You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What is ALT Jazz?

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

In this episode, Peter and Adam delve into the world of Alternative Jazz. It's the first new category introduced in the Grammys under the Jazz category since 1995. What's it all about and where does it come from?↓ Links from the pod ↓Mentor SessionsGrammy Nominations - Alternative JazzHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

Hey, check out this chord. Give it a gander. I can't see it from over here, but it sounds like some kind of suss chord. It is very much so. A flat suss. Now check this out. That has some kind of altered extensions, a flat 13, maybe a flat 9 or sharp 9. Very good.

An altered chord. So you might say it's an alternative jazz chord. You might say, yes, you might say it's an alternative jazz chord. I think I know where you're going with this. Let's explore. Let's. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Jazz talk. Jazz talk sponsored today by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJadiojazz.com. Oh. Your jazz lesson needs. Let's talk about what's happening over at Open Studio real quickly. Yes, please.

Because it's the end of the year. Always an exciting time. Lots of new members. Yes. Tons of new members. And our mentor sessions continue. Yes, that's right. Mr. Taylor Eitsy will be joining us this week.

We hope. Yeah. Because last week, he showed us a ghost. Yeah. So hopefully, if you're listening to this, we just had Taylor Ixte on Friday. Yeah, no, he had a little bit of change in his travel and recording plans, but we're super excited that's coming back. Man, these mentor sessions this year have been so fun.

They've been bad. I get excited for Friday. I'm like TGIF because of the mentor session. I know. They're super fun. And for those of you that don't know about this. Emmett Cohen coming up on the 15th. That's going to be great.

Nice. Nice. We had you last week. That was awesome. It was okay. No, it was really good. We just, we just have fun. It's so fun to see the community together live on Zoom.

Totally. Doing something coming together for something that they love, just talking. Just a couple hundred people. A couple hundred people. Talking about jazz. And it's available to all open studio members. So check that out at open studio jazz.com. And today we are back on the speak pipe.

The speak pipe. So we've got a great speak pipe from this. We need to address the elephant, the lisping elephant very quickly. We have a speak pipe from Zach. But we also have a speak pipe from, I don't know if your name is James or R. James, but this is one of my favorite speak pipes ever, and it is the elephant in the room. Hey, guys. I really like the episode, but it sounds like you're both developing a Lisp.

I can't tell if it's like the audio editing or if this is like a really oblique reference to all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. That's it. Yep. Like, is this a joke that I meant to get? I'm not sure. This is all intends. It's really stressing me out. Please respond.

1100 episodes. I love that. I really stress me out. Please respond. So, tongue. Okay. Is our audience the best or what? They're the best.

They are the best. They are the best. They are the best. So we did have a, we did have a hundred percent the best. We had a slight D.Sing problem. We did have a D.S. And our wonderful viewers on YouTube and listeners. And look, if you're not on YouTube, get over there and check us out.

Yeah. There's been some confusion about this. Go and search for you'll hear it. There's a whole you'll hear it channel. It's bespoke, as we say, from the Open Studio. But it's a great place. Even if you don't want to... It's bedjewled.

Bejewel. It is a great place to comment and to banter. And a bunch of our viewers and listeners noticed that we sounded like we had a list. We had a little bit of a D-Sing problem. We don't need to go into it, but that's what it was. What was most amazing is that a lot of... It was a D-S or escalation that occurred that we couldn't edit out... A de-escalation.

Because it was on the front end of the signal chain. And what was amazing is that, like, the listeners in the comments heard it right away. Yeah. The podcast called You'll Hear It. They heard it. They heard it. They were like, that's a D.Ser that's going crazy.

Yeah, so we have some big shout out to our amateur and professional engineers in the house. And I learned a new term and a new technique. But anyway, I think we're back on track here. And I'm excited about just getting back on the speakpipes. And if you don't know about that, go to You'll Hear at.com. You can leave us a question at any time. We are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our little You'll Hear at Nomes are monitoring the speakpipe at You'll Hear.com.

