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

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

Ever get overwhelmed with emotion from a tune? In this episode, Adam and Peter talk about what about music can evoke such emotion. Link to our Spotify PlaylistLooking to drop a question? Want to listen to the audio pod? Look no furtherhttps://youllhearit.com/Have 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, Adam, what is the title for today's episode? You got me. You really got me. We don't know. This is unusual for us, right? Yeah, I do know. What? It's written at the bottom of, like, when they look at their phones, they're going to see what the title is.

They look at their phone like that. Yeah, I mean glasses. Or when, if they're watching on YouTube, it's going to be right there. What about it on MTV? No, no, this won't make it on. on MTV. I'll be honest. Guys obsessed with MTV right now. I want my MTV.

It really does. I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the you'll hear a podcast. Music Explored. Explored. Coming to you today. Brought to you by Open Studio. Go to Open Studiojadjojazz.com for all your jazz lesson needs.

Peter. Yes. What are we doing today? Well, we are going to go to the endless well that we call speak pipe. We're going to take a listener question. today. And we remind folks, we got a little depressed this morning, not going to lie, because we went to speak pipe and saw that we have, we've got so many messages that we haven't answered yet. But we haven't had any in over a month. And I asked you, I was like, what's going on? Is there something that's

broken down with this? Oh, maybe I should just refresh the page. Maybe that's what it is. You should refresh the page first and foremost, for sure. No, we haven't got one. And you said very astutely, very wisely that we haven't mentioned this. So this is a serving notice that we accept question. Once we've finally answered Pickin' Stones rhythmic speakpipe several months ago, I feel like we needed to, we like accomplished something with speakpipe, and so we took a little bit of a break, but we're back. I love a speakpipe. If you don't know, speakpipe is where you can leave us a voicemail. You can go to, you'll hear it.com, and you can ask us a question. We make it so much more complicated than we need to.

No, they just go, you'll hear it.com. It's the name of the show, Peter, and that is written right there on their iPod. So, yeah, we're going to take a question, and this is one from one of our friends, actually, friend of the show, front of the pod, friend of Open Studio, OG, Open Studio Pro member, Jan. And should we just take a Gander? I think Gander means look, but yeah, let's have a listen. Really? Let's take a gonger?

A gongere. Here we go. Hey there, it's Jan from the Lake District in the UK. I want to be in the Lake District. Open Studio Pro Veteran and a long-time fan of the pod. So I had a question about songs that make you feel emotional. I was driving yesterday. I was listening to Oscar Peterson, we get requests.

I had to skip. I think you look good to me right as it started because I know that every time it comes on, I always end up in like a big, soppy mess. I was like, no, I'm on the motorway. I can't do that. I can't skip it, even though I love it. There's some other songs that do that to me as well.

Samara Joy, guess who I saw today, has me in floods of tears. So I guess I had two questions. What are some songs that make you, respond emotionally. It's always looking out for new music to listen to. And also, as a player, what is it?

Do you think those songs have that make them emotional? Is it really personal or is there something objectively sad or emotional about those songs? How do they work? I'd be really interested

to have your thoughts on that. Thanks, guys. Great question. and... Hey there. Oh, she was back. Sorry. Yeah, great question. Maybe we can...

Basically, explain music and why it works so well. Well, this is what's so great about music, though, in general, is that it is sort of mysterious. Why do these vibrations that we move through the air make us sad or happy or angry or joyful or melancholy or any number of emotions? Like, why do we hit emotions with sound? more so than you do, I would say, with even other senses. You know what I mean? There's something about it that's just somewhat deeper sound. Yeah.

And I don't know. I think maybe, Peter, let's start with hearing a bit. And, Jan, not to make you cry. Let's hear a little bit of you look good to me from the Oscar Peterson Trio We Get Request. This is the track that Jan was mentioning. Cover your ears, Jan, in case you don't want to stop. Like, once I get away from kind of what the chords are and stuff, it's just like, I mean, not to be reductive too much, but joy, optimism, sunlight, you know, optimism.

Well, but there's not, I think I know, I don't know what's going on with Jam, but I know what's going on with me, and there's a lot of combinations of things happening. I think it starts with the chord progression, and then it ends in their arrangement and the production. Right, so the chord progression is primarily around this descending pattern, C major, to G over B. This is important, this G over B chord. Super important. It's because this is the hope, right? And this could be like what you're expecting after this, because you're going down here

ditonically, is this. It's like an A minor, right? You're staying around the same kind of home base in general. But what happens after the G major is this. is like a G minor over B flat. Right. This is where it gets melancholy. This is a story.

