Yo, what's up Adam? 2
Yo, what's up Peter? Man, it's finally fall, 3
Dude. It's about time. Yeah. 4
I'm so over summertime at this point. 5
It's been hot and humid. I'm done with that. 6
I don't wanna think about summertime. Yeah, I gotcha. 7
I don't wanna play anything about 8
summertime. I'm just - What do you love 9
About fall so much though? Oh, 10
I mean, what's not to love? I love the falling leaves. 11
I love a nice sweater. I love sipping on a delicious PSL. 12
Well, what the f**k is that? 13
A pumpkin spice latte. Oh. Ooh. 14
Yeah. I don't like that. Oh, but Peter, yeah. 15
Speaking about seasons, I've been thinking, 16
what if we played our favorite song for each season? 17
I like it. But can we do it kind of fast uptempo? 18
'cause we got a podcast to get to. Yeah, I got you. Okay. 19
Ah, that's fall falling autumn leaves. 20
Now we're in winter now. 21
Spring. Wow. Calendar is really moving. 22
All right. Hold up. We're back to somewhere already. 23
We gotta slow it down. Come on, man. It's summertime. 24
The living is easy. 25
Just when I thought I was out, pulls me back in. 26
I am 27
Anna Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. 28
And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Music. 29
Explored. Explored, brought to you today by Open Studio. 30
Go to openstudiojazz.com 31
for all, you jazz lesson needs. 32
Yes, sir. I went for it. Peter, you you went 33
for it. You and you 34
landed it. 35
Sometimes I go big, sometimes I go small. I went big. 36
You went big. Yeah. It's all good, man. How you doing? 37
I'm doing pretty good. How about you? 38
Good, good, good man. 39
We've been, this has been a really fun, uh, season. We're 40
on a bit of a run. We're 41
on a bit of a run. Don't jinx it, buddy. 42
This will not be the end of the run. 43
Hopefully this is the beginning of a new even better 44
run. Yeah. I mean, it's, 45
it's like I'm, it's such a beautiful, 46
uh, reminder to me. Newsflash, 47
there's a lot of great music in the world. 48
This much we know. But I mean, to be able to have, like, 49
it's such an honor and a pleasure to be able 50
to consume something like we're doing this week. 51
Something like we've been doing every week. Yeah. 52
We've been hitting some bangers. 53
So, this is probably gonna be a little bit on the lesser 54
known, not Nina Simone. 55
Yeah. Probably on the, on more on the big stars 56
that we've had, especially kind of multi-generational now. 57
But in terms of records, 58
this is a little bit less on the radar, 59
but to me it's so exciting to know about, you know, 60
just the ones that, that I know about. 61
That we know about for sure. I think all of the, 62
the un the hidden gems and stuff that 63
are out there. Oh, I mean, this is gonna be 64
an endless journey. 65
And by the way, I just wanna thank everybody who's putting 66
comments on YouTube, comments on Spotify. 67
Oh, I can't keep up with them. With a lot of recommendations 68
for some really good albums. 69
We got, just in the last week, we had someone recommend 70
that self-titled Jocko Pistorius album. 71
Oh, we gotta do that. 72
Uh, we had someone recommend something from Bud Powell, 73
which we gotta get to. 74
Yeah. At a certain point we had someone recommend Concert 75
by the Sea from Rol Gardner, 76
which I think we might have done early, early days 77
or a version of it, but we should Right. 78
Revisit it. 'cause it's, it's endlessly 79
Not in the pot atrium. 80
Can we call this the pod atrium? 81
The Atrium. Atrium. But, uh, we also had someone re 82
It's not for Atrium. No. 83
We had someone recommend maybe doing some Prince, 84
which stay tuned for some Prince. 85
That's on the list. It's on the list. It's coming. 86
Of course. So we have a lot of great stuff coming up, 87
but please put some more recommendations in the comments 88
because we want to hear from you what you want 89
to hear us hear. That's 90
Right. And we wanna get 91
hip to stuff out here. 92
We're trying to be hip. Right. Um, 93
Well, you are. Yeah. 94
But today we have none other than Nina Simone 95
at Town Hall. 96
Live at, I always say this is live at Town Hall. I, yeah. 97
But it's actually at Town Hall 98
Simone at Town Hall. Nina 99
Simone at Town Hall. Yeah. 100
And every time I google this, I put live at town hall 101
or search and it corrects you and Well, it still comes up. 102
Up You mean up. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but man, what a great album. 103
This is a great choice. Yeah. A little different from us. 104
It's from 1959. It's a year we hardly ever talk about, about 105
That's the big connector for us. 106
I think it's a little bit off the beaten path. I mean, is 107
1959 or 1971 more in our wheelhouse? 108
It's those two. I mean, either one. 109
It's either those two years 110
and we're kind of leaning a little bit towards 111
79 80 lately too. 112
Yeah. So we have our favorite years. 113
There are, there are clusters. 114
Peter, I don Dunno if you noticed this, 115
there are clusters in music of, 116
I know it comes in waves. 117
63 59. Yep. 118
Uh, 69, 71, 72. 119
Well, now you're just naming Great years. Come 120
On, man. Yeah. 75. There's 121
some good years out there. Yeah. 122
Um, Lot of good years, Peter. Lot of good years. Okay. 123
Boomer. Alright. 124
Before she was Nina Simone, Eunice Wayman, dreamed 125
of becoming America's first black classical concert pianist. 126