But only for 90 seconds. That's right. 90 seconds is all you get, a minute and a half. Yeah, that's it. But we have a question from a friend of the show, front of the pod, out of the great state of Texas today, I believe. Zach. Zach, out of the Houston coastal region. Hey, Peter.

Hey, Adam. It's your buddy, Zach from Houston. Longtime listener, long time adherent to the gentleman and ladies' agreement. Gala. Hey, I noticed something about this year's Grammy Awards. there's a category I had not noticed before. I don't know how long this has been a category, but apparently there is a category for alternative jazz.

Now that strikes me as a label kind of like contemporary jazz. I think I know what they mean, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, Adam, I know you especially love to talk about categories of music and sub-genres. So I had to ask both of you, what is alternative jazz, what makes alternative jazz different from just non-alternative jazz? And what do you think of the Grammys having alternative jazz as a category? Looking forward to hearing from y'all. Thanks. Can I just address the thing about me with the genre? So, No.

Famously, I have on this show said how useless, I think, genres are for an artist, as an artist, to define yourself. Yeah. This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about, about how labels are put on things after the fact. Do you think Kamasi Washington says, I'm an alternative jazz musician, and I play alternative jazz? There's no way that he's defining himself in any of these parameters. This is something that things like organizations, institutions put on art after the fact to try to categorize it. It's okay that they do that. I'm not saying that it's not okay.

You kind of sound like you're saying it's not okay. No, no, no. I'm not saying it's not okay. It's inevitable. It's going to happen. People, this, people, we, we're little mammals that love to put things into boxes because it makes us feel safe. And it makes sense that the Grammys would do this.

I'm just saying as an artist, when I'm trying to make art, I'm really trying to get rid of any labels for myself so that I can be as from the heart as possible. And I think this alternative, this new category of jazz that I'd never heard of before right now called alternative, alternative jazz, which is now a Grammy. category, which legitimizes it as a term. Yeah. Is like to me, the perfect example of what, what we've been trying to talk about here with labels and how they're put on the music after the fact.

Okay. So I kind of agree with you, but I'm going to push back a little in just in saying, I mean, I agree that these are labels put in after the fact. But what is the Grammy, the whatever it is, the Arts and Recording Society, the Recording Academy? First of all, it's predominantly musicians that are part of it that vote and they create these categories and all these different the bios, the folks that I know

in the recording academy is primarily musicians. So it is us in a way, for better, for worse, in terms of making these decisions. So sometimes I think when we portray things as like something that they're putting on us, is it really them putting it on us? Like if it's

predominantly musicians that are running the organization, it might be a different category of a hierarchy of folks within the organization. We might look at it, but I think we do to take some responsibility for better or for worse as musicians with these labels. I appreciate what you're saying in terms of as part of the process of being an artist and the creative side of it. I'm just saying that none of the artists that are nominated for the alternative jazz category

probably came up with the word alternative jazz. They're not labeling their own music alternative jazz when they think about it. That's all I'm saying. So in that sense, they are anybody who's not the artist nominated in the category. But maybe there is a usefulness in terms of whatever the term is going to be to have a little bit more specific categories. I do think so. If you like in other words, it could be a bad thing if you don't do something right, but it doesn't make the idea of adding another category or a subgenre in itself a bad thing. It could be misused. It could be silly. It could be not applicable.

It could be that all these different artists. And we're going to look at kind of some of the artists. First of all, this hasn't, it's only been nominated now. So there hasn't, it's kind of funny because it makes it sound like it's already happened. This just happened. And it's for 2024. So we have the nominees, but we don't have any winners of this yet. So I think it would actually be most helpful, and this is where you're going to see the distinction. Yeah. We should compare the nominees of the alternative jazz album to the nominees of the jazz album. Okay.

Right. So for the, I've got pulled up here is the nominees for alternative jazz. We got V.J. Iyer, Corey Henry, Kurt Elling, with Charlie Hunter, Lewis Cole and Michelle and DeGiocello. this is a really cool record. If you check that out, the Omnichord Reel. No, I don't know that one, but I've heard other people say it's great.

