You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Triple Take Friday!

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

This first take Friday Adam and Peter talk about three new tunes featuring, Joel Ross, Melissa Aldana, and Peter Bernstein!Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Yes. You're back. I'm back, and I'm back on Team Swush. Team Swish, we've been threatening your return, your triumphant return. The prodigal son. Prodigal son. So glad you're back.

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you listen to the You'll Hear Podcast. Jazz. Explain. Oh, and he didn't forget the old tagline there. Well, we've gone down to two words. It is a little easier.

As I get older. Yeah, yeah. We started getting really long one there. Yeah. You know, like it was like daily music advice. and conversation and explanations and tutorials daily or something like that. What's going on over there with your keyboard? You just played something.

I just played one note. Oh, it's kind of a... There's something happening, yeah. That's exciting. A little bit of a delayed. Okay, okay. We're figuring this out, folks. There we go.

It's like a little bit of a chorus. Did you ever have like the... Well, they still have them. The pedals, the little pedal boxes for the veneroses. piano. Yes. You would patch in with the quarter inch. Totally.

Yeah, I remember saving up and going to McMurray music out on page and buying a chorus. And then how come they couldn't put several of those effects in one? Each one was like 80 bucks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chorus. Yeah. Flanger. Flanger.

Flanger. Yeah. I still have. Phase. I still have a phaser with the orange phaser. Yeah. You know what I mean? That little orange box.

Yeah. Great. For the whirly, for the road. Let's start a company. Let's make it phaser. F-A-Z-E-R. phaser. You know, they started putting them all, and we're going to have guitar players who are like,

you guys are terrible at this, because, you know, they nerd out on this stuff. Right. But they, you know, they make boxes now that do a bunch of stuff. And they probably make apps where you can just lightening into your iPhone. I'm sure. Yeah. So what's up, man? How you been? I've been good. How about yourself? I'm all right. Where you've been hanging out these days?

Well, I've been kind of moving around a little bit, but I had to get back to, you'll hear it central here, as we call it, HQ. Have you? O-S-H-Q. Have you noticed? Because we have an interloper. We, an interloper. A little bit. Oh, we do. There's been another voice on it.

Producer Caleb's been kind of like taking some, taking some reps. It's like a little mouse in the church at night. He comes in and turns on the roadcaster. I mean, thank goodness, though. He's saving us for keeping us. He is doing great. It's what a good producer should do. But have you noticed the headquarters looks a little different?

It does. There's some things drifting off. Well, a St. Louis thief might have drifted into town. Yeah, we have things in boxes now. We have the open studio logo is off the wall. That's right. Yeah, we're like, we're got in the place because We're about to move.

We are moving. We're not moving far. Nope. We're literally moving a block and a half away. Yeah, but it's very excited because, and for the, our dear listeners, there will be a new, actually, if you're a listener, nothing will change. No, it will sound exactly the same. But if you watch us on the YouTube, you'll see the new setup. Yeah.

Because we're going to have a dedicated pod suite up there, right? We're going to have our own pod suite. It's going to be on the windows, on the street, on Washington. That's right. Just like the Today Show, if you're a jazz nerd and you happen to be in the middle of the United States, St. Louis, Missouri. Yes. Come by our windows.

That's right. When we are recording our podcast, which we don't announce when we're doing it. Not even to each other sometimes. Not even to each other sometimes. Are we using bulletproof glass? I feel like on Washington in the city of St. The way, I didn't think about that until you phrased it that way.

I was like, okay. We might need to do it to double paint it at least for sure. No, it's going to be really exciting. And we do hope some of our listener. We're going to have a little, well, we don't want to spill all the beans, but we're going to have a little hang area. It's going to be good. And we're going to actually get the turntable working this time.

Thank goodness. We had that little foray, but we're going to have the correct voltage and everything happening over there. That was a fun, 16 hours. We worked on that. Remember that adapter you bought? Wow, I want to look at that someday. Yeah, you know, you were like, you should return that adapter. And I was like, I think I'm just going to keep it in the museum of adapters because it's so unique.

It was literally a, I don't even know how to describe it. It was like, we should auction that off for charity. Adams, Adams illicit adapter. We'll give it a cool name. Yeah. You know what I mean? I had to fly to Hong Kong and go down a dark alley. just to find it.

That's right. It's $150. It is awesome. Anyway, it's first take Friday. Oh, I love first take Friday. Me too, man. And I'm super excited because we've got some brand new music. We have three tracks lined up.

