You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What We Think About The "State Of Jazz"

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Come hang with Peter and Adam as they check out Spotify's curated "State Of Jazz" list. Spotify's State Of JazzUnlock your FREE Open Studio trial to become a better player today.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. Yes. How you doing? Pretty good. What do you know about the state of jazz today? It's a sad state of affairs. You really think so? It's so sad out there.

How do you know? Just from all the YouTube videos I see of all these guys talking about how bad and everybody is these days, it must be terrible. Well, the problem is you're watching YouTube videos about jazz. You need to listen to the state of jazz. I don't want to do that. These guys say it's not good. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the Yule Here at Podcast. And that's music explored. And possibly clouds being yelled at? Is that what's happening? Clouds being yelled at. Peter brought to you by Open Studio. Go to Open Studiojazz.com for all your jazz lesson needs. Yes.

Peter, today we're talking about the state of jazz. We are. We got to get one thing out of the way before we talk about that. And I want you to explain what you said earlier. I got to get one thing off my chest, literally. We just came from getting a coffee at one of our favorite spots together, planning out these beautiful episodes. And we got mocked for our attire.

We don't call each other before we decide what we're going to wear. We were accused by someone who's actually a friend. It's just the same kind of collar, but it's not even the same kind of collar, honestly. We were accused of calling each other to coordinate outfits. Which is weird, because I'm wearing olive pants. You're wearing blue jeans. You have an STL hat on. You've got yours buttoned up.

I've got a white t-shirt under mine. A young woman came up to us and said, hey, do you guys call each other each day to coordinate your outfits? Not really. That's kind of an aggressive statement. I have, Peter, since you started picking up the camp collar shirts, I've stopped wearing them so much to you'll hear at tapings because I don't want to do. But this morning I was just like really feeling this shirt, so I thought I would put it on. I knew there would be some kind of match.

I just learned the term. Camp collar? Yeah. Shirt of the summer, baby. I don't even like to go camping, but it's all good. Okay, could you explain what you were saying in the intro, please? Because I was a little confused. Oh, about how the state of jazz is terrible?

Yeah, who's saying that? Well, Peter, you know, when I was 23 years old, music was really great. it was so emotionally tinged. So many great things were happening and the music was terrific. And now all the music sucks. Now all these kids, they're making music and I don't understand why anybody would like it. So I'm really, I'm not going to be into this, I feel. Okay.

Yeah. All right. Some of these kids, I'm just looking over the playlist. Being a little facetious here. I'm rigging a lot of our friendly YouTube folks here that love to talk smack on the kids. Right, it's right. I mean, I'm just looking over this playlist that we're going to be going into. Some of these folks are older than us, so there's that too. We've got a nice mix, but yeah, we thought it would be fun to go through the Spotify playlist state of jazz. That's the

name of the playlist. Because although it's not something I go too often, I have dipped into it a little bit over the years. It's apparently one of the largest jazz playlists on Spotify. And Spotify is somewhat of a tastemaker in the music world these days. I don't know if you knew that. Well, we just, we listened to that Kenny Garretel. album last week. And there was that one track that obviously had made it on to some kind of Spotify playlist and had six times the plays that anybody else had. Yeah. And I think that Rick, that's Rick. Probably, probably you and I both, we have in different ways, but maybe some overlap, a little bit of a love, hate relationship with Spotify in terms of, there is a certain amount of, if only we'd had this

when we were coming up, access at our fingertips to every track and album that would be mentioned. Like, have you checked out Clifford Brown solo on that blues? Oh, and now I'm checking out as opposed to how am I going to go find it. I got to go to the library to research in at the record store. So there's that, but then there's also this weird stuff where you get state of jazz and there's a list. Well, why don't you go ahead and pull this up, Caleb, so you can see, the good folks can see what we're looking at here. Oh, you're not even getting into the economics of Spotify, which is also very controversial. Well, yeah, that's for another episode, my friend, economics, Spotify, 101. But no, just anytime you say state of jazz and then you've got a list,

one, two, three, four, five. There's the implication that these are either the most important. Tracks or albums, or they're the most popular. What are they? So it's always 100 tracks, and I believe, Peter, they're put up here. Yeah, I believe it's always changing. They're always adding. Yes.

And so it has nothing to do with like a top track. But then we've also got Fresh Finds Jazz and Jazz Club and Jazz UK. Are these more important? I don't think so. I wouldn't. So much trust Jazz Club or like coffee jazz as much as much as I would for the state of jazz. It seems like the state of jazz club. Just to be thrown off.

Yeah, look at the photo of the pretty lady, which is... So are we going by... A red flag? What, pretty lady or photos? What's the red flag? Well, it's just like... We're going to evoke... It might as well be like, you know, a guy like smoking a spliff with a pork pie hat.

You know what I'm saying? Oh, okay, so are we going by 141,000 saves? What is a save? That's... Do you have Spotify? Have you had it for years? No, I know. It's saved, but like I haven't saved. Is that if I press plus here? Yeah.

