You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Pros and Cons of Being a Band Leader - #69

Episode Date: April 9, 2018

In this episode, Adam and Peter list some advantages and disadvantages of being a leader vs. being a side-player. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Manus and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll Hear at Podcast. Hey everybody. Today we're going to talk about being a band leader versus being a side man or side woman. Yeah, I mean, it's really just about who gives you the money, right? Right. It's like who has the money at the end of the night. All right, podcast over. Great. All right, I'll try it again. Did I look disapproving? Yeah.

Today we're going to talk about being a bandleader versus being a side man or side woman. Okay, controversial point. You're talking about side man, side woman like supportive musicians on a gig, not like maybe someone you step out with. Like side piece? Yeah. No, no, no. Okay, good, good, good. We're not even going to go down that path on this. It's a separate podcast. You've got to search another place for that one. That's great. So this comes from a question from Joe in our Facebook group. What's up, Joe? Yep. And I mean, you know, he's asking about kind of the pros and cons of each sort of our takes on that. And I don't know if we've ever talked about this much. I mean, I think, we've both been in situations as leaders and as sidemen and probably enjoy them both. I mean, for me, I've probably spent more time. I've definitely spent more time touring as a sideman.

Yeah, me too. So I sort of know that more. But then I've, you know, done a lot of sort of trio gigs, solo piano. And, you know, from a musical perspective, I don't, I don't differentiate from them a lot on the gig. I see a lot of the sort of leadership stuff, band leader being all the things around the gig, like sort of preparing for the gig, making sure the music is together. And sometimes on the touring stuff that I do, I'm doing that anyway as music director. But even that, I feel like in the jazz world, the mentality of a player, like once we're actually playing music,

there really is a democracy of the statement of the music that needs to be there and generally is with really high-level players that permeates the music and brings out the things that are the most exciting to the audience generally. Yeah, I think that's true too. I don't think there's really any difference musically because ultimately whether you're the leader or the sideman, your goal is to serve the music first. You know, maybe the difference, like you said, is if you're the leader, you have to be sort of the one

proactively deciding what the vision of the music is going to be ultimately. But then once you're on the stage, like you said, everybody's executing together and you want it to be demyme. Yeah. So maybe that's kind of the biggest difference is on the business side of things and sort of the details of taking care of the gig, but then also, you know, having the musical vision before the project starts that everybody can feel comfortable executing. Yeah. And I mean, in terms of pros and cons, I would say one of the big pros that I've experienced of being a sideman is being able to really just focus on the music. Right. Like, it's so wonderful, especially when you're touring. and there's so many other things like just flashing around and out of your control to be able to kind of have that solace of the band stand and pretty much knowing you don't have to worry about anything just than just sounding your best on your instrument. Hey man, I just get on the plane.

I go where they tell me to go. That's right. I get off. They roll me to the next piano, baby. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I mean, because there's just so much actual other stuff that you still got to worry about. It's true. But as far as like the economics of it and, you know, are we going to be able to make enough money?

did the flight kit canceling who's going to pay. I mean, like, when you're the band leader, like, that stuff, you know, no matter what level you get to it. And I'm certainly not the level that I'm anywhere near to being impervious to those kind of things. You know, you try to compartmentalize them as much as you can, but it's difficult to. But in terms of pros of being a band leader, there's nothing like getting up there when you can control everything.

When you've got the time and the mindset and the resources, kind of the mental resources to be able to do that and you're able to assemble great musicians, there's nothing like, you know, rising to that occasion of having that. responsibility and then executing on it in the in your vision because then you can really control things from beginning to end to a point I mean you get on stage you still have jazz musicians you don't know what they're gonna do which is the beauty of it but you can present your music you can kind of put your vision together hey it might fall apart but it's your story that you're telling that's

right it's the more personal one for sure being the leader and it's the musical seed that you've developed and you've picked these people to play it and you know when you get up there you hope everybody's adding what you think they're gonna add and then surprise you You know what I mean? Like, I love to see how, when I'm the leader, how that music evolves into something that wasn't what I envisioned, but even better. And then as a side man, you know, I don't know about you, but I'm always thinking of like, you know, how can I serve this artist's, you know, vision for the music while still, you know, adding my own thing. Right.

Because I know they want my thing added to it or else they wouldn't ask me. You know what I mean? Yep. Like, you can't be scared, I think, to just be like, well, how would they play it if they play the piano or whatever? You know, you have to be yourself. Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's definitely more of the like, let me make them sound good. Right. But still, I think that, you know, the higher level you go, you're trying to make the whole thing sound good in a similar way to the when you're leading a band.

