You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What We Learned From Making An Album Live

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Peter and Adam debrief on the Gen S recording project. Imagine recording an album live... easy right?  Not quite. In fact, lets just say it's not for the faint of heart but anything is possible when you got a crew like Peter does! In this episode, Peter tells all on exactly how the process really went down.Check out the live for yourself below right HERE.Pre-order CD & Vinyl 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

Matt of Manas? And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Jazz advice. Coming at you. Is that what it is? Well, it's music advice. It's jazz advice. Life advice. Album making advice maybe a little bit. Yeah. Weather commentary. Seasonal change. Whether there will be commentary or not is up in the air. The autumn leaves are starting the fall out here. Hey. There's a fine line between Liberace and Oscar Peterson. I mean, we're walking it. Play a couple more notes in there. Play a couple more notes. Surely you can fit some ball. That was dense.

That was like a huge oak tree with all the leaves tree. I don't know. I think it could have squeezed a couple more notes in some of those lines, man. You should have tried for it. That was good. That was good. Yeah. So what we talked about today?

We are talking about the project we just finished, right? Yeah. We're talking about what we learned from making an album live, which is something we did just two weeks ago here at Open Studio. I'm sure you all remember we were kind of hyping it up as we were leading up to it. And guess what? Lesson number one. Don't over hype.

No, it not only lived up to the hype, I think, in my humble opinion, it exceeded the hype. Your band was flipping killing. Your music, your compositions was amazing. There were some moments of true musical beauty, of transcendence. It was nearly a spiritual experience, I think, for all of those involved in making it, just because we all came together here as your band did, and then as our team at Open Studio, as we did our live stream of it,

and the sum was definitely greater than just the parts, the total of what we made together was like 100 people working together. It was amazing. It was truly incredible. So, congrats to you. Congrats to everybody here at Open Studio.

It was a really incredible time. You can, of course, we'll link to that, to the live stream where you can watch the band, make the record. You can watch Kababi Bayak paint the album cover. That was so cool. It was so cool.

And you could see our team here working to capture the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Nice intro from none other than Adam Manus. I did my part. At the beginning, which set the tone nicely. Can I say something? I do not get very nervous anymore with almost anything.

Because, you know, I'm in front of the cameras a lot. I'm in front of the cameras a lot. I was a little. You're like the Al Roker of jazz piano online. I was a little nervous because there was, you know, as you alluded to when we were talking about this episode, as we were setting it up about like, There's a lot writing on this little live stream.

And I was like, you know what? I don't want to mess this up for this whole band. I want to really get it right. So I was a little, I had some dry mouth, you know. I was like, I wasn't shaking, but I was more nervous than I usually am. And I do a lot of live streams. I do a lot of video recording. I fancy myself as really enjoying that aspect of my job here at Open Studio.

And for this, I was a little like fluttery. That was great. Well, I be, yeah, so was I. So was I. I mean, I think it was, for me, it was a great reminder of like, how do we harm that nervous energy when we're in a situation that is both very familiar and is also very fear-inducing

at the same time, potentially. So like we're in our studio here in our physical space. I'm at the piano that I know well, but it's new music. So it's like that juxtaposition. It's like music that I all were my own composition. So everything that I'd created actually in July and August. So it was very immediate and very connected to, you know,

my ideas and everything. But how it involves. evolved even as we were rehearsing for two days and as we performed it was very unexpected. So sometimes when we have those combinations of familiarity and improvisation or unexpected, some great things can happen, but it's like you've got to really concentrate to be able to harness the juxtaposition of those different emotions. And for me, you know, you did amazing. The whole team came together.

As you said, I think what we created was something that was really bigger than just the individuals. And so I kind of held on to that as I got into my nervousness. It was like, okay, hold on a second. Like now my only job is to play to piano and lead the band in so much as I need to into a wonderful recording. You know what I mean? And so I kind of shut out the live streaming part a little bit because I was like,

what we are here to do is to make an album. That's right. And the live stream was not a gig. It was a viewing of the recording of an album. just like if you were in the studio. Yeah, it was a certain kind of documentation. Yeah. Just happened to be a very risky kind of documentation.

Yeah, right. And for some reason, I didn't fully grasp that in what, you know, until we were actually doing it, you know, which I think is good. And it's a great reminder, I would say for everybody, if you're, there's always a level of risk anytime you're doing something that is, is new. Not to say that what we did. I mean, there's been millions of records made and solos. It was new for us. It was, but yeah, but the combination of things.

