You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Six GOATs

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Adam and Peter line up their picks for 3 pianists who are, in their opinion, the greatest of all time. 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

Hey, Peter. Hey. You're looking a little, uh, me-e-th. No. Meth. Oh, my God. It's not expecting that. I'm Adam Ennis.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Here at Podcast. Music advice coming at you. Coming at you today, brought to you by Open Studio. Go to Open Studio. com for deeper dive on everything we're doing. Peter, I get to say officially. Yes.

We're starting a new series today. Yes. I'm going to put it out there. I'm put it in the universe. Yes. This is the beginning of something new. The meth series. Nope.

Nope. back to that again. I've... That caught you off guard, didn't it? I've learned that lesson too many times. No, no. I just kidding. I just good. I caught you off guard a little bit, did it?

It did cut you off guard. It was hilarious, though. I was trying to make a goat noise. You kind of did. Or was it a lamb? It's hard to tell. Why were you trying to make a goat? Because that's the...

Because Peter, that's the start of our new series are the goats. We're going to be talking about six goats. Yes. Six of the greatest of all time. Jazz pianist. Now, this is just... So those that... Everybody knows what goat means at this point.

greatest of all time. That's right. Right. Yeah. We're talking about your Michael Jordan. When was the first time you heard that term? I mean, it wasn't until maybe 15 years ago, probably. Yeah.

Right? It was like definitely an internet term. Because we weren't talking about MJ as the goat back in the 90s. I think I vaguely remember, for some reason I have a connection with Wayne Gretzky is the goat. Yeah. Like maybe around that time. Maybe that's true. Yeah.

And he really is, actually. Have you ever looked at Wayne Gretzky's stats? They're unbelievable. Really? He dominates every category. Every, like, I feel, I don't know if this is still true. Probably not assists, though. Well, no, I mean, at one time, so, you know, you get a point in hockey is a goal and an

assist, right? Sorry, a goal or an assist. Either one of those is one point. So, Wayne Gretzky, is more goals all time than the second place player has points, goals and assists combined. So he's the goat because he's got the go-alls, the goals. And assist. Like, he's got, his stats are unbelievable.

Okay. Anyway, he is definitely a goat. It's usually used in sports. Like, obviously, people talk about MJ or LeBron or people like that. You know, Tom Brady is the goat, things like that. We thought we'd have a little fun here and really try to narrow it down, which was not an easy exercise to do. So for our series, just so I'm clear. Yeah.

Because this is unfolding in real time. It's really happening. This is very exciting. Much as a jazz solo unfolds in real time. Yeah. The development of the pod here. Okay, so we're going to be doing today goats of jazz. piano.

Possibly six. And we're going to explain that in a minute. Yeah. Stick around for that. We're each going to deliver three. I mean, that's how hard it is. It's like because jazz piano can be broadly defined, right? As like even different, of course, different eras, but even different styles.

Yeah. It's really hard to name just one. Who's the goat of all time? And if you do that, there are a couple names that just keep coming up mostly because of like technical ferocity. Basically, we're scared to do that. We're scared at the backlash. It's really hard.

I mean, it was honestly, it was hard to come up with. just three. I know. Because it's also not a contest. It's music. It's not, it's not like Wayne Gretzky where you can take the stats. Oh, obviously, he's the greatest of all time. There are no stats. It's art. It's subjective. So it's really just fun for us. I would say that I'm going to guess that the six that we have, three each, are probably going to be people that if you haven't gone deep into their catalog and you're watching or listening to this, you might want to do that. Because they're, I'm sure also, I don't know. But listen to the episode first so that you find out who there. But let's So we want to be clear here.

We do not know. This is the little you'll hear it wrinkle. We might have one lesson. We might have three of the same. Right. So it could be the three goats. We'll see. And then because we don't know what the other has chosen.

That's correct. We've been sworn to secrecy. Forn to secrecy. And so this is also the start of, I think we could do goats bass players. I think we could do drummers. I think we could do saxophonists, trumpets. Trombone? Trompeters.

