You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Tips for Playing With a Big Band

Episode Date: October 30, 2020

On this episode, Peter and Adam discuss what pianists should do when they're playing in a big band.Interested 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.Links From This EpisodeTo check out all the Open Studio piano courses Peter and Adam mention in this episode, follow this link.Friday's Open Studio Live Events:1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)1:00 PM - Zoom Drum Masterclass with Greg Hutchinson3:00 PM - Piano Guided Practice Session with Adam on YouTube8:00 PM - Shelter in Place solo piano concert with Peter on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet 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. Yes. Spoo bop. Bo da, ba, ba, stu, ba,

boo, bo, ba, bow, bow. Those stockings are so shiny. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily music, advice, and inspiration. Come out you. Oh, I'm feeling inspired today. And if you are, maybe go to openststrejojojazz.com and check out all of our courses.

Because Peter has a weekly piano lesson that he's been doing for like 19 years or something. How long have you been doing this? Yeah, I first did it on a Super 8 camera with no sound. Actually, you did do it on one of those like little, what was like a flip or something? Flip cam. Flip cam, square. Oh, my gosh. I got one of those.

Not HD. I got one of those Christmas 2008 or something. Yeah, so that would be about when, no, I started a little after. I've been doing about nine years, going on 10 years. That's pretty awesome, man. Yeah. So you have like 400 something lessons up there. Anyway, go to Open StudioJJazz.com and check out all of our piano courses.

Check out the piano. It's past. Super popular. And we'll talk about this at the end, but I'm so excited about this because yesterday, for our dear listeners. I love the way we say that. When I say we, it's only me for some reason. I say dear listeners. I always make a connection with Kim Jong-un, our dear leader.

Our dear leader. In North Korea. Yeah, I don't know why. Isn't it nice that we live in a free country, for now, that we can make jokes about dear leaders and stuff like that? It is pretty great. Yeah, yeah. You know my favorite... Enjoy it.

My favorite North Korean anecdote. And this was for... I was to say your favorite North... I only know one. Kim John. Well, Kim... Well, so not's Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-un.

But his dad, Kim Jong-il, he didn't poop. That's what the official... Yeah, no butthole. The official party line was he never went poop. Isn't that crazy? That's amazing. I mean, that's next level. You know your...

That's some good leadership there. That's a dear leader. That is a dear leader when your whole country is convinced you don't... Because you're so busy leading. You don't even have time to take a crap. I have time for nothing besides just being awesome. It's amazing. It's amazing.

That's right. Let's segue from that to a little jazz advice. How you go? Yeah, we're going to talk about this at the end, but I'm just going to throw a phone number out there. Oh, my God. You know, okay. Because you didn't know about this. We talked about this yesterday.

We tested this. Leave us a voice moat. Give us a call. Actually, we may even, if you know when we're recording it, if you call while we were recording this in our secret bunker, also known as the pod suite. We'll put you on. We will. Well, can we do that? Sure.

We got a lot of cableage around here. 314-282-64437. This is like an old-school call-in radio show. Well, it goes to a land... Seventh caller gets a special t-shirt. It goes to a landline that's manned by an old lady named Doris. He's got her hair up and curlers and his chain smoking, very long, thin cigarettes. And she'll be like, you'll hear it podcast.

What do you want? Who do you want? Adam or Peter. Line one for... Press 1 for Peter. Press 1 for Peter. Press 2 for Adam. Daily Jazz advice.

what's your problem that's how that goes yeah it's 314 282 6 437 yes but we do have a nice salutation or incarnation or whatever you would call the beginning of the situation uh with both your voice and if you just want to call up and hear both our voices it's not my voice man you know what you can text us at that number too i think i don't know try it you just making it up come on that i'm i mean try it see what happens text here text well no that's not my number but but but text us, we'll come to us. It's the... If Doris texts you back. What do you want? What do you want?

So, what are we talking about today, dear leader? Today, we are talking about clapping with every emphasis on... No, we're talking about tips for playing with a big band. Actually, you know what? Talking like this is a little bit like comping with a big band

if you think about it. No, you have to clap really loud so you can't hear what you're saying. Then it's like comping with a big band. Yeah, yeah. I can't hear a damn thing. So we have an email from Nick. Oh, yeah. Nick says, hi, Adam and Peter. I've been playing piano for a jazz orchestra slash big band for almost two years now.

While it has been a great experience so far, there's still some aspects of playing in that setting which could use some improving. One thing I notice is that you can't play chords that are too colorful as that will clash with what the horns are doing. Yes. What are your recommendations for finding chords that fit with the horns? Run quickly, fast and far, to a solo piano gig. Also, how would you comp while the horns do their thing?