Am I getting too much into the minutia? Saved to your library. Okay. So this has 932 saves. So this is big time, right, in terms of the jazz. This is a public playlist. 932,000 saves. Yeah, that's a lot.

And this is controlled by Spotify, I believe. This is not something, like we have some open studio playlists that we can direct folks to. But this is, this is in-house from Spotify. So they are the tastemakers. They are the providers. Yeah. They are the lovers and the dreamers, right? Right.

And the subtitle to this is New Jazz for Open Minds. And there's our friend, Walter Smith III, who is our friend? I have Open Minds. I like New Jazz. So this should be made for me. What about you? I'm New Jazz for Open Minds. It's like they're like daring you to like it.

You know what I mean? They're like, listen, you're going to want to open your mind for this playlist. Right. Which says a lot, I think, about people's relationship to the music. now, including kind of the setup that we started at the beginning of, like, a lot of folks, older folks don't love the new stuff that's coming out. Right. But you know what?

I would say for me, and just not only going to this episode, like... A lot of folks don't like the new stuff that's coming out, too, frankly. That's right. But so a lot of times when we're talking about it, when we're doing our greatest album series, I don't know if you've heard of that, our award-winning greatest album series, what makes this album great? You know, we really emphasize, listen to from the beginning to end, and kind of like that old-school we've heard about this record, let's talk about this album as a cultural phenomenon, right?

And so that, by its very nature, pushes us into history, often to 1963 or 1959. Those seem to be magical years, but also 1972 with the Donnie Hathaway, Roberta Flack. But anyway, we're going back in time because these albums have had time to accumulate love and lore and a history and a cultural place within the music, canon, right? The musical canon. And so whereas this here is they're trying to put together what is the current state of jazz. And if this is done well, I think it can actually be useful. So I'm willing to go into this with an open mind looking for some new jazz. Nice. He said nice. All right. So can we just jump in and listen to the first track?

Absolutely. This is the Walter Smith. This is Walter Smith. This is Cezan. And we're going to talk about the name of the album. This album hasn't come out yet. So I think this is a teaser track that is dropping early on the Blue Note record label. Are you familiar with that? familiar with that. And on the piano, Eric Harlan on the drums. Open studio artist Ruben Rogers on the bass.

I've been open mind. Walter Smith making some great music and lots of good stuff. Good musical choices. He made. Harlan, tipping, of course. Snare

on point. Nail of his shaking his head in rhythm. Got a big smile on his face. This is such great music. It's so melodic the improvisation. I love with a piano sitting in this mix, too. Walter Smith approached to the melodic lines and to the groove, right?

Effortless. How are you feeling like the state of jazz so far? This is heavenly. That is so, it's such beautiful improvisation. It's so melodic. love the composition too. Yeah. I've only heard it now just once,

but I think I could sing some of it back. Deepa deep, deep, yeah, which is a good sign. And then, like, Walter Smith's, like you said, the relaxed sort of conversational improvisation. Yeah. Where you just feel like he's speaking to you

somehow. Yeah. And then, yeah, Eric Harland is a genius. And James Moran is genius. Yeah, yeah. Rogers is a genius and it's just that's some high-level shit right there. Absolutely. I actually like this concept of teasing out a track, dropping a track early for this kind of album, which traditionally we wouldn't think,

and I have the feeling this is going to be some of the more traditional jazz that's going to have us yelling at the clouds the least on this list, perhaps. But, you know, I think this makes me want to hear the rest of the album. What do you think about the name of the upcoming album? Three of us are from Houston, and Rubin is not. I love that. That's a great name for an album. Yeah.

Three of us are from Houston and Ruben is not. And full disclosure. Killing. Get the Deboci is online. Deboci and Debochia are attorney and associate. I did get a text message recently from about a month ago from Walter Smith asking me to make a short video about Rubin. And he was like, I can't really explain why, but I want to use this part of my promo. I'm asking a couple of cats to do this.

Did you do it? I did it. You got it. You got to. And now it makes sense. I think he's going to have a little bit of a video teaser. He did this for his last record, too, I believe. Really?

Yeah, I think so. Not the Rubin is not part. No, but like a video teaser where a compilation clips, I believe, yeah. Well, I'm honored to be part of that. I hope I made the cut. Yeah, this is, if our wheelhouse had a wheelhouse, it would be this band playing music like that. I love that so much. And it feels very fresh.

Yeah. And I know it's like, it just feels like, and I'm looking at this. Sophisticated. It feels like we're all, like. like the world is a sophisticated place. Right, right. I'm just looking at the album cover there. If we could pull that up.

It's like very, um, it's got to Texas. Look at that. There's Texas there, my friend. Three of us are from Houston. Okay, now I'm getting it. I like the...

And Ruben is not, and there's one that's not green. And that's Rubin. Oh, I didn't even think of that. That's right. Because Rubin is from the Virgin Islands famously. That's a great cover. I love that cover.