I thought we could just listen to a taste of all three of these instead of listening. Wait, wait, wait. I thought we usually do one per first take. Are we giving them a triple? Well, they are our dear, we don't call them our dear listeners for nothing. Yeah. I mean, we haven't listened to new music in a while because we've been, well, not new new music. Because we'll listen to the Grammy stuff for so long.

We did a Grammy recap where Caleb came in and, and, and listen to a bunch of stuff. But I thought we could just take on a few records that may have come in under the radar since we've had our little break from live episodes here. And yeah, I don't know. I have three lined up. I thought we could listen to a good chunk, at least, of all three of them. They're not terribly long.

Cool. And I think all three of these, I have not heard. These are true. Because, you know, sometimes we do First Take Fridays on recent records that we have heard. Full disclosure, we always state that. Yep. But this is a real, not a blindfold test situation, because we are. aware of the tracks but we have you heard these at all no but I've heard of all of them like

these are tracks that I've been hearing of yeah of course I've heard of it well no no I've been hearing like oh I wanted to check out this I want to check out this but have you ever heard of the theory of relativity yeah but do you know anything about it nothing well that's what I'm saying it's E equals MC squared I know that well there see it's energy I don't really know what it stands for I'm gonna make a fool myself I try but I do know what Joel Ross stands for yes and that's some pretty swinging music some viz Young Gunn, some integrity, nice guy, great player. Incredible player.

I've heard him more live than I've on recording, so I'm really interested to hear this. Me too, man. He was on the recording session with Jeffrey Keiser for the forthcoming Jeffrey Keeser course and album with Open Studio, still working on it. But I can't wait for that to drop. And Joel is playing some killer vibes on that record. And he's just, like you said, he's a great guy. he's a very incredible, like, spirit to him and energy to him, and he's just an incredible player. And this is the blue note drop, right?

This is the, we have a few blue note drops today. So this is from the parable of the poet, and this is the opening track. All right. This is prayer, Joe Ross. I'm sold. Beautiful. Beautiful. It's called prayer.

It's from the parable of the poet. It's an incredibly beautiful way to start an album. Man, I love that vibe. Very confident, gutsy, peaceful way to start an album. I love that. Yeah, absolutely. Nothing to prove, just some beautiful sounding music. What a great intro, too.

Actually, kind of Keith Jared-esque. Yeah, Keith Jared at the vibes. I mean, I think it's, man, it sounds great. What Joel's playing is great, and it's such a, it just makes me want to hear more. Of course, that's what you want on a first track, but it wants me want to, it's almost, it wants, it makes me want to take a breath, relax,

turns one's ears in, which can be done in a number of ways. And this is certainly one of the more interesting ways to do that. But, wow, many great artists miss the mark on that on the first track. So good stuff. Yeah, great stuff from Joel Ross on his new Blue Note album, The Parable of the Poet, that's Prayer. We've got another Blue Note album.

That was Marquis Hill on one of my favorite trumpet players out of Chicago. Great trouble player. Yeah, I was just looking, who's on this. on piano on that? Sean Mason. Oh, cool. Last time I said I wasn't familiar with that person's work.

I got some trouble, so, but I'm not familiar with. You know Sean Mason? I don't, no. Okay. Are we allowed to say that? Apparently not. I mean, it's honest.

We might just not get an angry letter from them. That's all. Well, next up is another blue note album. This is a blue note debut here from Melissa Aldana, who, Peter, I don't know if you know this, but Open Studio has recorded a lesson with Melissa Aldana for our new

rhythm anthology course that we're working on. Now it should be out by, I'm going to say May or June, look for that on your dashboard if you're an open studio member. Melissa, friend of open studio, friend of the pod, friend of ours, and just an incredible saxophone. Incredible saxophone. She was great to work with on this rhythm lesson that we did with her. And I've been a fan for a number of years and I'm awaiting being able to check out this whole album in whole.

I'm going on a little road trip pretty soon. I might give a listen on that. Nice. But this is, the album is 12 stars, and this is the opening track. This is falling. Man, I hate having to cut into these tracks, but we, that's just the nature of this, but You get what's going on there. Exactly.

Here's what I love about Melissa Aldana right now is that she is in the thick of, of this. Yeah. She is in a spot in her life and her playing and her career where you can tell she's just pushing, pushing, pushing. I remember when she was in town with Artemis, and, I remember. I was hanging a little bit after their set with Anot Cohen and a couple other of the great players with Artemis. And I remember Anna being like, I'm going to go because I have to practice because I'm playing next to Melissa. And she's just like practicing all the time and just pushing, pushing.