Like there's always a new element. So, you know, it's like we don't want to lean too much on the familiar part, but we also don't want to lean too much on the new part. Like you want to kind of find that middle ground where you're comfortable, but that you're also willing to embrace the risk and use that kind of to your advantage because that's the essence of what this music is. And I think when we can look at and say, well, what do we excel at as jazz musicians? What's kind of built into who we are?

You know, it's like if you're a football player and you're an offensive lineman, And you can be like, okay, maybe I'm not playing the exact sport. I'm going to be playing rugby or soccer or something. But what are the advantages I have? Is it my size, is my speed, is that combination that I bring to the table, even though I'm in an unfamiliar situation. And so when we talk about like what does the music give us, and I think about all the great things that jazz has given me way more than I've given to it,

this spirit of improvisation, the openness, the, the opposite of being risk adverse, risk embrace. Right. You know, that's our sort of thing that we bring to the table. So then you can kind of take a breath and say, okay, let's just let this evolve. Let's let whatever we have to contribute. Let's get into a space where we can most leverage our contribution. I couldn't agree more. You know, the title of this episode we're making is, you know, what we learned from making an album live.

And to me, the number one lesson that I took away from it was that it's so healthy and so beneficial to stretch, to risk, to embrace the unknown. to, I mean, what people call stretch goals, right? Yeah, embrace discomfort. Yeah, so there is so much about this that for all of us was not a guarantee. Like we mentioned Kababi painting the album live. It's not a guarantee that it's going to be great. I mean, we know Kababhi is a great artist, so we have faith that it's probably going to be pretty awesome. But it's like, did we put him into too much of a situation out of his comfort zone?

Exactly. Where he can't excel. You, like, you brought in fantastic musicians. Ruben Rogers on bass and Gregory Hutchinson on drums. Now, that's as much of a guarantee that you could be certain of for you. Because you've made records with them before. They are top-tier musicians, obviously, and have been for decades. And so that's a very little risk.

However, you also brought in Sarah Hanahan, with whom none of you had played together as a unit. She's, you know, a generation, if not two generations younger than the rest of the band. Generation S, Generation Sarah. Generation swing. As she says. And that was a generation. risk. That's not guaranteed that she's going to come in and what if she's nervous or what if she, you know what I mean? Yeah, what if she doesn't know the little musical unspoken cues that Rubin

and Greg and I have? What if the chemistry just isn't there personally and professionally you don't know that. I mean, I'm sure you've met her before and you worked with her at the Betty Carter Jazz. Jazz Ahead. That's when I had. So you knew her and Hutch had known her. And so you guys knew the quality level was obviously there. She's not probably not going to be nervous because she's a pro. But the chemistry is not guaranteed. And then for us here as we're making it,

there is a risk in that we've never recorded an album in this space before, like an actual audio this has to stand up on a CD. Audio first. We do a lot of stuff on video and you get away with a little more with the audio on video because it's a video. People are watching on their phones, usually with their phone

speaker. At the very least they have headphones on and they know that it's a live video, right? But this is meant to be something that should be enjoyed as an audiophile. And that's a whole other thing. So that's a risk. Then there's the risk of, of course, the live stream,

which we've done, you know, you had your shelter in place concert series solo piano concerts every Friday for a couple of years during the heart of the pandemic. So we knew we could do those, but it's still a risk in that we'd never done one of this capacity

with a big, a huge band like this, with five people. We've never done one in this particular studio. We've never done one with the gear we had or with the team we had. And all of that's a risk. There's nothing here on paper, you know, musically, technically, even financially that's like, oh, this is a home run. Right.

You know what I mean? And so all of that makes you better. It just does. Like, we have come out of the other side of this as a whole team and I think as individuals, more experience, more confidence, and more skills to be able to do all of our jobs here at Open Studio and musically for those of us who are musicians. it was a great lesson in rehearsing, putting together music, watching you, write everything.

So for me, the most important thing of making this album and doing the live stream was that, was the stretch goals, was the risk, was the pushing ourselves beyond what we think we could be capable of, down to little details, down to, you know, Andy coming in with a handheld camera on three tunes, down to the intro being in the recording, in the control room.

down to having Kababee live in the studio, down to just little minute details of even scheduling and rehearsing and all that stuff. Yeah, you know? No, that's great. That's a great kind of summation, I think, of how things went down and what the feeling was in real time

as we moved through these different facets of it because I think what folks saw in terms of watching the record, like we really didn't hype that up. It sounded like it was hyped. It's like one take, watch an album being made, but that's exactly what it was. Yeah.