Shout out to the, I think they all went to the same high school, which name is escaping me now. I know Harlan, Walter Smith, and Jason, as well as Glasper, I believe. Yeah. Mike Moreno. Yeah, a bunch of great cats from there. So that's going to be a fun one to listen to, right?

Should we move on to number two in the state of jazz? Absolutely. What is number two? So this is Michelle Endegiocello. So this is, I didn't realize she had another record coming out, or maybe this is already out. The album is called No More Water, the Gospel of James Baldwin. That's cool.

Trouble. You know, big fan of Michelle and DeGiochello. we've reviewed her previous record, the Omnicord Real Book, which I think was one of the best releases of the last couple of years. So interesting to interested. What's this one called? No More Water. Trouble. No More Water, the gospel of James Baldwin.

Is it out already? I don't know. I don't know what's happening. Another blue note record. Right. She's on Blue. Chalande de Geo Chella, always doing interesting, impactful things. That's another word.

Do you have the cover up on this one? It is 100%. gorgeous. What track is this from? This is trouble. So is that album? I guess I could look on here, right? Yeah, August 2nd.

Okay. It was when it came out. Oh, wow. The premiere. It's the premiere. It's time to make a change. Put out aching hearts to you. There's stuff that's connected Michelle's work for years.

years, you know, and I've been a fan. I even got a little chance to play with her years ago. That connects, even when she has different producers and stuff, and this sounds like her kind of production, but she's always very involved with the production and the sound of it. I think she's a master in the studio. She's a master live, vocals, if she's playing bass. Like, she has her sound, and I love that she's kind of coming around to being more associated in the jazz world. I don't think her stuff has really changed. To me, her sound hasn't changed over the year. She's evolved. She's progressed.

She's gotten better. Yeah. But yeah, it's, she's got a very distinctive sound to her records specifically. And I think it comes from the low end. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yep, for sure. It's addicting.

But she's very specific about how her stuff sounds if it's live or especially if it's recorded and that kind of attention to detail from a production standpoint. And then also in terms of like the lyrics, you know, what it is that she's representing in terms of if it's a political statement, if it's a spiritual statement, if it's just her. It's always her artistic statement. But she's always doing important stuff. You know what I mean? Every time she comes out with something, or I see her play, or I run into her, I'm like,

man, it's so cool. Like, her connection with jazz has always been about doing important, impactful work. She's also, like, really into just grooving, into improvisation, into bringing in more so-called traditional jazz artists, you know, over the years into the fold. So I love that she's like on this kind of list state of jazz because I think that she really is. Should we go on to number three? Am I moving too fast?

No, this is great. Am I going too slow? Let's get to some Brits, Peter. Am I like Goldilocks? This is just right. It's just right. Okay. Number three, would you like to intro them?

Because I don't, I mean, I know Ezra Collective, but I'm not really familiar with this, with these folks. Yeah, it's a UK-based quintet. Okay. And I've only heard tracks here and there from Ezra Collective, but I know a lot of people that I respect that love their music. They're UK-based.

How do they land on the Brexit issue? No, let's find out. Okay. Let's find out. Let's see if there's any clues in the music. This is featuring Yasmin Lacey. Birds flying high. I don't know how they feel.

People outside in search of something real. Question for you before we go on. Yeah. That vocal, the way of that vocal micing, that sound, what would you call that? because that's a very distinctive, kind of modern thing. It's very compressed. Very compressed. There's a lot of compression.

I'm not sure. I'm not a fan of it, but it's so particular, right? That it's like, when anybody comes out with that kind of sound, it's so, it's kind of like the blue note piano sound during that one era. It's like, I wasn't a big fan, but I was a big fan of like a lot of the music that was played that came through that piano sound, right? Yeah, yeah. And so that's kind of how I feel about this. But it is what it is, right? I think much like that sound, this is this sort of overly compressed vocal sound.

It works really well when you're listening to music on your phone. You can clearly hear the vocals. You're not going to lose any words. And I think it's something that's come out. Is anyone listening to the music on their phone? Most people are you talking about coming off their little speaker on the phone. You're not talking about with some bespoke headphones. Either way.

Connected to your phone. Either way. If you're on a, if you're commuting and you have headphones in and it's noisy around you to pop it pops through. Gotcha. But it's not a very rich sound. If you're listening on nice speakers here here in a studio, it's not as rich

as if we're... Man, we become those old dudes that are like, it depends on what you're... It really is true. No, I don't have a preference either way. I like that it can be used as an instrument. And it's a different tool. This is different.

Yeah. In such a something real. Get me started. Got to get me study. That's the jam. Exactly. That's the jam. Obviously, beautiful aprophy

influences throughout as their collective's catalog. It says here in their background, I don't know how accurate this Wikipedia page is of them that they claimed that the inspiration for the band is from Robert Glassberg and Kendrick Lamar's to Pimble Butterfly. Hmm, do you think? For the band.