Hold on. Can we pause just a little bit on just how great 127
of a name Eunice Wayman is? 128
I know Eunice Wayman. 129
I mean, Nuni Mos is possibly a 130
little bit better. Yes. But it's 131
Different. Eunice Simone. It's evocative 132
of romance and sparkle. 133
But, but Eunice Wayman I know, rolls off the tongue. 134
Eunice from childhood. 135
She was trained in Bach and Chopin among others. 136
She devoted her life to that pursuit. 137
She really loved, you know, classical music 138
seemingly since she was first introduced, 139
which is at a very young age. 140
Um, and then, you know, there, 141
there's a lot of lore about this. 142
Um, she got dreams, interestingly enough to go 143
to the Curtis Institute 144
of Music in Philadelphia at a certain point. 145
Yeah. Um, as opposed to Juilliard. 146
Well, she ended up going to Juilliard. 147
Well, let's talk a little bit about, if people don't know 148
what the Curtis Institute is Yeah. 149
Why don't we tell 'em what that is? 150
It's like kind of the, like, 151
if Juilliard is the Harvard Yeah. 152
Then Curtis is like, what? 153
It's like the, what's the place Harry Potter one. 154
The, it's the Hogwarts. It's, it's the Hogwarts. 155
It's hidden. It's like hidden. And it's at a high level. 156
Well, they have like a handful 157
of students every year. I, it 158
Used to be, they'd only have one 159
or two for each instrument, I think. Yeah. Was 160
Accepted. And some people go when 161
they're children. Yes. 162
Like you go when you're very young. 163
Uh, our, uh, one of our dear friends, 164
Erin Schreiber from the St. 165
Louis Symphony. That's right. 166
Went to Curtis when she was, but, and 167
Michael too. Violas Michael, 168
Michael Casimir 169
Violisy there, went to Curtis as well. 170
Yeah. And it is very, very concentrated. 171
It is for only the top players in the world, apparently. 172
And it's, uh, it's an incredible resource. 173
And it was Nina's dream Yeah. 174
To go there. It was her dream to go there. 175
Even to the point her family moved 176
to Philadelphia in anticipation of her being accepted. 177
She was famously rejected, did not get accepted in. 178
And there's a whole, uh, story and controversy about that. 179
But the idea is like, she did end up going to Juilliard, 180
but then pretty soon thereafter, she was, um, working kind 181
of against the wishes of her family. 182
She came up in a real religious family. Mm-hmm. 183
Her mother, in fact was, was I believe a Methodist, 184
um, preacher. 185
And so she was in church a lot. 186
She was very well versed in the Southern 187
Methodist Church tradition out of North Carolina in terms 188
of like, the repertoire 189
of playing piano in the church from a very young age. 190
Uh, singing a lot. 191
But she always really fashioned herself originally 192
as a pianist, and specifically classical. 193
She definitely had exposure to jazz, 194
but that was not her dream coming up, you know? 195
Not, and she's not the only musician 196
that we've talked about on this pod 197
or a musician that even hosts the pod that went for a year 198
or two to Juilliard and then became a jazz musician. 199
Right. Yeah. Miles Davis went to Juilliard. Yeah. 200
And became of course, miles Davis. Yep. 201
And our own Peter Martin spent a what year? 2, 2, 3. 202
Yeah. 1, 1, 3 3, 3 semesters. You know, at 203
Juilliard when you yourself was but a child. 204
Yes. And then ended up being in jazz musician. Of 205
Course there was. It's, it's 206
Nina Simone, it's Miles Davis, 207
it's Peter Martin. We know this Right 208
Buddy. You're gonna see in the 209
comments. 210
Man you're not too far off. Wynton Marsalis. 211
Yeah. He spent a year, And this is by the way, 212
before Julie McBride, 213
I just remembering this 214
Is before all of you, this is 215
before there was like a Juilliard Jazz program. 216
Right. You're not up there like learning bebop. 217
You're up there playing classical music. Right, 218
Right. For sure. 219
Um, yeah. 220
So, so this record, she had a couple records out right 221
before this, um, and actually had a really big hit. 222
We're gonna check that out in just a second. 223
But basically, I mean, she, she even said like, 224
she didn't like this idea of being a jazz singer. 225
So this is interesting. We're gonna talk 226
about is she a jazz singer? 227
And is this a jazz record? 228
It's really a great topic of conversation, 229
Actually. Oh, I thought you were about 230
to commit in advance. I 231
Like it. No, no. I think, I 232
think it's up for discussion. 233
First of all. You know, I love a category 234
and I love to put an artist in a box. 235
It's one of my all time favorite things to do 236
A musical box. But 237
I think this is a discussion 238
that we can have about like, I mean, like you said, 239
she herself didn't want to be this thing 240
that people were categorizing her. 241
Right. And she ended up making this whole career. 242
Was she a jazz musician? Right. 243
I don't know if that's an 244
answerable question, honestly know. 245
Well, she said, you know, critics labeled her a jazz 246
singer at, which was a, a, a label that she despised. 247
Yeah. She spoke out about, about that a lot. Awesome. 248
Um, and she in fact said to quote, 249
her calling me a jazz singer was a way 250
of ignoring my musical background 251
because I didn't fit into white ideas of 252