Duke Ellington had a very sparse approach while Oscar Peterson. Because he was standing up conducting. That's right. Oscar Peterson would have blazing runs. What are some tips for playing in a big band? Thanks. And that's from Nick. Thank you, Nick.

Thanks, Nick. I don't know what I can't know. Forget about it, Nick. Forget about it. No, that's cool. Oscar Peterson with a big band. I never heard that. I haven't either.

I'm sure it happened, though. And I'm sure if it happened, it happened just as Nick described. or with blazing runs. Exactly. That was this kind of MO. Well, I mean, yeah, and I think that that would be just an extreme case of like if you're really at a high level,

not only with you're playing, but what you're hearing. Like a lot of things about great players, especially pianists that, you know, because it's such a potentially technical instrument that can do so much. And you see this in classical music as well.

The piano, like great pianists dazzle us with their technique. For sure. So, and with the velocity. and the amount of things and that, you know, can you get four or even five voices going on me? Bach was writing three part, four part fugues.

Like so many great things can happen. And so it becomes the orchestra. It becomes the big band. It becomes not only a simulation of it, but just like a one-man band, one-woman band, as it were. And so, you know, once you're forced to be in that situation, we think, oh, there's no way on Oscar Peterson.

I'd love that. I'm going to look that up. There's no way he could survive because he's playing so much. He can barely survive in a trio without playing on top of everybody. But usually these great musicians, and Oscar is what was a great example of this, not only incredible technicians, but incredible ears.

So incredible taste. Like you get that confluence of all these skills that actually, I think he becomes so underrated as such a great ensemble player. You hear this, what I would really notice a lot was his accompaniment for singers, which would be busy AF, as we say, compared to something that you or I might try

or other pianists that are down on earth. But he could pull it off. Yeah, I would not even try that. Yeah. But because his ears and his reaction, like he was so quick on his feet. He may not have been light on his feet, but don't get that confused with him being very quick on his feet because he was. I mean, and even, you know, when he had his health issues later on, I mean, I got a chance

of the pleasure of seeing him play live several times at different points, but I heard him when he was quite sick at the end, but incredible instincts and incredible reactions. I mean, just uncanny. And so I think that a lot of that comes from the ears and combining that with incredible technique and then the incredible musical, you know, sensitivity and then just a command of the instrument. So I think that we can probably rule out being able to play at his level with a big man. But we can take some of those things and kind of fit it in with what's available to us and really double down, triple, triple, triple 10x down on listening intently. And I think Nick kind of brings this up a little bit in terms of like he's already hearing some things. Like you have to hear how you clash before you can figure out what you can do.

But you don't want to be scared. It's kind of like playing with the guitarist. You don't want to be so scared that you're like, oh, I can't say anything. It's like if you get a chance to have a conversation with somebody that is clearly just your intellectual superior, which is no problem with that. I love getting those situations. But don't deal with that. Like there's two ways you don't want to deal with that for sure. To be totally silent or to be talking over them.

You know what I mean? They're both kind of equally sinful in a way. So you got to find your place as like, how much can you say and how do you fit in? Yep. By knowing your place, but being additive rather than clashing. Well, it's interesting you mentioned playing with the guitar is one of the things because oftentimes in big band playing, we are playing with a guitar too. I know. And there's a lot of vibes as well.

And yeah, there could be guitar and vibes. And the guitar is usually, you know, if it's like a bassy style band, they're doing. Oh, man. And then so, you know, what, Nick, what you really have to come from here is that your role in the rhythm section of a big band is unique. and it's different than any other situations, certainly different than trio or even quartet, quintet, sex, tat, certainly different than a duo situation. And you have to realize that your main job in this

is not to provide the harmony, which is weird because that's what we usually are asked to do. Now that, to your point, Peter, that doesn't mean you never play, although you can lay out a lot more than you normally would. Yes. If you're in a quartet. But that's part of listening, too.

That's part of listening. So a couple of things to think about, Nick, think about what's your main job as the pianist and a big band. Usually you have a couple of really important roles. Like you might be asked to set up a roboto. There's all the time, right? The pianists get the roboto role in the big band at the beginning of a tune, right? So take that seriously.

Learn how to do that really, really well and learn those sections really, really well. Like don't be the pianist that is just there to solo or comp. realize that one of your main things, one of your main gigs as the pianist and the big man is the Roboto intros and the intros and the baselines with the bass player on like a groovy thing. Learn all of those, be able to play all of those. The second thing to think about is that when is there's, there needs to be a balance here, right? Where in general, the more that's going on, the less you need to do. So if it's a saxophone solely, you could definitely get in there, right? Make sure to always good big band arrangements

and usually a lot of pro big band arrangements will have very detailed chorusing signatures in which if the saxophone players are playing a C-7 flat 13 sharp 9 it's going to be labeled with all of the exact extensions

and like if there's not a sharp 11 like if they're playing then you don't just add a sharp 11 because you think it goes there right don't add anything unnecessary to the chord change and that'll keep you out of trouble always listen to your ears just to make sure. But the more things happen

when the trombones come in with them, if it's a full big band, the less you actually have to do. And you can, I mean, when I play with any big band or orchestra or even like no net situations or whatever, I spend maybe, yeah, I play with a no net sometimes. Oh, I'm, oh, I just,

it's like a condensed down big band, it's nine instruments. For some reason I'm thinking, no net, I was thinking of like, I'm picturing Adam, there's a rope connected between two, skyscrapers, he's walking, I don't know why that jumped in my head. With no net.