2018, 2017? Dang. Yeah, that's the template for their jazz band. Nice. This obviously has that sort of like, characteristic. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Production-wise, what I'm saying? Like, in regards to your

comment about the vocals being kind of squashed, it's indicative of like that. That kind of music has that kind of production quality. Which I think is actually very refreshing, especially when that Afroby groove came in just there. That was killing. And the baseline, nailing it, whoever's doing that, you know, is all the point. I'm a sucker. I'm a sucker for the affidam. I can't get enough of it. And I think with the compressed vocal, it's like,

it's sort of like, if you're hearing somebody, if you're hearing Saravan, you don't want to hear it with that, right? She would crush with that shit. Are you kidding me? Well, of course. I'm she'd get a crush with like a pickup mic, you know, but I'm saying like, no, you, it would be like, you would want the whole, like a more natural. It would be like recording a strat of areas with a bunch of, with, and crush the sound.

It's a distinctive. It's distinctive. It's distinctive. It's playing the studio, right. It's a, it's a sound you get from the studio. So it's not, it's not a good or bad thing. It's just a texture that they're using. And it's effective.

Yeah. And the reason I brought up the. the blue note, Rudy Van Gelder blue note piano sound, well, not just on Blue Note, but especially when we were doing that, is that that, a lot of people would say, is very effective. It's very distinctive, right?

It's funny. And it is like, it's not compressed, I mean, the same way, but it's narrow. It's narrowed. Probably the mic placement, too. There's probably some Van Gelder heads out there that can give us a better idea of that piano sound. The mic is shoved in the hole, I believe. Pianists don't love it. Because you don't get the full spectrum of the piano,

I think. But it does sit, in the and makes the drums. And that's what this vocal sound is doing. It's sitting in the mix in a distinctive way that is part of the sound. It's funny because the first three tracks we've listened to have come through the spectrum. Like the Walter Smith, the third track, very natural sounding. It sounds like they're in a small club and you're just listening to the instruments acoustically. Right. And the Michelle Indegliocello has a production, but it's a little bit more of an old school style production. Right. It's not a squash. Right. More separation, more like nuance kind of width to it. It sounds like still.

kind of sounds like a band in a room. Yeah. And then this production sounds very, very individually produced instruments and little notches in the production for everybody. What would be interesting about... Yeah, what would be interesting about this is to hear them like, say, in London, because, yeah, you said they're a UK-based. So, like, in like a really hip club in London, this band's going to sound totally different

than what we just heard, more so than the other stuff. Yeah. Which I think is, like, if you see Walter Smith at the vanguard with that quartet, it's going to be different from their recording, but not really. It would be about the same. But can I just say, too, that this production from Ezra Collective here that has that, it's more of a pop sheen production on it. And I think it's good for the kind of music that they're playing.

And I also think it's good that it's on a jazz playlist like this. Because there's people, it's almost like you can compare it to films, right? Like, there are people who won't watch films that don't have that Hollywood sheen of a look to it. You know what I'm saying? Right. And then there are people that love, like, gritty, Scorsese in the 70s kind of, you know, Kubrick in the 80s coloring kind of looks to it.

Right. And so, like, very distinctive things that have a tone that isn't as palatable. But this has, like, this really, like, my kids would love the way that sounds. Right. My kids would be a little bit, like, maybe bored from the Walter Smith, the third sound. Right. Because they would associate with, like, classic jazz or classical music.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, I think both, you know, you and I actually more than people might realize, listen to a lot of things more like this, what we just heard, than we do like the Walter Smith in reality. I mean, not when we're necessarily on here, but just when, I know for me, like, and even, like, a lot of the stuff I listen to would never make it to the state of jazz playlist, even like this kind of crossover stuff. And so my ears are very acclimated to different things. I do think when you're putting your flag down and saying this is the state of jazz, when it starts to get away from what somebody that's like, well, I thought I liked jazz. And I do like that, but that's not really jazz.

So it could go one of few ways. It's like, oh, I really like that. Oh, so I do like jazz. Let me go check out some more jazz. Oh, Walter Smith. So you listen to Ezra Collective First. I think. And then you listen to Walter Smith.

You're like, wait, I don't like jazz. That's so different, you know. Yeah, I think if there's anything that this podcast, Peter, over the past seven, six years. Six years we've discovered is that the word jazz is useless. Useless for describing music that we're talking about here, right? Everybody has a different definition. Some people hate the word itself and refuse to use it. Other people would say, are jazz musicians, would say, I don't even use that word,

including masters, like Miles Davis, refused to use the word jazz. Right. Including people like Duke Ellington didn't like that word. You know what I mean? like there's a lot of people who didn't love that word. And the word itself has meant everything from Lewis Armstrong to Walter Smith the third to apparently now Ezra Collective.

Yeah, but Lewis Armstrong to Walter Smith the third. Like that's a line and a lineage that if you use jazz or if you use another term, whatever you want, makes more sense. For sure. You know, and I'm not saying that's good or bad. But so does Ezra Collective, honestly. I mean, from Lewis Armstrong?

