You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What Makes A Jazz Artist Special - #124

Episode Date: June 2, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam discuss what makes a great artist great. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin. And I'm Adam Manus. You're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Today we're going to talk about what makes a jazz artist special. That's a good question, man. I hope you have an answer because I have no idea. Well, this is a little self-serving, isn't it?

Or self-congratulatory? Is this a Why Are We Special episode? I am somebody. I mean something to myself. No, I think this is good. This will be a little bit of like, you know, what do we like about our favorite jazz musicians? It's not all about the two fives. No, exactly.

Okay, so I'm going to start out. We're just going to freeform this kind of and maybe banter back and forth as we are want to do on this podcast. But the thing that comes to mind to me the most is individuality. Totally. That's what makes a jazz musician or jazz artist special. And I think the way that manifests itself is that you can recognize their sound immediately when they play.

Or the more so that you can do that, the better. So that we don't all sound alike. I think that's what people enjoy about the music. The personality comes out. I mean, everyone has an individual personality. Some people kind of hide it behind a lot of other things or don't share it. And I think to be a jazz artist and to be a special kind of jazz artist, you have to be open to letting that individuality out.

But when you do, and the better you get at doing that, that starts to be recognized by other players and other people. And it's a special thing. Yeah, I think there's a certain amount of bravery that goes along with that individuality, right? Like, you know, because you have to, you have to accept the fact that you're putting yourself out there honestly

and that people, some people aren't going to like it. Yep. You know what I mean? And you got to, you got to be okay with that or just not care. Right, right. Which happens, you know, which happens as well. But I do, I do like that individuality. Okay, I'm going to go with, number two, I'm going to go with creative and fearless, which kind of goes into that same that same group. But, you know, for me, the ability to

to kind of understand where you are in the history of the music, where you are with your peers, and then try to set yourself and predict, you know, where art and the music is going to go, that to me is creativity and the fearlessness to put that out there and to be yourself, but also to take risks and, you know, do things that haven't been proven to work. Yeah. You know, that takes also a fair bit of bravery and fearlessness. And so for me, that's really what makes a jazz artist special, is that they're willing

to take these risks to be creative, to try things that haven't been proven to work. But, you know, hopefully they're grounded enough in the music and the history of the music that they know that this is the natural progression of things. Sometimes you're going to be wrong. and sometimes you're going to do great things. Yeah, I was just thinking, is that part of it, the be willing to make mistakes on stage, on the gig, on the recording? That's got to go along with this, right?

I think it's a huge part of being an artist is making mistakes. Yeah, and I think that this is something that all artists in many genres, it exists, but I think it's amplified with jazz musicians, jazz artists, because we're doing so much. I mean, it's not the, we always want to think we're the only, improvising art form, which is not true. There's many different kinds and different cultures. And I think what kind of binds them all together is that possibility and actual

manifestation of mistakes. And the audience is part of that. Like if you go to see a classical concert and there's noticeable mistakes, people normally feel like they were, they're looking for a refund maybe on their ticket price. Or like, ooh, that wasn't very good. They made a mistake or whatever. Whereas if you go to a jazz concert and there's some so-called mistakes, but they were fearlessly dealt with by the jazz artists and maybe even segueed, pivoted

into something else. That can be some of the most thrilling moments. And so that fearless and creative mentality really leads to those cool times. I agree. But even, you know, the classical artist thing, I've heard classical musicians say that they, you know, they think that recordings of classical music have kind of stunted classical music and that artists feel that pressure of having to be perfect, where they could. it would be a little, and have in the past been a little more risk, taking more risks.

Yes. I think it's important. And, you know, speaking of classical again, for composers, I want to hear composers take risks too. Just like I want to hear jazz musicians take risks. Just like I want to hear rock bands take risks. Yeah. Well, I think for the classical composers, you know, to your point, I would say that part of that is, you know, putting music out there and writing music in a way that the players have to take risks. Right.

Either the difficulty level. individually or just in how it can be put together. And you may fall a little bit short and then you come around when it repeats and try to catch it that time, you know. Yeah, I mean, no one wants to hear a METO forte version of anything, whether that's Green Dolphin Street, you know, or Mozart, you know, piano sonata.

Yep. Okay, next on what makes a jazz art special, I'm going to go with this kind of concept of being a little bit of a Renaissance man or a Renaissance woman where you have respect for the past, but you're not afraid to make your own sound and innovate on top of that. And now that I say that,

that's actually not what Renaissance man means, is it? No, not at all. But it's cool, right? Yeah, it sounded like pretty authoritative. Yeah, because a Renaissance man is somebody who's like in the multiple disciplines that are unrelated. That's cool too.

All right, so get rid of that part. Respect for the past. So, all right, well, tell me, maybe you can come up with a better term. What I'm thinking is like you understand the history how do we know where we're going if we don't know where we've been?

Yeah, no, it's true. Great artists use the history and their knowledge of the history to make great new art. Because you can't actually make great new art unless you understand at least where you've just been. Yeah, at least, yeah. Go back six months.

That would be very handy. Yeah. So number four is that what makes a jazz artist special is wanting to collaborate with other great art. artists. You know, if you are living in a vacuum, it's really hard to... Breathe. No, I mean, it's really hard to clean. No, sorry, it's really hard to...

If you're isolated, if you're not reaching out, if you're not working with other great artists, it's hard to grow. It's hard. Absolutely. It's hard to make great music by yourself. Yeah. It just is. Yeah, and I think if you, it's the natural thing when you're, when you're an interesting jazz artist is to want to collaborate. I mean, it's like a, a, a, a, you're a, need for oxygen. You're in that vacuum and you're like, I want to breathe. And that's, it's a collaborative music. It really is. You know, I mean, it's a, and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's how you grow. It's how the music grows. And it's how we push this thing to the next level. Yeah, hey, listen, young jazz musicians don't move to New York because they love high rent.