what a black performer should be. 253
So, like, she was really ahead of her time. 254
Like, I think when we talk about now, it's like, 255
why would you, like, it's hard for people, 256
especially younger folks, I including kind of like my age 257
and below to understand like the derogatory Yeah. 258
Like there was a duality of calling somebody a jazz singer. 259
On the one hand, it was, I mean, you're in town hall, 260
you're talking about Ella Fitzgerald was revered, 261
had played in Carnegie Hall. 262
I mean, like, there, there was a certain status. 263
It wasn't like jazz was just, you know, in the brothels 264
or something like it was maybe 40 years before. 265
But there was still a stigma attached to that. 266
There was a, a pecking order of culture. 267
I think we talked with the intelligentsia, perhaps, 268
If I may. Yes. A 269
little sidetrack. We talk about this 270
amongst ourselves about the mentality that a lot 271
of quote unquote jazz musicians have, 272
and how it can put you in a bit of a box that ignores 273
some commercial advantages 274
that you might have if you don't 275
categorize yourself so narrowly. 276
Right. And I just wanna point out, this is a theme 277
of this show over the years, 278
how many greats like on the Mount Rushmore 279
of the music we have 280
that do not wanna be labeled as jazz musicians. 281
Right. Talking about Miles Davis, duke Ellington. 282
Duke Ellington, yeah. John Coltrane, Charles Mingus. 283
Like all of these people don't want Yeah. Nicholas Peyton. 284
Nicholas Peyton. There's so many, so, so many 285
that do not want that word associated 286
with their music that they're making. 287
Yeah. And I think that tells us a story about 288
the feelings around the world. 289
Now, obviously there's the modern jazz quartet 290
are Blake the jazz messenger. 291
Mm-hmm. There are people who are embracing Yeah. 292
Uh, the sort of, uh, category categorization of that. 293
But what I love most about this album 294
and Nina's career in general, is I think ultimately she, 295
she sort of manifests, for lack of a better word, the fact 296
that she's not a jazz musician. 297
Right. And becomes this huge commercially successful, 298
viable cultural icon that sort of like, uh, goes past 299
where most jazz musicians are willing to go. 300
Right. You know? Right. And I think it's 301
by freeing her mind from, uh, uh, the box 302
that people wanna put her in, that she's able to do this. 303
Yeah. And I mean, like later on, um, you know, 304
with her writings and her and her political activism 305
and her compositions, 306
and just the stands that she took up to the point 307
of like leaving the US and, 308
and doing all these different things. 309
She under, like, she was so ahead of her, uh, time in terms 310
of understanding this thing 311
that she says about didn't fit into white ideas of 312
what a black performer should be. 313
And I don't wanna dwell on that too much. 314
And I know it's a harsh thing for some people. 315
It's very relevant to the situation. 316
It's very relevant. And, and like for us now to say like, 317
oh, of course you like, people didn't really, like, 318
there's a lot of implications that maybe don't, 319
don't apply thankfully as much today. 320
But at that time, you know, some people could say like, 321
what do you mean she's being presented 322
as the headliner at town hall? 323
But like, she understood to be able to speak out 324
and to have a nuanced understanding of that, 325
and as you say, to being able in some ways to be able 326
to leapfrog Yeah. 327
Above even the box, the jazz players or, 328
or even classical player. 329
There was definitely, like, there was, 330
there was a bitterness perhaps that she had 331
or at least expressed I'd see in interviews, um, for her not 332
to be able to pursue this classical career that she loved 333
so much, but she also turned it into like, 334
she ultimately was able 335
to put her full artistry out there into the world. 336
Yeah. Um, at different times. 337
And then I we're gonna talk about it, 338
but I think this is kind of just the 339
beginning of that in a way. 340
Like the true artist of what Nina Simone was. 341
I mean, you're already hearing it, 342
beautiful voice, but she's doing a lot. 343
She's doing all a few of her own compositions on here. 344
A lot of standards kind of, she's in the box, 345
but she can already hear what she can be. 346
And then a couple years later, of course, 347
she's really becoming, you know who she is. 348
Yeah. I, no, I think it's totally relevant. 349
And by the way, this is this idea that she's, she's, uh, 350
supposing here of, you know, the being put in a box, um, 351
by white critics or white writers about what a a, 352
a black musician could be is not even unique to black music. 353
I mean, it's very, very common, especially at this time. 354
And like you said, it's sort of bent a little bit better, 355
even though there's still huge problems all around. 356
But even like, you know, uh, uh, quote unquote, 357
bluegrass musicians talk about this. 358
Like, they're just playing music that they grew up around 359
and they're trying to, some people are, 360
would talk like this, like, 361
just play the music they wanna play. 362
Yes. And then we hear something if you're not familiar 363
with it and you wanna categorize it, 364
or you could even go, you know, 365
