You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Welcome Back, Peter

Episode Date: May 15, 2019

Adam finds Peter hiding out in the Podcave, and the two recap what they've been doing for the past couple of weeks.Let 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, Andrew, call the police and have him call off the search. Turns out Peter was just in the pod cave this entire time. What, what? Musty in here. I'm Adam Ennis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Jazz Advice, coming at you.

Coming at you, Pete, you're back. We're back. My name's Peter, by the way. Yeah, Adam. Hey, good to be you. You know, it's weird, man, is, you know, for our You'll Hear at listeners and Watchers, you were only gone for two days. Right, I know.

But because we front-loaded all of these episodes. Don't tell them about that. You were gone for like, you were gone for quite a while. You're going for like three weeks. Exactly three weeks. But I think that this is the most we've ever recorded in front loading, right? Yeah, we've never done it like that. Yeah, April, we were like crazy recording you'll hear it episodes.

If they seem rushed and they do. Well, that one, we actually, I was like, hurry, I'm hurt if I got somewhere to go. I got to play the catch. We were doing like six, seven a day for a while. Yeah, it was crazy. Well, it was fun because on this trip I was kind of moving all around and it was really great. just telling you about some of the you'll hear at fans that I got to meet out in the wild, out in the bush, as we say.

And they were asking about, they were like, wait, how did you do today's episode and you're this morning and you're in Amsterdam for a gig tonight? I was like, hey, we're pretty serious, man, every day, back and forth. No, in fact, that's not how we did it. They didn't notice that you were wearing the same shirt every day for two weeks. I know, that's funny. Yeah, there's little context clues that you can see. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I thought today maybe we could just catch up. We haven't talked about jazz. Yeah. Yeah, you're available later to hang and ketchup? Oh, you mean now, right now. This will be our hang in our kitchen. Because you're about to go again for a few days. Yeah, just for a couple days.

But yeah, I'll make it here for all these. So have you been, man, good? I've been good. How about you? I'm all right. I was just watching your chromatic enclosure episode from a couple days ago. That was nice. Back over at the piano.

Yeah. People like the enclosures. I know, yeah. I need to review that. I always forget. I'm using them all the time, but my concept on it is a little funny. A friend of the show, Tony commented, just playing middle C is an enclosure

and I have no idea what the hell that means. I know. It's the beginning of something to enclose. Maybe that's what he's. So what's happening here while I've been gone? Man, so exciting things. Last week we recorded, well, we had recorded in January the beginning of this new course for Open Studio.

Boom, boom, big shout out, our lead sponsor. Called Jazz Piano Jumpstart, which is going to be like a seven-week course for really for beginners of Jazz Piano. which was exciting, but then Andrew and I kind of had the brilliant idea of, we recorded last week 28 guided piano practice sessions, almost like where I sat down at the piano and coach you through a fifth, not you personally, because you're fine,

but coach you through like a 15-minute practice session. I think it's going to be cool. Nice. And that's with play-alongs too. It's got play-alongs, yeah, yeah, totally. So I'm sitting there with the computer and be like, okay, well, let's use our C-B blues play-along and practice these scales. here or whatever. And then a lot of like chromatic scale practice ticking up the metronome as the

weeks go by, I think it's going to be a game changer. I think it's great. I think it's great because we're always talking about, you know, kind of the parts of the practice routine that we can make a little bit more regimented. Yeah. And I think that what you did, you know, in kind of picking out those areas that it works better for will really help folks. Because I know a lot of times people like practicing, they're like, well, I want to be creative. I want to work on my improv. I want to do this and it becomes this big mystery of like when do you get very focused and say we're going to do like this with the metronome on this scale and when you be more creative and I think what we can give people is some of those more regimented areas take care of some of the the hard work there

yeah it's true you know we get asked a lot about practice routines you know not just on the you'll hear podcast but on our open studio courses too about what should I practice or whatever I think these like guided practice sessions it was almost like a cross between like a guided meditation and a like aerobics video from the radio because I'm like don't forget to breathe right right Right. Did you put on your Jane Fonda leotard? I did. I was wearing spandex the whole time. But keep an eye out for that for you non-pianist or beginner pianist for jazz piano jumpstart. And then, you know, super secret teaser here, there might be, we've been talking about throwing around the idea of like a jazz piano technique boot camp where we would do these guided practice sessions.

I want to do it. And we're not going to be, it's not going to be friendly out of it, Peter. We're going to be like boot camp dogmatic. Yeah, we're going to get you into shape. Get back on my piano now! What was cool, though, for me doing the, doing 28 practice sessions in about four days' time is like, man, I got really, my technique was like killing all weekend. Adam, get back on the piano yourself. Everybody on my gigs was like, what's going on with you?

You're like, super strong today. I was like, I don't know, chromatic skills for a week straight. Man, practice works. It's such a like, I love it. Like, whenever I forget what the teaching is to say, just practice, it really works. And I think, you know, the theory of, like, just practice anything in a way. Like, we're talking about, like, and this guide of stuff is going to be great because this, I think, will help folks get. There's always that barrier of, like, well, what should I practice?

