You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Why Sound Production Matters with Jazz

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

In this episode, Adam and Peter have the opportunity to spend time with the renowned Kiefer. From sharing anecdotes about his past experiences in production and recording to discussing his current connection with modern music, Kiefer reveals the journey that led him to his present position.↓ Links from the pod ↓All things Kiefer:https://ffm.bio/kiefer@kiefdaddysupremeSpectrasonics PerformanceHave 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

What's going on, everybody? We have a very, very special guest, super excited today to be sitting with and talking with Kiefer. What's going on, Kiefer? Not much. Really happy to be here. I'm just chilling in a studio somewhere in New York and happy to, you know, tune in and talk to y'all. I'm a big fan of the show. Oh, thanks, man.

Yeah, thank you. And we're big fans as well. I'm so glad this was able to come together. And I thought we could kind of start, because, you know, certainly our hope with these always is that maybe some of your fans, maybe some of our fans, maybe some music fans, maybe some jazz fans, some Bam fans all kind of coming together and end up here and like, what the hell is going on? But I'd love to sort of hear, I know that you're deeply steeped in the Southern California scene. You came up in, I believe, San Diego. But I was wondering if you could just kind of talk about your, you know, background,

how you got into music, your early influences, and how you ended up at the beautiful place you are now. Man. Well, I started playing very young. maybe around like three or four years old. I didn't get serious until I was probably like 14 or 15. But I was, my dad plays piano. He plays like Norarlene style. Like he's not a professional musician, but he plays like,

like Professor Longhair and like stuff like that. He loves like Dr. John. Oh, yeah. So he showed me like boogie-wogie stuff when I was young. And I listened to a ton of blues. I was like, you know, his favorite music, you know, Muddy Waters and Otis Span. and Memphis Slim, all these different blues artists.

And then it was jazz as well. It was a lot of John Coltrane. Like one of my first memories, I might have been like three or four years old. My dad had a mixtape in his car, and he would like make me recite the names of the artists and what the names of the songs were. So I remember like the first artist I could recognize was John Coltrane. Whenever the Blue Train intro, I could recognize that right away. So I was really lucky my dad was like kind of.

teaching me that stuff from a very young age. And yeah, and then growing up in San Diego, when I was like in high school, I got to, like, go out and play with, like, Gilbert Costiano. So I'm sure, I'm sure you've crossed paths with us at some point. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Gilbert's incredible, a legend. And really kind of the lynch pin for the whole scene there. So, yeah, I was like, you know, going to, like, jam sessions and just trying to learn.

and yeah and then I got into music school at some point. It's so funny, man. Just shout out to dad's record collections. We talk about this with our father and moms. And moms. That's right. But I think specifically for us, and it sounds like for you two, Kiefer, like, our dad's record collections just somehow had a huge impact on all of us. Like, I remember listening to jazz with my dad and like we were, and he didn't, he's not a musician really.

And we're trying to figure it out. Like, what's happening here? And we would talk about it together when I was a little kid, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just think if, like, your dad, Kiefer had been, or Adam had been playing, like, the wrong stuff. Not that there's any wrong stuff, but just some, some less musically astute tracks than Blue Train. You know, how do we end up then? You know, who knows?

When you, Peter, you talk about your dad introducing you to, like, Monk and Miles and all these people when you were young. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I wonder, too, like, was if there was a moment, I know for me, Kiefer, it was like, you know, Herbie Hancock, his, he had a record called Rocket, a single that was kind of, of a big deal when I was like 13 years old because it was on MTV and it had a video and stuff. And I remember listening to that and I had the LP and I was even trying to scratch with it because I hadn't figured that out yet. But my dad was like, what is that? I said, oh, this is this guy. You don't know about him, Herbie Hancock.

And he said, oh, yeah, I think I have a Miles Davis record that he's playing on there. I was like, no, I don't think so. This is Herbie Hancock of today, you know. But then my dad introduced me to My Funny Valentine. But like that kind of intersection, I wonder if there was some moments like that for you with kind of like what's happening. now or like when you were coming up where you started to make these connections between maybe it's not just some old stuff that my dad is playing like how did it become relevant for you and then kind of become what eventually your art is and how the prism that you look at music and

how you create it yeah for sure um well you know uh man that's a great question so yeah obviously i love hip hop you know um hip hop super important to me uh hip hop is uh a million things one of the things that I like about it and kind of it's kind of a celebration of records itself I mean one of the one of the ways that it started was you know DJs with with turntables flipping back and forth mixing scratching doing all kinds of different things which is like not only a musical thing

but also an audio thing it's also like an art of audio and just like sound itself and And so I remember when I was like, I, where, which story can I tell? There's so many. They're so important. But yeah, when I was like maybe when I was coming out of music school, when I was coming out of UCLA, I was pretty much like I was really into, you know, musicians like Benny Green and Oscar Peterson, Monty Alexander, like super just like greasy swinging stuff. Gene Harris, all that. And then I remember I went to like. like a, I was like hanging out with a bunch of producers. And then I was also into hip hop, I should say. I was also into like hip hop and like more like modern production as well.

