You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What Makes A Great Pianist?

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

Peter and Adam answer a SpeakPipe about what makes a great pianist. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.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, Peter. Hey. Hey, you sound great. Thanks, man. How do I sound? Hi, I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to The You'll Hear Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Coming at you, today's episode of You'll Hear Podcast is brought to you by Open Studio. Clapin again. I love it when you clap, man.

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Hey, Adam. Pete, how are you doing? This is Terry. I've done this before, and then you were kind enough to answer my question. Had a thought a couple weeks ago, I heard Adam call you, Peter, a great pianist. And I was curious from both of your perspectives, when you see. or listen to a jazz pianist, what distinguishes what you're hearing as someone who is very good, great, a master, a prodigy? What is it? Obviously, there's a lot of technical skill involved,

but to get to the point of where a professional looks at another professional and is able to classify them in a certain category. I mean, you've got your Chick Careers, your Herbie Hancock's, or the Grandmasters of all time, but those that aren't at that level are considered, you know, good, great as well. Anyway, we're curious to see what your thoughts were. Appreciate it. Love your show. The podcast is one of the best. Thanks.

This is easy to answer. Anybody who's worse than you is a total hack, and anybody who's better than you is an all-time. great. That's right. It's very binary. No, this is subjective, obviously. Yeah, well, first of all, I just want to say thanks. I didn't, that slipped by me when you called me a great pianist the other day. I slipped by me too. I didn't

knowingly do that. Well, it is part of your contract here, so I appreciate that you're following through, but. No, I don't know what the context was. And so there are some distinctions. Like, I think there are some piano players who are great musicians who I wouldn't consider, like, great pianists. You know what I mean? Like, you are a great pianist. You have so much of the instrument seems so natural to you that I do consider you to be a great pianist, as well as a great musician, but that is probably what I was talking about. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, I think that's a good distinction we talk about, you know, in jazz, a great pianist,

a great musician, a great jazz musician. Totally. And then we could talk about a great person, a great chef, there's all different things. Few and far between. We talk about great pianists. But I do think that when we talk about, and I love Terry, thanks for the question. And for calling in, you mentioned very good, great, a master, a prodigy. This is really granular, and I like that. Probably when we talk about a master, and then I love that you were like, Chikaria and hurry, that's Grandmaster. Grandmaster, that's Grandmaster.

And that's a cool thing to think about, you know, because chess is very easy. Like, I mean, if you beat somebody, you're better than them. And I guess if you do it consistently. In music and the arts and stuff, it's really not about, like, you know, it's not about beating somebody. It's not somebody's better. Now, look, it's obvious for us that we can say, Chickory and Herbie Hancock are better, like in terms of ranking, that's, if you have to do that, that's, it's not to say that we're all great, no, there, there are, there's, there's different

levels. But I think the important thing is like, who can, who can tell their story? Right. You know what I mean? To me, that makes a great musician. Totally. And if you layer in being great on your instrument, you know, technically and being able to tell your story even more, I mean, you have to have a certain level skill on your instrument to translate, just like with the language, like I could tell you a great story in English, but if I try to tell it to you in French, it's not going to quite have the same meaning because I'm not going to know the words to say, you know. But art is subjective. Yes.

So, I mean, Liberace was a great pianist. He was an amazing pianist. There was no doubt about it. And he was actually a great musician. Yes, but it's not. That's the pullout quote for this episode. Liberace was a great musician. That's what Peter Martin just said.

But it's not music that I'm going to listen to. Right. It's not your cup of tea. It's not what I like, you know. We had our speak pipe the other day about Oscar Peterson, how the guy's teacher didn't like the music of Oscar Peterson. There's no doubt. that anybody can see or hear that Oscar Peterson is a great pianist.

There's no questioning that at all. Right, right, yeah. And I mean, so somebody who loves his music, it's kind of like it's surprising that their artistry as a jazz musician isn't considered great to everybody too, but I guess it's not. But although that gets into another thing of just pianists being jealous. Like, I've never heard non- pianists being like,

oh, Oscar Peterson, that's all technique. That's usually jealous pianists. It's normally jealous piano. I mean, there's no like, I don't think, like, Ella Fitzgerald was like, ooh, I hate playing with that guy. What a horrible trio he leads up. But I do think that, yeah, when we get into very good, great,

