You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Top 7 Underappreciated Jazz Pianists

Episode Date: October 3, 2019

Underrated, but not underachievers - Peter and Adam count down the 7 pianists they think deserve a little more love. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Sign up for You'll Hear It Premium to access our SpeakPipe hotline! Go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/yhi for more info.Top 7 Underappreciated Jazz PianistsMary Lou WilliamsTommy FlanaganJames Booker (check out his album Junco Partner here: https://songwhip.com/album/james-booker/junco-partner)David KikowskiShirley HornNat King ColeHelio Alves (stay tuned for his new course from Open Studio: Brazilian Jazz Piano, and listen to his Live at Open Studio performance here: https://youtu.be/qQNV6WNQXDc)Be sure to give a listen the new podcast by our friends at Oxford American: Points South. This is a podcast about the music and culture of the American South, and guests this season include Ken Burns, Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemons, and more. Hear it for yourself by following this link: https://points-south.simplecast.comLike 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 and leave a comment for this episode.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, Adam. Yeah. Are you feeling appreciated? Yeah. Good. Me too. Yeah. I'm Adam Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. Coming at you. You know what? I appreciate Pete. Yes. I appreciate our sponsor Open Studio.

I do too. Jazz lessons from Jazz Legends. That's the tagline. Go to OpenStio, Jazz.com. Check out all of our courses. Of course is by Peter Martin, Jeffrey Keiser, Christian McBride, Diane Reeves, Sean Jones. That's Gregory Hutchins.

Ruben Rogers. We just had Ruben and Greg in last week and recorded two new mini-courses. Oh, you're just spilling the beans, aren't you, buddy? Oh, and by the way, as of today, brand-new artist alert, Brazilian jazz pianist. Wait, don't say anything because it might come up at the end of the list.

Bam. You know what I'm saying? All right. Yeah, have you heard our new jingle for Open Studio? No. Open StudioJazz.com. How do you like it? We're just trying it out.

We're a professional musician? And you're a professional musician? We have a couple of our former sponsors Featured on the table here. Oxford American mug. I didn't get an Oscar American mug. You didn't go down to their HQ

and Little Rock last week like I did or three weeks ago and perform at their beautiful venue, Oxford American. And look, big shout out, and we're going to link below to their brand new podcast.

Have you heard it yet? No. I haven't either. But I mean, like it just dropped, I think today or yesterday. So I'm really excited about that. We're going to actually

maybe do a little collab with them, good folks. And also, we want to give a big shout out to our former sponsors spin drift. They were like the sponsor that never was because I put it out there last week. I don't know if you remember as a potential sponsor. And it was going to happen, but you put a bad vibe on it with your anti-ketoism. No, your pro-kitoism. I mean, I'm drinking the spin drift now.

I'm on board. Yeah. I'm out of, I'm knocked out of ketosis, but I feel. You're looking so bloated, ever since you drank that stuff. That'll best be up for weeks. Those seven calories are killing him, though. What we got going on the day? So today we're talking about, well, we're going to answer a question. So obviously the title is top seven underappreciated jazz pianists, but let's listen to who is this question from, Joe. Joe. Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. This is Joe from Arlington, Massachusetts. Listen to you guys almost every morning on my commute into work. Here's a challenge. Please name half a dozen jazz pianists who you think are underappreciated. Why you think they're underappreciated. Why you think they're

underappreciated and why you think they're worthy of greater appreciation. Many thanks. Keep up the good work. All right. Thanks, Joe. Oh, sorry to me to cut you off. Let Joe finish. There was a pregnant policy out of there, though, didn't he? Joe was, yeah, I mean, after he asked, first of all, okay, thank you for the question. Half a dozen. We'll do you one better, of course. We're going Baker's dozen. We're going Baker's half dozen. What? Yeah. Six and a half?

I guess that's right, wouldn't it? No, wouldn't a Baker's half dozen be seven? I mean, I feel like Joe, you listen to the show every morning. You got to know we're not going to do half dozen anything. He was trying to see if we were paying attention. We're going to do seven. Yeah, we're going to do seven of everything. And I like this.