There's a scene in LA that was super vibrant with these really crazy, uh, super creative producers, people like knowledge and mind design, these people that I really love who I'm now on the same label with. And I was hanging out with a bunch of these guys and we were like taking turns like playing tracks. And they were playing like, they would play like jazz stuff. But like it was not like the most not like what I would think of is like like, like really awesome recordings, but like the audio would be, they would be like listening to like

that sound of the audio, like who's the person who's probably producing it in the other room. And then I would play some like Oscar Pearson stuff that I thought was super killing, but it would be some 80s recording where the bass is D.I and the, the, the symbol tone is super pingy. It doesn't have the vibe for them. Yeah, and it doesn't sound great, but they're like absolutely burning shit to the ground, you know. Sorry, I don't know if I should be cursing it. You should. Please.

Manitory. Sanitary. And then I remember like these guys kind of looking at each other like, I don't like this at all. Like they just weren't hearing. And I realized like there's a whole other way to listen to music where, you know, maybe I'm listening to their records and I'm not digging their stuff necessarily. But maybe there's something I'm missing because I'm missing something with mine. So what am I missing with theirs?

And I started to think more open-mindedly about that and realize that there's also an art form to like, yeah, just like. the records and audio and the tone. And then that just really enhanced my understanding of hip hop and all these producers who are experimenting with like sound on a more intricate level but in a different way. Yeah, I think I think this is where like, you know, the music that's being made today, including your own music,

this is where it's really like leading the charge for creativity and for innovation. Because, you know, there is this sort of crossover now of like, understanding how how the nuts and bolts of music works from like a from a harmony's perspective, a melodic perspective, a rhythmic perspective, and then understanding the nuts and bolts of how sound works and audio works and production works. And it's like there's definitely like a generational delineation. Yes. But it seems to me that with with players like you, with musicians like you sort of leading this charge, we've never had it better as far as like people that know why Oscar Peterson and is burning it down in the 80s and why that works, but also know...

Shout out Tellark Records for the MDI, right? But also know why some, you know, obscure Italian recording from the late 60s sounds the way it does and why that vibe is important to the music. I think it was kind of overlooked for at least a lot of, you know, quote unquote jazz musicians or whatever for years and decades even of like what is, you know, the vibe is missing somewhere. The playing is always great and the music is pure and. wonderful. But like we can care about this other thing too and it's important. Yeah, I think I think like recording, the art of recording is so central to the history of jazz. Truly. It's so weird.

What would like what would like like Nat Cole and Capitol records and like that sound was unbelievable 100% yeah. And like you know that that room is epic. I mean not to mention just I mean there's so many directions I could take that. Then also there's you know obviously the blue notes sound which is like my, that's my favorite. Keyscape will, I, I need them to make a piano tone that sounds like that. Why, you know, anyway, it's impossible, though. It's impossible.

I mean, that, that sound is just like, you can't imitate that. And then, um, the Van Gelder piano. Keyescape, if you're listening. Van Gelder piano. Yeah. You know, I don't want like a clean piano tone. I want some, like, interesting. Anyway.

Yeah. And then, or like, like, you know, or like, you think about, like, Miles and his relationship with, with his producer Tio and, you know, they, you know, you know, all these so much love yet so much hate that's so seriously whose producer was

you know and that's why his records are the best and Herbie too Herbie became an incredible record producer he still is he still is and it's I think it's something especially as like pianists

who grew up listening to this stuff it's so easy and this is like so epic you could spend just your whole life worrying about these relationships here and then you know

it sort of gets lost on the translation outside of this yeah you know if it doesn't sound good absolutely that or interesting. I mean, I think key for what you and kind of your generation, and I mean, these things

always bleed over some, but what I'm really excited about is, you know, you guys really attuning to the production side, to the sound design side, to like that as being such an important part of the creative process. Whereas I feel like when we, like, we're always talking about, you know, like the young lions thing. I remember coming in New York in like, you know, late 80s, early 90s and all these great music, you know, Roy Hargrove and Christian McBride and Greg Hutchinson and. Joshua Rebman meeting all them.

Like we weren't, we didn't have access. We should have been like talking to like Farb, you know, James Farber and these engineers that we got a chance to work with. But we were just like, we were just like, no, we're about the music. There was such a segregation between sound production and playing at that time, which I think worked for that time. I think you need both though. You need both.

