You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - This Week in Jazz - #20

Episode Date: January 25, 2019

Adam wraps up his experience at the JEN Conference this year, and Peter analyzes the New Orleans Jazz Festival lineup. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Ennis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Coming at you today from beautiful open studio headquarters here in St. Louis, Missouri. H-Q. What's up? OSH-Q.

I guess we're in St. Louis, so it's not really Missouri more than it's Missouri. Or Missouri, depending on the time of year. Sorry, that was dark. It's dark. It's dark. Yeah, well, it is dark out. And it's snowy. The snow is dark too right now because it's been on the ground for a few days and it's gross.

We had snow coppelips. Did you know about that? I didn't know about that. No, you know, it was weird is so I was, today we're doing this week in jazz, by the way. Oh, yeah. For everybody. Our monthly feature. It's getting, it's getting to be weekly almost.

That's true. We did it last week. It's like our feature every 12 days or so. You know what? We don't control the news. We just report the news. So when it comes, it comes, you know. So for the snow on the ground, I went to Jen last week, right?

And it started snowing here in St. Louis after I left. Like snowpocalypse happened. I wasn't, I wasn't privy to it. I was privy to it. Yeah, you were here. But when I came back on Sunday, there was a foot of snow everywhere. I get to about 150 miles of the St. Louis airport. And the airport's on fire.

The airport. The airport's on fire. I had to go back. I had to go back to Denver. Oh, you actually came all the way. Yeah. And then turned the plane around back to where we started from, which was Denver. Why would they go that far back?

Why wouldn't they go to like Frontier Airlines? Springfield, Illinois. Frontier Airlines. You're kidding me, man. Frontier Airlines is kind of crazy. Oh yeah, were you on one of their Airbus, modern airbus planes that the seats do not recline at all?

They do not recline at all. Like literally none. They charge you for everything. Like coffee, that's $2. Yeah. On the plane. Yeah. Come on, man.

I mean, I paid double that with my local barista, but it's a little better though. Okay. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. Anyway, but I did go to Jen. You weren't able to make it because you were still recovering

from the Jazz Congress. I was. I was. I was. So, yeah. So I think that could be the first thing for this week in jazz. I think it's the most important thing.

Jen, first of all, why don't you tell the good listeners for those that don't know what Jen is. It's not a friend of ours named Jennifer. It's a conference, right? It is a conference. It's a conference from the Jazz Education Network. Happens every year. This year it was in beautiful Reno, Nevada.

Which Reno is beautiful. I was not aware. It's like right there in the mountains by Lake Tahoe. It's gorgeous. Yep. And it was very, very cool. It was Open Studios' first appearance at any kind of convention or conference.

Yeah. And, you know, we had our own boots. We had a ton of people stopped by. I heard so many, hey, seven stars, from people from you'll hear at listeners stopping by our booth. So thanks to everybody who stopped by. Great to meet you face to face. And yeah, we had a great time.

We met some cool people doing some cool things in the online education community, which is what Open Studio is. We hooked up with, right across from us with Yamaha Pianos and got to sample their brand new disclaveir, you know, self-playing piano that syncs the video to the self-playing piano.

It was dope. I've always wondered, is it disclavier or a disc clavier? My man Craig from Yamaha called it disclavier, so that's what I'm going with. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. And then there were a ton of great performances.

We also had some open studio artists who were performing there stopped by, Sean Jones, Warren Wolf. We had some jazz celebs stopped by our booth, Miguel Zanan, and Antonio Hart and a few other folks. And, man, it was good vibes all around. Some good performances, some really good high school jazz bands that came to perform from all across the country,

some good college bands. Our man, Nathan Pence, stopped by. He was playing there with Temple's big band. Yeah, how did they sound? They sounded terrible. Really? No, I'm just kidding. But Nathan sounded good.

No, they sound awesome. Nathan sounded like that. I know that's got to be a strong trumpet section because Terrell Stafford heads up. Does he head up the big band as well? I think he, well, he was playing with them. I know. But, man, Pence is killing it right now.

Yeah. So, yeah. That's good. Yeah, yeah. So was there, would you say it was more, high school big bands or college big bands. It was the whole gamut. And I would say this.

