You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Worst Blues Podcast Ever

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

We're all about giving a voice to many different viewpoints on the You'll Hear It podcast, and in the spirit of healthy debate, we respond to an op-ed sent in to us by a listener about a recent episode - read the full email below:Hi Peter and Adam, Big fan of the podcast and you guys in general, but in my opinion this last episode on the blues was not cool/lame for a bunch of different reasons. Begin rant:1. You called this a blues episode, but really didn't give any background on the different styles of actual blues piano that are out there and who to listen to. (Chicago style - Otis Spann / New Orleans - Dr. John / Texas - Pinetop Perkins and so on) The episode seemed to focus on jazz blues only which to me seems weird given the title. 2. Oscar Peterson is not the end all/be all of jazz blues. You can make a very strong argument that Wynton Kelly, Cedar Walton, or Mary Lou Williams have much tastier licks and sound more authentic. Oscar is great obviously, but not all there is out there by any means. I love Oscar, but he also got a lotta criticism in his day for overplaying and being too polished and to hold him up as the epitome of blues piano seems strange.  3. You cannot, cannot, cannot just run up and down blues scales and throw in some double stops and call it the blues. There is a language and vocabulary with many years of tradition. I am looking at you Adam. You had an episode a while back where you gave this formula on which blues scales to use in which part of the blues form and it made me puke in my mouth a little. The fact that you actually said this while shitting on the boogie woogie tradition and those licks makes my head explode. (I do agree with what you said about blues method books though)4. Peter, sloppy rolls are part and parcel of the blues tradition. (See Dr. John and Otis Spann) Your whole take on this conjured up my worst memories of hanging out with jazz piano majors in my twenties and some of the nonsense I read on keyboard forums these days. I get where you are coming from, but this sounded way elitist to my ears. You could have just said tighten that shit up and/or don't overuse it in a jazz setting. 5. You guys spend a lot of time talking about the major and minor blues scales instead of actually dissecting the blue vocabulary. For example, Chicago players like Otis Spann emphasize the b3, b5 and b7 while New Orleans players like Dr. John/Professor Longhair use more of the major sound (emphasizing the b3, 3 and 6) as well as some chord based patterns. Why not talk about these different approaches and play some examples instead of just running up and down "scales" ? 6. I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate what students sound like when they are learning blues scales, it eats away at my soul every time I hear it. Stop telling people to learn scales, blues piano is based on licks and a shared vocabulary. Show people the licks, and introduce them to the players, and tell them to use the notes in the lick as a starting point for improvising. If you show someone a scale they are forever going to be locked into that pattern, show them a lick and it is the beginning of a musical journey. You guys didn't get to where you are by playing scales when you improvise, why would it work for anyone else? To sum up: Blues piano has a rich tradition which most modern advanced players basically ignore in favor of generic pentatonic blues scale patterns. This results in watering down the tradition when these players (very technically proficient but usually focused on other styles of music ) attempt to pass on their lack of knowledge to beginner or intermediate players. End rant:I have a jazz background, but when I am playing a blues gig (or a rock gig for that matter) I take off my jazz hat and listen to my favorite blues players and shed their licks in all keys, much like you guys. One of my all-time favorites is Chuck Leavell who toured with Dr. John and grew up listening to real blues in Georgia in the 1960s. I am attaching an arrangement I did of his licks/solos (me playing them with a logic loop) that I practice in all keys. You'll hear a lot of the things I am talking about, he draws on guys like Otis Spann, Dr. John, and Pinetop Perkins and melds their language into his own style. I use it as a warm-up to keep my blues/rock chops up, but you get the idea. Love you dudes!!~BennyLinks From This Episode:There's a new course coming to Open Studio - Your Sound Is Your Signature! Join jazz bass extraordinaire Christian McBride as he teaches you how to play ballads, odd time signatures, fast tempos, and more! Featuring our beloved Guided Practice Sessions to help refine the concepts of this course. For updates, just follow this link.Monday's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)6:00 PM - Bass Guided Practice Session with Bob DeBoo on YouTubeTuesday's Open Studio Live Events:8:00 PM - Live Listening Sesh with Peter Martin and Adam Maness on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey Adam, read anything good lately? Yeah, I've read some good books, some, uh, some tough emails. Tough emails. Let's jump in. The water's fine. Watch out for the sharks. Blue sharks. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Advice and inspiration for music and for life. Coming at you. Coming at you today, sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJazz.com and check out our brand new course. You know, we have lots of piano courses, but we also have courses from other instrumentalists. We have courses from like Steve Wilson, Gregory Hutchinson, Warren Wolf, Rubin Rogers. But we have a brand new course coming out this week by your friend, friends of the show, Christian McBride.

