You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - This Week's Recap

Episode Date: November 5, 2019

Peter and Adam are reunited in this episode, and they decide to catch up on what they've been up to for the past week.Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Pete. Hey, Adam. Do we even still have a podcast anymore? You know what? This is the triumphant return of the dynamic duo today. Tadda! I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz advice. Coming at you. Coming at you today. I'm in St. Louis, Missouri. Peter's in God knows where, Italy. Peter, where are you at? I'm in Matera, Italy, which is known as the St. Louis of Southern Italy, actually, ironically enough.

Nice. So what are we talking about today? Well, today I was thinking we could just kind of get back in the saddle, get reacquainted with each other. We had a little hiatus there. We could kind of catch each other up. I know you did some episodes of the last few days that are getting some, I'd say, rave reviews. Would you refer to them as that? jury's still out

jury's still out but yeah I did some I did some episodes at the piano which is like the only way I think our listeners can accept that it's like there's no

famous witty banter right not really everybody everybody really prefers piano but no we thought we would just kind of like catch up because we haven't I haven't actually seen you in like two weeks

right you've been on the road for a while now yes I've been super busy you know I'm working on this this new course with Jeffrey Kieser arranging course composition course

let's talk about that for to go to New York tomorrow yeah yeah just we recorded here in St. Louis like part one of this course and then we're going to record it at the Bunker Studios in

Brooklyn which is like a second part of the course where we like we filmed him here writing these compositions and arrangements and then we're going to film this performance of this nine-piece band of like serious heavy-hitting monsters that he put together playing these arrangements. And then we're going to have another session early 2020 where we kind of break down exactly like some of the musical wheels and cogs of how it's all working.

So it's pretty exciting, man. It's kind of the most ambitious course we've ever produced here at Open Studio, but I think it's going to be dope. I think it's super exciting. And I didn't want to say anything, but I actually snuck into some of our deep freeze file systems. and actually took a little peek at what's been recorded already. But I'm anxious to see the finished product. That's going to be nice, especially to hear the recording. That's going to be amazing. Kieser's always killing him.

He was writing some really good music, man. He was really writing some cool stuff. Yeah. Good, good, good, good. Well, yeah, so I think the most exciting thing that has occurred. Well, so I did one or two episodes myself. I don't know if you knew about that, but they will have been heard by now. I sent them in from, you know, from the road, did some remote solo episodes.

And what I realized from doing that, I was thinking, okay, well, normally we, you know, we do the episodes and maybe it's 50, 50, 50, 50 in terms of knowledge that we're contributing to an episode. Maybe 60, 40 some days. We try to pick up the slack for each other. So I thought that, you know, I thought the episode would basically be the same, but just with less knowledge being dropped. But it turns out what you mentioned before, the witty banter, I think that's a big.

part of our of our delivery as it turns out because my solo episode was totally devoid of any witty banter. I tried to have witty banter by myself, but it just didn't work. Yeah, well, let's be honest, too. It's a bit of a time filler of the witty banter here. Like, I'm about to kill 20 seconds, just witty, wittily banting. I don't even think that's, I just made up a term. But I'm just, you know, vamp in here trying to get you to chuckle. And that's always fun.

That's right. The solo you'll hear it's more difficult, man. They really are. It kind of puts us on the spot. People who have Bill Burr, who has his own solo podcast where he just talks for an hour, I don't know how the hell he does that. That's really tough. Well, you know what it is?

It's kind of like, I think, a solo piano versus anything else in jazz, like be a duo up to with a full orchestra or anything. Like the communal nature to having a discussion as we do. And, you know, hopefully a little witty banter and dropping knowledge, but really just talking about this art form that we love so much, that is such a, there's such a corollary between that and the community and the communal feeling

of being on the bandstand. And I think that a lot of times we all, you know, the listeners, the whole you'll hear community and everything, I think we all maybe take that for granted. And, you know, every time I get a chance to play music or talk with, as it turns out, I just never thought about like this. Talking about music could be like that as well. But it really is.

this is a music to be shared and to be, it really becomes a thing of like the sum is, is greater than the contents of just the musicians that are there. And so that's when something really great can happen. And, you know, solo piano obviously can be super excited. We've talked about that a lot. But I always think, you know, like a lot of times the things that we do talk about, it's like, you know, you're manufacturing the communal nature with yourself. You're replacing what a bass player, what a drummer would be doing, still thinking about

those same kind of concepts of community or whatever, just sort of putting it into the solo piano situation, if you were. For sure, man. Yeah, that's great. Hey, I was thinking about some things, because you're on this, you're on, this is quite a long tour by today's standards. Yeah. And I think our listeners would be interested to know,

like, if you haven't done any, like, of these sort of extended tours, I wonder if you could just talk about how the shows change, because you're, with the same band this whole tour, correct? Well, the first, up through next week I am, and then I'm actually with two different groups going to go straight into that. Oh, right on.

