You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - You'll Hear It Goes Underground

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

Adam and Peter talk to the hosts of "New Jazz Underground". An exciting new channel full of talented musicians and interesting interviews. Find their channel here!Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey Peter. Hey, what's up? We got some guests in the house today. What? I know. I'm looking around. I don't see anybody. Yeah, I know.

Like, they're not here. One of them's in Greece. I think they're deep, deep underground. Okay. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you'll listen to the You'll Hear at Podcast. Jazz, explained.

Man, that is so pretentious sounding. Why do you make me say that? You say it literally every time we record this podcast. And then you comment on it right afterwards. Let me paint a picture. Although we are on the YouTube, so this is going to be a little bit of a problem. I want to paint a picture. Okay.

Adam has a knife to my throat. Every time we start recording this and says, say this. It says say jazz explain. But I mean, you know, we're trying our best here to explain what we know, at least. That's right. But we have a little bit of backup today, deep from the underground. I know, man. I'm excited about this.

So we have some special guests on the podcast. Actually, they're with us on Zoom right now. What's up, gentlemen? And so, Peter, you hit me to this band just a couple of days ago. Yes. And I wonder if you want to just tell the story. Send up a little bit. Well, I'd love to introduce them.

First of all, this is New Jazz Underground, Sebastian, Abdias, and T.J. Say, what's up, everybody? What's happening? What's happening? And we're remote. Yeah, TJ is actually in Greece on tour right now for the Jazz and Lincoln Center. Abdias and Sebastian are coming from New York. We're here in St. Louis.

And I'm really excited to talk to these great young musicians that I just learned about, as well, a few days ago, via YouTube. We're always talking about, you know, social media and the spread of disinformation. This is the spread of some really great information. Sometimes the algorithm give it. This is the algorithm lining up. And I was so excited because I heard them on their YouTube channel. We're going to link to all this below.

But this one video in particular with the title is they can hate, but we still swing. I was like, hold up. I got to check this out. Because it was kind of cocky but kind of funny. But then as soon as I press play, it really was. really was swinging. These guys signed a great. They've got a great trio. So I just wanted to have them on to meet them, basically, from

my own selfish reason, and thank them for the music and just kind of find out a little bit about what they're doing and what they're all about. As soon as I heard this video, I thought of the last time that Hutch was in the house, Gregory Hutchinson was here at Open Studio and recording that duo video with Chris McBride. And something that stuck out was he said, you know, for young

musicians, it's really okay to swing. And these guys took that to heart because it is swinging. It's so nice to hear. So, Sebastian or whoever, if you want to kind of just kick it off, could you just tell us and the listeners and your fans, hopefully your new fans and your current fans and our fans

a little bit about the group and how it came about? Yeah, well, we all went to Juilliard. We're actually all from Florida. Me and Abdaster from Miami. Oh, nice. And DJs from Jacksonville. Right on. And we went to the same high school,

but at different times. I'm a little bit older than these two. But we went to Juilliard and, you know, Abdias got me on a gig or two. And then during the pandemic, we were down in Florida, me and him, and we were playing a lot,

and we wanted to start a trio, and we came up to the city, and we were thinking about different cats, and TJ just fell right in line. Like, during the pandemic, we played in the park all the time. Yeah, you know, seemed kind of like a marriage.

marriage made in heaven the type of situation you know this is a great feeling too when you find like other musicians that you feel like you have this shared somehow shared history with even when you first start together you know what I mean?

Yeah it just kind of felt right and we're like man we should we should actually do this like seriously yeah write stuff play together make it make it a commitment to

to play together so that's kind of how I started the YouTube thing The YouTube thing It was just so You know I guess it kind of started as a way for us to You know

Trying to be heard Trying to be heard But you know there's no gigs in the city at the time Yeah So Yeah we saw what Um Amit was doing

With his thing And we said We could do this We could do this And we took an iPhone And we had the very first video That we ever did Kind of go semi

Jazz viral I like to sit. Jazz viral. I love that. Wait, hold up. We're stealing that. We're stealing that. Tell me you got that recorded clip so we can add it to our.