That's right. The great Christian McBride bass. Bass is extraordinary. Of course, he's teaching and talking acoustic bass, gets into the electric bass. But really just talks about music. I think there's going to be something on here, especially for pianists, for anybody, much as his last. course this this new course is your sound is your signature and you know Christian he looks at music and playing the bass in a very holistic way in a very a very welcoming way

much as his personality is so we're so excited about this it was so much fun to produce this we produced it at a safe distance socially distancing via the internet via Zoom while he was at a studio in New Jersey was very exciting we loved it spending that time and can't wait to share it with the world so check it out sound your sound is your signature go to Open StudioJazz.com. We have a link right here in the description. Check it out. So today we're talking about our recent reads. We had a question from Scott. Yes. Scott says, I have heard both Peter and Adam allude to some of the nonfiction that they have been reading lately. After checking out atomic habits following a recommendation from Adam, I found myself enjoying other similar works

such as Grit by Angela Duckworth and Peek by Andrews Erickson and Robert Poole. I am wondering if you would consider producing an episode where you discuss some recent reads in how you use some of the information in your life and music making. This is a great question, Scott, and I would love to because I think it's something I'm passionate about and have been really trying to grow via what I've been reading this year and found some amazing stuff. So I'm ready to do it. But before we do that, yes.

Yeah, I'm excited as well. We kind of alluded to this in the last episode. We did receive any. So speaking of reading, one thing we read. read we read all the emails thank you guys for sending those you can send us an email at any time to y h i at open studio jazz.com or you can leave us a speak pipe nice or you can you can tweet at us i'm peter martin uh on twitter adam doesn't know what he is he never checks it i've tweeting him all the time i literally believe in my twitter yeah you can't use it you can hit us up wherever but email is always

fun uh but we got a a self-proclaimed rant from a gentleman named benny about our recent blues episode and we were going to let this slide because you know what the haters going to hate just Like, what's her name told you that? What's the singer? Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. She told you the haters is going to hate. Amazing blues artist.

But we got confused by Mr. Ben here because he threw a little bit of love at us too. So he was a smart guy. See, he threw us a little love. And then he threw us a little shade, a little hate. And so we were all off balance. So we are going to address this. Can I read a little? I'm not going to read the whole thing.

Yeah. I'm not going to give him the satisfaction. Right? This has gotten under my skin at all. Well, Benny was very upset with a recent episode we did on the blues. We've been doing a few. episode on playing the blues. And when we say we should

qualify this, because I'm sure Benny understood this, just reading his email, but we are not blues pianists and don't profess to be blues experts in the traditionalist sense at all. However, the blues is such a ubiquitous form in all of popular music,

not just even American music. Now, it's spread throughout the world, that every genre plays some kind of form of the blues and is taken from that. And so as I wouldn't even call this straight ahead jazz musicians, because we, we don't play straight ahead. I know. I mean, you ever heard of a guy from Russia called Shostakovich? I feel uncomfortable with functional harmony. I don't even know. Well, maybe we didn't, but look, what is the name of our website, openstudio jazz.com? We're not open studio blues.com. We love the blues, and we

realize that some people are more dogmatic about the term and the style. Are they ever. You know, than others. But I almost got beat up outside of Sprules down here for not respecting the blues. Sometimes these blues guys are intense with the traditionalists. I mean, we talk about the jazz police. Apparently the blues police are much more intense. They're like the feds coming in. They are like the feds. The blues and bluegrass, those two groups.