With no net. That's what it feels like sometimes, Peter. No, but, so there's no guitar player, but even then, like, when everybody's... No guitar player, no net. No net. No net. No, no nothing. No, but like, if the band is playing like...

I don't have to play. No need for me to play with no net. No need. No net. No need. No guitar. I can lay out. Now, I might choose my spot.

So if they're like... Maybe I'm like, yeah, I'll bassy it up. You know, do something that is out of their range. That's a thing. That's the other thing. The only other role you have besides all of that is to be the best compor that you can be when soloists are happening, right? And compor is a word that we love around here.

Comper, right. But to honestly be so supportive when it's time for soloists to play that it provides a different texture. Right. Yeah, that's great. So I would just think about, you know, what we could layer in with. that perhaps would be something that is actually really good for us as pianists to think about and take back to all the different wonderful situations that we can play and be it solo piano,

be a duo. What a great instrument. Can we talk, can we give a hands to the piano? It's the best instrument. It can be the best. It can be the worst. It's the best than the worst. It's so freaking hard.

It is hard. But like if you think about, so a big man will be a situation in which I think if you want to maximize both. your contribution to the situation and your contribution to your development as an overall musician would be the mindset of how do you play the highest quality music and contribution with the least amount of notes not even necessarily like that you have to play sparse I mean although you've outlined some places where you do have to play sparse but I'm talking about like where you've only got a couple of beats to play something.

For sure. But you don't have a chance. Like we're so used to being able to like ease our weight. Yeah. Is your friend. Exactly. Like how good can you play that instead of just being like, oh, this is all I have to play? Yeah.

Like can you take that to 11? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's not something that we normally have to develop. So we might not be able to do that as good as like think about a, think about the third trombone player in a in a big band that only gets to solo every third night and it's like a six bar solo or something. Yep. Like they have to maximize.

And like a lot of times those trombone players will play something so killing just because that's their creative outlet. Right. They get that moment. Yeah. I mean, I remember playing in the, you know, I did the, did the, played with the, what was, a Lincoln Center Jazz. I was sorry to say, the Wintmarsall's big band. It kind of is. The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. I was trying to remember. Wait, which band is that? I've never heard of it. We used to have a joke because there was like one of the trombone players fathers who would,

he would live, actually live in close to Chicago and he'd come to any gigs that we were close by Indiana or even Missouri or whatever. And he was so funny. He's like, man, I love you guys. He's like, I love the Lincoln City Orchestra. He always had a different name. He never could nail the Lincoln Center just like I thought. He was like, man, that Lincoln City big band is great. That Winton Lincoln Band is, like, he had all these great names for it. That Witten Center Big Band is amazing.

Yeah, it was always a combination. But I used to always be a little bit drug. I was young. I was young and I was like very ambitious. And it was from the situations I'd come from, I was like, man, I don't get a lot of chance to play. And so I would kind of be, at the first couple of months, I was sort of drugged about that. and you know but then I said you know what let me let me figure out there was certainly a lot of challenges of things to play but a lot of them I felt like I couldn't really be heard and I couldn't so I had to

find my places like I remember playing the Duke Ellington um nutcracker suite yeah you know arrangement great stuff with orchestra and you know New York Philharmonic and Lincoln city jazz man together and there's like hardly anything written half the two-thirds of the movement is to say tacit yeah so like I had to find my place but then I was like you know what what, whatever parts I'm going to play, I'm going to hit the quality level as close to Duke Allington as I can. That's right. You're now in the auxiliary of an orchestra.

Yeah. It's a whole thing. And even with that, I didn't have a lot of souls, but that was like, I actually had more souls than almost everybody in the band, certainly more than all the trombone players. We're so spoiled, man. We're so spoiled. We're like, I don't get to soul on every two. But this is a perfect example.

Right. And if we're like, now your Roboto intros, they start to matter, just what you can do, the little things that you play your role and you play it well. I'll also say one more thing about this, Nick, before we go, which is, Treat this like you were doing a gig at like, you know, the fat cat and you're playing the music of Kurt Rosenwinkel or whatever. You're going to listen to all of that music a lot. You're going to know it backwards and forwards. Why not listen to the tracks that you're playing?

