You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Most Inspirational Musician Of His Generation

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Adam and Peter check dive deep into the musicianship of Brian Blade and try to break down just what makes him so special.Check out Brian Blade and the fellowship right here.  Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Instagram

Hello, my name is Peter Martin, and this is my friend Adam Manus. You're listening to the jazzy fabulous and fantastic reclucent podcast called You'll Hear It. This is suspicious. Why? It doesn't seem as... Does not compute? First of all, I'm not going to leave this chat, GPD, if you're putting on a robot voice, Peter. I'm Adam Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to You'll Hear It, Chat, GPD. AI has taken over jazz commentary. Music and technological advice coming at you. I love how we... It's like howl. It's like Hal meets Lewis Armstrong here. Remember how?

From 2001 Space Odyssey, yeah. Yeah, our technological prowess is stuck in the year 2001, I think. Well, yeah. Well, we've been getting into Chad GPT. You've been going all in on chat GPT. There's no all in. It's just you either

sign up for an account and ask it a question or you're scared to do that. So just to be clear. There's two different types of people. Neither's right and neither's wrong. I was correct, right? That's not chat. No, I was doing a joke because the last introduction was, it's funny because a lot of people,

okay, so if you guys didn't hear the last, that was it the last episode or maybe two ago? Yeah. Recent episode, I did an extended intro, cold open, as we call it in the business, but it was a warm open because it was actually written. This is the podcasting business? Sure. Welcome to the pod. Much love, fam.

So, no, I did an extended intro that was derived. It wasn't derived. It was provided by chat GPT3, which is actually, you know, it's chat GPT 4 now. So it's even better. I should have got a new version. But basically, I asked it for an introduction to our podcast. And it gave a pretty good, I mean, we improvised it. So that was one advantage that we have over it.

But that was just a little joke what I just did. But if you want to go back and listen to the previous episode, you can hear the whole chat GPT provided intro. I mean, I feel like eventually this podcast is just going to be all AI provided commentary. We should do that. We should do an episode where we do that. No, we have it provide everything, the back and forth and the banter and everything. Okay. Yeah, let's do that.

Next episode. No, we'll get on it. We'll get on it. Okay. Tune in for that. What are we talking about today? Well, today we're talking about. Because this is not going to be AI generated.

This is going to be human generated. This is definitely human generated. And this is, this, what we're talking about today, I don't think we'll ever be able to fully be recreated by AI because we're going to talk about, um, inspiration Sort of some incredible inspiration from what I think is one of the most inspirational musicians of our generation. And this might be a little weird for you, Peter, because you know this person. Personally, you've played with them a bunch. But for me, when I think about, you know, inspiring musicians like Wayne Shorter, who we just lost a couple weeks ago, this person comes to mind in that same level of inspiration for me in which every time I hear them and I see them play,

I leave inspired to play and to be freer and more engaged with, you know, the internal voice of music that I have. Some people, you watch them play or you listen to them play and you leave either feeling like, oh man, I really got a shed because I'm not good enough to hang with this person or I really have to, I really want to work on that stuff. I want to be the exact opposite of that because it was whatever. But this person, every time I hear them and see them live, I leave feelings. feeling inspired, enriched, ready to play. Like, I want to jump in there and just do what they're doing. And that's a very rare musician. This is a, you know, the handful of people that I feel like that about.

And so today we're just going to sort of indulge in the inspiring playing of the great Brian Barry Stiles. Oh, sorry. Harry Stiles is inspiring in his own way. But Brian Blade. Yeah, Brian Blade. Brian Blade. And it had to be a drummer.

I don't know why we can't have some pianists up in here like this. No. You know, it's interesting hearing that was very informative the way you just described, Brian, and I wrote down the word inclusivity, which is kind of a, you know, a little bit of a catchphrase and a buzzword now. But I think that that, I've never thought about it like that, but his playing, his music, certainly the fellowship band that he's fronted for many years that we're going to listen to a little bit today. I think has a very, I mean, there's a lot of amazing things happening. We'll talk about the musical things, and Brian is an amazing drummer and composer.