Yeah. And I think it's like a really beautiful circle that's kind of coming back because if you, like you're talking about Oscar Peterson in the 80s, we were just listening to some stuff from Amsterdam in the late. 50s with the trio with Herb Ellis and Oscar Pee and like the sound is killing on there much better than it was later on like somebody was paying attention to it for sure what you think about blue train what you just mentioned hearing blue train and being able to recognize that imagine if blue train was didn't sound like that you know it's half the record is how it sounds yeah yeah it's I think that's a really important part of it I think yeah and I think also just like jazz musicians historically their relationship to the just record labels in general obviously changed changed very dramatically in the 60s and 70s. And I think in the 50s and 60s, you know, Miles was doing like three, four, five.

These guys were doing like five albums a year. It was nuts. I mean, like, that was just like such an integral part of what they were doing. And I think that over the years, you know, as, you know, rock and all this other stuff came in in the 60s. I'm sure a lot of jazz musicians became very jaded. And just like the studio just became like just a pain in the ass. I'm sure they weren't getting the best dates and things became more and more expensive

for them as other acts, you know, where became larger. And yeah, I'm sure at a certain point, just it didn't matter. But now, like kind of, as you alluded to, it's so cheap to record now that anybody, anybody can make an album. Like Lewis Cole, I love Lewis Cole.

I don't know if you guys know Lewis's drummer, incredible. But yeah, his first record, there's one of the songs on there. I think it's called Window Shop. He recorded it with his laptop microphone. He just set his laptop on the ground. He has like a drum kit on a tile floor.

And it sounds like terrible. and also amazing. It's like, you know. He made it part of the vibe. Yeah. You like he like found, he like had this, this creative dilemma he had to solve.

And he came up with a really like creative, like palette of sounds that made it work. And it, it sounds amazing. So let's get back to your story. So you're, you're into hip hop. You're into,

obviously straight ahead, you know, jazz stuff. And you're playing piano. And when does this like, when do you make the choice to sort of like, well, I'm going to, like, blend. Like, my thing is these things together. Like, because it's so easy we could get caught up and like, well, I'm just going to be

a producer or I'm just going to go the jazz piano route and, like, hit that scene hard. But it seems like you've kind of carved your own path with this. And I wonder if that was this just organic or how'd that come about? It was a lot of different things. Yeah, at first it was like I like two separate things. You know, it was like I really liked. playing straight ahead. And then I also really liked playing or like making beats.

I love Jay Dilla and Madlib and all these hip-hop producers from like the late 90s and early 2000s. And I had a bunch of friends who were, well, yeah, I was going to, there was like two scenes. I was going to like the Blue Whale in L.A. And like checking out that scene and watching, you know, older musicians than me. people like, you know, Gerald Clayton and Ben Wendell and all these like Walter Smith, always incredible people playing there week in and week out. And then I was also going to like this like beatmaker scene where that would be like Flying Lotus and Thundercat and,

you know, all these other people doing like really off the wall, loud, aggressive electronic music. And yeah, I just, I realized that I wanted to be doing, I wanted to be playing my instrument like these people, but I also wanted to be in front of this crowd. I just liked this audience for some reason that just resonated with me. Because over here, it just felt like a lot of, like, college kids who were, like, kind of watching a performance, like, it was a museum exhibit. Yeah. Sometimes.

It felt very sterile. Then over here, it's, like, honestly, the same people a lot of the time, but, like, jumping up and down and yelling and screaming. And just, like, it was just, like, it just felt so much more, like, visceral to me. And so, yeah, I just started putting it together. I think that wasn't until I was, like, 23 or 24 that I started, like, really aggressively being, like, I'm going to start making. you know, one to two, like, beats every day, have, you know, a few hundred at the end of the year.

And I started releasing a song every week on SoundCloud. This is also SoundCloud era. There's so many, like, aspects of, like, what the, like, at the time that also was informing what a lot of us were doing. Did you hear what he said, though, Peter? So this is, like, one of our mantras here is if you want to get good at something, just do it every day. It doesn't matter if it's good. Just do it. Every day, commit to just making it.

And eventually, you'll understand it somewhat. Totally. Yeah. I love that thing, what you're saying, you know, releasing something every week because you talk about like Miles and Columbia and Teo. And I was just looking at some letters. I'd never seen that Miles, like, typed up or had somebody type up to send with all these specific instructions on the production and the mix of these things. And, you know, and I know they used to record a lot. If you imagine if they had had a chance to be able to just drop a track every week or something and to be even more prolific than that.