This is a story. This is a story. It's a story. It's a chord. It's a minor chord, but it's in the key of C. It's not as sad or is like unexpectedly like, oh, we're not going to make it.

Right. As this, right? Yeah. And then from there, A dominant 7, not A minor. And that's important too because it could be like... So... Right.

That would bring you back. Oh, Cool. We're going to the four, maybe to back to the one. But this dominant seven is also yearning to go somewhere. And where it's yearning to go first and foremost is this, the D minor seven. But it doesn't go in. It does it. It goes to F minor six over eight, eight flat. Which again is a heart-wrenching chord of like, we're not going to make it. Maybe build a...

And then it finally lands on that G7 or that C over G. And that, I think, is part of it. And then coupled with the fact that it's like it's soft, it's brushes. They never get too big. Oscar's playing way up, like way up in the high soprano range, very lightly. Especially the bass solo, maybe that's why. It starts with a killing bass solo. I think there's a lot going on there.

I think a lot of that has to do with it. The guess who I saw, and actually let's just skip to the end of this because I think they go back. Yeah, here this transition. And the fact that this is cycles. And they're sitting on the chords for a while. It doesn't seem like at the beginning, but once they start swinging out, it's like two whole bars on every chord, and there's a symmetry. Yeah.

And this is very, like, lullabyish, childish. They've manipulated you, Jan. They've manipulated your emotions. Yeah. And then the guest who I saw today, so the Samar Joy version, the Nancy Wilson version is the classic version, but this is also great. And this is all about the lyrics. This is a story. You are so late.

Matt Dennis? Getting home from. Could be wrong about fans. Did you miss your train? Were you caught in the rain? No, don't bother to explain. Can I fix you a quick martini? Murray Grand.

As a matter of fact, I'll have one with you. I said Matt Dennis, because Matt Dennis has a lot of punchlines, a lot of setups. Right set up in the lyrics. I've had clever. her and this has that as well. But to me, this is all about the story of the song. Absolutely.

Guess who I saw today, my time. I went in town to shop around for something new. Smart joy. Yeah, unbelievable. I thought I'd stop and grab a bite when I was through. Have vibrato. Ooh. You know this too?

No. I mean, I've heard it. I've never heard it. I've heard Nancy. It occurred to me there was a most very far. The waiter showed me to a dark secluded as my eye am accustomed to the glue. Saw two people at the bar. I'd never been so shocked before.

I headed blindly through the door. Guess who I saw today? A storyteller, too. And the song itself is just heart-wrenching. She's singing to you, and it ends up being this, you know. Yeah, and I think that there's, it's, yeah, it's so great. I think there's an added element, like, if you know, like, Jam probably does. Like, like, there's an additional emotional pull to something like this when you have a young

or relatively young artist singing this. Like, he gives you that hope that, like, yes, this music. this music is alive, it's relevant, it's not just, like that's not, to me, it's not a throwback. I know to some people, young people, I think it's great when they're like, oh, this is like in the olden days in old Hollywood movie or going to a jazz club. There's different nostalgia or perception of nostalgia. But I think that what you have, I mean, it's very exciting to hear an older or middle-aged, you know, vocalists sing the same song. Like, what do they bring to the party? You know what I mean?

Not trying to like jump into another era, but just trying to be like, this is 2024, whenever this was recorded, I guess a couple of years ago. But this is relevant today, just as is. There's something very hopeful about that.

It's not like, you know, which we could have done. We could have gone there. You know, but I bet you don't have to do that just to make it something else. Like you can just sing the song, a great song with a great vocalist

like Samaras and really win the artistries at that level. You know, it's like an incredible pitcher. Like, you can talk about, like, you know, Bob Gibson. I mean, we're in St. Louis, so I'm thinking Bob Gibson, all these different, you know, pictures from the past. But if you see a young kid come in and throw a perfect game, that's fun. You know what I mean?

That's still, it's still the MLB. It's still like, everything is kind of the same. And there's a certain feeling of, like, joy and knowing that, like, the world keeps going around, the earth keeps going around the sun. What is the sun? Yeah, we go around the sun. That's right. Yeah, that's right.

Is that still happening? We don't know, especially in the way the world is now. Yeah. Like when shit is changing fast. We do know, but yeah. Well, we know that there's instability, right? I mean, there's always instability, but we know there's, for a lot of people in the world, there's more. As it's kind of, you know, the storm clouds are coming.