Yeah. Okay. Lewis Armstrong made a wonderful world. that has the same production sheen that I think Ezra Collective has more than Yeah, but is it a production sheen that really defines a genre? And intent behind it. It has the intent behind it of wanting to reach a larger audience.

Yeah, okay, but think about, think about like when that groove came on, you were like, oh, Afropop. Like, we know that's, how is that so much clearer of a definition? It's a type of beat. Then, like, that's jazz. Like, if we listen to this, you weren't like, oh, that's jazz. like we can sit here and argue about whether or not it's jazz and we're big tent guys I guess so this is jazz that's fine

but I'm saying like how come no afro pop is a genre too like you could you could be like they have afro pop festivals yes where they'll say this is and where people will come not knowing even if there's not a star group but their expectation it's like going to an italian restaurant you might not know the chef but you know there's going to be some spaghetti if there's not that there's going to be pizza or maybe it'll be something you've never heard of, but it's going to be, you know. So where does the word jazz fit into all of this? Where does it fit into the Michelle and DeGlucello? Where does it fit into the jazz clerk?

It's kind of become useless a little bit. It is very useless. But that's separate from the thing of like, is it an offensive, incorrect term? Like, that's a different issue. But there is something about the values of the musicians that are playing the music. That is part of the lineage. But how would somebody coming just to, I mean, people are on Spotify. I want to chill, I'm in a coffee shop.

I want to listen to Afropop. I want to be inspired. I want to listen to something with no vocals. I want to listen to Taylor Swift stuff, but I'm sick of Taylor Swift. So, Swifty types. Like, the way people actually consume music is so different than the bespoke way

that you and I and our dear listeners approach it. So I almost feel like the state of jazz or like what jazz is just, it's almost anything that there could be some kind of fodder or some discussion, points or to be like what you just said, like it's the intent of the musicians. No, it's the lineage of the musicians. But how does anyone know that that's just coming to listen to the music?

People can tell. So people call some of Sting's stuff in the 90s. They're like, oh, when Sting went jazz. We don't consider that jazz. I don't think anybody says that. Yes, they do. Jazz musicians. It's in popular culture. I just saw it on a TV show. I forget which TV show.

Very popular TV show, it's like Sting and his jazz music from the 90s. They were just talking about that. That's a very insider thing. No, I think that's how people feel, because they hear Brandford and they hear Kenny Kirkland. They hear jazz musicians playing on his music. They don't know those are jazz musicians. The general public.

But it sounds, it does not sound like when it's, you know, Sting and Stuart Copeland and Andy playing the trio thing when it's like, you know, sending out in this. It doesn't sound like the sensibility of those. Right. And by the way, those guys actually have jazz roots as well. But they are. How come they weren't jazz? But they're more into, I think they were, you know, the pop sensibilities of the time.

And even Sting when he made pop records in the 80s were more pop records. I think when he started using more jazz musicians, people can feel that influence. We maybe are a little bit more immune to it because... So if Bring On the Night, Dream of the Blue Turtles had come out now, would that be on the state of the jazz playlist on Spotify? If that came out today. Possibly. I bet some of those tracks are.

Some of those tracks are played by jazz singers, are sung by jazz singers all the time. Yeah, but some of his stuff from before that is sung, like, fragile. Treatment, fragile, but that's a jazz influence. But that was before, that was police, right? Yeah, but there is, uh, is that the police? That wasn't, that was before the jazz band. I don't know. I don't know. But another great example would be to pimpa butterfly, you know, or DiAngelo.

Using jazz musicians and people associate that, especially jazz musicians. Yeah, but they claim that a little bit. I know, but if it was like state of hip hop and to pimpa butterfly was on there, which I'm sure it was, no one would be like, oh, this is such a varied land. It's like, no, that's a hip hop. You might say it's like West Coast. There's jazz. There's jazz influence on that.

Right. But if we put that on to that, but at this point, we could put that on state of jazz also because there's jazz influences on it. Like, for some reason, jazz is the only one that anything that has, that's remotely related to something jazzy

can show up on here, but it doesn't work the other way. I don't think so. No, like if we, if you do a trio record... All little tent things. Jazz, bluegrass, classical music, they can all get put into broader pop sensibilities. Okay, but state of classical is not going to have

a sting pop record on it, even though he's dabbled in classical music, really old classical music with the sit, not the sit-tar. What's the thing? Definitely a crossover classical. Well, there's, yeah, with pop type of stuff, but that's more... Yeah, what are you talking about?

Sting made the whole album of like early music instruments. I called it a C-Tattsar. It's not a C-Chanty song. That's 100%. What is C-Chanty song? That's 100% in a classical crossover realm. That's an NPR subscriber. You know what I mean? Love that shit.