We were debating when we heard it before whether or not he put a hat on a hat on a hat on a bonnet with that question. But actually, he wants to know the how, the who, the how and the why. Okay, I think we can handle that. Okay, we can do that. I think so. Can I go first? You go first. Okay.

I'm going to go first. Okay. You ready? Go. Okay, time to go. Seven underappreciated jazz pants. Number one, Mary Lou Williams. Yeah.

She, I mean, actually, everybody on this list in a way, they are appreciated by true fans. For sure. Like, we didn't go on, these are not seven unknown, seven jazz pianists that are great that you've never heard of. But I think that she is a little bit underappreciated as a jazz pianist. As a composer, Ranger teacher, our good friend, good friend of the podcast in front of Open Studio. I don't know if you knew this. Tom Townsend. studied with Mary Lou Williams at Duke University back in the, I think, late 70s when she was teaching.

Yeah, she taught her for a few years there. And, you know, my family has a lot of connections with Duke University. And I always heard that name, even before I really got into jazz, because my grandmother lived in North Carolina. My grandfather taught at Duke and stuff. And she had illustrious education, you know, she was an illustrious educator. And, you know, she played with and hung with the best. And she was one of the best. course, you know, as being a female, being African-American, she really never got her due. She

definitely got her due. And now, you know, they got the great Mary Lee Williams Festival. There's some wonderful folks working tirelessly to further expose her rich recorded and composition. She wrote like over 100 tunes, you know. And, you know, to expose that to the greater masses, even as she's not with us anymore. But she's definitely worthy of much more appreciation. Amazing piano, pianists. I mean, technique for days. I like what you said to about this list being not, you know, these are not pianists that you've never heard of. This is more like the pianists on this list, their level of fame doesn't quite match their level of musicianship. Right.

How good of a musician they are as opposed to some other people whose level of fame far out reaches. We're going to do that list tomorrow. The seven overappreciated. We could actually put together a list of like, you know, some pretty obscure pianists. I think we have done an episode of that back in the day. Yeah, yeah. This is not that. But I love that Maryle Williams is the first one because that's definitely someone who's,

level of skill is not matched by their level of, no, the level of skill outmatches their level of fame and should be more appreciated. Yep. So mine, you know, I don't know if I would have put this on the list five years ago, and it's Tommy Flanagan. Now, Tommy Flanagan's been on some classic recordings, so why would you think he's been underappreciated? Yeah.

He gets a little, uh, it's been, become kind of a meme. There's, I'm not a fan of that. I'm not either. Tommy Flanagan on Giant Steps. Yeah. And, uh, don't be hating. Don't be hating. Don't be hating the hater rage, y'all.

Come on. I mean, you got to understand. I would like someone to record their very first time playing over giant steps. Yeah. And see how that turned out. Like, he got that music, what, a few minutes maybe? Yeah, he brought it to the session. Brought it to the session.

Yeah. And he had, think about how much time you have between arriving at the session and starting their track. And, like, take one made it on the, or I think it's take two is on the record. Yeah, yeah. It's like, come on, man. Like, he did just fine. Tommy Flanning was grossly unprepared for that session, but it was not his fault, you know? And he didn't sound like it.

I want to hear some of these millennial pianos. Oh, sorry. I don't want to get on my, let me get on my high horse. Just on your first attempt, you know. It was a little bit unfair of train to do that to him. Yeah. But I think he's completely vindicated by his amazing performance on saxophone colossus, Sammy Rollins saxophone colossus.

And several other trio recordings. Oh, yeah, many. You know, all way up until. Did you ever get a chance to hear him live? I heard him live once, and it was just fantastic. And great solo pianist. And I love that guy. Yeah.

That's great. That's a great one for the list. Okay. Number three on our list. of underappreciated jazz pianist. I'm going to go down south, 700 miles south of here to the Gulf Coast, New Orleans area, and throughout a name James Booker.

