You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The MOST Underrated Jazz Albums From Artists You May Know

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

Adam and Peter kick back and talk about some jazz albums that just don't get the props they should. From those under-the-radar gems to the unsung heroes of the jazz scene, it's time to give credit where credit's due. So grab a seat, relax, and groove along with them as they shine a spotlight on these musical treasures that deserve more love.↓ Links from the pod ↓Open Studio Pro | WAITLISTPM's Top 10 Greatest Jazz Albums Our Spotify PlaylistHave 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

My name is Adam Manus. My name is Peter Barton. You're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. A bespoke podcast. You gotta stop with the bespoke, buddy. Your family not told you that yet. This podcast is a bespoke podcast about jazz. If everything is bespoke, then nothing is bespoke.

And for the last two months, everything has been bespoke. That is true. Well, you know what? Today's my big day, my big hurrah bespoke. This is the last day. So I want to go out in a flame of bespokenness. this is going to be the most and he's like,

and it's going to be the most bespoke way to quit anything ever. But you know what? Bespoke is an underrated term. Or is it overrated? I like the way this is, that's a nice transition there. It is underrated.

It is overused in the context of this podcast, but it's an underrated term. And that leads us into what we're talking about today, which are underrated albums from artists that you may know. So this comes to us from a listener. This is a speak pipe. You can always go to you'll hear.com

and leave us a message. We're back on the pipe. We haven't been on the speak bike in a while. Let's hit the pipe, man. Sometimes we hit the pipe. Yeah. Before we do that, we'll just remind you, you can go to you'll hear it

to leave us a question. People might be like, what are you talking about? Literally, you just said that. Oh, you did? Did you say, you'll hear at.com? 100% did. Okay, what about you'll hear at that org? Stay with me, Peter.

Got it's bespoke attention span. Also, a little foreshadowing. More on this to come. Go to you'll hear at dot com because we're going to be announcing a very special. live event. Yeah.

Can we even say what it is? No, we can't yet. We can't yet. Why can't we? Well, we're in charge of this thing. I mean, we could if we wanted to. Nervously looks over at producer.

He's like, no. We do have a live event coming up. Oh, you just... You just said it. You just said it. Yeah, we have a live event coming up.

So go... We're going to announce it here once everything's got a button on it. A little foreshadowing. It's likely going to be in a little place that rhymes with Frue Shork. No? It's not, that's the best I can come up with.

Can you say through shork? You're like New York. And you're a professional improviser. That's, okay. Okay. So anyway, more on that to come. Go to you'll hear.com for all things you'll hear it. And to leave a speed pipe as Thomas did.

Let's take a gander, as we say in the biz. Okay. Hey, guys, it's Thomas in Madison, Wisconsin. I play piano and trombone. First, just wanted to say thanks for sort of nudging me back into jazz piano. I do play a little bit, but had kind of drifted away in recent years. And I saw Adam's Cush Chords video. Besides being just really useful, it was fun and just sort of got me back into playing.

So thank you. Awesome. Thank you. My question for you guys, it seems fairly obvious. But when I search the archives, I don't find it. So maybe you haven't answered it yet in this format. That is, what are some underrated, underappreciated jazz albums from the great players that you think? think just aren't talked about enough.

And by the way, I don't mean, like, you know, hidden gems or bootlegs that almost nobody knows about or, you know, no one can hear. No, I mean, like, albums that are out there in the world that anyone could go listen to right now that just maybe aren't appreciated enough. I can give an example. For me, it would be, one would be the album Crescent by John Coltrane. I over appreciate Crescent. Honestly, one of my favorite albums of his, you know, people talk about a lot of

Love Supreme, Giant Steps, my favorite things, but don't hear much about Crescent, and I think you should because it's a great album. What are some examples for you guys of albums by major artists that you could go. Okay, we got it. Thank you, Thomas. This is, okay, so this is such an interesting thing because we actually talk about Crescent a bunch, and sometimes we feel like we over-talk about it, but obviously not. and like what makes a Coltrane album like Giant Steps

kind of in the zeitgeist of greatest albums, but Crescent is not. And what makes it underappreciated or underrated? Well, it's really interesting. So I picked, so Crescent is a very similar style of album to a Love Supreme, right? Which is probably the more famous version.

