You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Who Is the GREATEST Jazz Musician?

Episode Date: June 17, 2020

On this episode, Peter and Adam take a SpeakPipe on who they think is the all-time best jazz musician. Wanna leave a SpeakPipe of your own? Click this link to leave a recording, and your question might get featured on an upcoming episode!Links From This Episode:Want to get every piano course from Open Studio for free? For a limited time, you can! Try out a 7-day free trial of the Piano Access Pass (no credit card required) so you can get a taste of what this pass has to offer.Today's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)For the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. Who is the second greatest jazz musician of all time? Hmm. I'd have to go with Buddy Bolden. You know, he's born without a mouth? Is that true? No.

No. I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily music advice coming at you. Coming at you today. Somewhat daily. Somewhat daily, maybe yearly.

We'll see. We'll talk about that in a minute, though. That's right. We're brought to you by Open Studio. go to open studio jazz.com. Peter, what do you know about the piano access pass free trial? I know a little bit about it. Actually, I know a lot about it.

I'm very excited about it. It's seven days. No credit card required, which is a beautiful thing. Oh, man. Why are we doing that? Well, because we want people to try before you buy. Like, because if for whatever reason, this is not a good fit for you, we don't want to lock you in.

We don't want to be that, you know, that you sign up for the trial, then you forget about it. I mean, we're still in a pandemic here. People's minds are all over the places. people are scattered. We're here to be a resource to be helpful. We're not here to try to lock you down. So you have seven days, as they say, to kick the tires. Check out the different courses. And, you know, if you need another seven days, just let us know. We'll do that as well. But the idea is we're looking for to build our community long term. So if it's a good fit,

come back. Give us your credit card. We'll give you a great deal. And it's all good. Yeah, the Piano Access Pass is amazing. It's every piano course that we've ever made. It's the weekly jazz piano method lessons that you do every week. Yes. It's the daily guided practice sessions that I do every day. Yes. It's everything that we make that has to do with piano, and it's everything we will make as long as you're a member.

You get first dibs on it. It's one of our most popular membership for a reason, and it's because you get all that piano stuff. So if you're a pianist, check out the piano access pass. Go to open studio jazz.com slash pap dash trial and get your free seven-day trial, no credit card required. Today we got, this is like a throwback. Yes, I'm excited.

It's like a dinosaur. Well, there's two reasons that's a throwback. I don't know if you know that. We're still remote. We're getting close to coming back together again. But we're a little bit, we're physically remote, spiritually connected, of course. But we're a little bit concerned. We're not really concerned.

We're just, you know, the physical interact. We've gotten so good at interacting via Zoom, via remote, everything, you know. The whole world is set up with like a, a constant. conference room in their living room essentially now, right? I know, I know. But like, as you're around people, it's kind of weird when you first get back together. You're like, oh, you're a human being. That's it's not a hologram. It is wild. I mean, you know what, man, you know, we're doing this on Zoom. That's how we're communicating with each other. But I can see where you are. You're in the pod suite.

I'm in the pot. I was going to say, that's why we're kind of where we've got one foot back in the door. I'm in the pod suite. How's my award? Huh? How's my award? Is it still up there? It is. Yeah. Most stuff is here. It's funny. It looks like it's been, there's some looting has been done here because remember when we left that that Monday or was it Friday like we kind of grab stuff we're like we got to be able to record from home and we're grabbing mics and grabbing pictures and our own studios yeah so now we're deluding we're unloading we're unluting by bringing stuff back um diluting diluting right yeah but we're we're we're going to be setting up very soon and you know what the first episode we're back together we're setting up a social distance pod suite

which is taking some reconfiguration for some additional space additional vans ventilation, all that kind of good stuff. We're going to get some of those plastic barriers like they have at the Walgreens now? Yeah, I don't think we're going to have to. I think we're going to be spaced enough, but we're going to see. We're going to take every precaution and do it when the time's right. But the idea will be that we're going to shoot some video when we do come back for that triumphant return of Adam and Peter.

