You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Good, the Bad, & the Annoying: Musicians Who Sing While They Play - S3E44

Episode Date: February 28, 2019

Today, PM & AM discuss jazz musicians that sing what they play, and whether or not it improves or detracts from the performance.If any of these tunes caught your ear, you can listen to them in their entirety on our Spotify playlist.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.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. What's going on, my brother? I'm Adam Manus. And I am Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily, you jazz advice coming at you. Okay, we should not be singing. We are not. But we are talking about singing. We're talking about singing today.

The title of this episode is The Good, the Bad, and the Annoying. Musicians who sing what they play. Right. And I was giving a tour of Open Studio the other day to one of our... You opened up the studio. opened up the studio to one of our members, Justin, who was in town and reached out. And it was great to meet. It's always great to meet. I didn't know we gave tours. We don't usually, but I was kind of in a good mood. I was in a generous mood. And Justin was very nice. And so we were talking about,

I think we were talking about Keith Jarrett. And he's like, you should do that on the podcast. You do musicians who sing while they play. And I thought that was a great idea. So it's funny, too, because I feel like there's a spectrum of this, right? There's people who do it intentionally. Yep. And then there's people who don't do it intentionally. Yeah. I think like Keith Jarrett kind of just happens.

Yep. As well as some, not just singing, but other vocalizations, you know, the, oh. Right, the groans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of stuff, which is fun. What I think from, from the listener, from the listener standpoint, isn't there sort of a demarcation, like a line between those that are singing and it's pleasurable to hear them singing, whether they're on mic or it's just part of it

and those that sing and it can potentially be annoying and I think that in the title that you've crafted that might be the kind of thing. But you know what? I am not... Is it binary like that? I think, I don't know if it is because I'm not as annoyed by this as everybody else seems to be. Even when players are making vocalizations not... It doesn't bother me if it's genuine.

You know what I mean? I genuinely think Keith Jared is receiving information from aliens and that's what? Passing through his body out through his hands and it's causing his vocal cords to vibrate. What he's talked about, like, he needs to do that to do. I mean, it's a very pretentious sounding thing if you're not as good as he is.

And if the product isn't as good, I mean, it's just like anything, it's like if a chef is super annoying and it's like, you can't sit there, you can't, you gotta know that you gotta do all these rules and you're like, what, but then the meal is amazing. You're like, you're willing to forgive a lot of that. And I agree, I mean, with Keith Jared,

I've heard him several times live and then obviously, you know, the live recordings. I think most of the studio recordings, they kind of control, well, you actually, you can hear some of the, that like facing you and different things never bother me me neither i mean the playing's great so we have a spotify playlist andrew's going to include the link to the playlist in the the comments here or in the description and we have some examples of of the good the bad and the annoying and we're going to start off with

what i think is absolutely my favorite example of someone who sings while they play they do it all the time they did it all the time yeah and it's so sweet and it's slam stewart bassist i mean it's just so happening check it out i mean he's He's talking the whole time, man. I must get ahead to the solo. He's in that octave above the bass. How great is that? It's awesome.

How great is that? And I mean, you know, you can really hear him. You can't even really say that the vocalizing is leading the bass plan because they're together, but the melodic idea and just like everybody's a singer. You know, and I always learned that kind of coming up. He's a pretty good singer too. So having it kind of up there in the mix and hearing it along with those, his intonations so good bass-wise and vocally that it just, works together. I think it's such a cool sound. Yeah. And it's great. So our next one, I think, is not intentional. Okay. This is Oscar Peterson, who didn't do this a lot. No. But sometimes he would

get so into it that he would just start making some noises. This is, I think this is a recording we've listened to on the podcast before. This is from live at the Stratford. On Avon. No. This is how high the moon. And he plays a kill-in solo, but he gets so into it, the grunts become audible. You can hear him singing along. Yep. not necessarily in pitch no no he was I mean in rhythm though

he gets he gets going yeah yeah so I think yeah I mean in a way that's kind of more what Keith Jared is kind of coming out of I think I mean it's like a cross between that and Slam Stewart maybe I don't know no I agree I think he's he's just

feeling it so much Keith yeah Keith is well you know what let's just go right to Keith let's go right to Keith so this is Bop B from live at the Blue Note great tune by the yeah It's a different way of recording the piano. Skip ahead a little bit. It's kind of coming out of the Oscar thing a little bit.