Okay, right. The spiritual masterpiece, right? But Crescent is also a spiritual masterpiece. And for a lot of people is the better version of the spirit, like is the most impactful version of that, sound that that group was getting around that time. I also picked one, another John Coltrane album that I think it's overshadowed by Giant Steps, which happened a few years before,

but Coltrane's sound. You know the album? Yes, Coltrane sound. Brad Meld, I was just talking about this album. That's what got me thinking about it. On that interview with Rick Viato, he's talking about the opening track of Night has a thousand eyes. But there are so many bangers on Cold Train sound, and it is one of, it might be my all-time favorite Coltrane album. So it starts with the night. It has a thousand eyes, but there's Central Park West, Liberia, this amazing version of Body and Soul, Equinox, satellite, which is how high the moon with Coltrane changes. And then the last track, which is absolutely unbelievable, and that's what we're going to hear a little bit of, 262. Going through those keys in thirds, it's an absolute

banger of an album, another great track, Satellite. Pure vibe. I think, you know, if Giant Steps is, the first time we hear the so-called Coltrane changes. Coltrane sound, I think, is the best use of these, like, shifting tonal centers. He used it to such great effect on this album. I love this album so much. Maybe this is the ultimate of that sound. I think it might be. And Giant Sips is more penultimate, if anything.

I think you're on to something here. Yeah, that's great. And certainly underappreciated and underrated for sure. Cool. You know, I was thinking about this, and I did a video called The Real Ten Greatest Jazz Album Controversial. Controversial because of its ridiculous title, I will admit, that was foisted upon me by the marketing department here at Open Studio.

Actually, I came up with it myself. You are the marketing. No, but this whole thing, and we'll link to the video here, and then there's also a Spotify playlist over the video if you want to get into that. But it's basically underrated or underappreciated. Are those the same thing? I don't even know. They're similar.

Yeah. Sometimes things are underappreciated because they're not. You know, underrated almost makes it sound like it's been listened to, but it was given a low rating. So maybe that's a little bit of a mission. I mean it's like not as talked about. Right. But everybody who knows about it loves it. Right.

Exactly. And I mean, for sure, Crescent is a great example of that over the years. It's just, it's always been such a big album to me even. And I love your comparison to Love Supreme. I never thought about it like that. But that, that's how maybe an album becomes underrated or underappreciated because there's another album that gets, it's like this or that. Right.

And then they, you know, to people that go deep on this stuff and really study it and are like geeking out on this, we're going with both. That's right. But to a lot of people, it's kind of like, you know. Yeah, there's no bad John Coltrane album from this whole era, you know, from this whole late 50s, I mean, for his whole career, basically. But yeah, it's funny. Those two are not as talked about as Giant Steps and I love Supreme. Yep, yeah. But one of the ones, I don't know what you have pulled up over there if you want to play, but one of the ones from...

that 10 greatest jazz albums is Duke Allington and Ray Brown. I think this one's underrated because a lot of people haven't heard it. I haven't heard this one. Yeah. And it's the record it's called This One's for Blan.

It's a tribute they did to Jimmy Blant. Of course, a great bass player on Pablo. And it's kind of a weird thing because it's a duo record and it's like Duke Gallington and Ray Brown. And Duke Gallington maybe not,

especially from this period as known for his piano playing, certainly not his solo or duo playing. He was a great player. I'm just going to put it out there. And this record has a great vibe too. It's got a great vibe. Check it out.

This is do nothing to you hear from me from this one's from Blanton. How good is that? Yeah. Nice. Let's do nothing till you hear from me from this one's from Blanton. That's Duke Ellington and Ray Brown. Of course, celebrating Duke's longtime basis, Jimmy Blanton.

Yeah. Innovator on the instrument. And what's funny about this being kind of underappreciated, underrated is that it's not like the Love Supreme thing where there's another dual album with Duke Ellington and Red. Or maybe there is. I don't know of it. That overshadows this.

This is already such a unique thing, you know, for those two to come together. For sure. And they do a format. Another one from your video of the real top 10 greatest jazz albums that I thought of would be a great addition to this list, too, of underrated, underappreciated albums. When people think about Bill Evans, they usually think about, you know, his work on Kind to Blue with Miles Davis. They think about albums like Sunday at the Village Vanguard, Portrait and Jazz, Waltz for Debbie. But I don't hear as many people talking about interplay. I hear you talking about interplay.