It's about the same demographic two of these dudes. I'm not calling you out, Benny, but you know, this is kind of the same dude. It's always at your throat. But Betty, we do appreciate you taking the time to have this extremely long rant email. We did read it and we're going to throw some highlights. And when I say rant, you use the word rant.

Hi, Peter and Adam. Big fan of the podcast and you guys in general. But in my opinion, that last episode on the Blues was not cool slash lame for a bunch of different reasons. Begin rant. Okay, so this is how he threw me off balance. Big fan of the podcast and you guys in general. I'm looking at myself in the mirror. I'm like, thank you.

Oh, you love me. Who doesn't love Petey? Who doesn't love Adam? Good line, buddy. Yeah, so you got us with that one. Way to go. Begin rant. Number one, you called this a blues episode.

Did we? What was the name of the episode? Oh, how to play the blues or something? Maybe we did. No, no, no. You know what? It was play this,

not that. Okay. That was, these are literally just suggestions on what not to play in a jazz context when you're playing over the form of a blues. Right.

And so maybe because we used to call it daily jazz advice, which was a more overt description, perhaps, of what this podcast was about, but we wanted to be more inclusive. We talk about different kinds of music. We talk about,

like today we're going to talk about books, you know, kind of in the self-help, self-help category, whatever. So maybe we haven't been clear enough that we're coming to all of this from a jazz musician's perspective. We've also not been using the term jazz because we're a little bit anti-the-word jazz in a way

for better, for some political reasons or whatever, and we're trying to get a little bit out of the habit of that. We don't have time to get into that today, though. We don't. So you call this a blues episode. Nah, not really. But really didn't give any background on the different styles of actual blues piano

that are out there and who to listen. to Chicago style Otis Spahn, New Orleans, Dr. John, Texas, Pinetop Perkins and so on. We are both experts on Texas, especially Pinetop Perkins. I'm ashamed to say, oh no, I have heard it. We're not experts. I love that style, but it's also like I love Malaysian cuisine, but I don't know a lot about it. Right. You know, and maybe I should because I am a professional pianist.

I guess that's a little different. But Dr. John, I do know a little something about Dr. John. I knew Dr. John. I actually got a chance to hang with him and talk about music. And I don't think that Dr. John considered himself a blues pianist and not a New Orleans blues. He was a New Orleans style pianists and keyboardists and singer and songwriter. So I'm not even sure, you know, how much it matters how you label these things. But point taken.

Oh, it matters. It matters to some people. No, no, I understand your point. These are great folks that you're mentioning for sure. For sure. But that's part of the reason we didn't say this is a historical dive. We said this is a fan boy, fan boy's homage to Oscar Peterson playing the blues.

I think we were pretty clear on that. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So, you know, if we have any faults, it's that we love Oscar Peterson too much. We'll admit that. But I love Dr. John. This episode seemed to focus on jazz blues only,

which to me seems weird given the title. But not given the podcast again. Again, we're jazz guys. Opsedadiojazz.com. Yeah, yeah. Number two, Oscar Peterson is not the end-all, be-all of jazz blues. O contrary, on frere, I would say, I mean, nobody's that end-all be-all, right? Of anything.

It's true. But this is a 2015 to 20-minute podcast. So we do try to focus in on certain folks. And I mean, yeah, we'll probably have too narrow of a focus in general. But you can't say that we ever said that Alex Peterson is the only thing. We didn't mention other people. We've done deep dives on Wynton Kelly. McCoy Tyner doing the blues, yeah, yeah, which is very, very different.

