You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Mind of Oscar Peterson

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

Join Adam and Peter as they geek out on the mesmerizing talent of the Oscar Peterson trio. Immerse yourself in the mastery of OP, exploring his incredible playing and leadership. Don't miss the chance to experience jazz through the lens of Oscar Peterson.↓ Links from the pod ↓Oscar and EllaCurious about our Mentor Sessions? Have 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

You, Adam. Yes. I think I have something that may be of interest to you. Would that be something you might be interested in? I don't know yet. Well, let me just throw a few names out there for you. Okay. Oscar Peterson.

Yes. Okay. Herb Ellis. Yes. Ray Brown. Yes. Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Yes.

Well, I've got something for you, buddy. Let's do it. Okay. I'm Adam Anas. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at Podcast. Music advice coming at you. Coming at you.

Today, sponsored by Open Studio. Go to OpenStudiojazz.com to take a deeper dive. Yes. On our new jazz piano needs. Absolutely. We've been having some exciting things happening at the Open Studio Jazz community. Oh, man. Did you check out Aaron Park's mentor session a couple weeks ago?

It was so awesome. It was incredible. Yeah. I mean, there was stuff like to practice, like some of his concepts that he laid out. I mean, it's stuff that I think I've heard before. I know I've heard it before. But the way he combines them and then it just, It's very inspiring.

It's very inspiring. We've got Taylor Agsty coming up. Yeah. In about it. We've got Aalvaez this week. Don't sleep on your Open Studio membership and come to these mentor sessions. They're so much fun. Every Friday.

Every Friday. Yeah. You've been known to do one every now and then as well. A couple of them. Yeah. That's a few. Yeah. Okay.

So what I thought would be fun today is if we listened to something that I just got hip to last night. Like I've never seen this before. Okay. At least that I remember. It's Oscar. I already threw it out there. I killed all the drama of it. Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, and Ray Brown.

And some other folks, too, we're not even going to get that far into it. But we're going to be checking out this trio, the drummerless, the wonderful Oscar Peterson drummerless trio. That's not what makes it wonderful that it's drummerless, but it is. I do love the Oscar Peterson drummerless trio, specifically with Ray Brown and Herb Ellis. I think it's one of the great trios. And also, the guitar piano trio is really underrepresented in today's scene. It's a great sound.

Yeah, it really, it really is. And I think for this venue, we're going to discover on this beautiful video, First of all, shout out Kelly Martin, the wonderful, beautiful, illustrious, intelligent, and my life partner, Kelly Martin, because she hit me to this video last night at about 11 p.m. So it's ended up staying up quite a bit past my bedtime and watching this. But isn't YouTube great? I mean, YouTube give it. I know that sometimes it takes us as well.

But in this case, you do. Yes, Peter, it's 2008 and YouTube is great. Well, no, I mean, the fact that we have access, do you know what I would have killed to get, no, I would, sorry. I would not have killed anyone to get access to this. Just a figure of speech. But I mean, when I was coming up, listening to the records to be able to see these videos. And look, we could.

I had a little thing called a laser disc. I didn't have one. Well, you were. I had access to one. I didn't even have access to one, actually. But I saw them. I peruse them. I was laser disc adjacent back in the early 80s.

Let's put it that way. And I saw some VHSs in different things. You saw some VHSs back in the 80s, did you? I mean, I'm jazz, but I don't know about Oscar Peterson. Just ever. I want our listeners to note that in the 1980s, Peter saw some VHSs. I never actually put them into a machine. And I don't know if you guys picked that up, but he is laser disc adjacent.

See, this is why we do the podcast a little later. What we lose in sunlight, we gain in humor. It's really throwing off our balance. So the listeners can't see, but for everybody on YouTube, you might notice that our beautiful background is now a black curtain because it's... It got too bright outside. It's too bright outside. If St. Louis has any faults this time of year, it's too sunny.

We need team. from sunshine. I know. Drapare's in here. We need to improve that. But anyway, Kelly hit me to this last night, and it's such an inspiring thing.

And look, let's just play it. I'm going to pull it up right here. And that's Norman Grants, or Norman Grants, or Norman Grants. I'm not sure. But the famous jazz imprisario,

and I believe was at this time, also Oscar Peterson and Ele Fitzgerald, who appears later in this, and Ray Brown, all their managers, as well, the presenter,

the booking agent. It might have been a little bit of conflict of interest, but it was a different time. We're not going to talk about that. But the idea is that he put together these concerts. I believe it was like Charlie Parker with strings at Carnegie Hall. A lot of really early, big-time jazz presentations. Didn't he bring Oscar down when Oscar was still a teenager?