And that's why we get these questions. What should I be doing? How long? Should I be doing this? What kind of piano? All these things. And there's always that, what do they call it, analysis paralysis? Totally.

You know, it's so easy to fall into that. Decision fatigue. Decision. And we forget, like, once you've been doing this for a long time, it almost, it, like, I never. never have a trouble thinking of what to, it's just like, I just need more time. I know. I just need more time. I got plenty. I need practicing. But I totally understand it. Like, because for me, like, you know, I'm starting this thing of thinking about training for a marathon. And I'm spending all this time like, what's the best, you know, what's the best program?

Should I do 16 weeks or? And then at a certain point, it's like, just get out and run. Yeah, just run. And then up your mileage. And I mean, not to say that like these plans are great and you can get into those, but the main thing is like when you're a beginner or intermediate even. And I mean, the main thing is just be at that instrument, spending that time. I mean, the whole, like, practicing the perfect thing, that's for later. You'll get to that. Totally. But I think this is really cool that you're going to be able to give them some of those perfect things from the beginning without people having to think about it.

Yeah. And just, and hopefully provide some motivation and some reminders of what you should be doing or looking like or sounding like or thinking as this is going on. I think it's going to be cool. Nice. So what about you, man? You were gone for three weeks. Where'd you go? Yeah.

So see if I can remember this in order. I did a tour in Europe for actually most of those three weeks with Diane Reeves and her band. And it was really fun. And we were like moving around a lot. Went to Amsterdam, a couple gigs in France, outside of Paris, Switzerland, Zurich. We went up in the Alps to Impsst, I-M-S-T. Impsed. A city with a missing vowel, I would say.

Beautiful, though. Oh, beautiful, beautiful area. Oh, man, that's great. And, you know, it's always fun to go to these places that you think, why are we here doing jazz concert and then people come in and like know all your music and super hyped up which is fun that's very cool um and then uh i saw one day where you were like in europe one day and then in portland the next day yeah and then like back to europe in a few days time right yeah i left the tour to go do this the gig in portland at the northwest jazz festival big shout out to um all the great folks

there northwest jazz festival at mount hood community college nice they have a wonderful jazz program there We had such a fun day. And, you know, I told him a while ago I would do this and I didn't want to miss it. And I'm so glad even with all the travel stuff, it really was so worthwhile. The kids were great. A lot of great high school bands. Big shout out to Dan, the band director there and head of the program. And I played with the Mount Hood Jazz band, Mount Hood Community College jazz band.

Really good band. I just sort of jumped in on some stuff that I was ill prepared for, but they helped me along and played on the concert. That was fun. then did a couple tunes trio with their faculty members, which was great. And yeah, it was a really fun day. A bunch of you'll hear it listeners there. That was fun. Oh, yeah?

Yeah, in the Portland area there. Very cool. Nice. I had some cool gigs just in town. Like we did a trio with Montez, Coleman, and Bob DeBoo. Yep. We were joined by our friend Brian Owens, who we both recorded with. And did some music of Stevie Wonder at Jazz of St. Louis here.

Nice. Which was some big shows for us. And then got to play with the St. Louis Symphony last week. Oh, hello. On a... Did you just drop that symphony name on the floor there? Yeah, yeah. No, we did a really cool show that was produced by Jazz and Lincoln Center called the orchestra swings,

which I always thought was an oxymoron. Right. But they made it happen somehow. You didn't walk into the rehearsal calling people morons. I did not. Or questioning their swinging ability. Right. Now, was that...

What was the music provided from Jazz and Lincoln Center? What was the format and everything? The whole, the whole show was written, like all the dialogue. Like, I didn't have a lot of playing. I was mostly speaking, and it was to kids. So it kind of introduces kids to the concepts of swing and improvisation and what's the difference. And the orchestra plays, you know, some Dvorjak, and that's how they swing. And actually, it was super killing.

You know, the St. Louis Symphony is, like, fabulous. Yeah, yeah. And so this great conductor from Kansas City, Jason Seber came in and just killed it, and it was really fun. Nice. And then what was the instrumentation? Was it a trio plus the orchestra? The same trio, my trio. And then we had a whole horn section of jazz musicians, Wayne Coniglio, Brady Lewis on

trumpet, Joel Vander Heiden on saxophone, Aaron Bodie sang. Okay. And then we had a director, Maria Ellis, that was kind of the host. It was super fun, man. And it was a well-written show. Jazz and Lincoln Center, you know, maybe people don't know, like they see the live streams on Facebook or whatever, but, man, I do, just here in our little Midwestern jazz community, I do so much stuff that's been written by jazz at Lincoln Center and

then sent out to the world. And luckily, Jazz St. Louis picks all this stuff up and we go into schools and do all this great stuff like really educating kids about jazz in a way that's entertaining you know it's all the way from the webop program yeah man there's nothing better than hearing a room full of kindergartens scream out you know louis armstrong they all know who he is it's killing yeah yeah no i think jazz lincoln center i think i don't know if it's in their official mission statement from the cradle to the grave they're going to have something for everybody it's good as good someone's doing it yeah yeah yeah so the uh speaking of jazz lincoln center the the last gig i did on this tour was