And I love that energy from her. So it's really excited to watch an artist who's obviously so talented pushing themselves, you know, at this stage of the game. Yeah. And this is so great to hear this little introduction. Looking forward to hearing this entire record. I'm a huge Melissa Aldana fan The first time I heard her

She actually Played with Christian McBride And Inside Straight And I was playing And it was sort of a put together thing At this festival in Italy Where she was going to be The featured guest

And I think Christian Or we thought She was just going to do like one tune And she's like oh I thought I was doing the whole gig And we were kind of like Oh okay I mean she was like this is like 10 years ago She was like early 20s

And I'd heard good things about her, but I hadn't, I was just like, and she had learned all Christian's music. Like she was just like, he's like, oh, can you do such? And she just came in and nailed it, but with such a great vibe and like she was just, we were all instant fans. She was like, just really one of the group, you know, she integrated herself so well. Yeah.

And we got a chance to hang and talk music and kind of, you know, the stuff that she had learned and checked out growing up. And of course, you know, it's always interesting to me because she's heavily influenced by, and I think she would not disagree with this, Joshua Redmond. Sure. And she told me about, you know, she knew in detail some of those records we'd done. She's like, oh, I listened to growing up. I can't believe, you know, I'm getting to play with you because you played on this.

I was like, Joshua, who are you talking about? Yeah. That guy? Yeah. Whatever. Well, you know what's funny is, I don't think she sounds like Joshua Redmond at all. But I do think that what they share is the spirit of the moment, you know, that famous Joshua record of the album. But you can hear what's in the room being filtered through what she's playing.

Like, every time I've seen her, I'm like, she is literally playing this room. She's playing what's happening here, what's going around with the musicians around here with the energy of the room. It's like being filtered through her horn. You know what I mean? And I think it's the same thing with Joshua Redmond. Is there another player who's more in the moment always than Josh? Yeah, Sonny Rollins. John Coltrane.

Well, yeah. Ornette Coleman, ever heard of them? No, you know what I mean. You know how Josh Redmond, he just hears everything. But I think, you know, for sure. And I think that that's certainly a shared lineage that they have and with some of those same saxophones is actually I just named. but I do hear a big influence of in her playing from Joshua. So I'm surprised.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just hearing certain, maybe there's small parts, but there's just little saxophone things that she does. Yes, the range thing. Yeah, the jumps and stuff. Yeah. And just her approach to phrasing. And a lot of it is just similar influences.

I mean, I don't, I'm not saying that she's any kind of like clone of job. I mean, I think they're very appropriate. I mean, Josh is, I think, one of the great saxophonists of our generation. and no doubt. So you'd be hard pressed for anybody to come after him to not be somewhat influenced. Yeah. And I think that, you know, the influence is certainly appropriate. But it's been really cool to hear her grow.

But she's also been great since I first heard her. So not surprised at all. Well, let's go out, Peter. Man, great to have you back. And great to be back with you all. You'll hear it listeners. Welcome back. Hey, you know what?

I was thinking I heard on a podcast that I follow, Peter. You know what they do? Yes. We should do. What? They do a review of the review. reviews or the hosts review the reviews of the show. Oh, could we review each other and get super judgy?

I think so. Okay. I'd be down for that. But if you would like to leave us a review, just go to Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast and leave us a seven star rating and a bit of a review. It helps the show. But also, we'll read your review on air. That's right.

We'll review your review. Do we have any that we're overdue on? Likely, but we can hit those next episode, man. That'll give people something to look forward to, right? next episode where we check out some of the reviews and review the reviews. So if you want to get your review on air,

simply leave us a review. That's a lot of reviews. That certainly is. All right. Until next time. You'll hear it. Sorry. What?

I'm supposed to go out on Bill Stewart. Oh, I thought there was something this is. You know, this is a good test to see if anybody's listening. All right. So we're getting back in the swing. And this is from perpetual pendulum. So sorry, Larry and Peter.

Say that five times in a row. Perpetual pendulum. This is Reflections in D. First track from Perpetual Pendulum from Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein, Bill Stewart. Iconic trio right there. That's right. Iconic trio from the back.

Can't give them short shift. No. Sorry, guys. Jeez, Louise. Sorry. Here's reflections in D.