like talking about like Japanese music. 366
And I've heard musicians talk about, like, 367
I'm more than just this thing that you're trying 368
to culturally define me by. 369
I'm an artist trying to make art. Yeah. 370
With my culture attached to it, it becomes, I think, more 371
of a, a of a issue of art 372
and commerce where, uh, it's up to the record labels 373
to try to sell these albums. 374
And the best way to do that is to say, 375
if you like this, check this out. 376
Right. And the way they do that is very, very heavy handed 377
and can honestly be a little bit suffocating if you're 378
thinking about yourselves in trying to like, serve these, 379
these, you know, mechanisms of commerce with the artist. 380
Absolutely. It's tough, man. It's tough. I mean, 381
It's a little, I Get it. But 382
It's tough. Yeah. It's kind of like 383
a, like a high cultural, 384
high culture, crass taste maker Yeah. 385
Kind of a thing where it's like, yes, this is great, 386
but it's kind of like, yes, this is 387
what you're gonna consume 388
Saying for us to understand you, Nina Simone, we have to, 389
we have to lump you in with this other stuff 390
that we understand what this is. 391
Right. Even though you don't, 392
you're, you're not going for that. 393
Right. Right. It's a very common thing. Right. 394
So what happened was, she, she went to Juilliard, I guess 395
for a year, or maybe it was for a summer. 396
She had been at Juilliard and then she on a scholarship, 397
but she needed to make some money 398
so she could go back when the Curtis thing, uh, 399
disappointment happened. 400
Um, so she was teaching, she's living in Philadelphia, 401
she's teaching piano, but she got a chance 402
to play in a club in Atlantic City. 403
Atlantic City at that time was a lot of like, you know, 404
piano bars and jazz clubs and that kind of thing. 405
Show clubs, whatever you wanna call it. 406
And that was gonna pay a lot better 407
and, um, better than the teaching. 408
And she got a gig playing at the Midtown Bar 409
and Grill in Atlantic City. 410
Ever been there? No, no. First should we go? 411
But basically she thought 412
she was just gonna, yeah, let's do it. Make 413
A field trip from Midtown. Yeah. 414
Um, I've been to Atlantic City. 415
I don't think it's quite as booming as back then. 416
It's, it's, it's changed a little bit. 417
Shout out Northern New Jersey. 418
Hard to get to, to, um, 419
but the thing was like, 420
she thought she was just gonna be playing piano. 421
And the guy, typical club bar is like, you gotta sing too. 422
And so that's really when she started singing 423
and like, outside of church 424
and whatever, limited stuff that she was doing, 425
but very much a religious background. 426
So it was like she, that was part of the reason, 427
if not the reason she changed her name was 428
to disguise it from her family, you know? 429
Oh man. And because they, they were religious. 430
Like this was the devil's music, 431
you know, doing this kind of stuff. 432
That's what it was considered at that time. 433
Um, so she started doing, she was performing, I Loves Porgy 434
of course, from, uh, George 435
and Ira Gershwin Black is the Color. 436
Some of these songs, uh, 437
because they were the, they were popular songs of the time. 438
And so when she ended up getting her first record contract 439
and recording, um, I believe it was in 57 440
or 58, it actually didn't come out till 1959 441
when they did this concert earlier in the year. 442
But she did, I love Por it ends up being her biggest hit. 443
And so we're just gonna listen to that. 444
This is not on this, this record, 445
but this is what a lot of people had heard. 446
Like, likely the people that came to the concert 447
had heard this. This was on Billboard. 448
Like this is a top one 449
hundred hit, which is crazy. 450
It's awesome. 451
I love you, 452
don't 453
you Me, I 454
with you Forever. 455
So that's on Little Girl Blue that came out in 1958. 456
But this song as a single came out in just in May 457
of 1959. 458
And it actually went to number 18 on the billboard pop 459
charts. Number two on the r&b charts. 460
Listen to this, this is just a straight up jazz trio. 461
Her playing on this is beautiful. 462
If you can keep me. 463
It's just, it's a very straight 464
yet nuanced reading of this. Right. 465
I hear a little bit because she's 25, right? 466
When she makes this mm-hmm. This recording. Yeah. 467
Even, and she sounds like, you know, 35, 468
like 40, like a, a fully formed adult. 469
It's a little Samara Joy0ish in the, 470
in the sort of maturity in her voice. 471
Not exactly the same quality, 472
but like, just where you're like, 473
how can this person so young sound 474
so, you know, uh, uh, like she's lived 475
so much life, you know. I just 476
can't get over how did this get 477
on the billboard pop charts? Can we go 478
back to that time? It was a different day, 479
but different day altogether. Yeah. 480
So that was, so I, I, I totally hear that influence. 481
And we're gonna talk with later about diff all the 482
vocalists, which could be every vocalist in some way since 483
then, in a lot of genres, very influential, 484
maybe the most influential vocalists since this time. 485
Like, uh, blues rock, uh, pop, you know, jazz. 486
Musically, but also in the 487
way that she handled her career. 488