I mean, you talk about no gatekeeping. And I think it's such a strategic advantage we have as jazz musicians or just jazz adjacent, you know, improvisational musicians where we can do that. Where we don't have to go in in the studio for three months and, you know, smoke weed and get a vibe before we can come up with the first chord. Oh, could you imagine? We might want to do that. Could you imagine if SoundCloud was around when Stevie Wonder grew up? I know. Oh.

Yeah. It would be like we'd have so much. Well, and he was always kind of trying, like he was ahead of the curve. Yeah, he was. With like real to reel and stuff. Like he was creating his own stuff like that where he could be productive and creative like that. So that's cool, man. That's so great.

You got to make a lot of stuff. You know, that's just something I tell them. I mean, especially now in this day and age, like you got to make a lot of stuff, release a lot of stuff. Don't be precious about your stuff. I think all the best musicians did a ton of stuff. And we forget that. That's right. That's right.

Now, how are you, it's interesting you say that because like I want to, I want to drill down into like, how are you able to do that? in this, you know, we were talking about the advantages of the current time. Let's talk about some other differences in the current time. So, you know, if somebody wants to learn about Kiefer, they can go and look at videos about you. They can look at social media posts. They can listen to your music, of course. But the one thing that we used to always have for different artists you would only have

would be the music and you'd hear it on the LP. I mean, I grew up listening to Herbie and stuff like looking at the LPs and like, oh, there's another picture, McCoy Tyner or whatever. But to have the kind of access beyond that, Like how is that inform your music and kind of your relationship? I know you're in the middle. I was looking at your tour dates. You're in the middle of like a whole bunch of U.S. stuff and Europe stuff.

So you're going to be meeting maybe some new fans, some old fans or whatever. But folks know about you, at least they think that they know about you. Maybe they even know about, think they know about you better than they know your actual music. And how does that inform kind of like the trajectory of how you develop things and how you develop your audience? Well, yeah. My objective with that is there's a Warren Buffett quote, which is, delight your customers. I just want people to have a good experience with me, whatever way possible.

And I try to offer as much service as I can, whether it's responding to 50 DMs in a day or doing free piano lectures on Sundays, which I did a bunch of those early this year, or sometimes I'll take on students and just like, you know, do, you know, Zoom lessons with people and not charge them crazy amounts or, or making video courses and whatever. I'm just trying to like make myself as available as possible. I want to be the dude who's available and approachable. I think about the word approachable.

I want to be the most approachable guy. So, yeah. And then I think, you know, my belief is that I don't think it's get rich quick, but I think it's get rich for sure. And I think like if you do that and you stack it one, five, 10, 15 years, I think, I think it'll pay off. I don't know for sure. But I think it'll be fun at least.

Yeah, we've had a similar experience here, building open studio where the less precious we are with what we're doing, where we, like the more we just open up and there's more free stuff and we're just making stuff, the more actually people do want to just be in the environment, you know, and we've been able to grow the business with just being open and just being, like you said, available. Like, it's, I think, something that is almost counterintuitive. I think especially for some people in our specific genre, but it works, man. It's like, it's really the only way to connect with people is to just keep it open and keep it available. Yeah. I mean, I'm wondering how much of this is like the times changing different generations, but just different

more time periods, but also the West Coast versus East Coast, not versus. I mean, just the beautiful differences, Midwest, Texas. I mean, I love any time there's like a scene somewhere. We talk about the London, you know, what's happening in the London scene in terms of like jazz and jazz, whatever, adjacent stuff. I love all those differences. And I feel like we're at a time where we're kind of coming back to that a little bit, which is cool because that used to be kind of a hallmark of this music.

It's like you could tell a tenor player that came out of Texas because they had that, I mean, could go to New York and do their thing or whatever. But I'm wondering if this idea, like what you just said, delight your customer in quoting Warren Buffett, like when we were coming up in New York, the Young Lions, like if I had said that or like Roy Hargavitt said that, like we literally would have beat somebody down. Be like, no, they better come to us, you know.

And that's not a good thing. It's just a different time, you know. And I'm wondering how much you're seeing that kind of, like, is that unique to you, would you say? Or is that like kind of a general feeling on the scene and the type of musicians you associate with? I don't think other people are saying stuff like that. That for me, that comes from my dad, I think.