We could do trombones, although I don't know if they're six. But, you know, we could do guitarists for sure. singers, composers. We could really go through. I think this is going to be a fun series. And listen, are they truly the greatest ever? Yes. That's what we're saying.

They are. Yeah. Not subjective. No, of course, every list is subjective. Well, remember we were going to do one, and then you said at our pre-production meeting this morning, you said, why don't we do three or five? I said, well, is it really, isn't greatest of all time indicative of one? So we're already straying a little bit off of that.

A little bit. That's okay, though. But hey, you know, this is fun. We're improvising it. That's right. Have a good time. So do you want to go first? I'll go first.

Now, this one should not be... This one is uncontroversial. We're going to play samples. We're going to play a little sample. This is Art Tatum. Art Tatum, if you were to say there's one, Art Tatum would surely be at the top of several people's list of one. This is from an album I know you love.

Piano starts here, and this is humorous. I love this recording so much. Tatum, obviously, a technical master. It's obvious. But stylistic master. Stylistic master. He swings. His voicings, which he's

composing his voicings are so beautiful. Yeah. And some of them were, I mean, a lot of them were like really advanced and influential. 100%. One of the challenges when you have an artist like Artatum that excels in such a, you know, apparent and obvious way, as in his technique, is that it can easily overshadow the other aspects of his art. artistry. That's right. You know, because the technical prowess is so obvious to not just pianists, not just jazz pianists. It's almost more obviously like a classical pianist or somebody from

another genre that's like, whoa. Yeah. Because they're like, he's improvising that. Um, and of course, you know, Artatam perhaps had less actual improvisation than other jazz pianists. There's some, I not, it's not a controversy to me. I'm like, no, it sounds great, whatever. But he has the most improvisatory flair to what he's playing. That's right. No matter what he's doing. He can play straight melodies and put all of these flares on it. But also, you know, his concept as a whole is so singular. You know, it's so original, so unique. His conception, you know, some of that has to do with what he can do technically

that almost anybody else can't do. But a lot of that is just this beautifully thought out style that he has, you know, that was actually from the time he was in, but also miles ahead of everybody else. Yes. Decades ahead. Miles ahead. I got you a little foreshadowing to a later artist. So that's my first pick for That's my first goat now I feel like okay now I feel like it's a competition like my goats versus your goats No, that's a cat

That's a cow. That's for the moo. We need a goat sound It's like a farm up in here. All right Okay, so I would proffer as my goat number one or this would be goat number two Number one if we're going mono I know. A certain gentleman by the name of Philonius Monk ever heard of him. Oh, okay. That's a great, great call.

There he is. So Philonius Monk, you know, kind of known as one of maybe, what would you say, two to five greatest all-time composers in jazz, for sure. Yeah. Maybe one, too. I think he's... Like, who would come to mind if I said, Goat of all-timeist jazz composer? Monk would come to mind as number one for me.

Yeah. I think he is, he is what... the pinnacle, the peak of what jazz composition can be. Yes. I think he influenced with his compositions and playing the rhythm of jazz and the harmonic sensibilities and possibilities of jazz more than anybody else before or after. Right, right.

But I like putting him in, and just like you said, composition they are as a player because they're intertwined, right? The concept is so strong. So we're going to listen to a little, from a record. I hadn't listened to it in a while that I love and from my 10 real greatest jazz albums. Hit video. Video over there.

It's been so fun to see the comments and people saying, oh, I love that you have Monk on, but my favorite is this or whatever. But this album came up quite a bit, and it's interesting, because this is sort of cyclical, whether or not this is a hidden jam or like a known blockbuster. I thought it was a known blockbuster,

but I think it's kind of gotten a little bit more hidden now. What's a blockbuster now, buddy, now that you're shining from the white on. This is, it don't mean a thing from Flonis Monk plays Duke Ellington. It's just perfect, man. To me, what Monk means is that, that, you know, it is greater to be real and raw and honest than it is to be slick and polished and really try to make it perfect, you know, even though that's a lot of people say, oh, he's just

whatever the technique, that's not true. Everything is very intentional, but it's just, he's not concerned with impressing you. Right. He's concerned with, is it, obviously, it's swinging. Like, it feels good. He feels in the moment. And, and his sort of cubist version of harmony and melody is, it just knocks me out. I'm writing that down. You know what I'm saying? Don't you think so? Doesn't he have like a bit of a cubist?