But I think there's a level of inclusivity to his music on, and it's manifested on many different layers in his drumming. And I can say from playing with him a lot, especially during kind of our formative years. I think we're the exact same age. I know we're both born in 1970. And so I got a chance to play with Brian a lot

from like early 20s through mid-20s, late-20s and beyond. But especially during that period, I can say that he always had. that spirit in terms of as a rhythm section playing of inclusivity that I think you know we say that all great rhythm section players have that but it's to varying degrees and by that by the inclusivity in that case I mean that he's very giving but he's also very welcoming into what he's doing and so like there's that energy kind of transfers and I think what you're talking about is at another level that's maybe even more important in terms of inclusivity to the creative process and the sharing of creativity

you mentioned like you being more inspired to go do music, not even necessarily like him, I don't think, but your own thing. So there's like inspiration, but in order to get to that, there's an inclusivity to one's playing. There's not like a fence around Bryant's playing. Physically, the way he looks when he plays,

I realized because people would always be like, oh my God, he looks like people would describe the joy they have and watching him play. And I was always like, is that the way he looks or the way he sounds? I don't know, just because I played with him so much during that period. I was just like, it's just Brian. You know, yeah, it sounds great.

He's incredible. knew all the musical nuances and the fun things and the way that would inspire me to be able to play in the moment. But I never totally got all the different levels. When you're real close to something, sometimes you don't understand it until you get back and then you look at it. You're like, oh, okay. But I think that that inviting in terms of like how he plays a symbol, how he sets up an arrangement, how he had this band for so many years play these extended pieces with these different sections and these ebbs and flows, but there was, I don't know, I just think the inclusivity of what he does and how, even to the point of like different styles.

That's exactly right. You know, he's very inclusive of like many things on the drums. And then a lot of different kinds of instruments and styles. It's not just like, oh, he can play like Max Roach and the New Orleans drummers and Elvin Jones. Like, you can hear those influences for sure. And I know the stuff he listened to. But his listening was always very eclectic and inclusive.

inclusive, very informed, very nuanced. And so, you know, his technique is amazing, his musicality. So it's not surprising because he's got this open-mindedness, but also this fastidiousness about the drums and about like how a symbol sounds, you know, and like how this symbol is like set up on. Like he's very specific, but in a way to get a sound that he wants to get that does invite people in, I think. Yeah, I love that you mentioned open because he's open to sort of all possibilities and he's engaged with the sound that he's making. He's engaged with the members of the van that he's playing with whomever that is. And he's engaged with the audience. And he's also engaged with all of the music that he's obviously ingested. And for me, that's one of the most

inspiring things. Peter, you know, like, I'm the kind of musician that I like to sort of walk in the cracks between genres. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I have always not struggled with, but there's always been a question of like, ah, you know, I can play straight ahead and I get a lot of work playing straight ahead. Should I be playing more straight ahead? Should I be playing less? And he seems to just go seamlessly in and out. And there is no, there is no idea of a should or I'm in, I'm this kind of drummer. He's playing guitar with Nora Jones. He's like, you know, playing with all these, you know, Joni Mitchell and all these pop and country artists and things like that. And then he'll play like, you know, with his band, The Fellowship, which is sort of genreless and unclassifiable

with Charles Lloyd. And then he'll be in Wayne Shorters band doing that stuff. He'll play for 20 plus years. For 20 plus years, he'll play with Joshua Redmond doing some sort of groove stuff. I saw him play with you and Chris Thomas a couple years ago at the Bistro here doing your trio stuff, sort of revisiting some of that stuff from your youth. A lot of straight ahead stuff in that. He's just crushing on. Yeah. And so it's like that to me is one of the most inspiring things.

He's so comfortable with himself. He weaves it seamlessly. Like there's no separation between him as a person, him as an artist, drums, other instruments, you know, straight ahead music, pop music, anything like that groove. anything, there's no, it seems like it's just seamless and it's really inspiring. Like that makes me want to go reach for that, that kind of awareness, for that kind of intensity. For sure, for sure. Like kind of openness, that kind of commitment to being open and accepting of everything that's coming in and out. Yeah. And thinking back to it now, you know, Brian was always, like,

even when we were young, you know, and I think I met him first. I know I met him in 1990. So we were like 19, 20 years old. And he always, like that was really like sort of the, the apex of the young lions period. And we were all, actually, we played in a band the next year called the Jazz Futures 2. Hey. Together. The Jazz Futures 2. Yeah, you know about this?

Oh, come on, man. That was a flash of the pad, baby. Was there a three? Bird out. No, that's what I say. No, Jazz Futures 1 was 1991. Who is that? That was Christian McBride.

Okay. Roy Hargrove. Benny Green. Katie. Carl Allen. Hello. Marlon Jordan. Wow.

Mark Whitfield. Hey. I believe Tim Warfield. Some young lions. Yeah. And I'm probably forgetting a couple others based. I don't know. But that, yeah, that's the ones I can remember it.