I just think, you know, sometimes it becomes sort of a numbers game in terms of like, how many people can you impact with your art? And that's one part of being great, I think. And it's kind of overlooked because it kind of goes against this idea of like the solo, you know, artists toiling away in their cabin, you know, that their writings or their music and it never gets out. into the world. Maybe they are still great. Yeah, maybe so. But I think there has to be this connection with the audience. And I think that, you know, somebody, when we talk about pianists,

you know, well, okay, let's think about grandmasters. Now, this is easy. Herbie Hank, let's just talk about ones that are living now. Now, are we talking about artists or pianists? Well, if we're saying grandmaster, we're saying everything. Everything. Great at, you know, great at a very high musical skill, um, artistry, telling their story and great pianists as well. Okay. So, yep, well, Terry already named it. Herbie. Hancock, Chick-Korea. Those are obvious ones. Yeah, I put Keith Jared in here. You'll hear it.

I know. Some other folks that I would consider in my, and these are common for us, Winton Kelly, would probably go in there for me. I believe he's not alive, but. No, no, no. Oh, we're going to the Pantheon here. Yeah, okay, we're going. Obviously, Art Tatum. Art Tatum. I would put Oscar Peterson in there. Earl Hines. I know I'm going a little bit far back there. I would put Earl Hines in there as well, for sure.

I'm going to throw you a little curveball on this on the piano, on the keyboard. Steve Wonder. I agree with that. I would put him as a grandmaster for sure. Yeah, yeah. That might be a little controversial, but I've heard him do things. Like when you talk about his recordings, it's, you know, the composition of the band.

Like, he can do so many different things. I mean, some of his best records, he played every instrument on. So it's easy to overlook. But I've heard him play some things live that just wowed me in a way that is very similar to hearing Keith Jarrett live. My controversial one, Throneous Monious Monk. Oh, no, no. No, no. No, no.

I think some people think he's not a great pianist, but he's a great pianist. I absolutely. think so he's not it's his technique is not as easy to you know kind of label as masterful as an oscar peterson right or as a keith jare it's not flash yeah it's not flash and it's not a typical classical kind of technique at all but it's technically difficult it's technically very difficult to get that sound it's hard and it's very original and i think that philoni smug and this is the great thing and the subjectivity that comes into it and the variety that i love is that not everybody is in artatum and that's great even oscar peters where people like oh well

He's just coming out of the artator. No, not really. I mean, he was a big influence, but Oscar Peterson did his own thing. Stylistically, he's coming out of that. You can hear the influence. But, I mean, Thelonis Monk is an original. Like, it is hard to be an original. And, you know, I actually think that there's some overlooked things.

And I know in reading that great biography of Thelonis Monk, it started to kind of crystallize for me in that his technique, like, because he was classically trained also. He went to Juilliard when he was like a teenager, like in high school or something. But you don't hear that. technique as much, but when you really think about the originality and the way that he's able to produce specific sounds, that actually makes sense in terms of that he had a refined piano technique. He rejected and not even rejected, but changed some of that specific to work for how he was hearing the instrument. So, like, I always get the feeling when he's improvising that, like, it's probably the closest I've heard any pianist to what I imagine is the sound in the, of the voice of how they wanted to sound at that time.

Like, he's that specific to what he's hearing and able to translate that through the piano. And the piano's not naturally a very lyrical instrument. Yet he makes it into like his voice, you know. Yeah. It's interesting, man. So now it gets really tricky. Like it gets hairy if we're talking about grandmasters. I mean, do you put Bill Evans in there for getting his own sound?

I think you put Bell Evans. You might have to. I think you put Bill Evans in there. I don't think that's controversial at all. There's, I don't know. There's so many great pianists. I mean, I think Brad Meldo. Yeah.

I mean, I know that like we're not supposed to be like, oh, well, he's not at the level. But I mean, he's a, I don't know. Dude, I heard him a couple weeks ago at Jazz St. Louis here, which is a piano I play on quite often, and it didn't sound like the same piano. Yeah. I mean, you know. Oh, he played on the Yamaha there? Yeah, he played on the Yamaha there, and it sounded unbelievably. Dang, I hate that.

I could blame that. I could have been like, you know. I always blame the Yamaha. Not the case. Turns out you just have to have good touch. Yeah. Anyway, so, okay, so now how we, the prodigy is a whole other, that's a loaded word, I feel like, and things like good pianists. Yeah.

Well, Prodigy to me is like easier to, I mean, they're just young. They're really good and they're young and like whether or not they're going to become sort of a master. I mean, look, we're defining this way more that I actually wanted to. We're like, you can't classify art. No, let's classify it. It's really, it's impossible. No, but I'm spacing on his name now. Joey Alexander.