You know, cubist, cubism, it totally makes sense. Right? And sometimes we talk about how do you describe somebody stylistically? And I think taking parallels from different artistic genres is more useful oftentimes than saying like, oh, that's just a messian. Right. Yeah, yeah. Because that's for musicians.

It may very well be that But to like somebody like me I love Picasso is Cubist right Yeah okay right So I'm thinking of like you know when he have the faces And the nose would be like from it's two dimensional But it's three dimensional and like I don't really understand it But I do appreciate it I can identify it

I can connect with it I can get excited Artistically by it Or just humanity wise And so I think for people that are listening to the monk We got to get like as insiders We have to get outside of that and like, how do people hear this? The same type of person that would appreciate that Cubist art

would appreciate this kind of a reading of a great Duke Allington. The only difference is this makes me want to dance. Exactly, exactly. And I mean, I think that, you know, look, Monk with, I love this album too because Monk, it doesn't get any better than Monk playing Monk. Yeah. But actually, I think Monk kind of proves his music is so great. Yeah.

It actually, it can get just as good when other people are playing Monk. Well, yeah. You know what I mean? The same way that, like, you could say, well, it doesn't get any better than Duke Gallington with this original recording with this big band. No, but the work is so great in the hands of another master, exciting things can happen. And Monk obviously loves Duke Ellington. I mean, he's recorded not just this album, but several covers.

And it comes to that love comes across. But he's not coming across with it being, oh, I have to play it exactly in the style. Although he connects with the tune. Like if somebody had heard this tune, like, oh, I didn't even know a lot about this kind of stuff. And they'd be like, oh, that's that. They didn't know it's Duke Gallagent, but they know it's like an older song. Kelly Martin's coming to mind. Although she kind of knows some of this stuff, but she's very much like, she doesn't, it's so great to be a fan of the music when you're not thinking about, oh, well, how much technique is going into that.

That's what I'm saying, man. It's really just about the soulfulness, the connection of artists to audience that is. The Cubist Swingmaster. Is that a New Kilonius Monk? Cubist Swingmaster. I think we can go with that. Okay, so are we going to do a little goat off as we go for our number one and number, our first two picks? Who's great?

Who's better? Who's better? Who's golden to our monk? No, we're not going to do that. That was a joke. I got one. All right, what you got next? So my next one, this one might be a little bit controversial, but I wanted to include this gentleman.

Is he a saxophonist? No, he's not a saxophonist. He is a pianist. I wanted to include this gentleman because the older I get and the deeper I get into understanding how music works and especially specifically how the piano works and what is flashy about the piano and what, but what is what is. beautiful and really emotional invoking about the piano. This player comes to mind more. Player or player? Both. And I think this next one is a goat and he's an underrated goat. It's Hank Jones.

Ooh. Yeah, Hank Jones, the more you get into what you can do on the piano and the more you listen to Hank Jones, the more you realize, oh, it sounds, oh, that's nice to listen to. Oh, that sounds pretty easy. It is not. Right. What he's doing is. is setting up all of this tension, and he's got this incredible sound on the instrument. This is from the album The Talented Touch, and this is a tune called It's Easy to Remember, which I've never played, but it's a beautiful tune,

and just listen to what he can... It's all Coltrane ballads, I believe. He can do. It's easy. Always swing in, too, Hank Jones. Oscar Peterson has said to have been influenced a lot by Hank Jones. For my money, if you like someone like Bill Evans,

if you like that kind of beautiful harmony, check out Hank Jones a little more. Give Hank your ear because to me it's even richer than Bill Evans. And I'm not, I think, going out on a limb to say that. His harmonic concept is even richer and more ingrained than Bill Evans. And I think he's one of the most swinging pianists of his generation. And those two things combined, I think, make him a goat for sure. Absolutely.