Yes. And her adventurous spirit too. Yeah. These things. 489
But certainly an influence on Nina Simone was this, 490
this is live in 1957. This is Sarah Vaughn 491
The greatest. When's the Sarah 492
Vaughan. Buddy? It's 493
coming. Build 494
a 495
stairway to the Ssars. 496
So this was out there in the world, 497
Right. 498
And climb that stairway 499
To the stars. That's live in Mr. 500
Kelly's Chicago, Illinois. Of course, 1957. I would 501
Love to play for Sarah Vaughn. 502
Wouldn't it be so much fun 503
to be Sarah Vaughn's piano player for a minute? 504
That would be nice. But let's get in the record. 505
So live at Town Hall, she's got some hits. She's out there. 506
The promoter, they're, they're putting her on the town hall 507
stage, which was a big deal. 508
This is crazy. So Ben Riley, 509
fantastic drummer, one of my favorite. 510
I actually got a chance to play with him back in the back 511
when he was still around in the nineties, which is great. 512
Like such a, an honor 513
and like to be a little bit connected with 514
that, with Thelonious Monk. 515
He famously played in the, one 516
of the best groups with Monk for many years. 517
You're so old. Dude. I am old af Wilber Ware 518
on Bass. Wilber Ware. 519
Amazing. Chicago's Finest played with monks. Oh, yeah. 520
We were talking about, so Rollins 521
Right? We talked about Wilbur 522
Ware last week Yeah. 523
In that, uh, in that Amon Tobin track. 524
Yes. Um, and they were both, you know, together 525
and separately played with Monk. 526
They were actually, were both playing 527
with Monk at this time. 528
The crazy thing about this, 529
guess when they met Nina Simone 530
when they first played with her? 531
You want me to legitimately guess? Yes. 532
Well, I'll say because of the way you're phrasing it, 533
It, I about the rhythm section bass drummer. 534
Yeah, yeah. No, I got it. I would Riley Wilber, 535
the way you're setting this up, probably earlier that day. 536
No. As the curtain rose, they did not rehearse. 537
They didn't even, they literally, I mean, 538
I sourced this into them. 539
Who talking about I, Hey man, 540
Wait, wait, wait, wait. What? 541
They met right 542
before, like, that's how, 543
how thrown together this thing was. 544
Oh my God. Which is really gonna 545
be crazy as we listen to this. 546
Have you ever done that before? 547
Yeah, but not when it came. Sounded like this. 548
No. Like, and then it's on our live record. 549
No, of course not like this. 550
This was another time, man. So let's, let's, for 551
The love of Jeff, just 552
Thinking of that, let's jump right into the first track. 553
Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair. 554
And I believe this song is like some kind of old 555
Yeah. It's a Scottish 556
or Norwegian. 557
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's an old, uh, 558
Northern European folk song. And 559
We have nothing on the, like how this came to Nina Simone 560
or how she ended up doing it. 561
But it's a beautiful way to start the record. 562
I mean, you hear the classical chops from 563
The beginning. Right. 564
Well, her, 565
throughout her tone output is ridiculously beautiful. 566
How do you feel about the recording quality 567
Of this? I don't 568
love it, be honest. 569
But there is a vibe to it, I guess. 570
Yeah. 571
Of my true 572
so soft. 573
And 574
So this is incredible track. 575
Beautiful. And I was just thinking like, you know, one thing 576
that Nina, Simone, Simone brings, 577
and we're gonna get into some jazzy stuff, jazzier stuff. 578
It's, it's an interesting kind 579
of different styles on this record, 580
but one thing she really brings to the party 581
that if she was a true, I mean, she is a true jazz singer. 582
Well, but she's not coming from like, that's one. 583
Not according to her. Right, exactly. 584
That's not, that's not what she's coming from. 585
That's one thing that she can do among other things. 586
But she has this, she has this ability that's harder for us 587
as jazz pianists especially, um, to just play the tri 588
and then go down there and like to really connect with this 589
folk song, with the essence, 590
very diatonic kind of way of playing. 591
Like we would be, and she gets into a little bit of like, 592
the second time she kind of goes to a suss, which is nice, 593
but she lays it out. 594
Whereas almost any other jazz pianist, we, 595
we would, we'd be all like, 596
You know, It sounds 597
like some Peter Martin s**t right there. 598
Yeah. Which I like. But, um, she has so many different, 599
like, lenses with which she can look at this music. 600
So she can start with the very simple voice. 601
You know, the, the, the control 602
with the vibrato and stuff is stunning. 603
You actually hear this all over the album. 604
She, she treats it as if 605
how a classical musician would treat like, 606
would respect the harmony of it in a way that you're right. 607
I think jazz musicians would want to Yeah. 608
Put their own spin on. 609
But she, I think it's absolutely perfect. Yeah. 610
That accompaniment there. Yeah. 611
Playing a chord and letting that beautiful piano ring out. 612
Yep. And then, uh, singing those phrases in between. 613
I think it's exactly what the song calls for. 614
And I love the triads that she's doing there. 615
I think they're absolutely gorgeous. And can I just say, 616