Or postgraduate. Right. This was true of the whole conference, actually. It was like I had people who were obviously in like late middle school to early high school stopping by the booth, asking what was up, all the way to like retired hobbyists and everybody in between. College age, professionals, amateurs, you know, from eight to 80. we're literally from 8 to 80 we're stopping by our booth and and we were talking to them about open studio and just sharing in the jazz love so it was very very cool there was some really cool presentations um and some some like some nice lectures and things like that and you know what next year it's going to be in new Orleans Louisiana have you ever heard of that place yes I'm in on that one yeah I'm in you got to be there on that and we're going to have an even bigger presence there open studio we're going to be doing some cool stuff I think. We're going to do a takeover. We're going to do a you'll hear a takeover. We are going to try to get a live you'll hear it at next year's Jen. So get your tickets now. Well, we well, let's not jump the gun on that now. I know it's not. Nothing's planned. No, I like I like your confidence though. I like your hootspa. I would, yeah, I would say. As they say in the old country. But if my Jen folks, I know there's actually a Jen board member who's you'll hear at listener. If you're listening or watching hook us up, we want to do a live presentation. Isn't one of our artists, our open studio artists like actually the head of Jen now? Not till 2020. Oh, okay. So we'll have to slip in.

That would be Sean Jones. That would be Sean Jones. He's going to be the president. He's the president elect of Jen at the moment. President in waiting. President in waiting. I'll tell you this, though. Let me tell you this about a jazz conference.

Okay. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. It's very weird. It's very, very weird. What was the, what was, if you were to rate from one to ten, the jazz nerddom level, 10 being total geeked out with a jazz police siren attached. to the top of their head,

to one being, what is jazz? I would say the jazz nerd level it was like 80% tens that were there. I mean, if you buy a ticket to Reno, Nevada to go talk about jazz for three days,

there's a certain level of nerd that I have to appreciate. Yeah. And it was awesome. That's our people though. That is our people. I mean, I was there too. I'm one of you.

And man, it was, but there is like, you know, there is a certain, on the way to the airport I could be like you're going to the jazz conference you're going to the jazz conference

I could tell there's a look that you'll hear a t-shirts off and then I looked in the mirror and I was like you're going to yeah I have the same look as you all like we all have and it was really interesting there was we were kind of

the only game in town for big conferences that weekend the other conference was a huge hunting convention so like at the hotel there was absolutely no crossover like you could walk in the elevator and be like Hunter, Hunter, Jazz nerd, Hunter, Jazz nerd.

I thought you were going to say Hunter, hunted. That would be the Jazz, the Gen Conference. The hunters were definitely side-eyeing the jazz musicians a little bit, yeah. Yeah, I think I did one of the jazz cruises years ago, and before they had their own boat, like now, most of the, well, like the Bluno Jazz cruises the one I did last year, they actually have the entire cruise ship, a pretty big cruise ship is that. But it used to be like you'd have sort of half of it,

And there was like a NASCAR cruise gone on at the same time. You're talking about no overlap. It was hilarious, you know. Although I will say my friend Corey Christiansen's guitar player, he is also, he lives in Utah. Yeah. And he is a huge hunter and he was the only person that could blend in with both. He has a big beard and long hair. Right.

He looks rugged. He kind of got like a Duck Dynasty like a... Yeah. Okay. Only like a burning guitar player. Right. Yeah. You know what?

Speaking of guitarist, hunters, Dan Wilson, I believe, great Dan Wilson from Ohio. Young Dan Wilson, I believe, is a hunter, which is a little odd. I mean, any jazz musician that's, I think I saw a picture of him. That also hunts. That hunts with full, like, Duck Dynasty gear on. Well, it's not surprising, man. Jazz is all over the place. Jazz is everywhere, man.

The rural places. Yeah. I met some folks from places I've never heard of in America, like weird rural spots in Maine and things like that. I see how jazz musicians could. Is there an international presence at all? Was this just a national? You know what? So not as much.

I was told by some people in the know that Reno is kind of hard to get to for Europeans. Yeah. You know, it's west of Los Angeles. Reno is. Like the shape of California. It's like way up here near San Francisco. It's a four-hour drive for San Francisco. Which wouldn't necessarily prohibit someone coming from a foreign country just it being west.

But it is a little bit remote in terms of aviation for sure. Yeah. There's no direct flights from the East Coast. I think that's what makes it hard. Yeah. Or not many. It's really hard. Yeah, yeah.

So anyway, but that was my Jen experience. Nice. Shout out to Jen. Thank you, everybody in Reno. Thank you everybody for stopping by our booth. We had a great time. Good, good stuff. So we got a couple other things actually happened this week, this month, in jazz.