You know, this is like a big thing that doesn't get done in big bands is like listen to the recordings. And what is Duke Ellington playing, which you seem to have a handle on actually. So, you know, listen to the bassy band. Listen to a bunch of big bands. Listen to what the pianists are doing. And do what they do. Right. That's great.

That's great. And one more little thing, I'll just say. Okay. The, the, learn the arrangements. Like, you might think, oh, I just have to learn. That's what I just said. Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't listening.

I was actually texting somebody. No, no, but learn them not only for when not to play because you don't want to get in the way, but for when you can play along with it. Did you say that? No. Okay. So, see, give me a chance. Come on.

Come on, dear leader. Dear leader. I don't defecate. No, but sometimes it's almost like feathering the bass drum. Like, do drummers have to do it? Can it really be heard? Careful, careful. My mom listens to them.

So, yeah, you can feel it. And so sometimes, like, if you really know the arrangement and the voicing and you can play with that saxophone section, even if it's not in your part, you got to know it. That could be supportive. And especially if it's maybe like a little bit less experience, big men, like you can kind like, because as pianists, we're still responsible, I think, for knowing the arrangement and being able to do a little bit of direction. One thing when playing in bands that have a lot of charts or whatever, do yourself a favor,

add some sight reading practice into your normal practice. routine. I think this is big. I don't do it a lot anymore because I don't do a lot of reading. I'm sorry, I'm pointing very emphatically. If you guys can see him, it's very dog man. He's pointing at me. And we will get to the next frontier.

No, no, no. But really, you know, take this opportunity, Nick, to incorporate site reading into your regular practice routine. This needs to be something that you hit on the daily because that's the only way to get better at it. Yes. So, anyway. Hit it on the daily.

Absolutely. Good stuff. Adam Manis, dear leader. well good thanks nick everybody keep the questions coming and we have oh boy i'm just checking oh my gosh we have not gotten any voice mail i i you know what maybe i'm not being clear about this no you've been i've been clear i've been clear you know maybe people are just like i don't use my phone for anything but apps when was the last time anybody called you man i'm anybody oh i can calls all the time you call yeah like joe biden kamala harris calls me every day

uh why i get text from them mostly yeah um No, I mean, I get calls. You don't get calls? I like using this as a phone. You know, young people forget that these magical devices are not just playing games on and texting. This is originally known as a telephone. You know what I get calls from? I get calls from my 8-year-old because we have my phone connected to the Google Home at home.

And so I'll get calls from Ivan who will be like, hey, dad. I'll be like what? He's like, but. And I'm like, bring me some chips upstairs. Yeah, exactly. Well, you can leave us a voicemail. If you listen to yesterday's episode, you will hear. hear what our voicemail sounds like, which is silly because you could just call it and leave us

a voicemail. It's like we have, it's like we're like Gary Shandling in the early 90s and we have a service, right? You know, you guys ever have a service? Man, I had it. Did you ever have a full? No, man. Yeah. That's what, this is what reminds me of. It's like we have a service. You know who had, uh, who was that, there was an actor, Bill Murray for years. He didn't have an agent. He didn't have an agent. He had like a, like, like, like an answering machine. It was like a service. It was just like, leave a message for Bill. That's like how, that's how you'd hire him. So you can do that with us.

Call us at 314-282-6-4-37. Maybe it's because, you know what? I just realized why people aren't calling us. Why? It's a toll number. It's not a toll-free number. Yeah, for our European friends, it's going to charge them long-distance.

Well, so would an 800 number. Do they, are there even, remember when long-distance was a huge deal? Oh, of course. It's so not a big deal anymore. You don't even think about it. Right. Adam, dear leader, welcome to the 90s. So 3-14-282-6-4-37,

Leave us a voicemail or a text, if that works. Hit me up on Twitter. We don't know. We don't know if it works. I am Peter Martin. Leave us a rating review. We're all cut up on reading those. We read every rating review that we can find.

On air. On air. Now, right now we're only seeing them on Apple podcast, Apple iTunes podcast. Spotify apparently doesn't have them. Is there something grasping about that? Is there something a little about reading the rating and reviews on air? Is there something maybe a little like, are we reaching with that? No, people like.

I like shining out people to let them know and let us know that there real people out there listening. I love that connection. I do like shouting out. But I'm a good person. You, dear leader, apparently, or not. Oh, sorry. That was a little harsh. But you don't like that?

I'm just wondering if it's, how's it come across? Well, there's something in it for them. They get their shout out. You know what? Shy people. That's why they aren't leaving ratings and reviews. They don't want to be shouted out. If you don't want to be shouted out, put that in at the end of your review.

No shout out. No shout out. Yeah. I won't hear it. So till tomorrow. You'll hear it.