Yeah, I got to check that out. All these are. Yeah, the Crudelling record is great. Yeah. They've been touring with that record too. Yep. So, I mean, Lewis Cole, we, you know, talked about him on the pod.

Yeah. I think this is kind of, I don't know, to me, this kind of makes sense. Like, to call this alternative. Now, my question is, is alternative jazz, maybe what we're thinking of as jazz? And is all this stuff actually what people think of as jazz?

jazz today. I mean, if you go on state of the jazz playlist on Spotify and stuff, these are the kinds of artists. This is the kind of music. If you go to a performing arts center or to a jazz club, you're going to see a lot of these kinds of artists. Young people, young aspiring jazz musicians, Berkeley students, that kind of thing. This is what they're listening to, I think, a lot. And in terms of like, I love jazz, VJ or Corey Henry, whatever. I don't think they're saying that I love alternative jazz. So what's interesting here is, is what do you, like, musically, here's the best there's a couple of different

so here again here are the best alternative jazz albums yeah should I put up your thing here yeah I have it looks like a jazz 88 website here with all the nominations on it oh it's okay we'll just talk about it so the best

jazz performance is a Grammy category and there are five nominees Adam Blackstone featuring the Baylor Project and Russell Ferrante Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding John Batiste,

Lakeisha Benjamin, and Samar Joy. Yeah. So you might say a little more swing, acoustic-based, kind of? What's interesting is

all of those nominees for Best Jazz Performance also have some nomination in either Best Jazz Vocal album or Best Jazz

Instrumental album. Yeah. None of the best alternative jazz album nominees are in that Best Jazz performance, which I think is kind of

interesting. Well, the Jazz Performance one was one that was added on later to. Right. You know. But I,

I can't really see musically what is the difference between say the best jazz instrumental album you've got Adam Blackstone obviously featuring you know that album contains the Baylor project you've got Lakeisha Benjamin

you got Pat Mathini this is not like straight tippin right right I mean you also got Billy Childs probably not straight tippin either I actually haven't heard wins of change we've heard we listen to that one track yeah Kenny Barron which seems, you know, likely to be straight ahead.

Yeah. But then you've got, you know, Corey Henry, Kurt Elling and Charlie Hunter. Yeah. Like, I don't know. What is the delineation? Why, what makes something an alternative jazz album? Okay, so check this out.

We're going to see. We're not endorsing this, but this is, you know, this very special subscription site that I have access to with insider information called Wikipedia. The category was creating response to the growing explosion of crossover jazz and the creativity of contemporary jazz artists

who are exploring and incorporating elements of other genres into their music, specifically citing the work of artists such as The Comet is Coming, Georgia and Muldrow, Casa O'Reillow, Kassau overall, Mackay McCraven, Kamasi Washington, Sons of Komet, and Robert Glassblers as examples of jazz's evolving sound and the need for a new category to honor these albums. I mean, that's kind of an interesting and altruistic,

you know, reasoning to create this. I like that. Now, full disclosure, half of these artists I really don't know or I've heard of, but I don't know their music. I'm pretty familiar with Kamasi Washington. Of course, Robert Glasper. But let's take Robert Glasper, for example. So I think he's done projects over the years that would pretty clearly, like if you had to say, does that go in the best jazz album or best jazz performance or the best alternative jazz,

like you could put one in here. He won the best R&B album Grammy. Well, there's that. Well, that's not even talking about that. But I'm saying like some of his trio recordings. clearly would go into the, you know, jazz. Like, are they all turned, jazz alternative? Yeah, maybe, but whereas like the, the experiment projects would probably fall better into this.