To me, he's obviously a prodigy. A classic prodigy. Although, you know, he's getting older now and his playing is actually so mature. It's a little bit, I mean, look, whether or not he's going to become a master the way that we look at Bill Evans or Chick-Arearie or whatever, Herbie Hancock. is yet to be told. But, I mean, he's very mature player. He's not just a prodigy already. He's already moving well into being a solid,

not just a solid player, really, really. I mean, he's already a solid player, and he's a prodigy and his amazing pianist. But very mature for his age. So, like, he's going to be able to kind of just move along and then make his decisions because he's got so much already under his belt. But no doubt he's a prodigy. I mean, I heard it when he was like 10 or 11,

and he was, like, killing it already. I mean, that's classic prodigy, right? Totally. Or as the Germans would say, Wundi Kint. Wundikint. Yeah. I just don't like doing this. I just don't like.

You look physically, like you have a rash on the side of your face. I don't know. I understand Terry's question and I don't really think about why I called you a great pianist. I even though it's just, it's obvious you're very, very talented pianist. Well, I do think that there's something to like, let's let's, because he really was talking about pianists and we got more into the jazz and that's great. Like, a musician and creativity. Okay, yeah, I can do that. But I mean, there is something, without even having to rate specific people, there's something about a pianist that could be playing anything that when they sit down on the instrument, they have a command of the thing.

And like, I always thought about, it's funny, I've been playing it so long. To me, it's like such a simple instrument on a very basic level because it's one of the easiest instruments to play one note. Yeah. Like you pressing a button. Any child can sit down. A cat can do it. Yeah, exactly. Go on YouTube.

You can see a lot of cats make it play. Yeah, more so than a trumpet, you know, or a violin. Or an oboe. Anything, really. Anything else is, besides maybe a guitar. Right. Where you could pluck a string and make a sound. Yeah, you can.

It's true. But therein lies the challenge. Yeah. And I think this is where you're heading and this is where I think about great pianists are people who have their own sound on the instrument. Stronger the sound, the personal sound, I think the better the pianist.

This is why I think, you know, someone like Brad Meldow, definitely someone like Chick and Herbie have that strong, personal sound. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So hard. Kenny Barron.

Kenny Barron. Kenny Barron. There's a master, for sure. For sure, yeah. So, yeah. And I think, too, that... Those people, you hear a couple bars and you're like, that's that pianist, no matter what the piano they're playing.

Yeah. And just that command, Robert Glasper. Like, when, you know, like, whenever I see him and we're on a piano, I mean, he's such a funny guy, too. We're joking around. But he's got that thing where he just sits at the piano and just, like, play something. It just has a command of the instrument.

You know what I mean? And, like, I mean, we all have different ideas, and we can go different directions or whatever. But there's something about just being able to control the instrument, to be able to make something out of this machine and all these buttons and strings and hammers and stuff. And to me, that's kind of where the masterful thing comes.

And what's fun about it is, it really is, it's so simple on one level. It's fun when somebody can get to the level where they can do it in a way that's so much better. I mean, it's like, you know, basketball,

it's like, it's so simple. You just put the ball into the net. Yeah. You know, so in a way, I mean, like,

my mom could go out and like bounce a ball and throw it up and it might go in. Sure. You know, and just like a professional. It might go in or might. But you're just like, you're taking something simple. It's not like

a computer programmer. No one's going to come up and just put the right things in a language and JavaScript is going to kind of come out. But the piano, so it makes it even more impressive when somebody kind of just makes it their own. Mary Lou Williams. Mary Lou Williams. So that was, you know, now you're talking about it coming, even beyond just the jazz

and the improv, of course, but like her mastery of the instrument. Nina Simone, I know it sounds like I'm just throwing in females at the end, but it's just kind of, I'm thinking of this. Nina Simone, I would say actually, from all the pianists that we talked about and that documentary is still so impactful on me but i always loved her piano playing shirley horn like you know we're talking about great singers but to me these are masterful pianists first and foremost you know definitely nita simone that's always what she wanted to do she was kind

of doing the vocal thing on the side but but she had the thing of where it's just like she could just take the piano and sculpt it and have her own sound with it agreed yeah all right well thanks terry for the uh the question yep we answered it in a roundabout kind of way yeah uh Remember that today's episode is bought to you by bought to you. It's bought. No, it was bought. It really is. By Open Studio.

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