You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Vince Guaraldi EXPLAINED

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

It's Speakpipe Wednesday! Peter and Adam respond to a listener's question about what Vince Guaraldi does at the beginning of "What Child is This?"Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Learn more about Open Studio Pro: openstudiojazz.com/proInterested 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.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey. It's that time of year. You know what time it is? What time is it? Time to pull that out for your aunts and uncles. That's not a Christmas song, though. True.

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Music, advice, inspiration, listening, and familial advice. Seasonal familial advice coming at you. So advice that's specific to a season and for your family? Is that what you're saying? I mean, you know, if we can nail these Christmas songs, we can get a lot of love from the family, right?

And would that be something you might be interested in? Yes. That would be something they might be interested in. So, yeah, so you know, this is where we're hinting here. We have a speak pipe. If you'd like to leave it. Why do you say it like that? Speak pipe.

That just kind of rolls off. It's very chirpy of you. It's very chirpy of you. You can go to you'll hear.com. You can leave us a message just like Eric did here about this. So hello, this is Eric in Washington, D.C. Love the podcast. I had a question for you in, inspired by the holiday season.

for on the song What Child Is This by the Vince Giroldi trio Vince does something at the beginning of the tune and in between each of the verses. I don't know if it's arpeggios or the way he's playing the chords,

but I would love to hear a breakdown of what he's doing and why it works so well as some of my favorite music not just on that recording but in general it's very beautiful. Anyway, hope you guys are doing well

and looking forward to a great holiday season. Take care. Great question, Eric. I agree to. I mean, I think that this record is the Vince Goraldi Christmas album, Charlie Brown Christmas. The music is, it's so like you think it's only linked to the great special, which is not that long, by the way, because we watch it with our kids.

It was like 25 minutes or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it really stands on its own. The trio, Vince Goraldi Trio is just so great. The way that they're playing, the way that the recording, the way it's recorded, the presence that, I mean, It's just wonderful. I know.

I used to get real snobby about this and not, not, you know, because from being asked to do that. No, I don't do that because I can't do it as well as him. That's why. Does Coltrane have a version that I won't do it? But the older I get, the more I just, maybe, it would be killing. Well, I got to tell you a good, can I just interject a little something? Yeah, sure.

So, you know, playing some gigs with Christian McBride. He has a great, great, oops, I dropped his name on the ground. He has a great story of. about a kind of great explanation he was saying on the gigs about rhythm section. First of all, it's always fun to hear him talk about a rhythm section and get really knocked down to sides because we're always talking about the rhythm section as the piano bass and drums. Yeah, yeah.

Right, the classic rhythm section. Sure. Christian McBride, and apparently a lot of really good bass players and drummers, don't think of it that way. They think of it as the bass and drums. That's the battery. That's the battery. That's the, well, he calls it the rhythm section. Okay.

So anyway, it's just funny because he'll say he was talking about, like, you know, it's so important to have a great drummer for us. a bass player, you know, and he always wants to know who's going to be playing drums. Because he's like, if that's right, everything's going to be right. And he's kind of correct. But then he further went on to analogize. He said, think about, or I don't know if this is analogized or contemporize. I don't think it's either.

But he said, think about like if John Coltrane and Miles Davis were to come back from the dead. Okay, think about that. Like, they're back. They're doing a tour. Okay. They're coming to a city near. Sure. Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

Yeah. And they've got, you know, Bill. Evans or Herbie Hancock or whatever. Great piano player, right? Yep. But a crappy bass player or drummer. You would think still people are going to be excited. This is Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

It's going to be bad. Christian says no. He's like, all they're going to be talking about after the gig is, oh, my God, the bass player and drummer, the rhythm section sucks. It's going to feel terrible. It's going to feel bad. You're going to forget that these artists were brought back from the dead. It's going to be all.

And so that was his way of explaining the importance of the rhythm section. Yeah, I mean, how could you not know? Your own trio is Rubin Rogers and Gregory Hutchinson. You know that deep in your soul, you know. Well, let's go back to Eric's question. So it's a great... Was he asking about that? He was asked about what child is this.

