Old School or New School?

Peter, all of your ‘shorts’ that I’ve seen are great! Don’t worry so much bro. Just keep eating well and pumping out the good music. I love it. 🤙🏻

As a guy who comes from a time where you had to use a pencil to fix your loose cassette tape, I gotta say it amazes me how advanced the technology is now; if I hear a tune I like, I can google the original source material, see the original movie clip it came from or whatever, then listen to several different piano artists interpretation, all without even getting off the couch/commode ! And all for free !!

One of the overlooked downside of how accessible records are now is that it takes out a lot the excitement. If you see or hear about something cool it's like "oh I'll get around to it". Or if you're hanging out with a friend, it's not like "whoa, you have that record!? where did you get that?"

This episode sparked a universe of thought and reflection in me. It reminded me that some of my best, or maybe, favorite piano lessons with two particular legends, were the one’s where we’d start a philosophical conversation about music/jazz/piano and life but we wouldn’t get to playing the piano and didn’t realize that an hour or two had gone by, but that conversation was just as important as reviewing what had been practiced all week. When the teacher connected the music to the mundanities of life or the mundanities of life to music. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Adam. 🌎✨💖🎹

When listening to it, I once again realized that the prevailing model of learning in the past (and it is still fully supported by many jazz teachers) was to learn from others, especially in a group. As I said, even now some jazz teachers focus or practice with sound tracks or better yet playing in a group. What about jazz piano solo playing? Those with classical music training background usually want to play solo (perhaps I am generalizing too much). I believe that learning jazz would have been impossible for me in the past (I am generally not a “team player” at all and like learning on my own or with the teacher who understands this). Michael

In the 1970s, I bought a few paperback jazz history books, and then went to the record stores in Boston and Cambridge MA and stared at album covers and brought home whatever grabbed my fancy. That's how I found Sonny Rollins and Clifford Brown and Eric Dolphy. And there was jazz on the radio on two public radio stations every night. Each trip to the record store was a day's outing, and I wore down those albums listening to them. But there were no jazz lessons available - where would you get them?

Lovely inspiring debate. In fact, I too felt a pronounced shift of jazzer's attention towards the past 'round about 1990 when I tried to develop my own musical aspiration much more looking forward. That suddenly felt like trying to swim upstream artistically. Combined with the bleak prospects of earning a living with music I decided to switch my career path entirely. Still practicing though, and still fond of Weather Report, Bill Frisell, Paul Motian, John Taylor and Marc Johnson's Bass Desires.

Fellas - consider playing tunes in the middle of the show, as you go a là Marian McPartland and Piano Jazz. Or… having guests and taking turns. Yall are great. Loving the longer form. 😊

Peter makes an interesting point with the shorts. It's kind of like the Matteo Mancuso or Guthrie Govan effect for electric guitarists where the player is so advanced in both musicality and technique that the viewer isn't sure whether to feel inspired or discouraged. It could go either way depending on the emotional state of the person watching so it makes sense to just focus on the original intent of making good content. Plus, sometimes you've gotta show the people what you're capable of ; )

Great show today. I'm "no" school. My playing is...ahem...not so good. The best compliment I've received is "your playing a greasy"....LOL. You cats keep me playing.

I remember having to take the bus to the city to go searching for vinyl records. Then having to learn the music, listening, writing it down, and learn to play. Learning anything on a deep level takes time, and im glad that I had the time when I first started learning. In a way I can appreciate the faster tempo on the internet, because of a deep knowledge of the fundamentals. If I had to learn everything direct from the internet in the fast moving world of today Im not sure I would get the same results. Im still studying music (and lots of other stuff;o) But sometimes I learn more from listening to a chat like this. When you can get everything, you sometimes get nothing, and the other way around;o) Thanks Peter and Adam for all the shorts and the longs. I appreciate all of it.

On the topic of someone "feeling discouraged when listening to someone play great things". Think of the countless times you felt inspired by someone and didn't/couldn't leave a positive feedback. As a matter of fact, no feedback was needed, the inspiration already found it's right path and now you carry it.

I'm an older bassist and Jazz music is my main thing, but I love listening to, and learning how to play, most genres. I primarily use YouTube to check out music, and love it. I think it's way better now than when I was growing up and learning how to play in the late 70s/early 80s. One thing I do is make note of things I want to dig into a little deeper while I going down rabbit holes. That way I have something to come back to if I lose focus. Also, I kind of miss physically hanging out with like minded friends, listening to new music while hanging out. Cheers!

I noticed that Emmet has centered not only older piano styles, but older styles in the rhythm section and horn soloists as well. They still feel modern, because you can tell the musicians are well versed in more modern styles as well, again not only Emmet, who can get quartal sideslipping-y at a moments notice, but also the drummers start pushing the Elvin/Jack DeJohnette muscle when the setting calls for it. It seems like people who came up through Mingus or Mingus adjacent had that same ability to channel older styles while keeping them contemporary, Roland Hanna, Jaki Byard, even Don Pullen. Then there was the whole Marcus Roberts/Wynton thing, which frankly didn't seem to balance the deep dive with the newer things so well. You could argue this goes all the way back to Monk who developed a whole language that somehow deeply combined completely modern and pre-jazz church music. Then there were those folks with roots from non-NYC jazz world, like Hilton Ruiz and the New Orleans players like Ellis Marsalis, Peter Martin, John Baptiste, who took different traditions and blended the old with the new. But it does seem to be a moment when younger players are feeling pre-bop styles, maybe because of Emmet's influence and popularity. I had a chance to play for Emmet at one of OS master classes, and found myself doing more-stride inflluenced stuff, just because I was playing for him.

Excellent episode here, fellas! 👏🏼👏🏼 And the trading at the end was just chef’s kiss

A really insightful conversation about musical learning & practice which, just about when it needed to, yields the mic to some really wonderful music making, that maybe says something that lies beyond the power of mere words to convey. It's a collective endeavor, this music at least, and whatever the changing media circumstances, the people making it have to find a way to make it together--like at old school gigs, like at Small's, like at Emmet's place, and like here. That's the constant.

This was very interesting. You guys are much younger than I am. We learned from each other when we hung out listening as a group when one of us got a record or digging Symphony Sid or Mort Fega on the radio. (NYC in the 1950's). We didn't have a choice of what to listen to. We had to accept what was being played over the radio. I learned most of the beginnings of my instrument by transcribing from an LP. You know, by picking up the needle and trying to place it where you were interested in learning. A long process indeed. Very different nowadays with the advent of things like Youtube and others. I really enjoyed this discussion.

Ha! I got zeroed in on that exact thing last night listening to one of your older episodes, the constant change in relation to the mic, thought it was a blast from the past, but obviously I was wrong. Want a pro tip from an amateur singer? Use headphones when you're recording, and you'll personally hear the difference when you're changing position/proximity effect; that'll make it easier to be more conscious of how you sound to the listener. Anyways, content is 10/10! Love you guys, love this podcast and love your YouTube channel!

Interesting candid discussion, resonates in many ways. The honesty is appreciated by most I would think. There’s always an element of discouragement watching people who are more talented than yourself but that’s just part of the equation and all you can do is try to improve at your own level. I Always learn something about music watching your videos and I could throw a dart out the window and hit someone that plays bass better than me, but they didn’t write the bass lines or the songs that I have! 😀🎶 There’s a balance there somewhere. Love your approach.

Too cool for school!