But that's, yeah, I think I think the L.A. scene, although there are, you know, I think the things I do have in common with the L.A. scene in general and things that might be different from the East Coast. I think L.A., I mean, you know, the stereotype exists for a reason. You know, we're known to be more laid back and, you know, maybe a little more, you know, sometimes a little more woo-woo, a little more, you know. but I think there's a certain a certain type of freedom that L.A. provides where other places might provide other types of freedom. But I think the L.A. version of that is,

yeah, you can be whatever you want. You know, there's really, there's really no, like, we don't have like a, we don't have any prestige to our scene for real. Like, like, New York has prestigious, like the village vanguard is prestigious. Right. you know yeah but it's a little bit is now prestigious you know like we don't have stuff like

what's our club i mean the baked potato i mean what's what's prestigious about right you don't have stuff like that so you don't have juliard and no yeah we don't have you know the brooklyn bridge this is where sunny rollins practiced like we don't have that right you know the the jazz clubs in l.a burned down in the 60s or these fires that happened and we don't really have that history as as as as new york does and i think but because of that, there's this freedom of like, I don't feel any pressure, you know, the way I would feel if I played at the Village Vanguard, I think I would feel pressure. Yeah, there's no, you don't have all of that, but you also don't have a lot of dogma out there with the music. It seems like we had,

we had Gerald Clayton on one of our mentor sessions and I've never seen a teacher more open and accepting of whatever the student was playing in front of him. I mean, it was like a real masterclass in being. Oh, and talk about stereotypes. Like you mentioned stereotypes. Remember when we first had the call, we had a call schedule with Gerald and he came on late. He was like, oh, I'm so sorry. He was literally wearing his surfing outfit and he was like, I forgot. I was just surfing. He had a surfboard

behind him and he's on his phone. I was like, that's LA for you right there. A legend. He's also just like one of the best pianists like ever in my opinion. He's the greatest. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that's a LA guy, you know,

crazy. But it's interesting because you're saying like you're not of the Village Vanguard and and the smalls and the Juilliards and stuff like that. But for a long time, and I'm just thinking back to how I kind of viewed West Coast when I first came out there to play, what you do have is Herbie Hancock for a long time. You had Wayne Shorter.

Like you have these like Titans of the Music. I know it's different there than New York because maybe things are more spread apart or so. Billy Childs, you know, who was kind of my entry point to like L.A. and that whole thing, George Duke, you know, when I first came out there, recorded, you know, for him. And I'm almost thinking about you.

Oh, yeah, I'm not trying to downplay art. Yeah. But it is. But it's interesting. Like, how did that filter to you? Because I'm thinking about somebody like Billy Charles or George, you can even like your vibe of talking about really being in touch with like the production and the sound. Because to me, that's like kind of arranging.

That's like what Billy Childs thinks about like arranging. And I've worked with him a lot and like done orchestrations with him and like played his stuff. And it's so much more potentially paying attention to the overall sound than just the piano. Of course he can play his ass off too, though. Yeah. I forgot the question because now I'm just thinking about Billy Childs. It was just, do you want to geek out on Billy Childs with it? That was the only question.

You know what? I have a really good Billy Child's story, actually. Oh, awesome. So he was at the Monk Institute of UCLA. I was undergrad. I wasn't in the Monk Institute. But I was an undergrad there at the time. And he was there for the week.

And I get a call from the director of the program said, do you want a lesson with Billy Childs? He's like giving like we're providing free lessons with Billy Childs. I was like, yes. Like when do I show up? So I, um, in preparation, I learned from my teacher Tamir Handelman that for piano lessons, you should come with, you got to come with something, even if it's the first lesson. And by the way, to people listening, come with something. Absolutely. For your first lesson was, even if you've never seen the person before, don't say, hello, how are you? And, you know, no, come with something. Come with questions. Come with, whatever and what I do sometimes is I'll transcribe something by the person and play it so I

transcribe his playing on a maiden voyage on the he did like a herbie tribute record that's incredible anyway so I transcribe the solo and I walk in he's like hey how you doing but and then I say I've got this transcription can I thought maybe I could play it and then maybe you can give you some pointers I said sure so I play the thing and and he he's like blown away by it He's like, he's like, he's like, whoa, that's crazy. Who was that? I was like that. That was you.

And he goes, he goes, man, that was some bad shit. He was like, that was dumb. Like, he was like, wow, dang. Like, he was like so, like, jacked on, on, he was like, who did you? Where did you get this? This is incredible. Right. So then we talked about it.

And then he gave me some of the coolest, the coolest, the coolest perspectives on like, how to play that where no no theory was discussed it was he said your homework is you need to you need to watch a movie

because I think you should start playing the piano like the movie the exorcist that's what he told me he said he said sometimes the scariest scene and the scary scenes

come when you don't expect it it's daytime and now it's all of a sudden it's freezing cold and the girls blowing the you know ice out of her mouth, you know, it's like you've got to be dramatic and, and, you know, super dynamic and surprising. And, you know, I just love that. Because I think, yeah, sometimes, you know, when you play,

you know, if you're just thinking about notes, you can totally forget about, like, dynamics and not just dynamics in terms of volume, but dynamics in terms of like dramatic dynamics, you know. Right. Right. So, yeah, that was something I never forgot. I never forgot that lesson. That was one of the coolest piano lessons ever. All right. Let's book Billy for how to play piano like the Exorcist course. That's right.