And maybe it's to answer people that are like, well, Robert Glasper, when he's playing acoustic trio, that's jazz. But when he does that other stuff, that's not really jazz. And maybe pushing it all the way to R&B is a little bit too much of a stretch. It's a question. I don't know. I'm not saying yes or no. I mean, you look nervous. Well, this is, this is, I'm saying this is like,

it's not as clear cut, I feel like, is maybe it used to be with this kind of stuff. Don't me and JD Beck. Are they jazz? Yes or no? I don't know. Right. I don't know. It depends on who you're asking. If you're asked my Aunt Linda, yes, there's no words to it and they're improvising. That means jazz to my Aunt Linda. Poor Ed. That's what I'm saying. Who are you asking? Because for some people, yes, if you were to be taken hostage by a foreign, a foreign state that was not friendly to the United States and they said, what words do you have to say? Would you quote Aunt Linda immediately to get out of it? No, no. But I'm not.

I'm just saying, no, I would never, never. Would you give her up? No. Your own safety and security. Sweet Aunt Linda. But no. But would you feel more comfortable if I said, Domy and Jady Beck, jazz or more alternative jazz or jazz adjacent?

Could we think of alternative jazz as what we call jazz adjacent? So is Herbie in the 70s jazz adjacent? Yeah, he goes into, well, depends on which Herbie? secrets? Would you be thinking of secrets? Is secrets jazz adjacent? Jazz adjacent? Yeah. That's not jazz because because why? No, no, it is jazz-z-e.

It's jazz alternative. It's jazz. See, I like it. You know I messed up with that. I didn't mean that. What about that is not, is it because it's funky? It's because there's no swing to it. There's no spank.

Because a lot of the jazz. Well, I'm trying not to use jazz fusion. Because to me, fusion doesn't, is not as useful as a term as some of these other ones to me. I mean, there's a hierarchy. And I agree. None of them from an artistic standpoint, a creation standpoint, or of any use at all. But as a describer in terms of like, oh, Herbie's going to be playing. Oh, what band?

Oh, he's got this new band. Oh, is it like the secrets band? Is it like jazz adjacent? Is it the funky band? Like, there's all different things you could say. To me, that's where there's a usage. If you can explain it and that can spark in someone to be like, oh, yeah, I love it when he's doing that stuff. It doesn't mean you don't love his straight ahead trio stuff or like, you know, the quintet

with Blade and Michael Brecker and Roy Hargrove. That's jazz. There's no question about that. I would never be like, oh, Secrets is not jazz. No, that's fine. If you, but, but it doesn't, it doesn't tell you a lot about the multifaceted musical persona as an arranger, a composer, and a producer and a creator that Herbie is when we just say that everything Herbie does is jazz. But why, why would we even say that, though? Like, that's what I'm saying, I'm saying why even put that label on it?

So what is the label that you would put on, on secrets? What is that? So what helps us to, what is the label that helps us with that? Funk, jazz funk maybe. Jazz funk maybe. Yeah. It doesn't help. Look, this is the thing.

It's not for us. And it's probably not even for a lot of our listeners. It's not for people that really know and create the stuff themselves. Not that we're anything special. It's just like, but it's like if you're getting on an airplane and you're an aeronautical engineer, is that a thing? You know, you're an engineer that understands and like you hear a sound. You're going to be like, oh, that's because there's such and such.

And you're going to start naming a bunch of things that you don't need to know just to be a Southwest Airlines passenger in group B. You're both going to get from point A to point B, right? Yeah. You're going to get from New York to wherever you're flying. But I'm saying somebody that knows. So like we kind of know some of this stuff. So these describers aren't as much to somebody that doesn't know that.

This is what I've been saying. That's a safe thing. That's just a this kind of sound. But this is what I've been saying for months, right? Is like to my Aunt Linda, Herbie in the 70, secrets is jazz, right? Just because it's not because it's not the carpenters, right? It's not, which ironically played a little jazz.