You're like, we got to know that. And so when you hear, it's great to put on Nancy Wilson. And, of course, we do that too. But it's also great to put on a young artist that's not like, oh, I got to do it different or whatever. It's like, no, you're. You don't know a lot like Nancy. Exactly, but she's top, Samara's top shelf vocals. Top shelf instrument.

Unbelievable. Top shelf artists. So, like, that's what she brings to the party. Yeah, production's great. Choices are great. Songs great. Yeah, why music though? Peter, what is it about it?

Like, to me, it is, I know this sounds like maybe simple, but the idea of setting up expectations and then in sort of clever ways of defying them or satisfying them, right? So, like, that's our job is to set up your expectations and then defy them or satisfy them in a way that is interesting to you. And really all art should have some kind of part on that. We can comment on morality. We can comment on all kinds of things using that framework. But that's the mechanism is expectation and satisfaction or dissatisfaction. To me, it's, it's been around for a long time. This is one of my favorite examples of how something very simple can move you. This is Beethoven Opus 130, the late string quartet number 13 and B flat.

major, and this is the Cavatina movement. This is something our friend, Sean Weil, hip to me, maybe 10 years ago. I never heard this. I really never paid that close attention to the late Beethoven string quartets, but if you check out the late quartets, it's some of the greatest music that's ever been made. I think Beethoven's best works, in my opinion, it is unbelievable. This is from... Hot take, from Adam.

Beethoven late string quartets are great. This is from the Guinari Quartet, and the Groset. Great thing about having a... Gwynery. Gwynery? Sorry. Gwynery. The great thing about having a world-class violinist as a friend is they hip you to all the

best recordings of this stuff. And this is a heart-wrenching recording. There's a part that happens a few minutes in, but the setup is what it's all about. You talk about a study of how voice leading can manipulate your emotions. It's amazing. Again, expectations defying or satisfying. It doesn't get much... When the cello goes down for the...

It's just that slight, you know... Just gorgeous. All those late Beethoven string quartets are masterpieces. Magnificent. And I mean, you know, I'm glad you backed it up because it puts into context these magical moments, like the story of getting there. Like, you could jump right to that moment

because you know this. Yeah. And... But it still does, like, the impact of leading up to that. That's what it is. It's just like in life, it's like, if you have a relationship with somebody, a friend or a lover or a child or just, you know, any, another human, you might be traveling along in life with them and then you have a time apart and then

you come back and sometimes it's, you pick up right where you left off and sometimes it's like, let's get to know each other. But regardless, you've changed, they've changed. And then the journey continues on. And I think the greatest music, it's not about the groove or the style of the continent that it comes from. But it can. connects with people in that same way when you revisit it. It might be from hearing this live. I mean, could you imagine that you haven't heard this for a while? And then you encounter that a string quartet in Vienna playing it on the street or something.

Man, it would put you back to this place of like, where are you in your life now on your personal journey? And now how does that music hit at you? And so I think what Jan says, I know for me, like some music, when I come back to it, like it has an emotional connection that might be me be weeping. tears of sadness or joy or more likely a combination of things because you have the connection that the composer intended is being executed hopefully through the performance of just taking you the same thing as if you'd heard it for the first time if you pay attention but then there's also

like all your encounters with that music over life that's right all of your life experiences like the rich tapestry that is the human experience now great music enhances that even more it's like I mean, it's, it's, music is something that we, you know, we're going to always struggle to talk about it. And we're probably being, you know, verbose and missing the mark. It's crass even attempt to describe what we just heard. Yeah. It's like, let's describe technically what's going on in Miles Davis's horn. It's ridiculous.

Yeah. Yeah. But I do think that this encountering with music, and for me, Beethoven, it's interesting about the late string quartets, which I've always loved. And I grew up to listen to a fair amount because my mom and my dad played them. I mean, you can listen to those for a lifetime. Yeah. string, the late piano quartets. We're going to do a little listening party after this.

That'd be great. But the same thing, has some of those moments where you can, as you get older, I think you can identify, you can certainly identify them from a very young age, but like the depth of it after you've listened to it in the same way. And then you're like, ah, Beethoven later. Not to say that it is early stuff like for each a season, right? But I mean, you know, Beethoven was a storyteller. I think a musical storyteller first and foremost.

So there's different techniques he uses, instrumentation, orchestration, all this. that's so fun to break down. But when it comes down to it and you're sitting in your car weeping, hearing something, like that's the culmination of the human experience. Now, some people would listen to that

and be like, I'm bored. Of course. It's all subjective. 100%. And that's totally fine. That's great. Yeah. But isn't there like...

For me, I can't help but hold back tears every time I hear it. I've heard it about... Are those bad people that don't... I'm starting to think it is, maybe. Let's not judge.