Absolutely. great stuff. Okay, you're not going to believe this, but I'm going to call an audible. Not on the next one. Yes, you've inspired me. Yeah, Hank Jones, what an inspired pick. Thank you. Well, yeah.

Thank you, Hank Jones. Well, you know, and it's also like Hank Jones is, you know, he's, I mean, I couldn't say he's like insider pianist, pianist only, because he's certainly known and respected beyond that. But there is a certain aspect to, like, he's sort of one of the, you know, that just greats, most elegant, most versatile of the thing that we do. So like we kind of hold him near and dear as jazz pianists. Particularly like there's a little bit of wink, wink, like, oh, the trumpet players in the

side, like, they, of course they know he's great, but they don't realize, like, he's got some extra stuff. Pianist, no. And also, this is hard to quantify, but he is one of the greatest accompanists that ever lived. So as far as, like, you know, playing for Ele Fitzgerald, playing for just every singer. Even fun fact, Peter, you know, that clip of Marilyn Monroe singing Happy. birthday to John F. Kennedy? That's Hank Jones playing piano. So I mean, he's accompanying everybody. He is the greatest at it. I encourage everybody, one of my favorite albums is a weird little

album by Ben Webster. Yeah. It's not that album. There's a weird album from 1964 by Ben Webster called, I think it's see you at the fair or meet you at the fair, but it has like the 64 Brooklyn Queens World Fair thing on it. And Hank Jones is playing on that. And it's some of the greatest accompaniment I've ever heard in my life. He is a true master. that. So that's an underrated skill, but that is a, a, an important role for us on the instrument. Yeah. And I'm trying to remember his work with, I believe his work with Ella Fitzgerald included. So good night, good luck of which I was co-stars. Oh, yeah. You and George. Yeah. We had different. Were you, were you ahead of him or? I was below because I didn't want to, you know,

take away from his shine. No, but the thing is, and this is very, you know what, actually I can't even get into it. I'll get into it. Why not? What are you talking? No, no. No, some of it's a little bit, like, not publicly. Well, okay, I'll tell you the part that I can tell you. Okay. So in that movie, there's a jazz vocalist. Okay.

That is played, like, literally, that was the name in the script, jazz vocalist. Yes. That is performing, like, actually rehearsing for recording. Right. It's a brilliant way to put music in the movie. Yeah, like in a studio. Before I even really knew you, I mean, we met and I knew who you were, but incredible.

Yeah. So, like, the jazz vocalist and her trio were in, was it NBC? NBC studios rehearsing for a show CBS of course CBS what am I talking about CBS News You know in New York in the studio Rehearsing for a show that was going to be live that evening

called like Shower of the Stars or something That was loosely based on an actual thing that happened And I believe that Hank Jones was the pianist But there was a decision made a certain point Not to make it historically accurate For some reasons that I don't even totally understand Like why they didn't want it to be Well it was George Clooney because he directed and wrote the whole thing

So it was supposed to be a little bit more generic But there were some ideas that the part The small part that I played was supposed to be Loosely loosely based because I remember being really nervous I'm like well Hank Jones would kill this gig What am I gonna do? This is gonna be like in one of those bad movie versions That would make sense because around that time I believe that he was in like he was Ella's primary accompanist for six or seven years or something like that

So I think that would have been around that same time Now I'm not saying it was Ella Fitzgerald was the vocalist I'm just saying okay All right okay okay okay okay okay what do we got now This is my number two were number two. Man, you came strong. I'm switching up my number three, which is interesting. Okay.