but no but to you like we can be more specific that's the headhunter's era like we know that specific and with us that secret specifically like we know that that music

yeah and so I think it just it's all about the context of who you're talking to and so that's why I'm not like I don't think it's bad that the Grammy Awards came up with a new category to try to expand with

you know as they're mentioning here like these the way musicians pull from other influences I'm just saying my whole thing with this has always been from an artist's perspective, it's not helpful for me personally to say, I am this kind of musician, therefore I only make this kind of music. I agree. But this is not labels, the Grammys, these categorizations, the reasoning, I would contend even the reasoning for expanding the number

of categories, which is what they've done. This is not replacing anything. This is adding on a new category, right? I think there is a contemporary jazz category already, I believe. But anyway, I'm saying, like this is not for artists like create your music to put in there i think artists and creators should and do create what they want to do the categorization is for aunt linda and it's for it's not even for and linda it's for somebody that's like well i like jazz but i want to know about this it's kind of like you go into a wine store we have red wine we have white wine or first of all you could just be let's go to a liquor store give me some liquor like that's like the lowest level just give me some alcohol and then it could be like would you want hard stuff or do you want wine oh you like wine so as you

get into it. Do you like red wine or white wine? Do you like sweet? Oh, do you like red wine from this country, this continent? Like there's all different levels to it. And yeah, somebody who really, a wine producer in Portugal is not going out and saying, I'm going to make a jazz adjacent Portuguese wine from the, no, they just create what they want to create, which is great. But to the consumer, I think it is interesting to be like, oh, this is the style of it. Maybe the producers are like, it's kind of silly because they're saying it's dry this, but it's actually multi-dimensional. And it crosses over into a lot of things. But wine, this is a, you're using a great analogy here that I think we can put towards music. Yes, the category of Malbec is, that is a genre of wine, right? But what's the

second thing you ask about a Malbec? How much does it cost? What's the third thing you ask about a malbec? What is the alcohol content? What's the fourth thing you ask? Where's it from? Where's it from? Right. Because why does that matter? Because of the terrois? Because of the style. Because it speaks to the style. It speaks to the style of the actual wine, maybe as much as the grape itself, maybe not quite as much as the grape, but certainly it's like second down the list. So to me, that says a very similar thing about music is like what what is the culture where this musician is coming from? I mean, I think that's why. But you'll see stuff like, like Latin, you know, best Latin jazz performance. Like that would be it, that is a categorical, best Latin jazz album like that speaks to coming from

a certain area, but also to a certain style. Right. Right. Right. Right. Again, Nora Jones, Leve. They might be Levee might get nominated Is she nominated all this year? I don't know, but have you seen their... They just, I just watched today. Yeah, they just made a record. Really nice. Oh, it was a record. I just saw the video of the Christmas song.

Sounds great. Yeah. But again... Alternative jazz? Culturally, where is that coming from? That, see, that I think is a wait in the water. I'm about to wait in some bad waters here. mid-century pop. Right. I think that's what that sounds like to me.

Agreed. So, but we didn't have that term. Shout out Adam Neely until recently. Maybe we did. No, I had never heard it. I'm an idiot.

There's a lot of stuff I don't know. It's just pop music from the mid-20th century, Peter. Right. I mean, I knew about the cool little glass coffee table that I want that's $1,200. The mid-century modern with the, with the Noguchi. I love the Noguchi. I knew that was mid-century.

As soon as you say mid-century, I'm thinking that, and I don't even hear pop. I didn't know the term, but I think that's an example of a useful, yeah, does it tell you everything about Nora Jones? No, Nora Jones is a great jazz pianist. She's got pop. I mean, she has all these cool influences, and she probably doesn't appreciate being put into a box. But on that duo with Loewee, Levee, doing the Christmas. Now, what are they doing? Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

That's got a very, you know, that sounds really pop kind of. feel and like if I would tell Linda or you or Caleb or me or anybody I you know that says something about what it is it's not everything but it but it it does it's it's better than like it's wouldn't you rather hear that thing it's an alternative jazz

version I totally agree I totally agree I'm scared you with the glasses too I know it takes a level it's very insidivating but I just think it's funny looking at all of these these you're not a fan are you well no no no I'm just it just

I'm not a fan of jazz. Categories. I am, but you... What was that question, by the way? But reading all the categories at once, you're like, oh, this is fairly useless. Yeah. You know, there's not a clear line in the same.