It goes right along with jazz famous. Right. I'm not a fan of jazz. I'm going to add that jazz violin. You're going to go on in infamy with that one. But you know what I noticed about your videos, even your early ones? Well, they're all early. Whenever I talk with a young musician, it was like,

Like I remember doing this, I did years ago, I did this like clinic at Berkeley and I'm up there talking about all this piano stuff and just different things. And I remember when this drummer kind of like put his hand up, he's like, Mr. Martin, I have a question. You know, I know you play with Greg Hutchinson a lot, but could you talk about the difference between early Hutch, mid-Hutch, and late Hutch, you know? And I'm like, me and Hutch came up together. I was like, wow, I didn't know there was distinct periods of Hutch. I thought there was just Hutch, you know. But it's exciting to see you guys. definitely in your early period, but even your early videos,

you know, not only is the playing killing, the sound is really good, and the video is tight, and I mean, I can tell you guys aren't, you know, necessarily sitting on, you know, a huge amount of equipment, but I would love to hear because a lot of people think they have to get to some level or have a certain amount of money or have a certain amount of equipment to do something. I think you guys are a great example of just letting the music shine, but still presenting it in a quality way. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we, that first video, because we have one OLEO and that kind of boosted our channel up and got us off the ground. Now it was just a Zoom recorder and an iPhone video like straight up. And you know, I have a background and, you know, mild background in production, you know, producing, you know, like house music and stuff like that. And, you know, just, you know, mild EQ, like little master, little compression here and there. and that's it really. And recently with these last ones,

like we bought a little bit of equipment, but just simple, you know, like, you know, USB, you know, just inputs for our microphones. We just have one mic each. We added a mic for the bass drum recently. That's like that big upgrade for us. But, yeah, that's basically been an iPhone. It's not funny.

When people ask us about, like, at Open Studio, you have all this, everything looks and sounds amazing. or whatever, but, you know, literally it started with Peter and his, you know, like, Zoom recorder. No, Flip cam, you know what I mean? And I know we've talked to Emmett and it's the same thing there. It's just like, just do it. Just go. Do it with what you have.

You can just build up around it. Like, don't wait for the perfect piece of gear to start reaching out to the audience, right? Like in this, in this time where it's like live music is, it's not a guarantee like it has been in the past. past, you know, especially the sort of the quantity of it, right? Finding these avenues to reach new audiences, you can't just can't be shy and you can't wait for the perfect opportunity. You just got to get your face out there, get your music out there. Yeah.

And then, and then upgrade from there, you know, upgrade piece by piece, one mic at a time, one camera at a time. This is awesome to hear the same philosophy. It's like makers. I think it's also like having, you know, artists always want the art to be perfect and the music to be perfect. especially in our early time, you know, and like last year, you know, we are doing lives every week and we're just like, just put everything out, just put everything out, you know, regardless of how we think it sounds.

Because to the average listener who is listening for enjoyment, they're not nitpicking like we are as musicians constantly, you know, we're constantly self-criticizing and like, you know, self-conscious about the music. And I think just us letting go of that and just going for it, it's just a natural part. And now that we're more comfortable as a band, naturally things that sound better, you know, and we don't have to do as much, you know, rehearsing or anything for things to sound good. You know, these last videos that we've done, it's just, you know, we just take an hour and do it. Right.

Check it out. Well, before we get too deep into it, just, yeah, everybody go and check out their channel. New Jazz Underground is the name of the YouTube channel. You can see all their videos there. Make sure to subscribe to them and check them out because it really is. really, really great music and well presented, too. Yeah, I was wondering two things, too, like, have you guys, like, how much during, like when you guys were doing the gigs outdoors during the pandemic and just really kind of

started to build up your sound, how much did that experience sort of shape where you guys were going to go? Like, did you, did somebody have, like, an idea about sort of the, because I think you guys really have, from the first time I heard you, even though it was on YouTube and not live, I could hear a band sound. And I love here. That's what really excited. about it. But was that something that just sort of evolved or was it from playing together a lot?

Or was that a planned out thing? I like to think it came from a little bit of everything. So like we'd hang, you know, often. And we known each other for like four or five years. So then, you know, we have like a friendship and a camaraderie. And then we're hanging around each other a lot. And then when we get to play in music, it's like all that just helps because we're so much. friends outside of the bandstand so that, you know, when you get on the bandstand, it's rare that you play with, you know, like, friends. Most of the times you're just playing with other great musicians, you know, you can make,

you know, great music that way. But it's like, but it's like it's something else when you, like, real friends with the people outside of just the music. And so I think that definitely helped and evolving it from what we first started, you know. Yeah. Yeah. We just put in so many hours. Like, we would busk every week.