Okay, so this is the most obvious pick of them all, Herbie Hancock. What? No, you? Herbie Hancock. Look, there he is. Oh, look at that guy. So, I mean, Herbie Hancock, I mean, those of you that know me, and probably Adam, too, like, if we were just say to each other, like, jazz piano, go blur it

out right now. Herbie Hancock. It covers so much basis. I mean, you got taken off, you got maiden voyage. You got secrets, of course. You got actual proof in headhunters. You got all the stuff in the 80s rocket. You got the Joni letters.

You got the new standard. All this one plus one. Yeah. And because he's like right there kind of in the generation right before me, before us thinking like, but really beyond just the great albums and the great like, who would you want to just sit down and play jazz piano? And you know it's going to be killing. Of course, a lot of people. But Herbie would be great. And he's done that in different situations.

But there's also the influence factor. Yep. You know what I mean? I mean, like if there was a goat of jazz. jazz piano influencers of all time. That, I think, undisputed, would be Herbie. Let's not forget. He is 100%, and I have no qualms with this, the greatest jazz ambassador of our lifetimes. Oh, for sure. Like, he is the face of the music. He's the NATO, what is it, the NATO jazz ambassador or? I mean, he, he, but he truly is when people, the UNESCO, but like,

as someone who speaks for what we do, there's nobody better. Right. He's like, he's literally be putting him on Mount Rushmore. He's not the Mount Rushmore of Jazz Piano, the actual Mount Rushmore. It's not just he's, he's obviously extremely, like, intelligent and can speak well about music and talk about music and talk about art and what it means so well, like so clearly. Yeah. Which is really hard to do, and he's so good at it. And he's kind of part of all of it. He's got amazing, like, style and charisma. But then also, he backs it up with being literally one of the greatest musicians who can do it.

Like, there are other people who have some of that stuff who, like are really good at talking about it. Yeah. You can do an interview with, you know, CBS Sunday morning and they sound good or whatever. Ooh, shot fired. No, no, no, no, no, no. You have people that can represent. He consistently has been an amazing ambassador for the music we love for since we were born. Right.

I mean, think about like if we, I remember when he was on the Bill Marr show. And I remember thinking like whenever one of ours, like in the jazz world goes out into the mass media, it's always like, are they going to rap or whatever? Like when he goes out, I'm just like, yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's going to be a home run. It's going to be a slam dunk. Yeah. He's going to rep it.

And it's not even wrap him. He's going to wrap the music. And oftentimes, artists that are as good as him aren't as good as talking about it as he is. He's so charismatic and great. I mean, he's kind of like the complete package for. But today is not the goats of talking about jazz. It's the ghost of jazz panel. So let's listen to Herbie Hancock play a little.

This is from Miles Davis Live, Philharmonic. Oh, we're going to talk about this album too. Oh, okay. Did you hear what he just right there? That was funny. I saw that episode. Oh, sorry. You want to talk.

We're probably going to talk more about this album when we get to like the greatest drummers of all time. The greatest foreshadowing. Stick around for that. And you know, it's easy to say, we can sit here and listen to this all day. But it's easy to say like, oh, yeah, of course he's great. Sounds great. He just played after George Coleman and Miles Davis, the solo's Tony Williams, Ron Carter, you know. But this is the thing.

It's a band of goats right there. Exactly. But part of the goateness, I would say in Herbie's case, really in all these artists' case, I think. But especially in Herbie's is Tony Williams. Williams is playing so great because of inspiration from Herbie partially. Ron Carter. So there's the giving and then there's the receiving. And that's all part of it.

Unless you're doing solo piano all the time, part of the greatness is not just what you play. It's like how do you inspire you? Are you the point guard where you can set up others and nobody does it better than Herbie? You can also do solo piano too, by the way. Absolutely. And duo piano with your career.