That's true. Think about that. See, that's why you guys got to take piano lessons for the people listening. Take piano lessons with new people. It's true. Whenever you can, because,

you know, that's a perspective. I could not have got, and I'm pretty sure no one else got from him. I'm sure he's got a million of these like random ideas that he's giving to people all the time. Yeah. If you don't show up in person,

you're not going to get some really cool stuff like that. It's great advice, though. It's something we've heard someone say that Wayne Shorter told them is to go watch five specific films and think about how those films affected you and what happened in the films and then take that to your music. Right, right. I think it's great advice because that is how our minds work

when we're creating art. Absolutely. Yeah, I love this idea of reaching out. I'm wondering for, I always wonder with young people, I mean, I see this with my kids as they were growing up, but it is a challenge when, like if there's a young, you know, pianist or keyboard player or beatmaker or whatever that likes, you know, here's your music or any of our stuff on Spotify or whatever.

Like when we were coming up, if we wanted to learn more about that, then we could hear on the record. Like you had to find that. Like when they came through town, you had to go up and physically approach them. And it's like now, and look, we're guilty of it here at Open Studio. We're putting all this content out there telling people how to do it. But for a lot of young people, they feel like I think, I can get everything by looking at your IG because you might demo something.

Or I can get everything from a YouTube to. But like how do you how do we get people to make to know that you got to make that human connection and to be able to get that that next level story from Billy Childs or whatever that you're still going to be talking about years later. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can, you know, you can listen to a YouTube video, but a YouTube video can't listen to you. Like, you know, you need people to listen to you. Like some of my best lessons were, you know, one time I took a lesson with Eric Reed and he honestly, writ me to shreds, dude. That's classic Eric Reed right there.

Yeah, and I needed that. I mean, it was like a really, really good thing looking back. You know, just like this is, you know, you're playing notes, but that's it. You know, that's not how this works. And, you know, if you only watch YouTube videos, you might learn a lot, you're going to learn a lot of notes. Right. But you've got to develop character and, you know, all these like more nuanced aspects of playing and like approach and touch and like, you know, more interesting things that some I think, yeah, you need somebody who knows how to do those things, listen to you and then let you know. when hey, you actually don't sound the way you think you do, you know, like, yeah, the notes are the easy part. Right, right. The notes are the easy bit. Right. Yeah, exactly. Because that's just buttons and math and stuff. But it's like, you know, then you get into like you were saying like expressing and then you get into like, oh my gosh, I have to like figure out how to really like be open and honest with what I'm trying to say here. That's the hard stuff. Yeah. Right. So, you know, on that note, you have this, know, this other, it seems like kind of a parallel interest or career in music curation through your Kiefer Diggs Jazz Spotify playlist. And I'd love to hear, that's actually how I

first, like, I had heard your music before, but before I, like, when I actually connected the dots and stuff was through that playlist. And for those that don't know, we'll have a link to it below. but to me, like, this is the the hippest playlist on Spotify and, you know, take that for what you will in terms of jazz. You know, we all kind of know that in terms of jazz, Spotify is a little bit

at a weird place because they have... You don't like the cafe jazz playlist. It's like, you know, it's like, cozy cafe. Yeah, exactly. It's not the, what's the one, jazz in the background? I know that one's huge. You know, but what everyone needs to be doing

to check out Kiefer Diggs jazz. And other ones like this, too. There's some other really good ones, some smaller ones. But yours is really one of the bigger ones of a curated thing for discovery. And look, I'm an old school jazz. I mean, I thought that I knew all that stuff. And as soon as I saw you had Cheryl by Phineas Newborn, I was like, okay, this dude knows what he's talking about.

But also there was some stuff on there that was kind of a discovery or rediscovery for me. And also, I'm actually playing on a little bit. But that's not the reason I dug it. I didn't even realize that till later. And that was kind of like, wait, there's a letdown on this one track when it got to the piano solo. But whatever. Other than that, you did good. That goes right to your heart.

Yeah, no, no, I don't want it to be like that, like the Billy Childs thing, see. Got to know your audience. Yeah, right. But I'm just wondering, like, first of all, kind of how did that come about? And I know it's a relatively recent thing. But, like, how do you see your role or do you see it as that as kind of a curator to who? Is this to young folks, to old folks, to jazz people, to non-jazz people, to your fans? Who was it for exactly?