And not only with each other, but also with, you know, our extended friend group, you know, different drummer, different trumpet player or something. You know, like we play with our, me and TJ play with our friend Noah all the time. Noah Halper, shout out. You know, we played with our friend Damo, you know, Anthony Hervey. Like, we just have an extended community. And I think just us three, we have a proclivity to, like, interests in similar styles of jazz. and similar bands, you know, I think we're just interested in a lot of the same music.

Yeah, and all of that kind of came together. So when we played, it kind of was just like, you know, it was just, you know, I mean, even though we did take time to cultivate something, it was always a sort of click there that we all felt, you know. That's great. Can each of you just, I mean, I can hear a lot of your influences, and I'm always interested in that. I wonder if we could just play a little bit.

of their music, if you all wouldn't mind, just playing a little bit of that Delphia's dilemma. Just a couple of seconds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we do that from one of these? You got it, Adam? Yeah. Yeah, no, I can hear you all.

This is so fun for me, too, because I remember messing with this record and this tune right when it came out in 1985. Like, I heard this band, Kenny Kirkland, went Marsalis, Brian from Marcellus. This is Black Coz, right? Black Coes from the underground.

Kenny Kirkland on that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Kenny Kirkland and Taine on that record. together. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible.

But man, I think that you guys really hit the spirit. I love the way. I've heard other people try to play this tune in some of the repertoire. And I mean, I've talked with Winton over the years about these compositions, which I hold in such high esteem. And surprisingly, he's kind of like, oh, no, that was just, I didn't really know what I was doing. I was like, what? I was like, that. He's still like that.

Oh, is it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I hadn't talked with it recently about. But, I mean, the thing is, I love, this stuff is timeless. And I knew that. I mean, at that time. I was excited about it and I love Candy Kirkland.

I mean, I was just like Kenny Kirkland. Fien, but I think that you guys really connected with the spirit of the music and I like the liberties you take with it. You're not trying to imitate that time and the sound, but you're pulling that music, which I always feel like has the potential to be timeless and these new kind of standards and stuff. I mean, I'd rather hear Young Cats playing this than embraceable you again. You know, what's funny is, as they were just talking about, Sebastian was just talking about, like, we're just putting stuff up and not being so judgey about the results and just, letting it happen or whatever.

Yeah. This thing you just said about, wind, it just goes to show, we can't really tell what we're doing, like how it's going to be received. For him, he was like,

yeah, I didn't, whatever, I didn't really know what I was doing. I don't really like that. But how many young musicians have we talked to who, this is their, this is their record,

especially with Gwinton's like, but of that era specifically, you know, this is the one. And you can't really tell, you know, you can't really judge your own, your own work like that.

It's going to be judged independently of you. Absolutely. So I wanted to ask you guys, too about, now I know you've worked with Eric Lewis, me and Eric go back. I love Eric, Elu, and how did that come about? What sort of stuff have you done with him and are you going to be doing some more things and what kind of came out of that? Say Elu. Yeah. His friends call him Elu. The master. Well, we're all fans of him. We love him. Like, we love him. We were listening

in his record all the time. And they haven't played with him, but I have. But, you know, I've always been a big fan and um you know when i moved to the city he was a big part of the scene he had a he had a jam session at zinc bar and you could always see him at the jam sessions when there were jam sessions at dizzies at smalls and he would just take it over yeah absolutely and uh you know he would hear me every once a while and be like yeah man sound good and over the pandemic you know i just showed him a lot of love like just authentic like authentically just being his fan um and trying to ask him questions questions and stuff and I would be on the phone with him asking him about you know um milt hinton and you know talk about elvin jones how he was in the circus and all this stuff and um he just gave

me a call out of the blue you know um Deseron douglas couldn't do a gig um and he just asked me to do a few dates and i've been working with him you know on and off ever since every time he comes to the city um usually playing with him and i mean he is just force of nature force of nature yeah yeah I mean I don't know

what can you even say about him he's a very interesting cat because he came out of the tradition of you know Winston you know that bands but he took it

he went in a whole other direction you know he was kind of rejected by the jazz world and he'll tell you that right in terms of you know record deals and all that type of thing but he really went and created his own path in his own lane. You know, now he's out at Burning Man with Diplo and stuff.