Nice, man. How's that sound? That sounds good. And we're, you kind of alluded to the daily thing. Yes. So we've been cutting back a little bit with, I mean, just being distanced as we have been. And it's been a chore to really try to get five a week, but we decided to kind of go for quality, not quantity. Right.

That was more of a qualitative decision, more than a quantitative decision as well. Yeah, so we are toying with the idea of, and we'd love to hear the listener's thoughts because we do this for you, the listener, of three days a week. Well, we're going to do it for the next couple of weeks and kind of see what the response. So please let us know. Hit us up on Twitter. I'm at I am Peter Martin. and you are I don't know

So hit it up for me and I'll send it over to him You can also send us an email Y-H-I at openstudiojazz.com That's right And you can go to you'll hearat.com too If you want to send us a message And you can also leave us a speak pipe

That's right, a speak pipe And you can send us a fax But we can't find our fax number So we're going to cancel that one out for now But let us know what you think The idea is that we may go a little bit longer In some of the episodes But we're by going to the three

The Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule keep folks from getting overwhelmed, keep us from getting overwhelmed with this, but hopefully give you the same great content. We're excited for that. There may be some surprise episodes as well. I know that you threw in some solos.

I've thrown in a few solos. So look for those occasionally, but we're going to be on a general Monday, Wednesday, Friday, with the You'll Hear It Podcast, as it were. Well, speaking of SpeakPipe, we have one. What? I know. This is from like three months ago,

but I ran across it today as I was looking through all of our speak pipes. This is from John. It's a 12-second voicemail. That's what I'm talking about. Efficiency. Bam. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I thought it would be a fun thing to talk about today and get a little heated debate going.

Check it out. The speak pipe from John. Hey, Peter and Adam. This is John from California. I just have one question for you. Who's the greatest jazz musician of all time? If you could clear that up for me once and for all, that would be great. Thanks.

Well, there you go. That's a great question. That's like a definitely, like, greatest. It's not like giving me the top seven. It's not like who. Well, we said in the intro who the second greatest is. So we've got that out of the way. We know the greatest apparently is not Buddy Bolton, right?

No. And no one would know. How would you know? Exactly. Okay. Do you want to go further? Just so you folks know out there and you'll hear it land, we did not pre-screen this question. We did not talk about how we were going to answer.

We did not align Adam and I. We did not discuss. dispute or anything at all, right? Well, let's, let's, before we start just rambling off who we think our knee jerks are, which is good. Let's just break it down a little bit and discuss what the parameters for how we would qualify someone to be the greatest jazz musician of all time, right? There's some, so first of all, just like how great of a player you are, right?

That would come to one of the top of the list. I'm just going to make a little list here. Ooh, I like it, list. I know you like a bullet list here. So just, well, is that going in your boojo? Or your pooho? We'll say proficiency on the instrument is a, is something that we can load, and we can debate how much that should be loaded.

Well, let's debate this right now. That sounds so boring, proficiency on your instrument. So, like, if you score a nine or ten on your instrument proficiency level, you will be considered the greatest jazz musician of all time? No, no. I'm saying this is one of the factors. I just want to list what the many factors would be. And then we could weight them and decide,

you know, does Miles Davis's creativity outweigh Clifford Brown's pure proficiency? You know what I mean? Like, this is a good question, right? So we have proficiency. Artistry, I think, is definitely something. Right. Financial stability? No, that's not part of it.

No, that's for personal growth. What about innovation? Oh, I think, absolutely. I mean, it's jazz music. Come on. It's just an innovative thing here. What about, I would think, like, broader, cultural, impact, right? So I'm thinking like people who made a splash outside of jazz, purely jazz nerds.

Transcending the genre. Transcending the genre. That's, you know, we can debate how much that should be weighted as far as this goes. Well, and that kind of leads to, well, I don't know if this, yeah, this is a little different global impact. I think that would go hand in hand with that global impact. Universality. Universality. Yeah. And then I think originality might be one, right? Ogenus. That's what we call that. You know, there are, there are, there are, people that sound, you know, like Oscar Peterson, but maybe even better than, like a better version of Oscar, because they've just honed in on his stuff so hard that they're more Oscar than Oscar is. I like how you're dangling a couple of people out there for me to,

you got some bait out there to see if I'm going to bite it or anything. We can wrap this up quickly. I think I know who you might think. So I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to. Well, I already have an idea. Once we just say it, because this is really not planned, we're going to go one, two, three, like we do the collapse and we're both going to blur it out. Once we get our parameters set. Okay. I think that's. That's fair. Oh, man. This is honestly a hard one for me.