Side note. Okay. My final goat is completely uncontroversial. Yes. And, uh, Why do I do that? I don't know. But honestly, when we're talking about pianists, if you were to say who's the best pianists,

not even put in any category jazz pianists or whatever, on the instrument, the sound I think of, when I think of the most beautiful piano sound, is from Keith Jarrett. Keith Jarrett is, I think, obviously, one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. But I do think he's just one of the most brilliant musicians that's ever lived. I mean, he has, I honestly, Peter, I had a huge hole in my Keith Jarrett catalog. I grew up, you know, I was a little boy in the 80s and a teenager in the 90s. And so I grew up with a lot of his Blue Note recordings, the standards, not Blue Note, the Live at the Blue Note with the Standards Trio, Standards Volume 1, Standards 2,

the Miles Davis tribute album that he made with the trio where they were playing all those songs. I grew up with that acoustic standard trio. kind of coming out. I mean, relatively. Well, it was, it was like musicians were talking about it so much. It was so amazing. There were videos that were available. I remember my buddy, shout out to Danny Shear. He had like a video of the trio live and we were just like, you know, teenagers geeking out

to that like watching it. And that blew my mind. And then some older cats were like, well, have you checked out of stuff in the 70s? And I was like, oh, no, man. You know, I like secrets. You're probably high in the 70s. Yeah, yeah. And so it's only been as an adult and I kind of have dug deeper that I've just,

of course all like the classical stuff, the Colin concert, and then all of the 70s quartet albums, you know, the American quartet, the European quartet, stuff he did with Charles Lloyd. Yeah. You know, these like really experimental, amazing, brilliant things. This is a track from an album called Treasure Island, which has been one of my favorite albums of the past that I've listened to over and over in the past two or three years maybe. And this is the opening track called The Rich and the Poor. This is 74.

I mean, this is a man who single-handedly has kept like the plagal cadence alive in music, you know what I mean? Like it's so important to what he's doing. It's really one of the only musicians I can listen to a four-cord vamp or two-cord vamp for 15 minutes straight. And interesting things happen. And you could pay attention to so much that he's doing the phrasing. Obviously the phrasing.

It's one of the lesser two of the piano if you're ever going to hear Keighierr play on too. He makes it sound great. He does. The touch, the articulation, spirit of the moment, the technique is out of this world. And a master of inspiring goes around him a big part of his co-pice, you know. And he's got another thing that I love about Keith Jarrett is I want my goats to have huge personalities. I want them to be characters.

Like, I want them to be larger than life. He certainly is larger than life. All the stories and all of like the, you know, the reputation that he has of, of, of, of, being like very, you know, demanding on, on the pianos and the people and having very high standards of even the audiences and things like that. And you see interviews with him and he has this very warm side of him too, obviously. I love that kind of stuff where it's just like he's just not some kind of cookie cutter guy. He is one of one and it comes out in the music big time. Absolutely. Inspired choice. Some would say obvious, but obvious and inspired. No, I mean,

it's a goat. They're going to be obvious choices. That's right. That's great. Okay. So, Are we up to the number one? Is this your audible? This, I'm calling it audible. We're gonna see how quickly producer Caleb can find a picture. That's right.

So, okay, I changed up my, do you want to know who I had before? No, I'm not even gonna say it. Don't say it's gonna be controversial.

But I got inspired because of your Hank Jones. I love it. Because I was thinking about like other pianists like that that really are in that go conversation, especially generationally.

Yeah. And so, you want me just play it or no, do I say it? Do I play it? Let's do a little stump the chump here. Okay,

this is going to be tough because the track I'm going to play. We should have done this whole thing. Oh, never mind. Wait, how did you know? It was an auto.

Oh, you're looking at my screen? Are you guessed? Producer Kayla. Something weird's going on. That's Mulgrew Miller. This is a great choice, by the way. This is a fantastic choice.

He's kind of the Mulgrew, I mean, he's kind of the Hank Jones in a lot of ways. I agree with him. Stylistically, very influenced and a different. This is brilliant. Inspired choice here.

So this is from a record that's kind of known, not his best known, but I think it's great with Roy. Hargrove, check out, this is live. I always love live recordings. Some of the greatest live recordings ever

on piano, Loder, like brought it live. Absolutely. Back of the club, you know. I like the way a piano sounds in a big room, though. Yeah. I like this sound a lot. Our old studio had a bit of this song. I love that you picked this after hearing Hank Jones because Mulder, I think about him in a lot of the same way.