That was jazz. Actually, I was asked to be in jazz. This is for another episode. Anyway, I was asked and then non-asked to be jazz. We got to hear that story eventually. Yeah. But then they did the next year. It was supposed to be an annual thing.

But it turns out, like, the whole young lions wearing suits that jazz festival sing fizzled out quicker than they thought. Interesting. No, but the next year, we did Jazz Futures 2, or as we called it, Jazz Futures T-O-O-2, the afterthought. Right. This was Nicholas Payton, Brian Blade, Chris Thomas, Ronald Westray on trombone, Herb Harris, who kind of faded off the scene, amazing tenor player and just kind of did some great

things, but then did some other things, I guess. And I'm probably forgetting somebody else. Oh, sorry. Maybe somebody else. Even you overlooked jazz futures too. Exactly. I know. Yeah, we were like, I know.

I'm like, wait, was there, was, anyway. So, no, that was everybody, Nicholas, because there's three horns. So that was, you know, when Brian was very associated with this, you know, the straight ahead stuff, like all of us. And we were kind of like young and dogmatic and like, yeah, we're out here to swing. Yeah, yeah. You're learning music. Yeah. Yeah.

But Brian even then was like way more open. than we were. I mean, he was already like talking about Joni Mitchell and stuff and I was like, oh, man, that's like, we're above that. And he was like, man, you got to check this out. And like, Stevie Wonder. Like, we really bonded over Stevie Wonder too because I had been listening to Stevie Wonder. But Brian was one of the first people that really got me thinking about Stevie Wonder like within, like, in just more of an inclusive way within, and not as a separate thing. He never really had these like separations, you know. It's amazing. Yeah. And so it was just, it was a really fun period. And then he also, So like the straight-ahead thing was really his, you know, kind of origins that a lot of people, I mean, people know it, but whatever.

But also, he's really one of the foremost New Orleans drummer. He's not from, he's from Louisiana. He's from Shreveport, yeah. But he came to New Orleans and went to school. And really is one of the great, I mean, you talk about the younger, young middle-agedish, you know, Stanton Moore and Shannon Powell and, I mean, all the different great New Orleans. I mean, Brian is right there within that, even though he kind of left New Orleans. But in terms of, like, coming out of that style, it doesn't get any better. Well, let's get to listening to this.

Okay. We have, somehow we have a 20-minute song here that has two million YouTube views. And I'm not sure how only Brian Blade could pull this off. But this is from a live performance from Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band, which is a lot of amazing musicians and some friends of the show here. Chris Thomas on bass. Yeah, named the Chris Thomas on bass. John Coward. John Coward.

Yeah, amazing pianist John Coward. And this is from a whole band. workshop actually. Yeah, yeah, this is a 20 minute long song with many different parts and I think we can probably find some cool highlights here. But this just to me, it really highlights the kind of musician he is in a short amount of time here. And right off the bat, this is going to this is going to be a four hour episode if we analyze every five seconds like this. But this is the kind of nuanced, you know, really mastery that Brian had even, I mean, this was maybe 10 years ago, whatever, but he's always had

and what makes it so fun for him and this is what I was saying like I'm so, I always think about how fun it is to play with Brian and I almost forget about how fun it is to listen to him. Oh yeah.

You know what I mean? But it says that kind of inclusivity. Check out what he's playing with his right hand and this is a great angle on the ride symbol but then on his alternative ride that's not really a crash I don't think

but he's using his left hand to play along with the baseline. This is some advanced stuff. First of all, that. Spending two minutes on the first note, Peter. Come on, man. We got to watch it.

I mean, the way he's playing that, that's a bit, like, that's playing the drums like a musician, you know, and I know we take that for granted, but it's an important thing. Like, you're setting the tone, the details. Ah. Playing for the saxons as well. His touch. His touch.

I think that's. For me, it's the playful spirit of everything. You can keep going. It's just watching him. It is every moment. moment he's playful he's not in his head or seemingly not in his head about what you know how it's being perceived at all by anybody yeah and it's just it's such a great combination of playfulness and very deep and centered playing at the same time you know which is

really I think exciting to people and when it's when it's kind of emanating from the drums like this is very much it always has been a band yeah and I remember I remember Brian talking about when he was going to form this band like he had a vision on this like years before they even started I remember him talking to New Orleans I remember right where we were on Pratania Street. And he's like, I want to put a band together that's like, you know, he had an idea about it really being a co-op kind of band in a way that now we were like, of course, yeah, everybody does that.