Let's judge a little. But there's got to be something. Ye not judge, us ye be something there's a yee in there. Yeah, yeah, but I'm saying like, okay, this is the ultimate privilege, I think, that I wish upon every human in the world. And that is to be able to have a musical connect. It doesn't have to be Beethoven. It doesn't have to be even something that I know or jazz or something that we, you know, tend to elevate because it's our niche and it's our world and it's our experience. But to have some musical sounds in your life, be they live or

recorded or even better, that you're playing. You know, because I mean, the thing is, Oh, that was E flat? So it's like to, and that's an important thing too. Like when Beethoven moves from like A or D or G with the string instruments to those flat keys, those hit differently. Like he was a master of that. Slow like 3-8 or something like that. Yeah, it's like some kind of.

But it's like, you know, hot take, Beethoven didn't invent the triad, but he's leaning on the triads a lot there. But then, you know, like he knows when to leave them, like when to play with them. So he knows that a major triad. played by great string players is going to hit emotionally, right? But not just on its own, just sitting there forever. Shout out to this amazing quartet, the Guernary Quartet that are just monsters. Peter, do you have anything that you want to add to this? Anything piece of music that hits you in the gut that you kind of, it's almost inexplainable,

like we can try and we can fail, but is there anything that when you hear it every time, it's like, well, I've got to skip over that if I'm in public. Yeah, I got a couple things. And I was thinking of that as we were talking. I'm going to play one in a second. and I would just add to this, I think that there is an element, too, that's important that maybe we don't talk about enough

of connection with things beyond music. Like, you hear something at a time, you know, a lot of people will identify this with, like, at a wedding or a funeral, a certain kind of music is played. I was at a funeral, unfortunately, recently, and the pianist who was, you know, was just a fine, okay pianist, okay singer. It was a Catholic funeral, which I had never been to before. I didn't realize it's

basically a mass at the same time as well. You're going to be there for a minute. But at a certain point, she sang Abe Maria just very simply and just played. She was, it was nothing spectacular. But at that moment, like that hit hard. And I've always, I mean, I've played it before at weddings and funeral. I mean, it's a weird song because it's played it's played at many different ceremonial things. But it obviously has a huge emotional impact for a lot of people. And I think for us as so-called seasoned sophisticated musicians, we tend to look down on that. You know, it's like, Ave Maria,

you know, that kind of stuff. We're like, oh, everyone's crying because of the godfather of Freyde was being killed. And we're like, oh, it's in G minor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, like, there's like real, like we shouldn't overlook these classic emotional tunes because like Ave Maria, I was sitting there at the funeral,

I was like, you know what? The way she's singing it, like, I don't want to hear her singing and playing it like just randomly. I wouldn't put it on. But for that moment, it was so much better than anything I could have added if I was sitting at the piano. Yeah. You know, I wouldn't have done that. But, like, she was singing Ave Maria very simply and just playing it.

And I'm looking around and the person whose funeral, it was, like, his loved ones, like, people had spoken, his grandchildren, his children. Like, you got a feeling for the life of this person. And then that song was, like, the perfect thing. And, like, so now I kind of, whenever I hear that, I'm going to probably associate it from the last. time. So these emotional impacts. And so the thing I'm going to play, which is before it's time to say goodbye by Kenny Garrett Quartet songbook, ever heard of that? We've talked about this on the pod, but this is such a, it hits emotionally hard. I think it does a lot of people just because it's a minor and the way it's a beautiful melody and it's got some of these interesting

kind of storytelling resolutions, false resolutions, whatever, you know, similar to the Beethoven, stylistically different, but very simple laid out harmony with a beautiful melody. But the first melody is stated by Kenny Kirkland on this. Yeah. And so when I hear this, I'm thinking about Kenny Kirkland and, you know, the times I got to meet him with his impact on me, not only through his music, but personally. So I couldn't say that it's just about the chords and the music. Like there's an added emotional talk.

Every time I hear, every time I hear him play, but especially on this. So I think that as much as the music and the inside baseball stuff is important, There's also just the timing and, you know, kind of the storyline, the musical storylines of our lives and how different things were, you know, connected with important events and just markers in our life. Well, Peter, add it to the playlist I'm making here, and Caleb's going to put this playlist in the chat for this. Okay. And let's hear a little bit of it. Okay.

Are we going out on this bad boy? Let's go out on the bad boy. That's great. Here we go. So this is Kenny Garrett's songbook featuring from Kenny Garrett, but featuring Kenny Kirkland on piano. Half a question mark and then a resolution.