You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Weedie Braimah's "The Hands of Time"

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

First Take Friday: Sit with Adam and Peter as they listen to Weedie Braimah's release The Hands of Time, and especially Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah's solo.Listen to the album HEREHave a question? Leave us a SpeakPipeWatch Live: YHI LIVE Mondays at 4pm ET on YouTubeWant more of Adam and Peter? Check out Open Studio Pro hereWoosh or No Woosh? Hit us up on Twitter and let us know which team you are onSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com 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.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Peter, let me ask you a question. Well, I already know what day it is. Because you always ask me that. No, that wasn't the question. Oh, okay. The question is. Yes. Would that be something you might be interested in?

By that, I mean this. Yes, I'm interested. Good, because that's what we're listening to today. Good. Because it's Friday, Peter. I'm Adam Mattis. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast.

Music advice and inspiration. Coming at you. Coming at you. He did it, folks. I can do it. Dude, I've done it 700 times. Well, probably 500 times correctly. I feel like I've built up some goodwill on that.

I'll be back often on Monday. I could help it sneak in the day, man. I'm sorry. It's Friday, man. It is Friday, man. It is Friday. It's hump day. The day between the week, the work week and the weekend.

Is that your logic? That's your logic. I never told you that? No. Yeah, it's like you got to get over. It's a transition. It's a transition. This is making more sense now.

Of course. Finally, ladies and gentlemen, Adamannis finally understands the meeting behind Peter's interpretation of hump day. Bro, I will give it to you. That is not the worst logic. I thought it was... It's pretty bad, man. No, no, I mean, that's not...

Not that I hear it come out of my mouth, it's pretty bad. So you have to get over the hump of Friday, and then you can relax on the weekend. Exactly. That's not bad. It's a mickalob time. No one drinks megalove anymore? Okay. No.

Man. There's some hipsters in Williamsburg. That drink micholove. Ultra? No. Ironically? I don't think it's available, is it? Migloaf Ultra?

Yeah, but they're... I don't remember. Yeah, but it's probably, they've seen some YouTube video with like a grainy VCR old commercial and they're like, oh, man, I want that. No, you don't. Times are better now. That's way better. What's up? But I digress in advance.

Yeah. What's up with this new video editing style where they're using like the VCR graininess and like kids today, huh? They think that they're so nostalgic for that because they grew up like my kids watching Barney on videotape. Absolutely. But that was low quality. We're talking 1080 people. We're talking 4K. We're talking 8K.

Well, they're so spoiled. They have, you literally have 4K on your phone that you can record your own video in. When my dad brought home a camcorder in 1986. 164p probably. If that. No, here's the thing. First of all, the whole thing rested on your shoulder, like a giant boom box. Remember the giant?

That's a whole other scenario. But it was massive. And then he would take a video. And that wasn't all of it? Then wasn't it connected to our shoulder? And then, you got a little pack on your thing. And then any time you moved and there was. I don't know, two oms of light.

Yeah. There would be a streak across the screen. Remember that where there'd be like a little thing? And then that light would streak across the screen. It would be there just for the rest of the video. It was just like a streak across the... That was just your price of admittance, right? But he was so... He was in love with that thing

because it literally had the VCR tape would go into the camcorder itself. Yeah. And then we just take it out, pop it right in your VCR, rewind it manually, and then you're good to go. As soon as you change the chords and put it back in. Be kind. Rewind. And then you had to put it back in its suitcase, put it under the bed, and you were good to go.

As opposed to now, which you have 4K in your pocket. But yeah, no, I think that's what they're, they're just nostalgia. But these young editors, they think about how much time they spend to degrade the quality down. Oh, it's just a filter now, man. But you know what? Yeah, that's true. But it's kind of cool, actually. I was complaining about it.