Nope. That's the wrong one. That's what I always think about when I think about... I think he was talking about... Oh, right. No, not that one. He was talking about this, actually. But specifically that transition.

That transition there, which is a very specific thing. So we're in F minor. This is what child is this. Oh, please say more is me? Yeah. Yep. And this is such a great... Because he keeps bringing the...

back and it sets the tone and kind of sets this arrangement off in a way that's, I mean, you know what it is? It's that whole thing. All you need is one great idea for an arrangement. And this is that is four chords. Because it's not part of the original. No, definitely not. So what I think is just a kind of sketch of what's going on here.

He's got his F minor. And it's like an F minor, 9, 6, maybe. Right. But the way, and I think your voice on the right is that, and there's a lot of these chords, he's got that ninth and the third right there. and the fifth, that cluster is the foundation. Super important for that sound. And then...

And again, this is just an interlude. This isn't part of the tune. Then he goes to this... And intro, too, right? An intro and interlude. Yeah, yeah. It goes to like a D-flat major, but with a Suss thing...

That's very unusual. A little bit of a classical... To establish that we're in F-minor and then immediately go... Like a G-flat right there. But I love that thing, too, because, you know, like F-minor, the relative major is A-flat, which the tune goes to it.

at a certain point, right? Doesn't it? Totally. But I always like that fifth away from the actual major. Yeah. You know, is an interesting thing. Went down a major third from the minor.

You see, we see Stevie Wonder do that sometimes. Absolutely. But then as you were alluding to that suspended fourth over the major, though, super important. Totally. And then he does it again on B flat. And then to the five chord.

It's almost like what we used to call like a pop four chord, right? Totally. Yeah. And then it was C-7. Yeah. Right. And I think what is important, like what you can take away from this, Eric, is that there's this Suss major sound.

Yeah, and then, yeah, exactly. And the two of them in the middle. Yep. And it's the shape. And it's the shape. And you can really experiment. Like what, you could move those two. Yeah, exactly.

Like, you could, they're going to have varying success. But like the idea of keeping this shape. You know, you could do... Yeah. Like, it's, I think what you're getting at is... It rolls together nicely, too, melodically. It rolls together nice to get. It's like a shape.

It's a vertical shape, but it also works. Yeah, exactly. Totally. So the other thing I'm just noticing, so you got the F minor, 6-9 with two nines. Check out that voice leading to that D-flat. That's really good, because you got... Yeah, the whole top line kind of comes down.

Really good. Yeah, yeah, that's great. And then, too, there's a good symmetry, because you got four chords, so you got the kind of tonic because it's like an F minor now. And then, I mean, that's really, this great root movement. But you got the two chords in the middle, and then the five, just kind of like a bridge back to doing it again. And this whole thing repeats.

So. But that idea of keeping the, no, that's all, but that's the same concept, right? You're keeping the same shape and you're moving it around. Diatonically or not, it's what's so, I think, another interesting thing about this harmonic movement is that you go to D flat. So this to me, It implies that we're in some kind of F, like some kind of F natural minor. Right.

Even with a sus. Right? Like we're in A flat major. Yeah. Which then would mean that B flat is minor, right? Yeah. But it doesn't. It doesn't.

Right. Right. But it doesn't. That's what's so hip about it. And you know what else? If somebody gave us and said, okay, we're going to do an interlude or an intro that's going to be over F. Okay, we know it's F minor.

Let's just say you heard the bass player like start angle like, is it in three? And you just heard. that what would most jazz guys play or gals f minor d flat 7 sharp 11 maybe b flat minor 7 c 7 sharp which is fine yeah b 590 6 yeah or maybe like even d flat major sharp 11 yeah and then like 4 which is fine but i mean what really sets this apart is that is that suss 4 it's that g flat over the d flat that's really i think eric what your attention is being drawn to yep And it just works.

And it just works. Great stuff. Really a fun album. And thanks, Eric, for the great question. And if you want to leave us to speakpipe, go to You'll Hear It.com to leave us to speakpipe. Maybe we'll go out on that here. You have the key of F here. No, let's do F.

Yeah. That's the original in there.