But like at that time in jazz, it was always just like, you know, the Brian Blake Quartet or the whatever, the Amad Jamal Trio or whatever, even if it ended up being a kind of thing, but I mean, he really had a vision for this. And the music was written in that way. the arrangements, everything. Beautiful. And like his, Brian's playing, I mean, everybody sounds great on this, but we're talking about Brian, so that's fine.

But, you know, the details, like he's both kind of intrusive and like a lot of space at the same time. Well, this is where dynamics helps pick time. If you have a good sense of dynamics, you can play. Yeah. You can be playful with what's going on and it doesn't get in the way. In fact, it can be inspirational and help to give your soloist different colors. Yep.

It's a perfect example. One thing I love about this, and they would often play like this, and a lot of the tunes are like this, like that to me in a wonderful way pulls it out of just typical jazz crap. Is that a solo? No. No. But it was improvised. What I love about this is it's really nice to listen to.

Yeah. Like it sounds really good. So different than most of the jazz that we hear around here. Well, no, it is. It's a composition. It's a song with some structure that's beyond just head blowing head, which is, there's nothing wrong with that as a form for showing off, you know, the spirit of the moment. Individual virtuosity. And individual virtuosity. But this is that plus. So there is still that to this. There are

elements of that where they'll use that gear, but there's so many other gears to music like this that I really appreciate. Yeah, totally. I mean, this is jazz? We don't care. It's got two million views. It can't be. No, to me, like this is, this is what we should be talking about. Not exclusively, of course but when somebody says what is jazz today okay or what is jazz 10 years ago I mean in the history of jazz that could still be the fellowship band is a fellowship band is a great example of what the music can be yeah let's check out the solo underrated John Cowhart probably yeah absolutely yeah he's from Louisville kentucky but he's playing some time in new orleans he's like your your favorite pianist's kind of guy yeah he's spent a lot of time and he's playing on a piano

that's like missing ivory and obviously ancient i was going to say i was like it's a little jacket it's making something but then when you see it it's even worse yeah wow that he's doing it amazing you can tell how stiff that action is just by seeing that oh this is great breathe so open and then kind of just immediately for a 20 minute two they've immediately gone somewhere already yeah yeah yeah they're not saving it and just bam one chord it's like spiritual open burnout. And they've got these sections that pull things together

with the unison and then the divergent harmony and the shoot melodic lines. Okay, so one thing about like you just saw Brian, I think I realized what it is because I spent so much time like across the stage

seeing this kind of a look on his face. Yeah. And those of you listen on the pod now, just you know, Brian's smiling. What it is,

I think what people love watching him play so much, you know, your GP. You know about the GP, right? General public? Yeah, that's general population. General population. Yeah, yeah. Like, so if you're in prison, the GP is out there in the world. Anyway, if you're in solitary environment, yeah. Good to know. So, like, it matches, it's not about a to the drummer, smile, or the piano player, whatever. Nobody has to do anything. But Brian, like, like, the way he looks when he plays, everything, like, from his arms, like, he's got this always, I always thought his technique was so great. I don't even know anything about specific drum technique,

but just general musicianship in terms of technique and even taking it to the piano in terms of the relaxed precision, but strength. That combination of strength but being non-tense, he's very dialed into that, which is something I've always thought was really important. But the joy that he has and the way that he plays, it all matches.

You know what I'm saying? So that's what the key is. And I think when you hit that, and it's not that you have to always be smart. smiling or not. I've seen Brian not smiling or whatever. But people are always like, oh my God, he seems so joyful. That's, of course, the music. But it's the whole package when it matches and it's authentic. There's no layer of ego on top. Like, he's not, he's not putting a smile on or conveying joy to try to, because that's what he should be doing. Right. Or that's what he thinks you'll

like. That's just what he's so dialed into what's actually happening in the moment that that's what's coming out and people like human beings can't we can't respond to anybody faking that right like we respond you it's really hard to fake the funk on that like you like human beings can sniff out a fake right or someone being phony very quickly and it doesn't mean everybody drummer has to smile which is brian it's not about that it's just it can it mowl if it's like matching what you're feeling and when you sit and talk to brian and hang with him he's exactly the same yeah so i mean that's that's the thing when you get your authenticity dialed into your music the way that he does,

that's a very exciting thing, no matter what your persona, you know, reflects out to the world. Let's skip ahead a little bit towards the end. There's some good... The piano solo? Yeah, the piano solo towards the end. Solo number three?