You know what, I've been brought into it. Not for the nostalgic part, but it is kind of a cool. Don't do it, Pete. I was looking at, can we mention a new feature. No new features. Nope. Well, we could, you know what? I'll save it from Monday.

everybody is everybody invited or just selected listeners no everybody's invited to method monday no no not method monday oh that's method man monday no no our live head monday that's jacky out in the alley hey hey hey hey hey sorry we talk about jacky no um are live you'll hear it live on youtube mondays at 4 p.m eastern that's new york city time that's philadelphia time zone that's charlotte north carolina time absolutely jacksonville florida Miami beach Montreal delray beach Montreal, not Newfoundland. They have their own. Yeah, they're one hour ahead of those people.

They're ahead. They're about 17 years behind us. Technology-wise, but they're out. I'm just kidding. Big shout out to Newfoundland has some great YouTubers. Man, I digress. Shout out to Newfoundland, actually. We were just telling our kids are,

this is going to get oddly dark here. You know, we might have to listen to this on the next episode. No, no, no, we can listen. But just real quick. Heather and I were telling our children are 9-11 stories. Is anybody who is old A-F like us, Peter, has some 9-11 story, where they were on 9-11. Heather and I both have kind of interesting ones because I was in Manhattan just a few blocks away. Manhattan, but totally unrelated.

What do you mean? Your involvement. You said you're a couple. That sounds suspicious already. Oh, my God. You're a couple blocks away. I was just living there going to the new school. Living the dream.

That's right. And Heather was on a plane coming home from a trip to Ireland. Oh. And she got grounded in New, like she woke up. That was a famous thing, in that little town. Yeah, the airport. Yeah, there was a whole documentary on it. She got, she woke up and they were landing and she was like, this looks like an awful

lot of forests. Where's the arch? Yeah, exactly. And so they were in Newfoundland, a tiny, tiny town in Newfoundland. And she said there was just like planes lined up on this little, you know, tarmac. And then they just went to a high school gymnasium and a family took her in for three or four days and her and a couple of other people. And yeah, she loved her time in there.

And so my kids were just fascinated by this story. But shout out to all those people in Canada who took in so many Americans on that day. People coming back on flights. She said it was just, it got super crowded. Just think what we did. We pushed people out, our own people, you know, do it a little different in America. Yeah, but anyway. Well, that was a hell of a digression.

Why don't we, I could tell my 9-11 story. We could punt on the list. You've also got a good 9-11 story. Well, now you built it up. I feel funny. No, no, go ahead. No, I mean, because you were on the road, right? I was on the road.

and but with a bunch of people from New York. So it was super, we were in Los Angeles with the, during my short stint with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, ever heard of them. Or the, as it's also been called, the Lincoln City Jazz Orchestra, Lincoln City, Nebraska. Different band. Different band.

Not quite as good. No, no. But yeah, we were, I think I flew out there the evening before from New Orleans to L.A., and then, of course, it was very early West Coast time when the horrible news about 9-11. And, you know, because everybody in the band, except for actually, it was two of us that didn't live in New York, Hurley and myself.

Everybody else was New Yorkers or living there. And, you know, a lot of connections, people working downtown, their spouses, their family. Yeah. Really a difficult time, I think, for it, obviously, for everybody. That was so crazy. But I came to New York, and it's amazing, we talked about this before, but when you were right there, you know, just a few blocks from Ground Zero, I mean, I was there like maybe 10 days later or 12 days later.

and I remember going down to like 14th Street and like you couldn't go below there. That's right. Or 12th or something. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, just the ash. Everything in the air still 12 days later. Yeah.

I mean, I could imagine what was like. No, it was close for weeks. The New School was closed for like three weeks after that. Right. Just because like everything below 14th Street, you just couldn't go. Yeah. Right. All right.

Actually, let's get to the music. We need to be uplifted. Yeah. So it is for, you know, talking about me. You know what? No, no. Newfoundland comes up. You got to.