I love this record. But this is Interplay from Bill Evans. Check it out. Freddie Hubbard, Percy Heath, Jim Hall, and Philly Joe Jones. One of the great covers, too, of its era. Very young Freddie Hubbard. Yeah. And definitely the shadow of Miles Davis because it was association with all these musicians.

But then a young Freddy hovered on the come-up, as we say, at that harmonium. How great is that? It's a good sounding record, too, man. Jim Hall. Yeah. What a player. Great Bill Evans. comping on here behind everybody.

Yeah, it's a cool record and definitely underrated. Another one that I want to add to the list, Peter, is, you know, one of our favorite pianists is McCoy Tyner. When you think of McCoy Tyner, you think of, what do you think of? You think of, what do you think of reaching forth? Right. You might think of the... Well, I put that one isn't underrated.

Is that one out there? Real McCoy. Real McCoy is the big one. Yeah. Right. And there's, you know, a ton of the early stuff, too, that might be underrated. But this one is one that people don't talk about enough, in my opinion. actually think this is, for me, I like this more than Real McCoy. This is Time for Tiner. It starts with

this beautiful tune, African Village. Yep. Oh. The sound of this album is amazing. The Blue Note record, 1969. Bolly Rhythms. Two different times going on. Quay, on this record? The great version of I didn't know what time it was on this album, too. So good, man. Bobby Hutchison? Bobby Hutchison. Herbie Laws on the base. Sorry, Herbie Lewis on the bass. Freddie Waits. How great is it? Just Vives.

I used to have this LP. I just remember it. I still have this LP. Nice. Yeah. This is a regular on my, on my turntable at home. Yeah, and this is like kind of

foreshadowing a great period for McCoy. I was thinking about Trident. Yep. That album could have been, which was, you know, quite a bit later. Ten years later, super trios. Yeah, yeah. What a great.

And when all that, like, real jazz died in the 70s, I'm like, McCoy Tyner, hello, and a lot of others. Yeah, well, you're, you're, Duke Ray Brown album too. Great stuff happening in there. That's a great one. All right.

All right. All right. For the 10 real greatest jazz I'm all the time. This is from, this is a little more recent. This is from the Roy Hargrove of Quintet. Wait,

no, this isn't on your video. No, I have Roy on there. We could do that one, but I think this one's even better. This is from an album that I don't know of. See? Because it's underrated. It's underrated.

It's called the vibe. This was such an important record, I think. This was from like 93, 90s, something like that. Maybe even a little earlier. And it's, you know, with his, what I would say is, like, one of Roy's first great quintets. Greg Hutchinson on drums, front of the pod, Rodney Whitaker on base, Mark Carey.

Like, this was right at sort of the apex of their early relationship of great compositions between Mark Carey and Roy Hargrove. A lot of carry compositions on here. And Antonio Hart on saxophone. And then there was some great guests and stuff. I don't know which track do you have pulled up. You can play in there. I've got a cool James Williams tune pulled up called Alter Ego. And I think this one's underrated because this was so influential on young players, like just a little bit younger.

I mean, this is like Roy was whatever, 22, 23, 24 or something like that. Everybody was young then. You've probably heard all her ego before. Check this out. Yeah. It's a great tune. You know, had that hookup with the melodies. It's a vibe, right?

Yeah. It's Mark Carey on piano, touch on drums. Yeah. Writing microphone bass. But there's two saxophone in there? Yeah. I know there was a couple They had guests like David Fathead Newman

Bramford. Yeah, I don't. Maybe it's Bramford on there. I heard them plays live so much with Antonio. That's a little three voices there. He's a Blakey tune, right? Like it was on a Blakey album?

Yeah. That was a Blakey album. Yeah, that's Tennis'Ole. So that's... That's not Brantford, though. That must be Fathead Newman. Yeah, David Newman. Ah.

On record. Here's a little, another record. Jules Stein song, the things we did last summer. Oh, yeah. There was another record right around this time. They did a live record with the same band. This is great. Mark Carey.

Greg Hutchison's brushes? Is he a master already at age 21? Could you not listen to Hutch and Roy Hargrove play ballads all day long? I know. Totally. That's some good coffee house jazz music right there, my friend. Mark Carey. Man, it's so beyond coffee house jazz.

I know. I was just dangling. to see if you're going to snap at it. You're a little slant today, man. So I don't want to interrupt you. I don't mean to interrupt you. Sorry. We'll get to that next time.

Until then. You'll hear it.