That's exactly. And I think some people said like, oh, it wasn't just one take. You guys, you know, had several takes. Those are actually what we call in the business false starts. Yeah. You know, and what traditionally... There's only one complete full take of everything. Exactly.

Yeah. And, you know, and you guys all hear that on the album. But the false starts were more very much in line with how we record an album. Yep. You know, if stuff doesn't sound right at the beginning. And those were mostly on me. In fact, all of them might have been on me. They might have been.

Yeah, yeah. And they were moments where, like, I was not, I was far from perfect in terms of my level of concentration. And that's something that I learned from this. I mean, I knew that. I was never going into this. Like, I have to be perfectly in concentration. That's, that's never, I've never done that. Even on performances where people like, oh, my God, you were just so on it.

You were next level, whatever. I go into it very much the same way I would have meditations. a period of meditation where your mind is going to wander. It's not going to be perfect, but that's part of the experience. But I would say that the parts that I leaned into were the parts that were familiar that I could combine with the new elements. So all the music was new. Like I just wrote all the music in July and August.

You'd barely played all the music. I had barely played it. In fact, at the last minute, I was like, uh-oh, let me, because I'm trying to teach to everybody. We're making adjustments. And you're like, do I know that? Yeah. And we're made, you know, the great thing about Greg Rubin, and as it turns out Sarah as well is, um, in, in a part of the reason that I chose all of them is they are great at crafting new music in real time. I knew this about Greg and Rubin and I figured Sarah would be too because it's part of the improvisational mind anyway. And so I wanted to leverage other opinions. Um, and then the other element that was new though was having you produce it or having anybody produced it. You produced it and having those, um, um, um, um, um,

that musical input as well, which is different from somebody who's playing it, but it turned out to be equally important to what the thing became. I mean, it couldn't have been an easier producer job. Yeah, well, that band. Well, but that's, yeah, for sure. But also, you know, you made some, and we'll talk about this more in some of the videos that will probably come out of this exactly how that went down. Because I think it's interesting for people and how they craft things.

Like when you have a great musician and writer at your disposal that's not, performing like that gives you something that and I would even say what you brought to the table was even beyond just perform because it wasn't like why don't you play this instead it was very much from a bigger picture kind of thing compositionally and then like even how the tunes were going to fit together yes on the eventual recording so to be able to have those eyes and ears there to be able to make those suggestions is so important not only for the actual product you know the finished product is better because of that but because it takes pressure off me as the writer and the player and stuff to have to be thinking about how is this actually sounding?

Like, we can do that and we need to do that. We talk about that even when we're playing solo pianos, like have that mindset of the listener, be, you know, levitating like a little angel up there and imagining what's sounding like so that you can do that job of serving the listener by being the listener. That was my job.

That's what I consider that role to be was, I am the first listener of this album. Yeah. And what are my instincts? Like if, you know, and mostly I was directing things like orchestration. Yes. And form bigger picture things.

I'm not telling Ruben how to play a bass line. I'm not telling Peter Martin how to play a voicing because you guys can do that way better than me. But I can, as a listener, and as someone who's not in the thick of trying to learn this music, I can say like, you know what? The second time when you come back to this, you might change this texture.

Because I'm getting a little bit, I'm being able to predict what you're all about to do. And I think talking to you beforehand and your philosophy on this, I know that we, wanted to make something that was impactful and delighted people with some surprises in the orchestration and the arrangement. Right. And so, you know, I do that a lot in my orchestra, my orchestration and arranging career. And it was actually, I was like, man, I should hire

producers when I make albums. Because this is like, I would love for this feedback. Like, because it's so hard when you're making it and you're making changes and you're writing it, you're trying to play it. Right. To see it from the big picture. You know, to like take that, take that step up from 10,000 feet and look down on the whole thing and say, okay. And I know you've had this experience too. That often happens after it's mixed and mastered.

Where then you listen to it for the first time when it's on a CD or something and you're like, I should have on this second verse changed the texture. Like I can hear that now as a listener of this who is a little more detached from. And sometimes we can and do that in the mix. Sometimes we do. But it takes a lot longer.

there's a lot more like, wait, can we do this? You have to chop things up or take things out. And if you have isolation on the instruments, you can do that. But it's more fun to do it beforehand or as you're recording it. The reason why it probably worked especially well in this is because of the time crunch that you were on. Like you could have done what I did later. If you had had four days in studio and you had more time to spend with it as you were making it, then you start to hear this stuff.