I would just say that for the addition of this alternative jazz category. Like, the greatest one is the best large jazz ensemble or the best vocal because there is a clearly defined, oh, there's vocals on this. It's a large ensemble. That is a... Yeah. That I can swing. Yeah. Well, you know what I do like about these in general?

It gives more Grammys to jazz and jazz adjacent people. For sure. Like it opens up more. And this is something that are opportunities for great musicians to get some recognition. Yeah. And the whole thing about large ensembles, it's like, are there people that are saying, oh, I only like large ensemble jazz? I hate small ensemble jazz.

No. Although there are some people that like, I love vocal jazz. I love great vocal jazz. And that says something. Obviously, and to your point, that's an easier description because it's like, it's like the difference between a music reviewer giving their opinion about performance and then coming and saying okay Adam Manus had there's a concert of Adam manis his brand new compositions they were written for an ensemble of seven players two

obos and like where you're really just telling what it is there's nothing to dispute because you're describing what it is I think those kind of labels are always the best yeah but they're not as obvious we might say oh like classical music well no not really because if you say I'm going to go hear classical music well what are you saying you're saying the classic so something elevated and Eurocentric like that brings into question I lot of questionable things. I started a group this year and it's called pop pop pop and it's our tagline is we're a string orchestra dedicated to the art of the pop song. I thought it was jazz explained. It's not jazz talk. Jazz talk. Pop talk. But that, but that's, you know, defining exactly,

you know you're going to get a string orchestra and there's going to be some songs. There's going to be some popular songs from all eras. If we do some recording, which I'm hoping we do with that group next year. Yes. We'll be doing that. Would it fit into the jazz, this newly monikered jazz alternative category of the Grammy associate. It might fit into the large jazz ensemble. We'll see. Actually, yeah. It totally would. We might. What about mid-century pop? Like the Jerome Kern.

It could. Well, right here is a couple of our influences for pop, pop, pop, Vince Mendoza and the Metropolitan Orchestra are nominated as Best Jazz Large Ensemble album. That is, though, that's a like a direct influence for us. It makes sense. McBride is one there with the big band, Lincoln's, I mean, like, it really makes sense. and it's it's uh there's a rich tapestry within even that you wouldn't think but like the metropole orchestra jazz and lincoln center you know mc rides big band um pop pop pop like those are all very different

but there is something that binds them together to be in a category that makes sense i mean i hate the competitive part but i love the celebration i love the celebratory part of this i love michel and de jocelo having for my own selfish reasons because i'm just i'm a huge fan of hers that she can come out with this really cool, quirky, artistically adventurous and highly, like, just refined and just a dope record, you know, that's called the Omnicord Real Book, which could, like, where does that, can't it have a home? You know what I mean? Does she have to be R&B because that's what she was known for? But then most people know her for, like John Cougar Mellencamp pop. Yeah.

Hit. And then she's been associated with jazz players, but I don't think she would be like, yes, I'm a jazz basis. I don't think so either. But jazz alternative. I love that. So the other thing with the alternative jazz is, you know, I'm a, I'm a kid who grew up in the 90s, Peter. Yeah.

I grew up with alternative music. Yeah, so maybe you're bringing a little. And so now I was, when I heard of this, I thought, oh, is it jazz musicians doing stuff like, well, Ulysses Owen's junior video? I was just like, I was saying, that could, he's going to be jazz alternative for his incredible reading of Nirvana that he'd never heard. Yeah. So what did we learn today?

Categories. Let's close our eyes. We're both going to say. say thumbs up or thumbs down. Also, our listeners love it when we talk about genres. Our listeners love it when we discuss. But just to circle back a little bit just to before we clear out of here to what Zach's question was, just about specifically in this category, not categorization in general, the

Grammys, the Recording Academy adding this category. Do you think it's a good thing, bad thing or a neutral thing? The alternative jazz. I think it's a good thing. Okay. More categories with great musicians under the jazz. The big jazz umbrella is great. You guys heard it. Adam said more genres and more sub-genres.

Great. Until next time. You'll hear it.