Yeah, but so far, yeah. So still, you'll be two weeks, basically, with the same group. Right. And so, like, you know, in my experience, like, it's fun to watch, even if it's people that you've been playing with for years, having this sort of, like, intense road experience,

there's something that happens to, like, the arc of the show, shows as you know what I'm saying? Does it make sense? Yep, absolutely. Like the music tightens up and things start to happen in a way that doesn't happen even if you're just doing shows like in one place. Right, right. Yeah. And I think, you know, for this tour, because this group Diane Reeves band, this current incarnation of it has been playing together for quite some time now. So there isn't that like beginning of the tour kind of like, what is this tour going to be from the standpoint of like we're playing together for kind of the first time or we are actually

doing some new music this tour, so that that's kind of another element. But I think that for sure, the arc of the tour, like the beginning, the kind of energy level and the expectations and the kind of almost, you know, sort of setting the tone for the trajectory of how the individuals and how the group wants the tour to kind of go musically. And then a lot of times that has to do with sort of what material is being played, especially if you've been playing together a lot, what tunes are going to happen. But what I'm always amazed about is, you know, there's many of the different things.

And then you've got unexpected things that can have to travel, weird instruments, funny venues, you know, all the just crazy stuff of being on the road. But what I'm always amazed about is how much it's similar to just doing a gig anywhere or at home. Like all the other stuff, like once you actually get on the stage, you're still sitting there with a new piano about the play gig.

Like the fact that everybody speaks another language or looks different, kind of melts away during the actual show. And I'm always amazed at how much I feel like, you know, this is, I mean, and it's not to, not to say that it's ordinary at all. It's just that there's more things alike about it, the actual gig, than there are different. But then as soon as you're done, and then they're taking you to eat somewhere, and it's like, you can't read the menu or whatever. Then everything's upside down again.

But I almost kind of like grab hold to the gig and that kind of the community aspect of the band and like trying to bond with the piano and just for me to really try to do my job to play the piano as well as I can to give the audience some entertainment to give them an edifying musical experience like I really hold that time kind of sacred and um you know like that kind of becomes my solace no matter what happened uh during the day yeah but you're in italy right now so there's also sacred time you know at the dinner table oh yeah at the lunch lunch break well there's There's tons of... Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

And actually, it's very topical that you say that because today we had a funny thing. I'm right in the... I know that you're still big... Well, are you still big on your keto fasting? Are we still hashtag ketowing? No, I'm a little bit straying from the keto right now. I'm about to go back, though.

Okay. Well, I had a little forced keto today because we actually played just about an hour and a half from here further down in the kind of heel of the boot of Italy in Toronto. Actually, we're doing the same. same show tonight with the same orchestra, but about

an hour and a half away. But we, you know, Italian breakfast is very light. So I basically didn't eat anything this point. I had a little coffee. And then I was like, I'm going to have some lunch once we get up here. We got here at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. And we're staying at this hotel in the middle of nowhere because it had to be, we couldn't

go in the city center with the tour bus. So we're like out by the highway and the restaurant was closed and there's nothing. They're like five kilometers is the closest restaurant. There's nowhere to walk to. So I had a little little keto situation. I'm righted, I'm not that I'm looking at the clock every minute here, but two hours so I'm able to eat some food for an early dinner.

But yeah, I mean, actually the food, that's, I mean, it's so fun in Italy and really everywhere. It's just, it's just fun to experience. And I really try to take all that in and try some new things. For sure. Cool, man. Well, we'll hit some, we'll hit some musical stuff tomorrow, but it was nice catching up. That's right, right. And what is your name again?

Just refresh me. It's Adam Maness. I'm Adam Maness. I'm Peter Martin. I'm Peter Martin, man. Yeah. It'd be fun to hang some time, man. All right, well, until tomorrow, you'll hear it.