A little bit, maybe a little... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Back it up a little bit. This is such a good part. And we encourage... We'll put a link to this in the show notes. We encourage everybody to go check out. We'll just close your Adam said,

let's watch the whole thing. I want to watch all 20 minutes. You knew how we'd be able to be a bit. be talking over too much of it. Chris Thomas. Ah, CT. Okay, we got to just say a little about, so Brian Blade with, I mean, of course he sounds great with John Patattucci, a lot of different, you know, Christian McBride with Chick-Corps.

But Chris Thomas and Brian Blade, one of the greatest rhythm sections of all times of this music, you know, and the hookup is just off the charts. I'm sure John sees this video now with 2 million views, and he's like, why do it have to be the one on this piano. Right, I don't. But he makes it sound great. Ryan is so great, too, about, like,

it's very rarely, like, the obvious accent. But sometimes he will do it. Like, he'll set it up in a way where it's, like, not on it. Chris is great. Chris Thomas as well. So there's this great juxtaposition,

almost like a syncopation with the way they resolve their music. No, one of my favorite moments of my entire music. physical life that I saw was Wayne Shorter in concert at University of Missouri, St. Louis here at the Two Hill and it was with a string quartet of members of the St. Louis Symphony and it was, you know, Wayne Shorter's latter quartet with Patatucci and Danilo Perez and Brian Boyd. Yes. And the first, I think it was the first piece. It was like eight minutes long or ten minutes long and it was just a slow burn on this and and I mean, no, it was like you know like a very vibe be. Yeah. Wayne's writing is so

ethereal and beautiful and Brian Blade just picked I mean he just he just like let it simmer doing all this like very subtle things and then there's this one moment he like kicked his foot back and like gave up full on Brian Blade crash you know what I mean like the whole body crash or whatever and just the whole audience you could see just like faces lit up like fireworks like some event happened but I thought like man that is like such a flex to be able to just hold out for eight minutes and just pick your spot in just the most unexpected but also satisfying time to do it. He's like a master of that.

Inclusivity. That's an example of that inclusivity to the story. Yeah. Because I mean, and I think that's the thing with like the drums, everybody in this type of a group or, you know, any kind of whatever you want to call a jazz setup or whatever. The instrumentation is has the opportunity to push and pull and to prod and to poke at that story. line, you know, together. But the drum, great drummers have that ability to really put the whole story on their

back. And so when you get someone like a Brian Blade and we can talk about a lot of other great drummers too that have that kind of macro understanding. Hutch is like that. Hutch, for sure. And it's so exciting because they know that they have that power to really affect, you know, I mean, it's like the piano. We know that we can like change the, the sound of the harmony.

in a way so abruptly. And if you do it too much, it's ineffective. Exactly. And, like, of course, the trumpet player can affect that, too, but they've got to work a little bit harder. They can do it dynamically. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Well, so we're going to link below to this. Yeah, super fun. I'm sorry we get to listen to the whole thing, but we can do it afterwards, and you guys can do it at your leisure. But highly recommend checking this out.

It's a fantastic 20 minutes. It's like the quickest 20 minutes ever. It really is. And check out all of the fellowship albums, Ryan Blade and the Fellowship. They're all so good. And such a good. such a good listen, you know, for so many various reasons.

We've got to get a fellowship record on the old listening sash, Caleb. That would be nice. We do a Tuesday listening session for Open Studio members here. Speaking of listening sash, do you know about the gentleman's agreement? No, tell me more. Segway. Sounds fancy. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Tell me more. Oh, you know what was funny the other day, remember when I said, give me a, when chat GPT said to give you a jazzy riff with you? I was like, I was like, It sounds like that's cool. Anyway, the gentleman's agreement has been extended due to inclusivity, as we're saying, to the gentleman and the ladies agreement. We've looked at the stats here, and unfortunately, this podcast is consumed by 86.7% male. Did you know that?

Wow, there's that many women. I did not expect that. We're going for at least 50% ladies, if that's possible. dudes need not apply. No, of course, dudes are welcome. Everybody. But anyway, this is the gentleman. Be careful here, Peter.

Gentlemen's and ladies' agreement, all this means is that we will provide you with a top-rated, top-quality podcast year for free. But it's actually not for free. You need to go right now and take action, which is, is this take action? I like it.

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That's a little more difficult. In fact, don't do that. It's too hard. You can't understand how to do it. You're not going to be able to. A little challenge there. A little challenge there. Until next time.

You'll hear it. Do you like that setup chord there?