like, from the, what stands out from this album, 617
because it's a live album, right? 618
Yeah. And it's not as well recorded as what we just heard, 619
even on Little Girl Blue 620
and what of course we're gonna hear later on in her career 621
with how good, um, her voice is gonna be recorded. 622
But she is gifted with, uh, a couple of instruments. 623
Like her hands are her, her classical technique 624
that she has her piano technique Yeah. 625
I think is really special. Oh, yeah. 626
And we don't hear it a lot in jazz pianists, honestly. 627
Right. Like, the way that she produces a tone. 628
We just had a classical pianist in 629
here yesterday, so I'm thinking about it. 630
Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot. We had Daniel Anastasio in here 631
and made some stuff with him, and he was talking a lot about 632
that tradition of creating tone on the, on the keyboard. 633
And you could just hear the, the sort of like, uh, she's a, 634
she's a really, uh, 635
sophisticated keyboardist Yeah. 636
In that, like her control over that, over those triads, 637
even when she's doing something simple as so great. 638
It almost comes out more on the really simple 639
Stuff. It does. You 640
know, it does. 641
Like, that's where you can really appreciate the high 642
level of, of technical 643
Skill. The, the voicing, not 644
the chord she's playing, 645
but how she's voicing. Exactly. The notes in 646
There. The touch, the 647
Touch. And then the second instrument 648
that she was gifted with. 649
And I don't mean this as like, she didn't work 650
for these things, but I I'm saying like, these are, 651
it the kind of like they are 652
natural gifts that she has Yeah. 653
Is like, the quality of her voice is so unique. Yeah. 654
Like, she doesn't sound like that's a 655
Contralto. Did you know that? 656
Well, but she doesn't sound like a 657
trained opera singer at all. 658
No. And she also kind of doesn't sound like Sarah Vaughn. 659
Right. She sounds like 660
You hear those influences. You hear the influence 661
Voice, but both of those Yeah. 662
But her voice is her from the start. Yes. 663
From right here when she's 25, 26 years old. 664
Like it's sounds so her and so, so honest, so different. 665
Oh my gosh. And vulnerable. Yeah. And confident. Yeah. 666
And it's really special From the opening notes 667
of this album, you just feel like she is like, 668
like some other vocalists 669
that we've heard in the show recently, I'm thinking 670
of like Erika Badu we talked about, 671
but like, she sets a vibe with this. 672
Yeah. That is more than just a music nerd's paradise. Yeah. 673
It is a human connection. It's very special. 674
Yeah. And I think maybe not having that baggage of, 675
you know, I mean, certainly she'd heard Ella Fitzgerald, 676
I'm sure, and 677
Sarah Vaughn to a certain degree, but everybody 678
Had Yeah. But I mean, like in 679
her religious family, if they're like, 680
that's the devil's music, you 681
know, probably not listen to it a lot. 682
You know? So she wasn't growing up with that. 683
Like, I'm trying to be, that I'm trying 684
to imitate them or whatever. 685
Perhaps I'm projecting, I mean, 686
I'm doing a little improv now, 687
a little philosophical improv. 688
But perhaps she was able to get the essence of 689
who she was quicker than others because of that. 690
And by the way, the, the, the selection too black is the 691
color of my true love's hair, uh, 692
is a really sophisticated choice Yes. 693
To open this album with, 694
I'm not sure if she opened the show with it. 695
Right. But probably. Um, 696
but it means something different Yes. 697
When she sings it than when a Scottish 698
or Norwegian person sings it. 699
Do you know what I mean? Like, this means, how 700
Could a Norwegian sing it? Don't 701
they all have blonde hair? That's, 702
Oops. You can't 703
say that anymore. But, uh, no. 704
You know what I mean? Like, that's 705
a really beautiful blonde hair. 706
Like she's already commenting on something. Yes. 707
She's already has something to say, which is very, very, uh, 708
promising for the rest of her career, 709
as we will later find out. 710
Yeah. Um, okay. Let's go on to track number two. 711
So for now, for something entirely different. Okay. 712
Um, the diversity of, of like styles, 713
even though this is all piano trio with vocals, you know, 714
it's the jazz trio with, with the vocal singer, 715
but there's such a diversity of styles and grooves. 716
We've already heard that from the first track to this. 717
This is one of the more kind 718
of like swinging or straighter ones. 719
I always love this tune. Exactly Like 720
You man, Jimmy ue. Jimmy 721
Ue killing it. RIP shadow. 722
Yeah. 1930. 723
You know, first, I mean, I think the first big kind of hit, 724
or people hearing this, especially in the jazz 725
style, was Louis Armstrong. 726
Yeah. But everybody recorded this. So let's check this out. 727
And we're gonna get, oh, let me start this again. 728
Just because that first chord, maybe it was fading in, 729
but I love the way that this is some exciting stuff. 730
And should we be keeping in mind too that, 731
that Wilbur Ware and Ben Riley 732
have no idea what's about to happen? No. 733
No, no. So that's why there's a lot of these like intros 734
or kind of extended and stuff. 735
'cause they didn't rehearse, they didn't have, 736