I'm telling you. But that's not going to be on the state of classical playlist. Well, let's. No, no, no. I don't know that there is what. But I'm saying like the, like, and if it was, it has to be all. But, okay, this is what I'm saying. Like, something that has a little bit of that influence and stings pop stuff that has classical.

Or like the Beatles. There's a lot of classical stuff. Bum-b-b-b-b-bum, those horn lines and stuff. That doesn't cross-over. into being a classical album. But for some reason, jazz, it does. I'm not saying it's bad. It's just, it kind of is what it is.

Should we move on? I'm sorry. I'm not sure what your point is. Is your point that we use all of these other genres and we call them jazz or they get kind of lumped into jazz? Because I would guess that there's a lot of, there's a lot of Punch Brothers on the Bluegrass playlist.

And I would guess that there's a lot of like Andrea Buccelli on the classical playlist. And like people who aren't really, who are more pop crossover, or Sarah Brightman, or some of that, or Anya or whatever, on the classical side of things. Like, I would guess that that gets lumped in in some of those.

By the way, it's this playlist. It doesn't matter. I know. But we're kind of having fun in debating whether or not this is the state of jazz or not. I do think that the values of the musicians who are playing the music matter. And it's obvious that as our collective

and Michelle and Dagaloochella have the same, have a very similar value system from a very similar lineage as Walter Smith III. I agree with you. I'm just saying that I don't think there's anyone at Spotify, worried about that and whether or not they get on this playlist based upon the values that they have. I agree with you that I believe people can tell. I don't think people care about that.

They don't care consciously, but they can tell. They can hear the jazz influence. Really? Because I feel like if you see it, then you hear it. Okay. Okay. So let's listen to the next one. Can we pull up our screen again here so we can see what's happening? Okay, these folks, I know Caleb knows and I think you know, I don't really, I'm not familiar with them. Bad, bad, not good. I have heard of them. I know they're from Canada. That's all I know. Yeah, they've been around I love Canada. A while. And we actually got lots of requests to listen to just bad.

Yeah, maybe that's how I know the other thing. I'm sure I've heard him, but let's check it on. Drum sounds great. Base sounds great. I love the washy reverb on the horns. Love the melody. I think everything gets kind of starts to get cluttered in the 1970s because this is jazz in the 1970s to a lot of people. Yeah.

You know what I mean? This kind of sound. Yeah. And so is this throwback. This is a throwback, though. Yeah, for sure. Right? Yeah.

I can't tell if it's a 70s or a 90s throwback, but it's... Storbacks in the 90s, which we're telling like, this is 70s. Yeah. Because remember the time in the 90s where they were thrown back to the 70s. Yeah. But isn't it also associated with like, look at this, that image of them? Like, that says a lot, and that's very sophisticated. In this day and age of, you know, social media and still images and videos, being able to accompany

music, sometimes taking that, you know, I want to check out some, I want to see if they're going to solo on this. Yeah, so far, we've only heard Walter Smith. Yeah, and it's interesting what you're saying about a connection with the lineage, like how much is, how important is that to be stated jazz if you're

improvising? I mean, obviously, this is improvised. Wurly with some kind of effects pedal. Yeah, that's Worley. Not a problem. Yeah. So, okay, let's talk about a couple of things. So if this represent great soloing, great sound, like you said, I thought it was interesting, though, your first thing was like, I love it. And you listed

everything about the sound of it was your first impressions. Yeah, dig it. So, no, but I'm saying, like, you weren't like, I love the drummer. I love that you are like very clued in with, you know, the mix, the, the sound, the individual sound and also the mix of it. Yeah. And it's interesting because this playlist is obviously big tent, big J. Yeah. It's like big tent jazz, right? Like none, besides Walter Smith the third, none of these things. what's that? He could fall off quickly if he's not careful.

Yeah, none of the things we've heard so far is maybe Michelle and DeGlocello. None of the things we've heard so far is something you would hear at like the Village Vanguard or any sort of classic New York club situation, which is I think what a lot of players who are learning jazz

think about when they think of the state of jazz. They think of what is happening in New York City with a small group of people who are really pushing themselves in a way of the purity of improvisation. Right. And I think, Peter, we often can fall into that trap as well of, like, thinking about it like that. But I think to a lot of people, this is what they consider to be jazz.

Well, and you know, it's interesting. So you talk about the village vanguard and we can throw in small, I mean, all the clubs, we're not singling out the village vanguard. But maybe we shouldn't be like, how come the people are playing the village vanguard? That's the state of jazz. Maybe it's the other way. It's like, how come the village vanguard doesn't have these folks that actually are the state of jazz, three million monthly listeners, these folks from Toronto,

I'm sure they're playing at clubs there and around the world at festivals, like you say. I mean, they've got the following and the vibe and the sound. They're doing covers of Kanye and Tribe Call Quest and MF Doom. They're clued in, obviously, with the younger crowd too. But like, what is wrong with that being the state of jazz as opposed to us or anybody else sitting in here being like, you're not at the event, you haven't paid your dues. You didn't sit at small until three in the morning and then wait your turn, then get up there and swing out.