It kind of, there's a lot of overlap there, I would say. Do you find that you like to, like, I find that I like a healthy dose of both. I kind of like to go between both. I don't like to get stuck on one too long. Absolutely. You know? Yeah. And then how do you deal, Adam, like, I mean, I know your group, the 442s is, is, I mean, you're, I mean, you're,

the leader of it in that you write most of the music, you arrange most of the music, but it's, you know, to the listeners, it's a beautiful collaboration. And musically, it certainly is, and I think to the audience that it appears that way, but I mean, you truly are, from the band leader's

standpoint of the music direction, you're the leader of that. How does that work for you? I mean, it works good. If people think that it's completely a democracy up there, then I think I've done my job as far as I want it to feel like a band and not just like, here's Adam Manus and the, you know, whatever.

I want it to be a very inclusive, very like collaboration between those great musicians who are in that band. So that's kind of the way I think about it. And, you know, from a business perspective, I like the idea of a band band, of everybody making decisions, you know, from things outside of the music. You know, like our good friend Bjorn really helps me

and is really the business leader of that band and makes everything happen, books the gigs, and makes the details go. And that's great because then that frees me up to just worry about leading musically. Right. You know what I mean? So in a way, I have the best of both worlds. I get to kind of be, you know, the musical leader and Bjorn kind of takes care of all the other stuff.

Right. So that he doesn't have to worry about the music and I don't have to worry about the business. Right. Yeah. And I mean, I'm thinking about, you know, in terms of your question, Joe, you know, I think probably for Adam and I both, when we talk about band leader, I guess, most of it we're thinking about is kind of musical direction. like controlling the music. And yeah, there is always the business side of things and whatever. And I think for me, when I've gotten the opportunity to lead a band and to put that together,

the most crucial part of it is choosing the right people, choosing the best people, the combination of players. Because then the secret of it is you get a lot of the glory and you don't really have to do a whole lot of band leading. You can kind of let the magic happen. That's the best point, Joe, if you get anything out of that. It's that being a band leader, actually the biggest decision you can make is who are you playing with. And that's really the power you don't have as a signed band for the most part, you know, because that leader is going to choose who you're playing with. Yeah.

And I mean, you know, and it's not just about, I want the best bass player. I want the best drummer available. I want the best. You have to think about combinations of personalities, musical personalities. So true. You know, volume level types of music they like to. I mean, there's a lot of variables. And it's not, there's no formula for that.

It's a very nuanced thing that I'm still learning about. but I would say that it's not, you know, the same rules and lack of rules and exceptions to the rules that exist within, you know, organizations and corporations and startups and stuff, the same things apply, I think, to putting a great band together in terms of you. I mean, I remember reading about, you know, you know, Google wants to figure out an algorithm for everything, and they put a lot of money, and, you know, for Google, a lot of, it wasn't even a lot of money for them. It was a couple hundred million or whatever. Right, right. But they wanted to do a kind of long-term study on how you put the best teams together. Oh, wow. Small teams for them.

I think it was between five and eight people on certain projects. And, like, what was the algorithm that you could come up to define the types of personalities? Like, you have one really go-getter and then you've got one kind of follower and you've got one, whatever it was. And they were prepared to look at it in a very complex way. And they wanted to figure out the perfect way to put together the perfect team. And they studied this for like a year over a number of different teams. And at the end of it, they had some conclusive. of results, and that was that successful teams were made up of what appeared to be entirely different

random combinations of people. And there was no way to algorithmically predict how, you know, so it is not to say that you can't learn how certain teams work and certain don't, but that there is not one answer. And I think it's the same thing with the bad. It takes a lot of nuanced things between individuals and what your vision of the music and then what you're willing to take back from the musicians as you go. That makes sense, because it's, it's, not only only the chemistry of the musicians, but then their chemistry to the music and then each other, you know, there's a few ways you can go about that. That's really interesting. And I mean, it's just, I mean, it's relationships between two people or three people or family or whatever.

If there was a formula for what works, there wouldn't be the divorce rate that we have. And there's all different ways for these kinds of things to work, which is what makes it interesting and makes it worth pursuing and being involved with it. Yeah. And you know, Joe, if you're leading a band and the players aren't really getting what you're trying to tell them. Kill them. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Is that too abrupt? No, I mean, you...

Worst case scenario. Damn. No, I mean, you could always tell them, Peter. You'll hear it. Hey, dude, never... Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast. You can go to you'll hear it.com to get more information, submit a question, or just say hello. Wait, you can do that.

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