Yeah. Who's, you know, he's kind of known, certainly for people that know about New Orleans music, but, I mean, he was just a monster pianist. I never got a chance to see him live, unfortunately. He had kind of a tragic life. I mean, a crazy thing. But, I mean, he was very influential

on a whole generation of New Orleans pianist. and keyboardists. I mean, you're talking about Dr. John, Harry Connick. I mean, everybody, David Torkanowski, you know, talks about him. David Torkanowski hung with him a lot. Wow. And, but, you know, Booker came up playing a lot of classical music and kind of was really in, he was like a bridge between Liberace, jazz, and gospel in a very strange way. He was, but, you know, played a lot of classical. Went to Xavier Prep, which a lot of really good, it was a Catholic kind of prep school that a lot of really good New Orleans players went. to. And then he played on like, you know, Dave Bartholomew who made a bunch of kind of regional and

national and international hits that had a studio, recorded Fats Domino and all these people. James Booker was on that scene. But if folks haven't heard of him, get this record called Junco Partner. That is a killing. I mean, he had a lot of stuff. We'll link to it below. And that's a great record. And then, you know, kind of at the end of his career was a little bit tragic, but he played at the Maple Leaf up in Carrollton, which when I got to New Orleans, he had already passed away, but the club is still there. And he was like the house pianist there. And yeah.

Oh, fun fact about him. So, Harry, he had a little bit of legal problems, a little bit of drug use. I'm not going to lie. Harry Connick Sr., who, of course, would be Harry Connick Jr.'s father, as this would be, I don't know if you knew this, was the long-time district attorney of New Orleans, of the city of New Orleans. I didn't know that. Of Orleans Parish.

Yeah, I did know. And James Booker got into a little bit of legal problem, got into a lot of bit of legal problem several times, and Harry Connick Sr., possibly in a little bit of a sly way, was able to arrange for him to not do any jail time in exchange for piano lessons for a young, a very young Harry Connick Jr.

And history was made. Look at that. Yeah. That's great, man. Wow. Okay. So I'm going to go in a different direction. I'm, and I'm going to call an audible here because I was just, we were just talking about maybe sort of more obscure people, and I think someone who is kind of in those dusty New York places.

You know what I see? I see where you're going with this. But he is a monster of a piano. Oh, he's a monster. He's a monster. And that's David Kikowsky. Of course. You probably heard of the name just because of how crazy killing he is. Yeah. He sounds like his name. He plays like his name. David Kikowsky. He's just so, it's like so intense New York jazz piano. Yeah. If you're in a mood, like I can't do it every day.

Right. But if I'm in a mood to really geek out piano-wise, I'll put on some Kikowsky. He's great, man. Every time I see nice guy, super sweet guy, I'm a great player. For sure. Yeah. And just, you know, you can turn on the smalls feed some nights, and he's just there going eight crap. I'm sorry.

Kind of like cat crap. Kind of like cat computer. A good one, good one. Okay, so number five, we're moving right along here. I like this of our underappreciated. jazz pianist, Shirley Horn. Now, Shirley Horn is underappreciated for her piano playing, for sure. She's certainly known for it, but it's always this thing of, oh, she was a great accompanist, which she was. But she was an amazing pianist. She's not underappreciated on this podcast, because we mention her a lot.

I'm always, tooting the horn. I was a big fan, and got a chance to know her a little bit before she passed. Beautiful lady, beautiful person, but just an incredible pianist. And from D.C., our nation's capital. And I don't know, fun fact is I was researching today. I don't know if you know about this. She had a live at the Village Vanguard record. You know, Miles kind of, they always say he discovered her, but that's not exactly true. She had been gigging in D.C. and come to New York and stuff. But he kind of took special notice of her.

And in the early 60s, he had her, when he was in one of his long runs at the Vanguard, played during the intermission set, piano and sing of stuff. That's very cool. Yeah, and that kind of got her really known by that. Because, I mean, Miles was like a tastemaker, you know, in terms of that kind of thing. And then she actually had a live at the Village Vanguard record that came out that was kind of a breakthrough thing for her, but it was actually recorded just a few blocks from here in Gaslight

Square at one of those clubs. That's awesome. But it was written up and wrong, and later on they fixed it and made it live at Gaslight Square, but she had a little St. Louis connection with that. That's so great. And then she was like, you know, she was a mother and kind of retired. She would just do gigs around DC and people knew about her but she was raising her kids and whatever. And then like kind of late 70s, early 80s.

