You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Wynton Kelly - Freddie Freeloader (Solo Breakdown WED) - #8

Episode Date: September 5, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam do their weekly breakdown of a classic solo. Today's selection: Wynton Kelly's super-swinging solo on Freddie Freeloader. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Brought to you by Open Studio. Now, Pete, this isn't our typical intro music. Something sounds different. Something sounds a little different.

What's going on? Sounds very good. Well, it's Wednesday. So it's solo analysis. Social analysis. Hashtag soul analysis. This track seems familiar to me. It's vaguely familiar.

This is, of course, Freddie Freeloader. We will be expecting the attorneys from the Miles Davis estate and the Bill Evans estate to be at our door by the end of the day. We're only going to play 15 seconds. Oh, that's good. We're sampling. This is a sampling. It's not a play.

No, this is, of course, just the iconic track. You know it. You love it, as Christian McBride likes to say. Freddie Freeloader from Kind of Blue. And one of the most beloved blues or otherwise tracks ever. And we're going to analyze the first solo. I mean, we could come back to this one. We'll do it further Wednesdays.

I mean, you could do it every solo on this track. Yeah, I mean, everyone's comes strong. But we're going to hit Witt and Kelly because we're pianist and it's first. Let's have a listen. Okay. Okay, stop right there. Sorry. We're going to be doing a lot of stop it.

I know the solo well. Okay. What Jimmy Cobb does there, it was like, I mean, stop. That high hat stick on the high, what do you call that? It's like the hiats going in while you're hitting it, whatever that is. Yeah, yeah. Man, it's the technique of that, but the timing of it, what he did to set off the soul. Like, I mean, it's like he gave him, it's like he came in a studio and was like, here,

Winton Kelly, here's half a million dollars I'd like to give you. Yeah, no, it's hard not to swing and come out of the gate. Oh, man. You know. I mean, it's almost like if you listen to what he played later and then came back and said, I'm going to program in the perfect thing at the perfect time. That's what you would do. But to be able to do that at the beginning.

And I mean, what a lesson out there for you drummers is like, I mean, big fills and everything, that's fine. But that one place, and you're like, and he's coming up. out of what the vibe of the tune is at that point. And he doesn't know, like, we know what Whitney Kelly's going to play because we've listened to it a thousand times now. But he didn't know. So, like, he, that's truly a setup, like in a big band, but he's doing it for the vibe of the tune. Hey, by the way, go see Jimmy Cobb.

Exactly. Jimmy Cobb's still out there playing. I saw him this year. Yeah. And he sounds great. He sounds incredible. I saw him two nights in a row, two sets a night, strong, both nights. Awesome.

Over 90, right? Yeah, go see Jimmy Cobb. He's the man. He's the man for sure. He's actually the only one. That's true The only one from this album is still a lot Yeah yeah

Here we go Okay I'm gonna stop there Yeah yeah That first Four bars That's all one phrase That's this call and response phrase Brilliant way to start

I mean the architecture of this solo Is darn near perfect If not perfect You know And it But it feels so spontaneous But I really think that high hat

I don't think I don't think Winton Kelly Would have played what he did He would have played something good Yeah But, like, that really set him, B'a-ch-ch-h-de-do-b-b-b-d-d-d-d-d-a.

I mean, they were swinging so hard anyway. You know, we talked about in our things we went from a drummer episode that marking the form, how important that is the setups of marking four for drummers and how it can really help the rest of the band play the tune. Like, the tune just plays itself. Yeah. And when I agree with you, you hear someone do that at the right time.

Yeah. And, look, don't, now drummers don't run out there and try to do it exactly what he did. No, it's all about what's happening. Yeah. Because it's just, it's reacting to the moment, kind of thinking about what's going to happen, knowing the players, knowing the vibe. Yeah. I mean, but look, the horns are just like really setting the tone too. I don't want to say it's just Jimmy.

I mean, the whole thing and PC is just swinging. They're all right. Let's keep going. And I would just say, you know, like for pianists out there, check out if you transcribe this solo. And I think we have, I think I did a transcription on this a while ago, and maybe on YouTube. but it's really important, like this is a great simple solo that's learnable by any functioning jazz pianists.

But what you want to get is the detail. So check out when he plays octaves versus single notes. Because he varies it in a way that there's a lot of inner logic there. And I don't have time in this to go totally into it, but I would just say really check that do, like how he goes in and out of that and how that affects the phrasing.

Because it's such a great, you know, thing that we have in our arsenal as pianists. Yeah, I agree. Here's that part again. That's the first place he goes into office. And then he comes out of it. There he is.

Dynamics. Hello. Pianist. Can we get a little dynamics in the house? First use of the 16th notes, I think. Back to the swinging eight. A little double stop action. Hey, plus that with what?