Could be. Norman. That sounds right. Yeah. I know he was instrumental in his career. But this is a cool venue. This is a concertabal in Amsterdam. I believe I'm saying that right, concert de cabal.

And in Amsterdam. And check it out. So he's bringing up the band, the first trio. We've ever seen our show will recognize the great pianist, Oscar Peterson. And this venue's great. I played there before. The dressings are still up there. You have to walk through the audience because the dressings are up at that behind the audience.

That's so cool. Yeah. No lid on the piano, which you see here. I think he already introduced way down. The Oscar Peterson Trio. Yeah, already. Look at that setup. That's amazing, man.

They are close to a end. It's like my dream setup. This huge hall, everybody's surrounding you, amazing. Great Robbis comes with a perfect bow and intonation. Just bam right up the bat. Joy Spring. That is a nice tempo. That is an easy tempo on Joy Spring.

Wow. But check it out. You hear, he's tapping, I think it's Oscar Peters, I'm sure, is tapping his foot, which is super like steady and surprisingly loud. But the way that they're all playing is so, so relaxed, but it's like right in there in that group, but you can hear that tapping. Uh, half step. Or they're playing it in E.

It was a long time ago. I doubt he's playing it in E. A lot of time just bam like that. For those of you who don't know, Oscar Peterson was a, a obsessive rehearser, apparently. They used to rehearse after their gigs in clubs. Right. Is that union approved? No, not union approved.

Till like, you know, the break of dawn, they would rehearse for hours after they had just played a concert. Yeah. So this was, you know, one of the tightest groups in the land at the time.

Yeah, and I mean, Ray Brown, it's just like a textbook, pizicado and Boeing and segue back and forth, textbook technique and just vibe the whole thing.

Herbell is killing it as we're going to see. Oh. Why does this sound better than a lot of current recordings? Some wild. Oh. Hello, Ray Brown.

I mean, the solo and, of course, this Oscar. Ray Brown's like, oh, it's so good. No, he's over. Greatest corner note.

Push in a little bit. And you see Herbell, he's just like quarter notes. He's kind of Freddie greening it, but it's just like. His voicing's and voice leading specifically on his high notes really help inform. Yeah. You know. And he's writing that right, really. He's so, like, checking out.

He's like checking out the register that he's in or he's moving around. They're so locked in. And I mean, Ray Brown, everyone was like. I play it too far in front of the beat. A little bit on top of the beat, but it's so well. I mean, better on top than behind in this context, I think.

And I would just say this. I hate to even stop this guy. I hate to talk over it, though. No, but it's like, so Ray Brown is a little on top of the beat. Herbales perhaps is right on the beat, maybe even a tad behind. Yeah. But this is an important thing for like thinking about,

especially when we play in a little bit more exposed trio situation without drums and without, like typically we're thinking about the rhythm section really is the, with bass and the drums, right? So now it becomes kind of everybody's thing, but if you even hear the way Oscar Peterson is solo, it's different than if he's playing with Ed Thickman, right? And so you've got the rhythm section,

becomes bass and guitar. And like the way, it's the same way, like the symbol doesn't always have to be, dang, like the bass can be a little on top of it. Like you heard that with PC and Philly Jones the other way maybe. Yeah. Like, you know, that's a very exciting kind of thing.

Like you can be in the group without being metronomic precision of approaching the beat. In fact, that's where you have that interesting swing humanity that happens, I think. For sure. And now her all just kind of breaking up the copying, what kind of repeated pattern? I do comb his hair. Well. What?

What is happening? Aye, yie. That's ridiculous. That is ridiculous. So it just, what's the most amazing part about all of that fast? Passaging things that were happening there. Fast passage. That fast passage was, it wasn't just him running his fingers and playing fast.

He's playing actual ideas. Yes. Like actual musical themes and ideas that are, that are just speeding up the. They're just happening in insane speed. That's incredible to see. It's so great. And I mean, look, he's sweating, but like his whole mannerisms are like so relaxed. Every drop of sweat is earned here.