Steeplechase records, which that's kind of when I first got to know. It was a little bit later, like mid-80s or whatever. She was doing these like trio records with her guys from DC, great bass player, I'm forgetting his name now, but electric player, cool little trio. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, she got on Verve, had those really big records. I was going to say, you know, she was one of the first artists I ever saw as a little kid that was a jazz musician because she was so in pop culture in the early 80s when I was

growing up. And she was on the Cosby show and Mr. Rogers and all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I remember her very vividly. Yeah. That's great. Number six is, I mean, this is a very famous musician, but I think does not get talked about how great, and I mean that with a capital grh, of a pianist he is, and that's Nat King Cole.

He started it in jazz and gospel at a young age. And, of course, it's known for his vocal hits, you know, Sweet Lorraine. You have here, he's a pianist on Citizen Kane, knot. What is that? Well, at first was when I was researching this, I was looking for a little fun, We don't we like to throw a little fun thing out there every now. And they said he was he was un-attributed as the pianist in a scene of Citizen Kane. I was trying to remember back.

I was like, I don't remember seeing him. I don't remember there being a pianist. But then it's been debunked. That's an internet myth. That it was some confusion because Orson Wells, creator of, have you seen Citizen Kane? Of course. Man. So Red butt.

No, Rosebud. Rosebud. Oh, Rosebud. Sorry. It's more of a whisper. But, uh, but, uh, Yeah, it was debunk. Orson Wells had talked about Nat King Cole

how he wanted that kind of sound or something. It's somebody, you know how this thing goes. Sure, of course. They got a Nat King Cole guy. But I think it was sweet, Loren. That was like one of his, if not his first big hit. And yeah, I think that was like the beginning of Les piano playing because, you know, he went big time, had the TV, you know, the whole thing.

But, man, Chuck came out with Lester Young, Buddy Rich, that trio. It was just so swinging. No bass player. And his solo piano comp, the way he comps is, it's like a modified stride thing. and it just feels so swinging and good, man. Buddy Rich, what a sweet guy. Oh, just a charmer. A real teddy bear.

Just a handsome dude. Oh, all right, you'll get, no. Okay, so now we have number seven. Why don't you do number seven? Because you just were frothing at the mouth with all you're transcribing. Sorry, sorry. So number seven is kind of, you know, what we thought about with this list is our very own brand-new open studio artist. Bam, today, right?

Launching today, Aalvo Alves, with, a new chorus called Brazilian jazz piano. Elio Alves is a Brazilian jazz pianist of around our age, maybe like splitting the difference between me and you. And he is just marvelous. He played with Joe Henderson. He played with a bunch of cats.

He's played with everybody in New York. I mean, he's like been in New York for 25 years or something like that. Yeah, more. He's actually a little older. He's kind of a little baby face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a little older. Yeah, not much, but yeah.

Anyway, fantastic piano. monster pianist and great Brazilian pianists. We're so excited to have him. We're super stoked. Yeah. We're going to link below to the new course and also the live at Brazil YouTube. That was one of our great live at Open Studio concerts that he headed up with Eddie Ribera. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, we should definitely link to that concert. So that's, for those of you who don't know, like when we bring our artists here to shoot these courses, oftentimes we'll do a live concert here in our studio. We'll stream it. We'll have, we'll open it up to the public. And this was, I think, our second one, Alios. And it was just, man. Yeah, like you said, Aalio, Amerlubombo, Adieu, Adu-Rabreau, Bob Dubu, local St. Louis legend. Yeah, he's from the northernmost part of Brazil called South St. Louis.

Oh, no, he's from Texas. That's kind of close to Brazil. It's on the way there. Yeah, it's closer than we are. Yeah. Well, this is good. Nailed it again. What can we say, man? It's just getting too easy. It's too easy. But this was fun. We hope you guys enjoyed our seven underappreciated jazz pianist. And once again, we're brought you by OpenStio. OpenStioJaz.com for the five. finest. Oh, can we do one more

plug? Quick plug? Sure. So if you're listening to this in St. Louis, come out to Jazz the Bistro tonight. That's right.

St. Louis. We're doing a little piano duo. We're doing a little duo piano situation. Yeah, yeah. That's going to be fun. San Luis, Grand and Washington.

We're going to do it back to back, I think. Really? No. Mono Yamo. Elbeco. That's good. Well, till tomorrow.

You'll hear it.