It is a little bit, yeah. I mean, it's right in there, you know. Yeah, I mean, he's, just the quality of his voice is a little bit more annoying. It is. It's not his fault. Because it's a little like, eh. And then he goes, he does the. I never mind it, though.

I don't either. I never mind it. It annoys the hell out of some people. I know. I don't care. No. But it's like the friends. praising of what he's playing, like if that's helping that out.

And you kind of feel like it does. I mean, I know I've heard him say that, but you really can feel that. And look, he played... Sorry, I don't need to talk on top of it. I'm hoping to get one good... Oh! Yeah, because that's different. That's the transmission from the alien.

Yeah, that's more of like a self-woe or whatever. Bad stuff after that. I've been known to do... Not like on that level, but I also don't play on that level. But the thing about it is, you know, Oscar Peterson, I mean, all these players are very... lyrical players. I think Keith Jared from a pianistic standpoint, he's sort of known, we know him as being able to control the instrument in such a lyrical and swinging way that, um, that, you know, in singing,

I think he makes that connection. Some people can do it without vocalizing it all. He has to kind come out, but whatever. I mean, the, the, the lyricalness is there in the playing. It's awesome. Let's give the drummer some. All right. Ooh, our blakey, huh? Yeah. Our blakey just would talk too, though. You're talking. Talking. That's so good too, right? Like a marching band fill with hip.

Oh. I love that. Yeah, yeah. He's kind of just grunt. I mean, his grunts sound like his playing. Now, I think a lot of drummers actually do this more than we realize, but you just don't hear it because it's the drums. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's just a physical, I mean, all these are physical instruments, but the drums is like, you know, but I remember seeing him live in New York in, like the late 80s and stuff, and he would just like, ah! And Elvin. Elvin was a big, big launcher. Yeah. Okay, so the next two gentlemen,

they did this as part of their sound. Yeah. They're both guitarists. And this is kind of a thing with guitarists. And the first is the king. Mr. George Benson. This masquerade is from a live recording. He's just a straight-up singer now.

Now you're cheating. But this is part of George Benson's sound. He doesn't do this all the time, but it's definitely his thing. Sounds awesome. And he's just phrasing it right together. No problem. No problem.

And he can sing. Yeah. And yeah. So he has an incredible voice. He's got obviously the best voice we've heard so far just as a vocalist. I mean, he is a vocalist. Yeah. And but he has that ability, and I've seen him do this live, really start to play around with it.

Like he treats, it's like three different instruments. There's just the guitar. There's just him singing, improvising, or singing. And then there's playing together. And then he'll go in and out of those and play with it, almost like he's trading with himself and stuff. I mean, he's got, it's the whole thing. It really is. Yeah, this would not be part of the, from the title, The Ugly, for sure.

No, this is the good. This would be the good. All of these are the good, man. All of them are good. It's all good. It's all good. We're going to get emails, but that's fine. Snarky puppy's all good, too.

Okay, so our last one is a modern player and part of his sound as well. This is Kurt Rosenwinkel, and this is what I consider a classic Chivago. Playing is it such an hour. It's such a great tune, too. I'm going to skip ahead to the solo. The thing with him is he actually has a cool voice. Like it's a very mellow kind of voice that fits with his tone so perfectly. That is bad.

Yeah. No, I forgot about that. He can actually sing, too. That is bad. Yeah. I mean, but again, he's playing great. I haven't listened to that record in a long time. I need to check that again.

The next step is the album. I mean, I could pull out some recordings of some bad saxophone players singing along. You would not be as excited. I can tell you that. I would not be. No. No. Well, you know, send us your favorite people that,

sing. I know we left off a ton of folks who vocalized good, bad, and ugly. Yeah. And beautiful. Maybe down the YouTube comments. Down the YouTube comments. You can send us an email. You can send us a message over at you'll hear it.com. All right. That's going to get lost. I mean, let's be honest with it. It's going to get lost. We check

everything, man. We don't check. Andrew checking things. Put it in the YouTube comments so everyone can see. All right, cool. Yeah. All right. Well, until next time. You'll hear it. You'll hear it.