What he does is not on the surface, like, oh, that must be. be hard to do, but if you actually try to transcribe and learn what he's doing, it is actually very difficult. Like, the level of execution, his concept, it is very original and very

very nuanced. There's so many shades in everything he's doing and it's he's definitely one of those underrated goats for sure. Yeah, and I would say like he you know, some might look to him and say like, well, he didn't have the broadest spectrum

stylistically. And I would just say that it was, first of all, it was broader than you think. It usually is with great artists. But also what he did, which I think all great artists, great jazz pianists do, is they understand the area

that they want to play in. And then you see how much you can maximize that. And like he went kind of off the charts with that. This kind of playing like duo with another great artist, like a Roy Hargrove, as we know is super challenging for pianists to really pull off well.

and nobody did this better. I mean, I heard Mulgrew quite a bit live and got to hang with him some. So, like, this is really inspiring for me to hear this kind of recording because this was, in some ways, representative of the greatest thing that Mulgrew could do. He had some great records. What was your impressions of him as a man as a person? Oh, man. He was totally, like, laid back and super cool.

Like, he was really a big guy. Yeah. And he had, like, a big, I would say, yeah, he had a warm personality. Yeah. But he was very, like, welcoming. Like he wasn't aloof at all. I never met him,

but I got to see him live a couple times and I never talked to him but I got that impression just as you've heard. I mean I think being a great accompanies, being a great solo and being just a great all-around player

was very much what his personality was. You know, we should talk about this a little bit too because you mentioned stylistic diversity but I wonder, it seems to be a silent generation thing more than almost anybody else. Isn't that weird?

Yeah. Like the Keith Jarrett, Chick-Korea, Herbie Hancock generation, I think maybe because of the cultural revolution that just kind of happened in the 60s. They all sort of rode that wave and the technological revolution that happened in the 70s and 80s where the digital era came to the computers and whatnot.

They kind of rode a wave technologically that the people before them didn't have a chance to ride culturally or technologically. And that the people after them like Mulgrew here, you know, when Mulgrew started recording there were computers, by the end of Mulgrew's career there were computers. Nothing much had changed too much between that time. But when, you know, Herbie started

recording there were no computers and Herbie's still recording and now there's like you know all the you know melodyne and stuff like right right right so it's interesting absolutely you know the other thing I was just thinking about bulgrew because I think sometimes if we go back to like our kind of just gut feelings about like if you got a chance to be like I you know around mogru in in IRL like I did like a lot of folks did is you think about like he's in kind of the select group of artists that just always brought it. Like I'm just, and this is kind of a random list, but I'm thinking like Steve Wilson. These are all people that I play with some kind of biased.

Steve Wilson is on Wingspan, isn't he? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And they work together a lot, especially early on. That's a great. If you don't know wingspan, that's like, I think Mulgrews. Yeah, and that's kind of more well known than that's for sure. I thought about that. But, um, yeah, Wingspan is amazing. But like Steve Wilson, Christian McBride. Yeah. Um, Mulgrew Millie. Roy Hargrove. Roy Hargrove. People that like, you don't know what they're going to play, but you know the level's going to be. And certainly our other Keith Jared. Herbie or whatever. I mean, they're known for that. But I think Mugur is somebody that might even be above

any of them in terms of consistency. And that's part of his thing, maybe being just slightly narrower in terms of what he does. But whatever he lacks and like going in a lot of, first of all, a lot of that other stuff he could totally play. He decided to play what he wanted to play. And the wing span stuff is super influential and groundbreaking. Like that really set the tone for a whole kind of movement of playing like that. And Mowgru, I mean, after Herbie was really the next one I think that influence you know us and and our generational players. Well that's super fun. Well let's go out here on more of this one is this thing called yeah absolutely. This is a really great time those are our six goats of jazz piano.

Until next time you'll hear you.