She's teaching them the song She's teaching. 737
It's like, this is the vibe. This is the groove. 738
F*****g not. And there's some funny little 739
things that happen, man. 740
Nuts. They go along like pros with it. It's so good. 741
That almost sounds like inside the piano, perhaps. 742
It does sound a little bit Like that. 743
And she's tapping. 744
She's giving them the temp. Yeah. 745
They don't know what's about to happen. 746
But this is definitely one of those kind 747
of standards you could just call it, you know, 748
good players are gonna know it. 749
Woo. 750
Yeah. Man. Her swing feel is definitely there. Her 751
Feel is legit. 752
Great. Yeah. 753
She's Still been running what she 754
Wants. 755
I had no idea that was the Case. I knew why I waited. 756
Ooh, Knew why 757
I'm been blue. It 758
helps have the swing and rhythm section. 759
Exactly. I've been waiting each day 760
for someone exactly like 761
you. Why? Oh, 762
Ask Peter. 763
Spend some money On 764
The show. Up to, 765
that's 766
A little Sarah thing going up there. 767
Everybody sing songs 768
exactly like you are. 769
You made me feel, 770
you make me. 771
That's kind of Duke Elling today. 772
There's some count basing in Duke ing Yeah. As 773
Well. For sure. 774
Now I 775
know why she taught 776
me to be true. 777
She knew just around the corner was 778
somebody like you. 779
It's a gutsy move to go into double 780
time. Right at right at 781
The top. So clean with 782
it though. She's so clean with, 783
It's Doing a lot of AFL catatonic. 784
And then 785
Black Chords 786
Make me feel so grand. 787
I want to give this word to you. 788
Those black chords were swinging. Yeah. 789
Be you make me understand 790
the he foolish dreams. 791
I'm dreaming out now. 792
I know where 793
And locked in. 794
Damn. And like her coing, 795
it almost seems like she's constantly playing, 796
but every time she comes in, she's like right in there. 797
She knew just around the corner. 798
Hopefully she's dialed there, but she's floating too. 799
Exactly. Like You, 800
They didn't know what was gonna happen hanging 801
Down the E flat. 802
That's, that's some on the gig arranging 803
right there. Pretty 804
That run the end too. 805
Yeah. You know, the, I love, I actually love this album 806
because is that swinging like a gate? 807
Oh my God. Like a well oiled WD 40. I, I'm gonna say it. 808
I think this is definitely her most like swinging 809
album that she has. 810
Right. Where like, later she's gonna get into a lot more 811
orchestration and arrangements 812
and even like on the poppier side of things and 813
or the pop jazz, whatever you wanna call it, 814
mid-century pop side of things. 815
Yeah. But this is like a trio. 816
It's swinging, you know, the solo, I hear, 817
like you said Duke Ellington. 818
I hear Count Bassy. Yeah, I hear a little 819
Oscar Peterson. Like the 820
Little melodies in between the vocal. 821
Yeah. I hear some Errol Garner. 822
I don't hear a lot of Bud Powell or a lot of bird. 823
Like, I don't hear a lot of bebop inter playing. 824
There's a lot of pentatonic. Like you said, 825
there's way more blues than there's bebop for sure. 826
There's pentatonics, there's 827
blues, there's the block chords. 828
There's pure Melody. Maybe a little 829
Pentecostal too. We don't 830
know. Maybe a little Pentatonic Pentecostal. 831
But I don't hear, I don't hear that. 832
Like sort of, um, Wint and Kelly version of this too. 833
Right, right. Where there's like some bebop lines happening 834
underneath that, which is cool. 835
Like it's, it's actually really works. 836
Again, very unique voice on the piano as an improviser. 837
As well as as a vocalist. Right, 838
Right. This 839
is interesting. I'm just seeing in our notes here 840
that we, she was just saying jazz was just part of 841
what she was, but she identified more as a folk singer. 842
That's awesome. Which is an interesting thing. 843
Duke Elling talked about that, you know, being, you know, 844
folk music around the world being the kind 845
of a unifying thing as opposed to a stylistic box, you know. 846
Um, okay. 847
So, uh, let's see. What are we going on to now? 848
Oh, number three, the other woman. 849
So this one, this is the first, 850
there was three tracks on here that they went back 851
and recorded in the studio the next month. 852
This, this record was, 853
this concert was on September 12th, 1959. 854
And then it came out in December. Why can't 855
we have records come out that quick? And came out 856
December, 1959. 19. So 857
pretty much 1960? Well, no, 858
it was Giant Steps came out in 1959. 859
This came out in 1960. No, well, no, 860
No. It was close. But this one 861
actually did come out in 1959. 862
Just trying to rehash that all over. I 863
like it when you lean into your errors. 864
That's, that's one way to do it. 865
Um, but they went back in and recorded, 866
and I couldn't get the story in my research, uh, 867
exactly why, but I, it feels like there was, can 868
I take a guess why they went and rerecorded stuff? 869
They, because they, they just met 870
as the rhythm they just met as the curtain 871
Was rising, I think was, yeah. But then there 872
was some allusions 873
to That's maybe a different rhythm section on here. 874
We're gonna listen, but I, I couldn't actually hear a, 875
it's a different recording. 876
It's in the studio. There's three of these tracks that were, 877