they're improvising they can play they're clued into a lot of things yes it's a throwback to another time but isn't that what culture and art always goes through different cycles of like connecting with different time periods it almost gets into the to the loise Adam Neely episode as well you know what I'm saying about like shall we go there there's jazz but because I think that the people who are quote unquote on the scene consider themselves to be the real determiners of what is the real music actually you know all these downbeat

polls just got released and you see everybody, you know, copying or whatever. And someone that I'm friends with on social media and I've known for a long time, great pianist, Manuel Valera, said, like, we should have a poll of the musicians and who they think are the best because we've got the critics and you've got the

readers, right? But his point was like, the musicians know who's doing the real stuff. But do we? You know, well, that's kind of debatable, right? It's like, is that a little bit insular. It certainly would be interesting to see that list of who the musicians are considering to be like the greatest pianist right now and doing this. But I don't know if like for the general public, if it's like that's what they're, they're wanting is like, who is like,

it's, again, we can, we can do a similar thing with like the film metaphor. Like do, does a larger audience really want to know who's like on the cutting edge of independent film? Right. Obviously not because they don't go see a lot of independent films. You know what I mean? Right. So they want to, they want the next Marvel. Who knows what they want right now? But it's a little bit changing. But you know what I'm saying. Yeah.

Well, so then that begs the question then, or leads to the question, I would say, the state of jazz is like, is this truly a democratic thing where the people speak? The general public is driving this. 3.3 million monthly listeners as opposed to, like some of those downbeat polls are like 47 people, literally. Like when it says 40, I was like, oh, 47%.

And then I was like, oh, 47%. 47. I was like, no, that's 47 people voted. So surely this is a little bit more statistically significant. It's just interesting. Yeah, it's just interesting. But then you have Walter Smith. I bet he doesn't have 3.3 million view monthly. No, he has 116,000. Which is great. He's winning my poll. Yeah. For sure. I mean, if I took a poll, I'd be voting for Walter Smith. That's a great sounding album. Right. And his last album was incredible as well.

Is his music like one, 100 and whatever that is, whatever the proportion to that, and Bad Bad Bad Not Good, is he that much not as good as them because his listeners are so much less? He's number one on state of jazz. Doesn't matter. That's pretty good. Does it matter? I know. Can we listen to one more here?

One more? Yeah, I wanted to get dogmatic. No, I do think that this is a combination of, and look, we're making this up as we go. We have no agenda here. Let's listen to a few more. I've got a couple that I want to drop on you. Okay, I just want to say this one thing, though. I'm saying that I think that this playlist is maybe trying, it might not be as diabolical

as we think in terms of, it's definitely not just the people have spoken, because it's not only high view stuff that's associated with jazz, right? Or that's in the jazz world. Because obviously the Walter Smith. But I think there may be some, he's on Blue Note Records. I think Blue Note Records may have some influence. Like, how do you get your thing on here? Which is nothing wrong with that.

They've got, like, that's their job. That's their job. But like, who's the tastemaker? And this might be a little bit of a combination of, of anointed tastemakers at places like Blue Note Records, Mac Avenue, big labels, and true democracy in terms of things percolating up because they get a lot of view.

because people love it. All right, let's check out this one. Should we check out Linda? Hold on, hold on. I want to check out this. Oh, Willow. This is a cool track. Willow Smith?

Yes. So, I'm saying. So to the point of the old man yelling at the cloud, right? This is an artist who is, you know, coming from originally with my hair back and forth, right? Right. And is now putting out this thing in seven with some really interesting harmony, some incredible production. Obviously, she's got loads of resources to make whatever she wants, but she's choosing to make something that is very risky for the kind of like, you know, potential star that she is.

Yeah. And she's really putting it out there in an artistic way. I feel like the kids are all right. They're doing great. Oh, for sure. You know what I mean? Like, they're making music that is really interesting. Right. No, I think it's more like this, but this speaks more to like the state of pop. This is a pop track. Yeah, but it's really good. It's really good. So that speaks more to like there's really interesting things happening, which I think has always been the case in so-called pop. Like pop is one of those genres that I think we're in danger of jazz becoming, not in terms of popularity, but in terms of like it not having a lot of meaning. Like what is pop music?

Popular music. Popular music, right? So it's not stylistically, it could be, stylistically, it could be anything. It has been anything. And so that seems to be what we're starting to use as terms of the word jazz. Like jazz is something that's creative, that's improvisatory, or like, this is almost like a playlist for people, not really wanting to listen to what we traditionally think of as jazz, but trying to listen to music that is either thinking people's music or is creative music or that has a little bit more, it's the NPR crowd, maybe, or the just the, I want something, it's not just the MPR crowd. There's a black American music thread and should be through all this. Yeah, that's not all the way through this, but yes.

You know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not maybe not on every track, but there's deaf. I mean, yeah, there is. There is. It's part of it. But I'm saying like, is, like, we can say that, like, Willow, that this is a great track. I've heard some of our other stuff is like great.