I was going to say, you might be like the, he, or Eric is like the missing link between Wintmarsallis and Burning Man. He's like one degree of separation. Oh my gosh. I want to go up to see Winton at Burning Man. That'd be amazing. Only, only Elu could bring him there. Yeah.

No, that's it. And that's, that's, you're hitting it right on in the head about. Eric, because I was kind of around. We did some gigs before and after each other, and that's kind of mainly how I've known him over the years. But he's very much out of the tradition, but I love how he's always been one of the, one of the musicians that's been open.

Like from within the tradition, some people would say like the more conservative end of the jazz world that was always open to trying different things. And I was wondering if maybe you guys connect a little bit on that too, because it seems, I mean, coming out of Juilliard and New York and that, you know, with that whole thing. you guys are willing to try some different things. It's like a psychopedic, you know, anything about the music that you want to know,

he knows. Yeah. You know, anything about history, anything. Like, he is just a total encyclopedic genius. You know what I mean? And talking to him, you know, I mean, it's like playing with him. It's like, it's just. There's going to be a lot coming at you.

Yeah. And he presents it in such a, like, mystical, masterful. crazy way you know he's just otherworldly I don't you know

total master right you know just so articulate and so you know I don't know man

just aggressive he's got the fire yeah absolutely cool well one more thing I'd love to just touch on then I don't know

if you have anything Adam but um is about about the channel like what's the future for the YouTube channel but also

before we can get to that I love the way you guys title your records. I love that you're not treating this music too preciously with the way that you're starting to sculpt the channel. But you do treat the music with authority, which is great. You know, and you present it. But I love that, like, I love your thumbnails. And look, most jazz musicians aren't even thinking about this kind of stuff enough.

But I mean, I think that because what you guys have, what we have in the jazz world in general, there's so much substance there. And YouTube is such a great. platform. I mean, I don't know that TikTok is so short that we're ever going to really be able to put our, you know, like something that you guys do, you could do a little clip. That's fine, but there's nothing like a nice eight minute YouTube video with you guys or whatever. But what's your kind of concept behind the titles, the thumbnails, and the direction that you want to

take the channel next? Um, I thought, I like that. I like that what we're doing now. The vibe is that we're, you know, being authentic, being ourselves, you know, and I've, and, and, um, we believe in the content that we're putting out. So I, I think. think that goes a long way and I think I think those who are encountering our videos are seeing seeing that you know in terms of the comments that they're leaving and and you know the amount of viewership that we've had till now so I guess it's just you know on our part a commitment to be consistent yeah and you know because all of us are on the scene and you know I mean you know T-J's in Greece and yeah we all play we all working yeah

It's just the balance of that and to make playing with each other and putting out contact a priority, I think probably has been our biggest challenge. Yes. Because we want to, but, you know, it's just, you know. Half the time this cast out with Jazz Lincoln Center. Right. You know. So it's been a, you know, a battle of that. So I think going forward is just being consistent.

And, you know, I think the views will come. Wow. Yeah. And it's so interesting, you know, what happened over the last, it's been like three weeks since we put out that video that found you guys. And that was the first video that we really titled it in that type of way. And, you know, even, even it was like kind of contentious amongst us, even that we would do it that way. You know, because it had been working a certain way for us just titling it, you know, OLEO or whatever. Yeah.

But, you know, I just looked out how YouTube was working, you know. I mean, you look at people like Mr. Beast or, you know, all the top YouTubers. They just have a way of grabbing attention. And when you see it, you have to click on it. You know what I mean? And when you get into the algorithm, it's free marketing. You know what I mean? You do not have to pay for those impressions.