Well, let's look at the parameters. Do we need any more? Or do you want to read what we have so far? So we have proficiency, artistry, innovation. What is that one? Oh, transcending the genre. Yeah. And originality.

I mean, for me, this points to one. Influential. Like I'm thinking on other musicians. Like outsized influence. You know, I think everybody that we would be considering this is going to have some influence, but somebody that just has a, you know, kind of global jazz musician influence. That's a tough one. This is really tough.

I've had mine from the beginning. And actually, now that you've named these categories, these parameters as they are, this just reinforced it, who I was thinking of at first. I have two people that are in mind. Well, do we want to debate the parameters more? Do we want to jump right into blurting it out? Are there any more parameters that we're leaving off? proficiency, artistry, innovation,

transcending the genre, originality, and influence, influential on other musicians. Anything else that could be weighted to help us make this? What will we call sort of just the amount of passion and joy and I guess that's artistry?

But you know what I mean? Just sheer humanity that comes through somebody's music. I feel like that's something that we excel at as jazz music, as a genre in general, like it being an impression. provisatory music primarily. And anybody that we're thinking about,

and even the people that you've named already, Clifford Brown and Oscar Peterson, you know, such a great amount of joy in humanity comes through their playing through their artistry, certainly. I think it'd be hilarious if you just said like someone, like sunny stitt, like just completely cut up. Hey, man, why can't it be sunny stint, man? I mean, he's great, but it would be funny

if you had someone like really inside pocket person. Yeah, all right. Yeah, yeah. All right, I think I'm ready to make my call. clap. Okay, so let's just talk about how we're going to do this. That is the Podsweet desk. I am banging on it. Okay, I don't know why. That's like a drum roll, right? Okay, so we're going to go one, two, three, and then say it, right? Yeah, and it's not, we might not be lined up. Well, I'll try to line up with you, but, you know, we're on Zoom here, so there is a bit of a delay.

I'll try to Jacob Collier my way to timing. Okay, so that would you need to do the one, two, then, right? No, you do it. Okay. You do it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so it's after three. It's not on three. Just to read. Yeah. Okay. Okay. One, two, three. Louis Armstrong. Oh. You said John Coltrane? I did, yeah.

Man, that was my other one. I mean, that was like, that was definitely the two, you know, and Miles Davis. Those were the three, but I was thinking. Yeah. So for me, I was going between Monk and Train. Just because as I was kind of going down our list here, like proficiency, like for monk, proficiency, check. Artistry, check.

Innovation, check. Transcending the genre, weak, I think, for Monk. Right. I mean, oh, I think about Train. I was like, whoa. No, no, no. But I mean, as far as like, you know, not everybody outside of jazz even has heard his music, right? Or maybe no one. originality for Monk, check and influence on other musicians check. But for me, Train was a check all the way down the list. And I, you know, Lewis was, Lewis Armstrong was in my top five. It was Miles Lewis, Train, Monk. Yeah. Yeah. So, Herbie. You can't go wrong with any of them. I would, I would just say just to, to be. a little bit of didactic or a little bit of a, a little bit of a nub, right? What do you call it? A nudge, a nudge, something. I don't know what the hell's going on. Man, my vocabulary is flowing like wine out of my mouth. Flowing like water. So you're, I think you mean a nudge, right? You're going to argue one of these points. Exactly. I would just say that I think Lewis Armstrong, I mean,

I mean, you know how much I love John Coltrane and how great I think he is. To me, though, Armstrong for all those different categories, every single one of them, Lewis Armstrong stands a little bit above John Coltrane. Is that controversial? No, and I actually, I don't know if every single one of those categories. Well, no, he might actually. But then again, it's a little unfair because John Coltrane had the benefit of hearing and standing on the shoulders of Lewis Armstrong in many ways. I would put Trains pure artistry just a tear above Lewis Armstrong's because Train went for some stuff that he knew probably wouldn't be super palatable and Lewis was an entertainer. But to me, that entertainer thing puts him ahead of Coltrane on some other categories here, right?