But if you're just rehearsing and you're going to do this in one shot, I think it was probably, you know, it was, I definitely felt like, oh, I can be of real service to this because they're in the thick of it and I can kind of give them a little bit of direction from like the Lister's perspective of like I'm starting to be able to predict what's going to happen. I'm craving some kind of attention change here.

Yeah. You might think about. When I think that's yeah and that's probably the number one thing on a music from a musical kind of end result that I learned from this was have a producer. And I would say that like what you brought to the table with that and I think this is often true in a lot of different styles of a really strong musical production is the element of an editor.

Yeah. Not, not, you know, necessarily talking about video editing or audio editing, almost like editing of a story. You know, a great editor, like a great writer, you would be like, oh, they don't need an editor. No, the better you are, the more you need a great editor. Yeah. And so, you know, in thinking about that in terms of, and editing is not always taking away.

It's that rearranging the, or when we talk about orchestration, especially with a smaller group of quartet, as opposed to an orchestra. it's just as important. But for some reason, a lot of times in jazz, we think, oh, that's only if we have like a big band or something. We worry about orchestration. This is, we're going to do all that as we go. But it doesn't mean that there are opportunities missed if you don't have somebody kind

of monitoring those types of things. Yeah. And I think in having, yeah, you're right. In a lot of ways, if I'd had the luxury of like time to we could come and rehearse and I could listen. Yeah, of course, I could probably do it all my own. But then you lose the opportunities to have the immediacy and the intimacy because I wanted to have that for these great players.

Like, I didn't want to make this, even if we could have afforded to do it for a week of rehearsing. Because I'm like, it's going to become stale to that. Like, how do you balance the challenges of the music, but then these virtual players being able to sort of nail it quickly and then let's get in and document that. Well, that was sort of part two of what I considered to be my role when we were, especially when we were rehearsing, is to let give the players, make the players live in a comfortable space to where they're creative. Because you had some of the most creative

improvisers on the planet in that room. And so let's just make them, you know, comfy. Give them enough things for them to hold on to, for them to take ownership of. They can put their stamp on this music. Right. And so that was something that I was actively trying to cultivate during the rehearsals,

was like making sure everybody knew that they could contribute to this. And I think in the end, it really was. I mean, it's your beautiful compositions, but every player had a big role in shaping the arrangements and shaping the orchestration and shaping their role in the music.

And that's a lesson for all of us. As we're making music, it's a collaborative effort. And it's actually better if you sort of let go sometimes of your own vision of certain things and let the players have a little bit of individuality.

They tend to play with more conviction. They tend to play with more joy and that can make the whole project elevate. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that what we think about as we try to develop our craft at doing that like where do you find the balance between giving great players enough like you don't want to just come in and be like okay what are you all hearing i mean that's one way of

doing it and that'll that'll get a certain kind of thing but that wasn't necessarily my vision for it it's like so there's a timetable like we're going to record it's not like a pop album where you like you have six months blocked out at the studio in la so the first week you can just kind of go vibe out or smoke some weed yeah whatever i mean like there's no this was like this was like like, okay, on Wednesday or Thursday, we're going to be recording an album. So what is the timeline to that that's not rush, but is also not so slow that it's kind of like, oh, we're just going to get up there and play some random tunes. So it's like new music.

I wanted to give it a theme, but I wanted it to be, you know, as you alluded to, something that everybody could sink their teeth into and to contribute on the fly the way improvisers do. So, you know, and that, you know, I didn't hit that perfectly. And I definitely learned a lot, especially on a real kind of micro level of different things within the tunes. But what I did, I feel like was able to leverage the talents that were there in terms of what I'd studied

from playing with Rubin and Greg so much and just listening to Sarah and kind of imagining with more with my instincts of like, I think she's gonna be able to nail this. You know, and most of that stuff, if not virtually all of it, she did. And then she nailed some other stuff that I didn't realize she had the ability to. Yeah. And then some other things I realized.