And one, we usually skip over, which is the Utah Jazz, which shows up on a radar. But they're actually kind of balling lately. And they're showing up. I just want to give a quick shout out to them. Are we doing a Utah Jazz segment? They are so close to making the playoffs. They're like in the ninth spot in the West. And they're sort of surging because they've won seven out of their last 10 games.

So they might have to get on our radar because we're come up on, you know, we're not at playoffs yet, but we're in the second half of the NBA season. And we're starting to look at some teams. But there is sort of a jazz connection with them, actually. They're in Utah, which is weird. Yeah. But, you know, they originally were the New Orleans jazz. Of course, Pistol Pete Marevich. All the great players used to play in the Superdome.

They actually played the first couple of seasons in the Superdome in New Orleans. Yeah, yeah. So that's the name. It's like the L.A. Lakers, you know, they used to be in Minnesota. Yeah. Which makes sense. They're in a barren Southern California. Desert.

Yeah, that's good. But then the other thing that I kind of saw was on my radar news-wise this week is the annual announcement, which always happens this same week, of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Note, the name of it is still officially New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Have you ever played the Jazz Fest? I've played the Jazz Fest many times, and I was just looking to get up. Where is the? Okay, there it is. Oh, this is good.

This episode is already marked. is done. I like that. Andrew is so far ahead of us. His confidence in us is great. Shout out to Andrew over there for engineer. Andrew is our producer. I don't know if folks, Andrew Kitchen. Can I say your full name? You're not wanted or anything, are you? Okay. Good. Young Andrew Kitchen is our producer and just killing it, mostly killing it. I do, I had a little bit of, no, I got to say, a little bit of complaint that I expressed this morning and you listeners can let us know in the YouTube comments, which is basically letting me know because I'm the only one who reads them. Dude.

But, you know, my voice was a little bit sublimated. I would use the word compared to Adams. Now, Adam does have a beautiful baritone. It's like a Hillsborough. No, what's the town you're from? High Ridge. It's like a high ridge baritone, Missouri voice with a kind of depth that I never got from my Florida University City upbringing. But I mean, I'm also noticing your technique.

You're right up on the mic. So maybe I should try that. But I was noticing I was a little bit under mics. But that's okay. It's all good. Everything is a competition with you. No, no. I'm just looking for it for quality. But, okay, so New Orleans Jazz Fest announced their lineup.

And look, this every year is a great thing to do basically so-called real jazz musicians and the jazz police complains about all the non-jazz acts that are showing up on a Jazz Festival. It's one of the best part about Jazz Fest is all the complaining. Yeah, exactly. But this is always fun. And I've actually, I've never really had a huge problem with this because one thing I think that they do great, one of the great things. First of all, I love the Jazz Fest. I used to live a half block for quite a few years from the festival. I mean, like I kind of came of age, playing the jazz fest,

and I love everything about the food, the people, the whole thing. Having said that I've never bought, like, what is now, $185 ticket to the jazz fest. So I've never really thought about it as that. But I've listened to a lot of good music. But this year, we have several of your favorite jazz singers, I noticed we're on the list. And I don't know if you saw them, so you might get excited. You're smiling already. Katie Perry will be appearing.

One of my favorites. So swinging. So, so swinging. Yeah. And also the Rolling Stones. It's funny because we wrote down Rolling Stone, but I believe it is the Rolling Stones, right? Yeah, you got Jimmy Buffett. It's one of the best jazz musicians.

Well, he's there every year because that's like Quinn Davis's boy, you know, they're buddy. And then one of your favorite, just kind of general rappers and entertainers, you're always talking about pit bull. Love pit bull. Yeah. Would he come on more of the jazz or heritage side of things? You know, he's got this arrangement of countdown that is just. Amazing. No.

You know what, though, kind of to your point before, what's kind of cool about this is like, you know, you have Pitbull and Santana. I mean, Santana is, that's flexible for the jazz thing because he's a great improviser. Yeah. You know, Katie Perry or whatever. But people are going to go see Katie Perry. And then they're also going to go get to, like, Bobby Jones and the Nashville super choirs on the same bill as Katie Perry. You know what I mean? Yeah, but they're different stages.

Those same people are not going to go over there. That's the problem. The same area, right? Kind of. I don't know. I mean. No, they might. They might. That's true. People, but people are going to travel to New Orleans for this. They always do. Like, people come in out of town and maybe they see Pitbull one night and they see, you know, Ellis Marcellus family tribute, you know, the next day. I think there's a little bit of that. I do think it's become a little bit of a problem when they, like, Santana's a great example. I think he's, like, historically, that was always, that would be like the biggest act that they have. And there is some jazz. It's not even about jazz. There's some kind of creative music connection with that. And I think you would have more natural overlap with the people that kind of grew up and want to hear San Francisco.

