personal, selfish thing of me. I love big band music. I love Maria Schneider. Like current big bands, jazz at Lincoln Center, the Carnegie. I mean, there's so many great big bands. I mean, I kind of grew up watching, like, because my parents would watch the Tonight Show,

like everybody did in the early 80s and stuff. And Doc Severinson, that great big band. That sounds is a lot of my connection with jazz, and I played in a really good high school big band. So it's more of just a selfish thing that I like to be able to hear myself and to be able solo a lot. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't get any more selfish than that.

You're not Harry Conic and therefore. And I love, look, I mean, I wrote some arrangements way back. Oh, dude, that guy's big band. It's awesome. Harry Conic, big man, I love doing it. I mean, I learned so much from doing that and then hearing them play it. So I feel bad in saying not a fan, but not a fan. It's so funny, man.

Okay, let me go a little controversial on you then. All right. Okay. I'm down. Can I say a phrase? Is that okay? Sure. Okay.

Uptight classical musicians. Funny. It's funny to me. Uptight classical musicians are funny. They are. They're objectively... Life is funny. They're objectively funny people because they're taking something very, very seriously that nobody else takes seriously.

And I love it. I love classical music. Don't get me wrong. And a lot of these musicians are also excellent musicians. So I'm not dogging them on their skills. But anybody who takes themselves super seriously and is uptight about certain things, I think is hilarious. Don't you think it's hilarious? I mean, I would say the same thing for jazz snobs.

Of course. You're being absolutely ridiculous if you think that anybody cares. You know what I mean? No, I totally agree with you. What I love about this, this is brought out, as I thought it might, a serious side of you, like an Adam. I've seen a serious Adam before, but this is serious Adam with a big grin on his face as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This brings out a whole other side to you. I don't know. You're multi-layered, buddy. I have, I'm like an onion. No, but I do, you know. It's like a funian. Man, we know so many good classical musicians.

We're very lucky to, I mean, your dad is, is an orchestral musician for years and years and years, and your mom is also in that world. And we all obviously have so many great friends who are orchestral musicians. So not dog in the medium at all, obviously, it's incredible. And we should just say that most of these people you're mentioning are not uptight classical. No, no, no. But being in that. But we've also been around those.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, once you're kind of in that arena, you're around some very, it's a world that's not like any other, really. I mean, it might be if you. you were into like rare books, right? Or poetry, right? Like, if you got into that world, like, you'd see some very, I mean, it's just like the... It's not anything that you could possibly nerd out on, but I think with classical musicians then I think of the times when there's a certain mob mentality, often with orchestras

when you, they might only be a little bit of, and it's similar with big bands, too. Like, the larger the ensemble, it can become like a thing because everybody's energy feeds off of, you know, for good and for bad. I mean, look, an orchestra, a jazz orchestra, or a classical, or a classical, There's nothing like the power of that. We play the piano and we think we can achieve that because we can play all those notes. But there's nothing like a group of overly primed and primed, overly paid and overly edgy classical musicians killing it, though.

I mean, that's powerful, you know. It is powerful. But yeah, the completely over-the-top, snoddy. And like I said, and this does not exclude actually other genres. No, not one. There's a whole class of musicians in New York that I also think are hilarious that take themselves. Studio musicians, jazz music. Yeah.

Studio musicians can be very. But it is. The more that you have. So I'm thinking about like situations when I've really come across an angry mob of edgy classical musicians has been performing with orchestras when there's something environmentally that goes downhill. Oh, that's so great. Where there's about to be a little bit of moisture into the air. Like you could feel the vibe coming up like we are leaving. Which I understand.

You've got expensive instruments and overly primped egos and the whole thing. You see I'm getting these little digs in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But I love that. And then some of them are stopping and they're looking each other like, we're leaving here and we're taking our classical music and get the hell out of here, you know. That's wonderful, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. It's wonderful. Especially when you grow up in like bars and jazz clubs and dingy rock clubs that you're just like have a foot of beer coming up from the floor. Right. Right. The flood's already started. Yeah. All right.

Let's do one more. Let's do one more. Should we go next level? Yeah. Let me think about, yeah, I had a good one just in mind just a second ago. Okay, okay. Okay. All right.

Back into the zone. I'm entering the zone. Country music. Western music. So you're, you go straight to a blues brother of pun. Exactly. That's understandable. Well, I'm always like country and western, really?