Oh, Jimmy Cobb. God bless Jimmy Cobb. I mean, just like, and then Winton Kelly, he's not like it's my soul, he just falls right into it. He's like, thank you. Thank you, Jimmy. Oh, structure. A little block chord action right at the right time. Triplice.

16. Sharp 11. Blues. And then bring it back. He knows the soul's coming to a close. And I think what happened there was Miles was like going up towards the, because like, Winton, Kelly could have kept going. Yeah, yeah.

You know, with Miles, this is always a thing with him like when he was going to come in. But there was a moment that you can hear that Winton Kelly kind of starts to break things down. Yeah. You know, structure, architecture of the soul, like always know having an innate feel for that because he knows Miles is going to come in abruptly, which is such a great thing. And so he structures that last four bars of his solo in a way that he's almost imagining how it's going to be, I don't even want to say cut off in a negative way because it works really. really well the way they actually did this.

And you saw Miles do this, you know, through similar repertoire through several different bands and rhythm sections. You know what's always caught my ear with this solo amongst so many great things about it, but this was critical for me at a point in my development for phrasing because I was at a point where, you know, when you're learning like what scales, arpeggios go over what chord,

I think some people become reactionary. And so like you wait for the chord change and then you play, you know, So I had some bebop Language, but everything was starting on like the end of one or two. And when I remember very distinctly learning the solo and being like, he is aiming every phrase starting at one of a four bar phrase. You know what I mean?

Like it's so, you know, like everything starts, whatever the phrase is in the solo, they usually all start on the one of a four bar section. Right, right. And I remember being just, you know, like, oh. And when you start doing that, everything locks in becomes stronger. Yeah. People start clapping. Yeah.

Yeah. It starts making sense. It starts making sense. It's like you're building, you know, it's like an architect building a house or a commercial building. Right. And, you know, you can, yeah, you can hide the door. But if it's a place you want people to come in and they're like, where's the door? Is that a window?

Yeah. But then you can also just make it beautiful, make it right there. Yeah. And give them that. entree point into the solo. I think Winton Kelly did such a good job. I mean, there's so much symmetry there, but his, the phrasing and articulation of his swing and the way that he plays at this tempo is so strong that I think it enables him to play in this very simple way in terms of where he's starting the phrases and how he's laying it out. And then the few times when he varies

from that, he can use that as a structural element so easily. Yeah, he doesn't do it every single time, but you can hear if we'll listen to it from it. Yeah, it's leading there. Well, leading in phrases. Yep. Everything points towards the... Ooh, there. He just kind of lets it lay a little bit.

Just another four bars. Boom. Everything is... Yep. The four bars? Yep. There's a big swing going on. Like, every four weeks.

Boom. A lot of swing going on. Layback. A little layback action. In the cut. Man, Jimmy Cobb again. I don't know. Every set up for Jimmy.

Yeah. Yeah, he did the exact right thing for Miles. I know. I know. It's a good way to keep a gig, I guess. Play the right stuff. That's right. Well, that's a masterpiece.

And, you know, for pianists, I would say a masterpiece in a minute and 15 seconds. Yeah. It's just, like, he says everything, perfect length, perfect. But, I mean, Winn Kelly was kind of known for this. This was not like, this may be his greatest solo. but he was very, very good about the length of his solos, the architecture, the structure, certainly the swing, the phrasing. That was something that was really in his wheelhouse.

But I would just say for pianists, definitely this is a learnable solo, but don't just feel like you got the notes, get the articulation, all the stuff we've talked about in the transcription episodes. Yeah, yeah, you know, to reiterate that stuff that we talked about, you know, get your set up going at your piano or your keyboard to where you actually have physical speakers and you can turn it up and you can feel like you're inside the space with that. the musicians play along with a nice place to be really try to mimic not just the notes but the way he phrases the way he feels that's going to be as big of a learning experience as like learning what

notes he's playing and i think this is a great solo i recommend all the time for horn players totally um for bass players totally christian mcbride was in here playing him remember yeah yeah christian mcbride was playing more horn solos and piano solos than he was bass solos It's ridiculous. Yeah. But yeah, this is a great way. You know, the phrasing is in some ways very specific to piano in terms of how we, you know, technically articulate the notes. Yeah, there's those octaves and double stops that are just kind of like licky things that we can do.

Yeah. But in terms of like the accents, the length of notes, all that stuff is the same kind of things as pianists that we get from learning a trumpet solo or a saxophone soul. It's great. And it's a great way to kind of diversify your playing and your phrasing. Man, I love the Wednesday breakdowns. These are great. Man, we're analyze. Yeah.

Solo analysis, solo breakdown. man, I'm all about Wednesday. I'm going to miss you until next Wednesday. You'll hear it until then. That's right. So, yeah. Yeah, you'll hear it.com for any questions or comments. You can buy a you'll hear it t-shirt there if you like what you see.

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