Yeah. Like look at that. It's like all of the physical effort, everything is directly, this economy of motion. It's still super relaxed in his hands. Look at that. His legs are just like, uh, uh, uh, picking his hand up to play those chords. Yeah. Right into the arrangement, to the segue.

And the dynamics, you know, I've played in that room before. It's a little challenging for drums, actually, so this is a great kind of setup. I can imagine how great a sign. Hey. our solo there you go he'll be back hey that's a great arrangement man uh surprises everywhere like he's setting up expectations that's a great i think they required suits at this gig apparently yeah that's a well-dressed crowd right there great suits the night and so the band suits for the audience different time we keep going a little bit more can we yes please who's kid is that

I think it's Papa Joe Jones. Okay. Yeah. Wait, it is. There's going to be some other. They're all within two feet of each other. Yeah. And the audience at the conscript about is behind as well.

Theater in the round, we call it in the biz. So I would just, I want to put something out there. So criticisms of Oscar Peterson that I hear. He's just chops. He's just technique. The Jazz Olympics, I've heard. It's the Jazz Olympics. And so obviously, like, you can't refute that by saying, oh, no, it's not that

because his technique is off the charts. objectively. It is that. What I would say is what I get out of this. And look, YMMV, we're going to bring that back. Your mileage may vary. But to me, what, you know, how he channels that is into a very positive place in terms of like he's able to express and with the kind of level of nuances with the other types of things that are not just agility based at an even higher level because he has this amazing technique. If you check out his dynamics, the weight of how he does is how he voices things out.

that's all part of technique that he's also taking advantage of. And so, yes, at times he plays very fast. As you just heard in that other arrangement, there's times when he's playing very slow and he's going back and forth. So to me, the nuanced approach, it opens up a world. Like he never, to me, is relying on just chops in the traditional sense.

I think a lot of his sort of detractors are going on the fact that there's so many bad imitators of what he's trying to do here. There's so many people like... learn one of his licks and then... Yeah, or just trying to, like, get the sound. And it's kind of corny when it's not done right. But whenever I hear him, especially when he's in this zone, which there are some live

recordings where you're just like, he's in another level. Yeah. And then almost any of his studio albums. Like, I think Oscar's one of these musicians, and there are a few who I would put, like, Roy Hargrove, I would put Oscar. I would put, in a sense, even Miles. Their live recordings are almost better than any studio. record that they made because they are so in tune with the audience and they're getting energy

from the audience. And to me, Oscar Peterson is one of those players where every time I hear a live recording of him, I love it even more than his greatest studio recordings. Agreed. I agree for sure. Plus, I think some people coming down on him, just like my mama told me, there's going to be haters. Oh, boy. But everybody's technique is like kind of off the charts right now. It's not just Oscar. It's fast. Look at where Ray Brown is walking and like how he's moving up and down. It's really. the registers. You know, the other thing is like,

I mean, it's so, it's so like, it is the Olympics. It is very athletic, but like the way that Oscar Peterson is playing physically is not like that. Like there's an effortless look to it, you know. What is it? Oh, right.

Right. That was a big circle we went on there. You know what I'm saying? But it's not like he's not, he's actually minimized. Like, if you look at what he was doing without, like check this out. We're going to go mute it.

here. Okay. Check this out. It's very compelling. It doesn't seem like... Audio. Well, if you're not watching now, I'm playing the video.

He's... Everybody's incredibly relaxed, even though this... Yeah, it looks like they might be playing kind of slowly, or... I mean, you can tell he's moving, but like,

like, everything could be like right on here, right? It's not frantic, it's not stressed. No. But then, bam. It's still not frantic, boy, it's very fast. I don't see any tension in his shoulders. Ray Brown, too.

Smooth as silk there. Look at that. Right. hand. He's moving so he does. What a sound. And Herb Ellis too. It's ridiculous. He's locked in right now. That's very hard. You don't see a lot of trios doing that at these tempos, like those kind of tight arrangements. You know what? I actually reminded me of like some burning bluegrass bands that would do like a big tight shout chorus like that. And it's got that same kind of like D'adaviv. Amazing. And so good. So good. All right. I give it an

A plus. A plus. I'll put it at S tier. S tier. Don't even know what that means, but I'm on board. Whatever you want to put it on as long as it's top level. That's really good. Well, until next time.

You'll hear it. Dang. We heard it. We heard it, yo.