Or country or western. Country and Western. Are those three different genres? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Country and Western. We like both kinds.

Is that? Yeah. Now, are you familiar with the Luvon brothers? The Loovin brothers? Yeah, the Luvin brothers. Let me make sure I'm saying this. This is some of the killinous country music. And I'm trying to remember who it might have been my dad.

Luvian brothers. This is like some OG country. I don't even know if you call it country or if you call it Western. Luvian, L-O-V-L-U. Is this bluegrass? Because your dad loves bluegrass. No, no, it's not bluegrass. They're from Alabama.

Oh, bluegrass musicians actually are on par with some of the classical musicians for being snooty. Can I just say that as far as hilarious? Right, right. They're just like us, us jazz musicians. as far as being snobs. I love it. They've got a certain amount of gospel, not necessarily the kind of gospel

we thrive on. I don't know this, man. I'll check it out. That's country, right? Yeah, for sure. Listen that slapback telecaster. Is this that you'll hear a podcast? That's terrific.

I just want to put it out there. These dudes are good. I'm looking at them. These are some white boys from Alabama. I mean, emphasis on white. You think me and Adam are white. These dudes are.

But I mean, it's like, that kind of country music I really like. For sure. And I'd love to explore more the connections with blue. It's not bluegrass though. And it's not like Missouri fiddling music, which my dad does a lot of now. Yeah,

there's a lot of... He's not even from here, but yeah. It's what's so cool, actually, about fiddle music is that there's different folk schools all around the country. It's pretty great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Luvin brothers, that's some fun stuff.

I'm going to check it out. That sounds great, man. Yeah. Love it. Yep. Ira and Charlie Lovin. A little surprise about those names to Ira, but hey, you know,

no relation to the brothers or cousins to John D. Loudermilk a Nashville songwriter Hall of Fame Loudermilk That's a great last name

I've never heard than last name or Louder Milk Louder Milk in my life I know Fire and Brimstone gospel music Yeah

My dad must have told me about He used to talk about these Like North Carolina Yeah like North Carolina Fire and Brimstone Snake Wait would always be like

Oh those are snake snake handlers Snake handlers That's what he called He's like the tent In the revival tent with the snake handler Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah.

All right, so I think I got one more for you. Okay. I'm excited about this. Okay, this is now, you in the zone. All right. Got it. Okay. Okay.

Mitch Miller. So I had to first just recall who that was. Mitch Miller. Obo. I think, that's right, didn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

so let's try to do that again do that again because now that Mitch Miller goatee that's the first thing that came to mind it's goate yeah yeah yeah so that's a little fun thing because we had on the sash a portly man with a goate yeah yeah he was he portly I don't know that's what I have in my mind he looked like kind of in my mind he looked like the the boss in men in black who is that ripped torn yes yeah exactly kind of looked like yeah exactly so yeah he played those those I'd like to call him beautiful solos oh solos, I believe, on

didn't he, or he was conducting. Charlie Parker with strings. Charlie Parker was strings. Yeah, might have even arranged. Anyway, Mitch Miller. He just was, when I looked up Lovin Brothers, it was also like people also search for. So when I looked up Loving Brothers, Google tells me people also search for Hank

Williams, Nat King Cole, Marion Anderson, and Mitch Miller. The obo is one of those instruments. You've got to be so good at it, Mitch. Yeah. In that context. In that context. Anyway, well, this was fun and random. We went everything from, um,

Man Bud Powell and much Mitch Mitch Mitch Miller Dude this was great I want to do this again And do some I want to do some

musical variations of this I have some ideas for this This is really fun I feel like I know more about you than I ever have Really? Uh Huh

Are you gonna do a little freestyle Just on the piano buddy I can't You know I had to actually This is not This is not safe for work kids But I used to have to smoke A lot of substances

A lot of on Green Dolphin Street No way, way worse than that. Please don't talk about that. Come on. Yeah, this is what I'm saying. Adam Annis. Peter's going in again. Smoking. Not the doobie, but the doobage. What?

Back in the day, it wasn't legal. It was recreational. I wish this was video. Mitch Miller. Felix Slatkin, Mario Lanzah. These are all folks that Google has connected to Hank Williams and the Lovin brothers. not those kind of brothers

real brothers not brothers but brothers mothers mothers brothers Andrew cut that long out don't cut out Andrew you'll hear it