She played great, man. Yeah, yeah. And so then there was still time as I got to start to get to know. look i'm sure i'll look back on this after we play together for a year or whatever and be like now i really know but that doesn't invalidate this i love these kind of beginning points of bands and i think about you know there was the the record um there's two records of joshua redmonds that kind of relate to this group one is the live of the vanguard one that i did with him in 95 spirit of the moment spirit of like that band was very actually thinking of this i kind of stole the concept for this you might

Because that was a quartet record. Oh, I wish there was video of that record. That'd be amazing. It was a quartet and Brian Blade, Chris Thomas, and myself had played together a lot, especially those years leading up to that. We all lived in New Orleans. We had like a working trio. Plus, we played with Victor Gohens and Nicholas Payton.

Like, we were a rhythm. Victor jokes that Josh Remitt stole his band. Right, right, right, right. Germaine Basil. Shout out Germain Basil in New Orleans. But it's like, and then we had all somewhat, you know, some, I played with John. Josh and I knew him and Brian had played with them a lot so there was a little bit of connection But that record was made like within a month or two of that band forming

Wow we did one tour so it was more playing than this but it was very early on people think that was like years of playing together There's some energy in that man yeah there was energy in this that was just like getting this together that you only get at the beginning It's true and actually that record beyond which I love I think that's Joshua Rembins that's one of my favorite records of his Agreed Rubin and Greg and Aaron Goldberg yeah that was very I think that music was brand new to them We don't talk enough about Aaron Goldberg around here he's so good and Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Shout out.

Well, you know, and this is not just if you're making a live album at Open Studio like Peter Martin folks, but if you take anything away from this episode and specifically this project, it's to, you know, have the arrogance to set some really lofty expectations or, you know, book a date in the studio. We've talked about this before. Without even a plan. Right. Book it for three months from now.

You'll come up with something. You'll come up with something. You know, like put some financial stress on yourself if you have to, like some risk. some kind of musical or artistic or personal risk involved. And you can really get some good juice out of that. Like there's some energy that happens with that. Absolutely. That can happen in your practice routine.

That can happen during a solo. It's the same spirit of like risk reward. And it kind of forces you to be very mindful of your surroundings, forces you to stay sharp, forces you to come up with things and solutions that you might not come up with if you're just sort of like standing pat doing, you know, like just letting the river. take you down.

Yes. And don't get caught in this thing of like, oh, well, yeah, once I get to this level, then I can do that. Like, pick whatever. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Whatever is a push for you. Totally. You know what I'm saying?

Like, I felt a lot of responsibility to really, because of the platform that we've been giving here because of the podcast and Open Studio and all this, the studio having access to musicians, I'm like, I, like, to me, that heightens my awareness of what I have to bring to the table as a player, as a composer, as. leading up this thing. But wherever you're at, don't be like, well, I don't have access to that or I'm not at that level.

If that's a solo piano recording at a studio that charges $20 per hour, which totally exists, then make it that. Just whatever's a little bit of a stretch for you and then push into that area to get the most out of what you can do, to serve the music, to serve someone. Because now you've got a recording.

Now you can get a gate. Now you can play it for somebody and bring some joy to their life. Listen, there was a day when doing a podcast was a stretch for us. Yes. Where you came in and... It was yesterday.

Where you came in and stretched me and us with, we're going to do a podcast about jazz piano. And we've never done it. And that is a stretch. And that was a risk because we could look like fools. And the first episodes were not very good. No, but, you know, we have... Now it's like we can do a podcast in our sleep.

Right. Now we've built it up to, we've got this beautiful setup. And none of that would happen without that initial stretch. And that happened at a time where it wasn't, you know, open studio, this big thing with space and everything. It was a much different operation back then. So like, don't think that, like Peter said, you have to be at some certain level. It's little, these little stretches that just build and build and build and build upon themselves until your, your growth is really, really noticeable. Yeah. And I mean, you brought up the word arrogance and it can be, we can look at

that. There's a positive side. There's a negative side or whatever. But what you don't like to me. Caleb called me arrogant once. It stuck with me. Yeah, yeah. I think it was positive. We were talking about, you know, I formed that orchestra this year. That was very arrogant. Caleb was like, it's pretty arrogant. I'm like, I know. Erigante. But I think, but ever since he said that, I was like, I never really consider that word as part of it.

But I actually think it's kind of an important part of it. Like, it is. I said cavalier. Cavalier. That's a big difference. It's funny how I took it as arrogant. Why are you putting words to that man's mouth? That was very cavalier of you.

I was like, I wouldn't say that. Did you really say cavalier? Did you really say cavalier. Well, I took it as arrogance. Well, one. One thing with... That just goes to show my inner monologue. That's good.

Let's leave it at that. Because you'll hear it.