St. Lucia, not St. Louis. I almost made that mistake. St. Lucia Jazz Festival. I bet that was a rough one. That was a rough one. It was a rough one. It was a rough one getting down there. That place is far, man. Yeah, it's almost a South America, right? It's like, you know, just a stone's throw from Caracas. Well, it'd have to be a really good Venezuelan pitcher to throw that stone. But, you know, but no, I've been down there a few times, and there's actually a, for being such a small island, it's got a pretty rich jazz community and some good players are from there that I know. but they've had this festival for years,

but they kind of rebranded it this year with the jazz at Lincoln Center and kind of part of this ongoing education and performance be a myth that they've become. They are, we're associated with sort of some of the programming, so it changed a little bit from previous years

where it was more of a smooth jazz festival and going back to its roots years ago when it was really a straight ahead and kind of island jazz and a lot of cool kind of different things. Good for them. Yeah, so, but I mean, it was big. I mean, they had a bunch,

I mean, I actually ended up, I play with two groups. I play with Christian McBride and Inside Straight and with Diane Reeves. And Lettucey, she sang some stuff with us with Christian's group. They had Gregory Porter there. I just caught the last two days, or last day, actually, that was there. But there was a bunch of good groups. And it was nice to see that festival kind of with some infusion of different kind of players and stuff.

You accuse me a name dropping. I know, exactly. I'm trying to think there was a lot. They had the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, which is under the direction. of Adonis Rose now. I didn't even get a chance to see them. They were kind of leaving as we were coming. Marcus Baylor.

There was actually a lot of St. Louis representation. Marcus Baylor. The Baylor Project? The Baylor Project was there in effect. The only thing I wasn't crazy about this festival, but I think, I don't know, it's from a musician's standpoint,

it's always, you know, the festivals are for the people. We always forget. Like we think, make it about us. Where's my catering? Where's my, you know, shuttle. But the, everything was so spread out. It didn't quite have that community feeling

among the musicians of this. is where it is. I also missed the whole first. Not they didn't miss it. I just, the gigs I was doing was the last day. Right. So, but it was a little bit spread out so you didn't get a chance to see a lot of different things, things that I would have wanted to see. I did get a jazz police escort. I don't know if you heard about that. There's a jazz police escort. There is. It was actually officially just a police escort. Was it just Warren Wolf? Yeah, well, no, he's the jazz police like enforcer, you know. He was on the gig, though. That's what I'm saying. No, so they, when I took both these gigs, I was like, last time I played St. Lucia Jazz Festival, it was

one stage, you know, all the different groups play. And Christian McBride had asked me about doing the gig, you know, a long time ago. And then Diane Reeves people asked me. I was like, cool. I was like, well, well, and then they were even originally going to do something together. So I was like, easy. I'll be there. And I didn't know they had the multiple stage thing.

So when I saw that, I said, look, I can only do these if they're different. And they were like, don't worry. They're going to either be different days or hours apart, no problem. It turns out they were scheduled right, almost exactly the same time. So, like, Diane's gig was at 8 o'clock on one stage. and then Christians gig was at 10. But as do things sometimes happen at festivals and in the islands, things got pushed back a little.

We didn't start to like 9 o'clock with Diane. And then it was like a 15 minute drive to the other. Don't worry, we're going to have a car ready for you. As soon as you're finished, it's going to take you over there. But it's Saturday night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, these little islands, the traffic is bad because it's like just one road that goes on the outside.

Exactly. And so I got out there. They had like the St. Lucia federal police like giving me an escort. I thought you were kidding, man. That's great. It was so embarrassing. I'm like sinking down on my seat because people are, I mean, there's not a lot. Out of the way. Jazz pianist here.

Everybody jazz pianist on his way to a gig. That's right. Enclosures. About to be played on the other side of the island. And so we sort of, you know, and then, you know, there's not a lot of crime there. And not a lot, not a lot actually goes down. So when there's police sirens, people move over. I felt bad.

People are like, you know, scooting over. Get out of the way. Yeah. Well, man. Glad to have you back. Yeah, good to be here, man. I missed the podcast. I mean, I was enjoying a little bit.

on the road because at the beginning of this trip was actually the ladies broadcast. That's right. And there was so much like, we want them more. And I kept getting messages from Kelly. Yeah, we're going to spin off and do our own podcast.

They were way better than that day. Yeah. They haven't quite done so good with the everyday part. They hit two days and then they're like, we're out. Well, that's the thing, right? Anybody can have just a one off good podcast episode, but do hundreds of these every day.

That's not so easy. Come back from that. That's right. Well, so tomorrow we'll be back on. Maybe we'll hit some speedpikes tomorrow. Let's do it. We have a ton. We have a ton on back order, speak pipes.

Cool. Well, until then. You'll hear it.