Tanna that you would want to hear in Ellis Marcellus or a trombone Shorty or Nicholas Payton, all the, because what the Jazz Fest has always done great is highlighting New Orleans music. That's really the heritage part about it. It's not so much about jazz, although a lot of these people will talk about her jazz. But, I mean, you've got, you know, Big Sam's Funky Nation. They're always there. And Andrews Osborne, you know, stuff that's not jazz, but it's very New Orleans. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, Mark Mullins, all the, what's the trombone guys' names, the Bonorama, stuff like that. Jeremy Davenport, stuff that's like associated with New Orleans. Totally. And that's great. That's what it's all about. Yeah, Galactic, all these brass bands that are on here like a dozen brass bands. Yeah, George Porter. But when you get stuff like, and I mean, I don't know, Rolling Stones, everybody loves Rolling Stones.

That's great. I mean, they're historic. They're going to get everybody. But some of this stuff like Katie Perry and stuff, I mean, it's just, it's got nothing to do with New Orleans. It's got nothing to do with jazz. It's got nothing to do with heritage as far as I know. And yeah, it brings people in.

And, you know, for $185, that's what people are used to paying to go to a show like that and they have the chance of maybe even being up close if they push their way up. So it's just kind of a new day and age for the jazz fest. A lot of what's good about it is still there, but some of this is kind of like, meh. Well, and again, it is fun. Not meth. It is fun to hear people complain about it so much. That's true. It's great. Yeah. Juby Brothers, I like that. Little St. Louis, and I don't think Michael McDonald will be there. Is he singing with them still? I don't know, actually. I don't think so. But there's some good non-jazz on here that I would see. I would love to see Bonnie Raid in person. I've never seen. Well, she's done a lot of jazz fest. She spent a lot of times in New Orleans

and she'll bring up like George Porter and like some some OG New Orleans players for sure. Cool. Good. Well, we covered this week. And in case we don't get back to this feature for another month, I think we're good, right? I mean, that's a lot of jazz. When the jazz make the playoffs, we'll definitely be back. That's right. They're like an eighth, ninth place right now. So we'll see. We are starting something new that's kind of exciting. Do you know about this? Yeah, I do know about this. Check this out listeners. You're going to want to hear this. Okay. Oh, you want me to say? I want you to say. Okay. We are starting a little program that came from our producers, mind of our producer, which is the weekly listener

theme song. Now, this may end up being like this week in jazz where it happens more like monthly, but we're going to see how this goes. We're going to invite you guys, the listeners, to send us a track, right? Yeah. Okay, correct me if I'm wrong here, because we haven't fully fleshed this out, to be honest. That's right. Yeah, send us a track. Send us a MP3 is the best thing to send. Or wave. Or wave, but MP3 is a little... Or an AIFF or... Whatever you send us, it's going to be an MP3 on your podcast. Yeah, yeah. And be thinking about where they're going to send it on. I just say this would be the featured music for the outro. So I want you guys thinking about something you might want

to feature of your music, make it good. We're going to choose based upon what we think is good. But also what we think will fit and what Andrew thinks will fit at the end of the program. Is that correct? Yes. So this will be like the outro music, right? That's right. And we'll feature for the whole week if something good comes. And they can send that to Andrew at openstudio network.com. Really? And that goes right to him. Andrew at Open Studio Network. Okay, so send in your tracks. And, you know, look, if you're savvy about this, I don't want to give it all away,

but you might, you know, even kind of edit it down to like 20, 30 seconds and, you know, kind of what we would use. You can send the whole track, but if you do a little bit of homework for us, I don't know, I'm just lying. You might get in there a little quicker. That's right. And so, yeah, send it to Andrew at openstudionetwork.com, and your track might be our outro music. That's right. In the weeks to come.

Now for the fine print, we take all publishing royalties and all uses worldwide in perpetuity. No, no, no. We're just going to use it on the podcast, which is, this is obviously a free event here. So this will be fun. I'm interested to hear what we're going to. Now, think about, hopefully you guys will send something in that fits for what we're doing. You know, you can use as a template the music we have on there, but it doesn't have to just be like that. We're looking for something creative.

We'll look into, this will be a nice little chance for you to have some of your music. And we'll, of course, give credit to it to you. So it's a chance to get your music out there in front of some other people. Absolutely. Yep. Is that all we got? That's all we got. All right.

Well, you'll hear it.