Oh, man, that's a great question. Well, you know, I just love, I love jazz so much. I love black American music, jazz, whatever you want to call it. I use the terms interchangeably, which I know some people would disagree with that. But I love this music so much. I just love it, love it, love it so much. I mean, I was, you know, I was raised listening to it. And I think I do feel, I do feel disappointed when there's, you know, what I perceive to be a misunderstanding of what this music means and what like the historical hall.

mark, you know, examples of it are. And, you know, the way that people use the term jazz now to describe stuff, that is just not that, including my own music, you know. I don't consider what I do jazz. Obviously, jazz is extremely important to what I do, and it's a part of what I do, but it's not, that's not that's not that. You know what I'm saying? And so I think part of me feels a responsibility. If it were for the fact that Spotify literally added my song in the playlist, I wasn't going to put it in. I just want to make that clear. Because that's, yeah, it's something that matters to me. I want people to know that, you know, what we call

jazz, like, it drives me crazy that people would like jazz and not listen to Thelonis Monk. That's crazy. Right. That's crazy. Yeah. Like, it's like saying you like basketball and then your favorite players are like, you know, like D1 college players from like this year. And it's like, yeah, but you don't even know about Michael Jordan? Right. Like, what? Like, that's crazy.

It's kind of the problem with the label. What are we talking about? It's the problem with the label itself at this point. It's been around for so long and it means so many different things to so many different people, obviously. But of course, like, if you're not including Monk in that, if you're not including Coltrane and Miles and Charlie Parker, like, it's not, you know, we can't really agree on that. We can't agree on anything. Right, right. Yeah, it's just like, and it's just a huge, I mean, to say it's a missed opportunity for somebody to,

be interested in jazz and not understand that stuff is an understatement. I mean, you know, and so yeah, I do feel some responsibility that when someone wants me to make a playlist that's, you know, I looked at some of those other playlist. I'm not going to name any names, but there was none of this stuff in there. There was no, nothing was swinging in there. And I was like, how is that possible? Right. How are you making a jazz place? And there's no, what? Like, I was just like, that, that's crazy. So I also have this kind of, um, I'm not, you know, you can hear it to my voice. I'm like a little bit, I'm a little bit ticked off. And it is kind of a bit of a, like, I don't care if, I don't care if people, like,

tune into my playlist thinking it's going to be stuff like my music and then they're disappointed. Right. I don't care. This is what, you know, that's how I feel. This is what it is. And, yeah, I wanted to. Now, granted, the other thing to do is I'm aware that most people that are going to listen to this playlist probably haven't dug too deep, you know, if people are listening to it because

they like my stuff. And I really want to invite them in and give them some stuff that's important, historically, relevant, and also really enjoyable. So that's why I thought off with Drifton. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a good call. That to me is a song, I think, like, people that maybe they don't understand this music at all. But when they hear, like, you know, Freddie and Dexter Gordon and Billy Higgins at the very top of the song, it just sounds so warm and beautiful.

Right. And then I, you know, I put in, you know, this, I dig a view. That's, you know, that's, again, Monk's dream. I think any, like, people off the street can listen to Monk's dream and something about it. They just love it. Yeah. And then I would sneak in, you know, some stuff that's like a little hipper, right?

Like some Phineas Newborn Jr. Yeah, but you know someone's going to be into that. Someone who had never heard of Phineas Newborn Jr. is going to listen to your playlist and come away with that. And that's a win. That's a W. That's not a hard listen. Even though it's not maybe listened to a lot.

It's not a hard listen at all. Show killing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's interesting because you say that Spotify dropped your stuff in there because I was wanted to ask like, do you see a space where you can put more? I know you're saying that you don't consider your, you know, you don't want to be labeled or our label is jazz.

And we're very much against labels unless it can make a YouTube video pop off. And then we'll talk about labels for a long time, just for fun, you know. But I mean, this idea, to me, it wasn't a stretch when it moves to your music. In fact, the track that's on there right after the Finneas, I believe, what I was hearing was, who was not going to bring up? Oh, Joe Sample, I didn't hear you mention it all. I don't know if you listened to Joe much. But like that was the first thing on that track, once you're kind of, stretching out a little bit.

I was, I was like, oh, he must have checked out Joe or checked out the people that Joe checked out. Yeah, I've checked out some Joe sample. Not enough, but, I mean, Joe Sample's amazing. Well, maybe enough because you sound like him. So maybe you just check out enough. Thank you. I have, I have checked out a few of his things over the years.

Like, I have one of his record, it's Rainbow Seeker. And then I, then the Southern Comfort record from The Crusaders. It's like my favorite. Yeah. So, and obviously I covered one of those. songs for one of my records too. Yeah.