You don't know how to pay for, you know, those people listening to your music. And that's the new paradigm of music. You see it in, you know, for example like nittle na's ex like his marketing is memes you know he does it all through memes you know and

I don't think that should make his way into the music per se but in the way that you present it to people it has to be something that somebody that doesn't know about jazz can click on and and they can you know be interested in it you know we have so many comments

that are like I don't really listen to jazz but this is this is cool the thumbnail made me click on it you know And also shout out my girlfriend, Rina, Rina Wu, makes all the thumbnails. It's an important gig. And you all are proven, too, like, you can, you know, have the algorithm in your favor, but that doesn't mean you can, you have to water down your content. That doesn't mean that you don't have to have substance with what you're actually putting out there.

People will know when you're faking that funk, you know, like when they get in there, you have to keep them with something that's real. And I think you're proving that, you know, you can be creative with how you present these. things, but then you have to show up with the real thing. So congratulations. People are smart. People know when things are good. You know what I mean?

Even if they don't understand what's happening musically, they can still enjoy it. Like, from just, you know, I remember when I was like a little 13-year-old kid listening kind of blue. I had no idea what's going on, you know, with the form harmonically. None of that. But I could just enjoy the music, you know, for the vibe of it. You know, people are smarter than I think jazz musicians get them credit for, like general audiences.

You know? Well, I would say yes, but also, see, you guys are, you guys are early in your YouTube journey because it's going to be, people are smart. And then you're going to be like, oh, my God, people are idiots. Once you start getting all that, they're going to. So be ready to pivot on that point. There is there. There is the, the smart people aren't commenting.

Exactly. But you know what I think? What is this one? This one has 220,000. Yeah. So you already have. It's the post 100,000 view is when the haters start coming out, too, with everything. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. beyond. We've seen it. The title was anticipation for that. Right. No, but I think that what you guys are hitting on and like, you know, we, we don't necessarily

plan this, but we're starting to see it too, is that the YouTube algorithm and all that is actually really well suited for the type of, for jazz music or improvisational music because if you do kind of trick someone to come in into seeing and then you're playing something that may be great, but that they don't like, YouTube has already had, they figured that out before you even know that. So like the people that they put different things in front of are people that are not a lot of people that aren't going to want to hear this anyway probably are never even going to see your thumbnail, which is fine. But like there's more people than you would think. And then I'm really excited what you're saying about folks comment and saying like I don't

even normally listen to jazz, but I like this. Because if somebody clicks on it because they think the thumbnail's cool and then they listen for 30 seconds, if they don't like it, they're just going to click off. And they're definitely not going to comment or anything. They're just going to be gone. But I mean, connecting with these kind of people like, And I think that young jazz players, not just young, all of us need to really see this as the opportunity. Because we used to always sit around when we were young and be like, well, man, we don't have any big audiences because people just don't know how kill. I mean, I remember when I was up in New York for, you know, at Juilliard and coming out, we'd all be like, man, people just don't know. And it's like, but now we don't have that excuse.

It's like, well, let them know. Let them decide. And as you guys seem to be really astute about them when you do, our little audiences out there. I mean, 220,000 people, there's another 220,000 people out there. that'll grow. It might not be the next video. It might be three down the road. But those people are out there.

You'll see them on these videos. So I commend you guys and welcome you to the fold. And I'm super excited to follow the journey and see what you guys have next. Yeah, New Jazz Underground, Epdias, Sebastian, TJ. Thank you all so much for joining us. TJ, have a great rescue tour, man. Yeah, safe travels. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great, Greece and back to the city. And you guys, come on. Whenever you got something, please let us know. We're here.

Oh, thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks for having us all. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you all. Thank you guys.

Until next time, you'll hear it. Yes. They're like, cool. We got a thing. Oh, this is awkward. We just like to hand. Hey, Peter. Hey.

Hey, yeah. That was great, man. Those were some. No, those guys are. Yeah, that was fun to talk about. I knew it was going to be good. Yeah. And if it wasn't, we just weren't going to, you know.

Put this out. Put this out. Well, now we got a false ending. Which is maybe the first time that's ever happened. That's right. Yeah. So for those of you who don't know who are still listening. First of all, congrats.

Why are you going to a hot voice? Well, because they got a secret part of the episode. This is the secret part. But, yeah, so they were on Zoom and then they just cut out. And then Peter was like, are they out? And that's where we are here. Until next time. You'll hear it.

Oh, we got to do this again, though? Is this like the dopio? Dopio. I'm not a fan. I don't think anyone really likes it. It's a role we all play. We all.