And, you know, that's just a bonus they get. That's just a bonus they get. Yeah. No, they, they move there so that they can collaborate with other talented people. Yeah. And I think it's like a lot of things in New York, if you look at the things, the financial markets, the art world, these things that thrive on people coming together and the ideas of each other pushing them

further than they could do individually in being in the same physical space. Those are the kind of things that work well there. You don't see a bunch of people that study volcanoes come to New York because they need to go collaborate at another place, but it really is a big part of the music. Totally.

So let's see. Oh, you know what? Can we go a little bit lighthearted on the next one? What makes a jazz artist special? Yep. Cool clothes. Aw, hip threads. Yeah.

And this one, I should say, cool clothes make jazz artist special up until about 12 years ago. In which apparently we all abandoned any kind of like affiliation with fine vines or any of the things they got us at this point. And we decided to start pretty much wearing whatever we were wearing during the day. Cargo shorts and tweet. Bird t-shirts?

Let's do it. Yeah, so this is more what used to make jazz artists special, right? Yeah, I mean, jazz artists used to be known for dressing exceptionally well. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if that's the case. I mean, we can be bad, you know, I mean, I think we both, we're kind of straddling the line because we, I think, speaking Adam and I. Speak for yourself. I'm cutting edge over here.

Well, I mean, you know, I think the whole thing is, and it doesn't, I think you're going to always have different. eras of what style stylistic. I mean, I think back to the early 90s when I was part of the young lions jazz movement. Oh, yeah. And we were lionized, perhaps, a little too early. But, I mean, we all thought we were so well dressed and everything. A lot of silk shirts. Silk-esque, you know.

Legally, we couldn't call them silk because they rayon. Oak tree suits, maybe? Oak tree suits, $99, suit, shirt, and tie. Gold chain? Yeah, yeah. You go to go to the little kiosk outside in the mall for the. the gold chain. Dope.

Yeah, but we thought, but I mean, now we look back on it. They look like ridiculous zootsuits or something, you know. But we were trying. We were trying. But I think that, you know, that attention to just a little individual flair. And you know what? Maybe this trend of cargo shirts and Tweedy Bird shirts is people's way of being individual. I don't know.

But I think that that's something that, I mean, I hate to always compared it to classical music, but that's kind of the easiest reference point that I have in that there's always been the thing that kind of typifies how they dress. is a uniformity. You know, like everybody wears black, everybody wears this or whatever. And jazz musicians are just, we just sort of have more of that mentality being individuals and wanting to express that with our clothes. I still think that's a part of jazz for sure.

I mean, if you look at, you know, the jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is always dressed in, you know, impeccably in suits. Yeah. Roy Hargrove has great personal style, you know, super hip. He's hold it down. Yeah. Never seen even a Tweetybird T-shirt. Well, I did, but not on the gig.

No, but even folks like Robert Glasper or the bad plus or whatever, the personal style is there. Actually, I saw Robert Glasper, a Tweety Burchard. Yeah, but he does it with style. He does. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. All right, I'm going to go a little bit heavier here, and that is, can we go off of cool clothes back to something heavy? I don't know, man.

All right, we're going to go never staying the same, ready to stretch out. And I think this is a big part of being an artist. I mean, the classic example of for jazz musicians is Miles Davis, who would invented about four genres of music during his career. But I think growth is a huge part of being not just a jazz musician, but a person, that if you're still playing the same stuff you were playing when you're 20, exclusively, you know, something's not right. That's right.

You've got to grow a little bit, I think. Yeah. Well, these were all great. I think that we clearly demonstrated why jazz artists are so special. Dude, did we just do two episodes in a row of a list of six? We did. What is going on with our podcast? Man, this podcast is only like, you know, six-sevenths of what it used to be.

Well, if you liked what you heard, please leave a rating and review below. Peter is requesting six stars. That is impossible. Well, it's funny. We're asking for six stars, but we're only giving them six now. But you know what? We're going to go back to seven tomorrow, and we're going to ask for seven stars. Buddy, I don't know if we can legally ask for seven stars.

All right. I'm just saying. Well, also you can go to you'll hearer.com, leave us a message. let us know if you have ideas for future episodes. We're happy to take them. We're happy to also not take them. Well, I was going to say, you know, we don't want to put too much homework on your plate. But we've had a little bit of this.

We love our listeners, but maybe don't go make a request for something we've already covered. We've had a little bit of that. I'm not saying that's a big problem. But just take a quick perusal because all the episodes are free. I'm not saying you've got to listen to them all. But, you know, like don't ask for the seven pianists that should be on Mount Rushmore, because we've done that. See, I'm going to go the opposite way.

I think you should ask for whatever you want to ask for. We may or may not do it. Okay, see? So mix signals. Except we're unified on the six stars. That part we're in agreement on. You're not unified on anything. I will say this, though.

We still have had such a great response for our all-access pass for Open Studio. So we're going to keep this special going. If you enter, you'll hear at 10 in the offer code field at checkout, you can get the annual all-access pass for 10% off. This is an exclusive offer for our You'll Hear It Listeners. Do we give them a quiz? How do we know that it's only, like, do they have to fill out a quiz? No, this is the only place they're seeing this code.

Yeah, but this could be on, like, passed around online or somebody could text it to someone. How do we know they're really a listener? Well, it's a risk we're going to have to take. All right. I'm just asking, you know? Well, anyway, we had such a great response for this, so we're going to keep this going for a while. So, yeah, take advantage of that. That's you'll hear at 10 in the offer code field for the annual all access pad.

Pete, you got anything else? No, just you'll hear it.