I know. Great stuff happening there. But that, just because something is great, then, oh, they're jazz. Or somebody's like, I'm really thinking about my composition, so it's classical. You put some things in seven and you do these, like, kind of harmonies. Yeah, people are going to label it jazz. It's a similar thing to, like, the 70s vibe from the Bad Bad Bad Not Good. It's like people are going to identify that, those sounds with.

This is just a different time we're in. Like Stevie Wonder always was obviously doing interesting things within pop music, but nobody was ever like he represents the state of jazz. You know what I mean? Or he's not. I always considered him to be one of the great jazz musicians of all time, honestly, in the same lineage as Duke Ellington. Truly, incredible orchestrator, credible composer, incredible improviser.

You know what I mean? Can we listen to one more thing on here that's kind of controversial in terms of it being jazz? I got a couple more, but yeah, go ahead. Okay, I'm going to play this one. I know you're going to be like, that's definitely not jazz, and everyone's going to be able to hear it. So here we go. Ew. He said, what is this?

Emmett Cohen. Emmett's blues. This is so good, by the way, this whole album, The Vibe Provider. This is what I think about in the New York clubs, man. This is Emmett Cohen. Generational. For sure. Over to the artist.

Swangor. It's a little different than everything we've heard. That's what I'm saying, man. This is... Like you're in the room. This is like you're at Emmett's place. Yeah. And that's a good thing.

Well, again, going back to that Adam Ely video, you know, Adam shouts out Emmett as this sort of like beacon of modern jazz. And I would say it's jazz from the jazz musicians perspective. Right. Right. Like, back to the Mani Valera thing of like, these are the people to know. Yeah. people that are bringing other people together.

And it just so happens that Emmett is an incredible musician and pianist and super proud to have him here at Open Studio. It just also, oh, yeah, it just so happens that he has a course on Open Studio. I was going to say that. A really good course. So go check that out. But this is the thing, too. Would this be more, like, it would be very easy to say, oh, well, you're saying that,

you know, the Canadian guys are like a throwback to 70s, Fusion Jazz or Jazz, whatever, you want to call it. This is just a throwback even further before that. But I don't know if that's the same kind of case because he's not going for it. I think this sounds nostalgic to some people because they're like, oh, it's like I'm in a jazz club. But it's not like he's not actually throwing himself into a specific era of like, I'm going to play like it's 1959, you know, to me. Like this is truly part of that lineage. Not saying that the other stuff shouldn't be considered part of jazz, or maybe that is the state of jazz, maybe this kind of stuff will fall to the wayside. But to me, this is truly more of a lineage to today.

And again, the beat and the groove is what most people are, like, people hear that, they're going to say that's jazz, right? Because it's tipping. It's got the walking bass line. It's got the Spanglang, walk the dog, ride pattern, right? That's what a lot of people just consider what jazz is. Peter, I will say, though, you know, like, so many of the tracks that we've listened to, including the Willow and the Michelle and DeGlechello and the Bad Bad, Not Good, even though there's some improvisation on the Bad, Bad, Not Good, it's not good. It's not what this is, which is people who are in the thick of

trying to become connected through improvisation, where the big heart of the music is through the improvised solos, right? And that is where the form comes alive, especially in live situations. That is what, you know, institutions

like jazz at Lincoln Center, and especially now jazz St. Louis, are doing, is trying to like, is trying to keep the torch going for this kind of jazz, which is improvisation. based where the people that are doing it are like, it's like, they're like, they're like, they're like the, like, it's like if you go see, you know, like bad, bad, not good, that's like going to see, uh, uh, Cirque de Soleil, right? And there's like, it's all very choreographed and there's

all this thing. And this is like going, is like seeing gymnast at the Olympics where it's like, we're trying to like push the envelope of what the humans can do. Yeah. On these elements, right? Very specific elements, right? That's what I think the difference is. Yeah. And either, you know, either get it or you don't get it. you like it or you don't like it. And either, there's no right or wrong answer. But I think there is a difference between those kinds of things. And yeah, it's just, it's just a different, a different frequency. Yeah. Well, I think it's great. I mean, if all this stuff, we got Pat Mathini's a new record we even get to, I mean, there's like a lot of, uh,

cool stuff on here. Christian Sands. Christian Sands, yeah. Um, that's definitely we got some, some blast from the past. We've got some new artists. We've got some medium. And then we have Willow. McKeisha Benjamin, want to give a shout out. Yep. Esperanza is Spalding. I don't know. Andre 3000. To me, it's like, okay, so now that's interesting. We're not going to even go down that whole road.

Played at Newport. He did. To me, Andre 3000 fits on this the most. Like, because in terms of more so than Willow, I'm not saying I like it more or less or whatever, just because he kind of like put himself into, I want to make a jazz adjacent record. You know what I mean?

No, he said he's doing something different, you know? Well, look, until next time. You'll hear it.