Exactly. You got to tell you for Newfoundland. And just give your shout out to Newfoundlanders. Newfoundlanders. Newfoundlanders. Newfoundlanders. No, so it is first take Friday. And we're going to have to do some Grammy listening.

We thought, you know, we listened to a few Grammy selections. Then we listened to some J-Batt? We did. Yeah, but what got me thinking about it is I always forget they have this category. I don't know why I forget about the jazz Grammys because they're so easy to find on the broadcast every year. No, they're not. But John DeVat-Battis is sort of the face of the Grammys this year because he has the most number of nominees. nominations that go well beyond just his jazz nominations.

So cool, man. Yeah. How great is that? We should all just give a shout out that a jazz pianist has the most amount of nomination. It's so great. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's these other little flurries intersections that we have in the jazz world with kind of the big level of Grammys. You think about Herbie Hancock winning record of the year for the Joni Mitchell, I believe it was.

And Esperance of Spalding. Yeah. You know, album or whatever that is. Record of the Year? Album of the Year. I think it's album of the year. Almond the year. But I was thinking again about this category that they added,

I mean, it wasn't recent, but it wasn't 20 years ago. I don't know, maybe 15, 10 years ago, this best improvised jazz solo. Yeah. And it was when they were kind of expanding just the, because it used to be like jazz album, like vocal jazz album and then instrumental. And I think that was it.

And then they maybe had like large jazz ensemble or something. But when they added this, I thought it was interesting because it's not like the song of the year or the jazz song of the year. It's like the jazz solo of the year. Totally. Like that's kind of cool but it's a little bit whack

the way they do it because I mean look some great albums could have like what 20, 10 four great stuff I mean you could have a bunch on one totally so I mean like and the way they pick them

they're not even necessarily the greatest I mean I don't know what their barometer is that the greatest album sometimes yeah so I remember we put out for open studio records who put out that app play record yeah all of these great musicians yeah Lombo

Aydou Ribeau Alves Ruben Rogers and trying to pick us, because we had to like submit solos. Right. Right. Because it was up for nomination. For nomination.

And trying to pick solos just on an album that I knew so well was so hard. I couldn't imagine if you were having to weed through solos. But we are going to listen to one of the nominated solos. This is a solo by Christian Scott, Atomdei, Adjua. And this is not on his album, though. This is on his label. Right.

And the great thing about this, I realize, I'm always like, What is the use of the jazz Grammys? Nothing, which has always been my thing. But I'm thinking maybe it is not, because we're looking at this list. I didn't even know about this record. And shame on me for not knowing about it. Me neither, man. And I love this player, too. This is from Weedy Brahma's records.

Right. And I'm a big fan. Incredible, man. So Wheaties a percussionist. He grew up here in East St. Louis, Illinois, right across the river from where we are now. And he currently resides in New Orleans, Louisiana. That's where you played it. I played with him years ago.

And I know he was back and forth. So I think he's still, you found that. He's in New Orleans now? I think he lives in New Orleans now. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure we know. I've seen him around town here, though. Yeah, he's got a lot of family connections with both.

His family, at least on one side, and I believe he was born in Ghana. But he's got a big connection with, you know, that musical tradition and heritage, which is fantastic. But then he's got the St. Louis thing. He's got the New Orleans thing. He's a famous family, too. He does, which we didn't know about that. I mean, his uncle is Idris Muhammad, one of the greatest drummers ever out of New Orleans. Yeah.

greatest drummer is anywhere. So, yeah, super excited to see this. And then Christian Scott, I've been a huge fan of his. I mean, I've known him since he was in high school, since he was in middle school. Wow. He's got some famous, you know, he's Donald Harrison's nephew, among other things.

I knew his mom, Christian's mom for years down in New Orleans. And, you know, she used to bring him to gigs we do at Snugg Harbor when he was teeny. And I even got a chance to, like, coach a, what was it, like a jazz combo at Noka. Christian Scott, Jonathan Battis, Sullivan Fortner. Oh my God. That was a pretty good group.