I appreciate that the conf there. I mean, that's like an all timer right there. Yeah. And I mean, he was to me, was, you know, sitting in a similar space that you may be or want to be in or, you know, a lot of times we don't realize we're at some play. I mean, people have told me before, oh, you sound like, you must have listened to a lot of such and such. And I'll be like, oh, thank you.

And I'm like, I didn't a lot. But what I realize is there are these connections that are made through other things we listen to or things that we don't remember. And I think Joe was somebody. I mean, I knew him personally. He was like the sweetest guy, the nicest. super helpful to me and a lot of young musicians, but he was like that,

like he had no problem sitting in that place of like groove and soloing and blues, of course, and R&B for sure. And even like, you know, like the whole last 20 years, like he was very associated with smooth jazz. But to me, like the best of, you know, we were talking about Grover Washington and all the hip is smooth jazz.

I think this is where when Nicholas Payton talks about black American music, this is where it really shines. Because the term jazz does not really mean all of that, But the term of black American music implies a similar set of cultural values, of how we make the music. You know, that matters too. And it's not just how it sounds, but like the lineage of how you think about it, where it comes from, where you're getting your influences from. And I think that can be very helpful of like, you know, there is a line between Monk and Joe Sample and Kiefer.

Like it's there. And it's not all jazz. Absolutely. One more question, Kiefer, before we go from TikTok. Someone wants to know, could you talk about your spectrronics, spectrasonics performance with Abraham Liboreal Sr.? Yeah. So Abraham Laboreal is a legendary bassist and just like an incredible human being. He's the most, from what I understand, the most recorded bassist of all time.

It's crazy. He was like Quincy Jones's first or second call for like 30, 40 years. It was nuts. And he's an incredible teacher as well. I lived very close to him for a couple years there about like, I was like maybe five minutes away. Is his son? Is his son Paul McCartney's drummer? Yes.

Yes. Yeah. So, yeah. So that's Abe LaBoreal Jr. and then Abraham Sr. is the one that that I play with. And yeah, an incredible teacher, unbelievable bassist.

Like, just, I mean, he also, like, created so many, like, styles of playing that people emulate now. He's, like, one of the most important bassist to ever live. And I was very fortunate to be in his band for about a year, and we became really good friends. And then on this video shoot, I hadn't seen him

for a couple of years because he was sick for a little while and then Eric who runs special sonics like surprised me and had him like show up to like play a session which is like really funny because it's like live and he started we started playing a tune I used to play in his band for like three years prior and you got to remember it yeah yeah yeah so I'm so that part of the the video I'm not proud of but I'm extremely proud of my connection with with Abe it's just like an honor of a lifetime to let's we'll link to that video too of Kiefer with Abraham Memorial Jr. Senior. Yeah. I think we've taken up way too much

for your time already. Kiefer, thank you so much. Oh, I can go all day. I'm so honored to be here. Let's go to hour two. Here we go. Yeah. No, it's so great, Kiefer. We really appreciate it and, you know, keep doing your thing. So if folks want to check you out, obviously on Spotify, the place, we'll link to that. And also, when are you back on tour? Because you're on a little bit of a break, but you got a bunch of dates. That reminded me back of the 90s. I was like, Man, he's doing like a 90s style tour. That seemed like a vintage tour. That looked like a vintage.

Yeah. When are you back out there? You're going over to, is Europe happened already or that's about to happen? That's happening in January. I believe January 24th is the first date. I want to say, could be in, sorry, I can't remember. But yeah, January through February, I'm doing Europe. And then I'm also doing some dates with Nate Smith.

In January, we're doing Durham and D.C. So look out for that. And then in March, we'll, doing two nights at the Blue Note. Amazing. Cool. And so where's the best place for folks to follow you? Is it IG or on your website?

Yeah, Instagram is, that's where I'm the loudest. I'm always talking to people on Instagram. So hit me up on Instagram. You can find my tour dates on my bio link there. Also my website, Kiefermucic.com. You know what I'm saying? That's how you do it. Yeah, that's right.

Well, that's great. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, man. Thanks. Until next time. You'll hear it. You'll hear it. Thank you so much, you guys.

I'm so honored. you guys reached out i'm a huge fan of the show oh man i just i just i it's one of the most validating things that to be here so thank you please come please come back anytime yeah come see absolutely yeah i'll bother you about it let's do it no do it do it and now that i hear how much that you're passionate about teaching too we might be hitting you up about doing for something for open studio hey if you'd be into that at some point yeah come on now very open to it okay very open to it thanks man sounds great have a good one man peace all right see you guys all right see you guys