I just think the way that Lewis Armstrong was able to, maybe in a sneaky way you could say, but it was just him to exhibit. and channel that high level of artistry and humanity in an entertaining way as well. It's an amazing thing. Not many people have been able to do that. Way more people can be tortured artists. That's true. That's a great point. No, I mean, there's no going wrong with any of these top people. Yeah. For me, another thing that kind of pushed it towards train is probably a generational bias in that

I just listen to more Coltrane music than I do Lewis Armstrong on the regular. You know, not that I don't love it, and I do listen to Lewis Armstrong on the regular, but not as much. I'm just not as, it's not as regular as the train that I was too, which especially like during this time has been nonstop. Right. Yeah, I mean, it certainly gets into a similar thing to like a Michael Jordan versus LeBron James, who's greater. Like for me and my generation, or just because I came up watching him so closely when I was, you know, 9, 10, 11, well, no, more like 11, 12, 13. to me he's the greatest. You know,

LeBron is great, you know, but also LeBron's standing on Jordan's shoulders, you know, Kobe standing on, you know, coming after Michael Jordan. And you would put Miles up here in your top five as well? I was definitely the top five. I didn't really, once I was thinking about Train and Louis Armstrong, I mean, Lewis Armstrong,

but John Coltrane would have been next. And then as far as greatest jazz musician, to me, because, like if you were to say, biggest influencer ever or most innovative in some ways I would say Miles possibly I mean most innovative just because of how many genres

he actually innovated right right it's pretty amazing you know he would lead the pack on multiple genres that's what put him up there for me and many other things and maybe greatest band leader like even in a way that like Lewis Armstrong and even John I mean look the John Coltrane Quartet not a bad band right there

but Coltrane like I mean a Miles where it kind of went beyond just greatest jazz musician, biggest influence on the music in that he was able to nurture and identify a Herbie Hancock, a Chick-Korea, Keith Jarrett, a Wayne Shorter, John Schofield, I mean, just all, you know, over several generations in just a massive way. But that's not necessarily just about being a jazz musician. That's like hitting some other areas, you know, as a leader at a very high level.

So true, man. I love that we took a 12-second speak pipe and turned it into like, you know, 18 minutes of blather. Oh, that's how it always is, though. If it were an 18-minute speak pipe, it would probably be a yes or no answer. But you ask us, who's the greatest jazz musician of all time? I could talk about this for another hour, actually. We can go down instrumentalists. Maybe we will do that.

Yeah. We might get five episodes a week yet, Peter. That's right. Well, big shout out to Sunny Stitt. Sorry you didn't make it. Sorry that Adam was hating on you so bad. That was a little awkward. Shout out to Sunny Stitt.

Shout out to Sunny Clark. How about it for Ben Webster? How about us for some other unsung heroes? Bill Evans. Bill Evans. What about a little Winton Kelly up in there? Come on. Lots of great players.

Brad Meldow. How come he didn't make the list? All these peeps, you know? Kenny Kirkland. Right. Connie Hahn, our friend from a couple weeks ago, friend of the podcast. He's a little young to make the list, I think.

A little young. Verdict still out. Verdict still out. Go to openstudiojazz.com slash pap dash trial to check out the piano access pass free trial seven days no credit card required you can kick the tires on all of our piano courses you can kick the tires on our regular subscription courses peter martin's weekly jazz piano method lessons my daily guided practice sessions in which we practice together every day go check it out yeah check it out and it is um the pap slash trial also the links will be in the description so you can check it there If you're driving now or out and about, please stay safe. Stay spiritually connected. Stay physically distanced as Adam and I are as needed.

And until tomorrow or day after tomorrow, you'll hear it.