I was a pretty good group. I would just check in and be like, oh yeah, you guys sound great. Keep doing it. That was the extent of my... Swinging. Swinging fellas.

But Christian Scott's always been just such a nice kid. I keep calling him a kid. He's getting old. But I've known him as... And every time I see him, and it's so great to see everything he's done. And this track is killer.

We just started listening to it. And what did we say when we got like halfway through it? We were like... Well, we were going to listen to a few different solos and we were like, no, I want to just vibe out to this. So this is from Wheatie... Brema's album The Hands of Time

and we'll listen to the whole thing Christian Scott's solo happens about four minutes in or whatever it's almost an eight minute track but it's well worth it the whole thing is killing so this is Sakadugu

from the Hands of Time and this is Wee Brema Christian Scott Attunde Ajuwa Oh wait wait real quick Corey Henry Is playing on this

What? Yeah Would that be? Hold on it fan. Could that be something you might be interesting? Yes.

So, Corey would be somebody I'm very interested in. Check it up. How great is that? That's epic. That's epic. I mean, what is that? Seven minutes?

Eight minutes? It's eight minutes long. I felt like 40 minutes, but in a great way. You know what I mean? Like so much packed in there, go so many plays. It's like two different tracks,

kind of, two different stories put together. And what do you think of that trumpet solo? That's a pretty, I mean, I understand why it got nominated now. It's pretty dramatic. That's what I was thinking. I was like, okay, what is it that, you know,

because I'm always skeptical. not of Christian Scott but like of awards in general yeah well just like what is it about this track I can totally and I'm so glad that this

you know that little breakdown where it changes the tempo and I'm so glad that somebody listened past you know four minutes to hear the solo they might have listened to the track

and be like ah it's not on here I think the first four minutes might be my favorite part the setup is great but I'm saying that the solo that is actually nominated

doesn't even come till later so I think the whole thing I'm glad they're really man I honestly I have not checked out this record, the hands of time. Yeah, I hadn't either.

Wee Bramma. Yeah. Thank you, Grammys. I never thought I'd say that. For real, I can't. Thank you for my Grammy. No, thank you for letting me know about this. I mean, listen to the next track, Bongo Genie.

Listen to this. Wait, hold on, hold on. Sorry, sorry. Sorry, sorry to our, sorry to our dear listeners. So I think the lesson learned here is, is that, you know, don't play explicit tracks. No, no, no, I'm just saying in general, like, don't let your bias against, say, Grammy nominations.

and I'm, you know, I'm accusing myself here of keeping you away for some great music. I mean, there's always discovery. And look, Friday is all, you know, what do we call this? Listening Friday? First take Friday. This is your idea, Peter?

It's been a week since we did it. Every week, it's like a new week, man. It's been actually like several weeks. But use it as an opportunity, like a lot of people want to shit on Spotify or Apple music. And I won't LPs, of course. We do have a turntable sitting here. Coming soon.

Coming soon. Yeah. Which is great. But, I mean, there's always an opportunity to discover music. If that's somebody telling you old school, check out this side. If that is, you know, I mean, we still discover stuff just walking into the record store. So that doesn't happen as much. Yeah.

But sometimes I'll be in a coffee shop and I'll hear something that just sounds dope. And I'll just hold up my phone and be like, you know, shazam it and find out what it is. Now I've discovered something new. So let's be open. Let's be open our minds. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thanks, everybody for listening.

We love these First Take Fridays. Coming back to you next. First Take Friday. First Take Friday. You got it, man. You got it. Bland and tell you what it is Miles knows what it is

He just doesn't want to tell us And we'll tell you What First Take Friday is next week Oh, that's so exclamatory of you there, buddy Until we'll tell you And we'll let you know We'll let you know at the appointed time, The appointed hour

But we will see you Monday And until then, you'll hear it