And yeah, I just don't think it's, I feel like this is. very much looking at this from like, why aren't you having, why didn't you turn this into a blues podcast? And it's just not what we're about here. Like we, we are interested in what we're interested. And you might consider that a very narrow form of, of jazz, but that's what we do. Right. And that's where, that's where our perspective is coming from. Also, for our audience, which is mostly a jazz or, or I would say primarily jazz pianists who are looking to get better, Oscar Peterson is your basic Bob intro into playing a certain way from a certain period

and so... It just feels so good that it's really it's easy to get people into this music in a way that's deeper with people like Oscar Peterson for us. Now, if you have a better idea for that, please let us know. But for us, we think Oscar Peterson is a great introduction to this kind of play. Now, let me just run over a couple other things

I don't agree with because you actually had some rants that I do agree with him. You were correct. Yeah, yeah, for sure. We're not going to highlight that. You're not all wrong. This is our podcast. You guys, number five, you spend a lot of time talking about the major and minor blue scale

instead of actually dissecting the blue vocabulary. For example, actually, let me skip that one. He might be right about that. Number six, I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, what students sound like when they are learning blue scales. It eats away at my very soul every time I hear it. Stop telling people to learn scales. Blues piano is based on Licks and a share of vocabulary.

Okay. Now, are we all about scales here? No, we are not. We talk about the blue scale. We talk about not going to the blue scale for each chord. But we're always like, whatever sounds good. We also always mentioned that the blue scale is not to be played as like a linear scale ever. Like we always, we mentioned language, like, listening.

That's always number one. And then we've even talked about like treating it as different geographic regions on your hand shape and things. Some technical things about how, like what works for us. Now, I don't know if that works for you again. I've got to be careful when I play that. just watch it just watch it so don't upset the blues purist Peter um Peter number four Peter Sloppy roles are part and partial of the blues tradition see dr. John and odis Bond okay I don't agree with that I mean sloppy Dr. John no I mean inventive creative and and maybe from a classical

standpoint I am a classical musician sloppy but not no that's not a part of the blues tradition blues tradition and this i'm not a blues scholar but from a musical standpoint if you go to robert johnson odespon for sure dr john i mean look any great musician that plays the blues and or jazz blues or whatever else you want to call it slot there's nothing sloppy anywhere now i mean do people slip on a note or whatever but what i think is too often called sloppy roles and stuff are very inventive and specific techniques that actually typify and define what blues is and how you're able to get a sound out of the piano from a blue standpoint that you can't do with any other kind of music and revolutionize what this instrument can do. So in the same way, I would say Thelonious

Monk is not sloppy when people call him sloppy. I just don't agree with that. Yeah, I feel you on that. Yeah, Benny, you know, you make some really good points and maybe we'll actually... But we're not talking about those. We're talking about the bad points. No, no, no. I mean, he's obviously really passionate about this and knows a lot about it more than more than we do. But again, like, please realize that we are experts on every single kind of of piano playing in this lineage as much as we would like to do. Like we're also not experts on like super out avant-garde jazz piano playing. And we're exactly. You know, when we talk about it, I'm sure we'll get angry emails from those people too.

Right. But we like to pull from what we like to pull from to make our own music. And that's where I'm at with that. We'll post this whole email. Andrew, make sure to put this whole email up. Really? Yeah, yeah, of course. Oh, he talks about Professor Longer.

I think it's only fair because actually I think that he's got a lot of really cool things that people might want to read here about... Well, I love his last line, I do agree with. Love you dudes. It's a great line. We love you too, Benny. Thank you for taking the time to write this, man. I think this is a great perspective

that some people might really get a lot of knowledge and wisdom out of. But yeah, take a read and let us know what you think if you agree with Benny. So let's talk about now what we've been reading besides rant emails from our loving listeners. You know what? I think we're going to have to save this

for, I think we went too deep. Oh, did we go to deep? Yeah, yeah. So tomorrow, in two days. Tomorrow we'll do our favorite reads. Oh, that's good. Yeah, yeah. That'll give me a chance to finish my book.

Until then. You'll hear it.