were redone, which is not uncommon on live records at part. 878
Yeah. But this is the other one. We're not gonna listen. 879
I want to get through actually every track, which is unusual 880
for, so we're gonna around a 881
there. 882
I heard some of that, Sarah. I don't know. 883
It's definitely there. It's definitely there. Oh, this 884
Was recorded by Sarah or 885
The other woman, ENC. 886
This, this is a beautiful ballet here. 887
But I was saying, I hear a little bit of that. 888
We're just gonna listen to Sarah again. 889
Build That vibrato 890
To the stars. 891
You know, the, The 892
Nuance usage Of it to the stars. 893
That's a little bit, I don't know, 894
maybe they just both got to that same part with love. 895
And then also like, that's, 896
that's the influence on Nina Simone. 897
The influence coming off, this is Betty Carter in 1960. 898
So a year later, very young 899
Betty Carter, teenage, I believe. 900
Stormy. So Betty's 901
voice higher, and this was kind of 902
before she was Betty Bebop became her nickname. 903
And definitely more, not timid. 904
Her voice is amazing, but like, you can tell the influences. 905
So I think, well, I know, 906
'cause I remember she used to talk about Nina 907
Simone was definitely an influence. 908
Yeah. Uh, on her, uh, being a little bit younger. 909
By the way, I love the genre of the song The Other Woman, 910
which is like, it's a list song, right? 911
Yeah. Like she's listing things. 912
It's a list, but it's a comparative mind list song. 913
Like you're comparing yourself. 914
It's a little bit like, uh, in the tradition, uh, 915
that Jolene Jolly Parton's Jolene would be in. 916
Yeah. You know what I mean? Um, it's a little bit like, uh, 917
there's a, oh, what's the Sinatra one? 918
That's a very similar vibe. 919
Anyway, I love that genre of, first of all, 920
I love list song genres. 921
Yeah. If I Were A Bell is a great list song. Yeah. 922
There's so many. Yeah. But then like, 923
the psychological reversed comparing. Anyway. Right. 924
Mama said Knock You Out by LL Cool J That's a list song. 925
I'm gonna knock you out. And then you go 926
through all the reasons why he's gonna knock you out. 927
Anyway, different show. What 928
Are you musicologist? Amazing. 929
Here's Under the Low Amazing Commentary. This 930
Is one of the only, um, 931
I think there's two instrumentals on 932
here. This is the Blues. That's 933
Why your award winning peak. 934
We hope Original by, 935
um, Nina Simone. 936
And this would've been an easy one. 937
Woo. An easy one to rehearse. To not rehearse. 938
Well, that means he just called the blue. Exactly. 939
What key 940
A Yeah. 941
Unusual 942
Key. 943
This is kind of a classical of musicians. 944
Blues key, wouldn't you say a 945
Oh, You don't get a lot 946
of blues called an A. At least on our 947
Game. Yeah. Horn play's 948
not gonna call this. No. 949
I mean, a guitarist would. Yeah. Down in Sard. 950
That's Duke Elliot right there. Influencer. 951
Ooh. I think this is her best playing 952
Man. Her, her blues 953
playing is so, 954
Come on, Ben Riley. 955
What's up with Ben Reilly's bass drum man. Oh, his 956
Ba He, he drops the bomb. 957
Like, it's nothing. Why can't 958
We get that from more drummers? 959
I know nowadays. That's great. Feels so good. 960
And I feel like Nina Simone, her blues playing is so great 961
because she's not encumbered. 962
The reason I'm saying Duke Ellington is not to be reductive 963
and be like, oh, that's just Duke Ellington. 964
No, I mean, and maybe it's almost like they're not 965
encumbered by that bebop pull, you know what I mean? 966
It's like straight like dia onic blues, like very, 967
very melodic. 968
It's not using any harmonic tricks outside 969
of what's built into the blues. 970
Right. 971
Yeah. Woo. 972
It's like she said it too. 973
It's storytelling. You know what I mean? She 974
Says that a lot on this album. Do 975
you notice? Yeah. 976
Man, she went in this bad boy confident. 977
I'm telling you, her confidence 978
is what makes her so appealing. Which 979
Is crazy because she's 24, 25 years old. 980
Yeah. And, um, she's headlining. 981
Guess who opened up for her at this concert? 982
Uh, you want me to legitimately guess? No. 983
Okay. Horace Silver, Bill Haley 984
And, um, uh, JJ Johnson both, but with their 985
Bands, Horace Silver and JJ Johnson's bands opened. 986
Yeah. She was the headliner 987
of this, her first time with town. I wonder 988
How they felt about that. 989
Well, I mean, you know, they've 990
Been around for A minute time. 991
Yeah. So, I mean, but she came in. Wow. Just killing it. 992
Okay. So that was the Blues original under the lowest. Oh. 993
So this is Irving Berlin's. You can have him. 994
This is fun here 995
To being a harp here. 996
Yeah. Tell him what to do. 997
She just called him in on this. Yeah, yeah. You're right. 998
I don't want him. You can have him. 999
He's not worth fighting for. 1000
Ooh, that's a Betty card. You definitely got that from, 1001
Besides there's Pliny more where he came from. 1002
We gotta talk about Shirley Hors the influence 1003
of Neon and Shirley too. Yeah, 1004
Yeah. Yeah. I don't want 1005
him. You, you can have him. 1006
I'm giving him the S sock 1007
and he can 1008
go right back. 1009
It's like a boy. She's got the Broadway thing too. 1010
He is a Broadway song. This is from 1011
I'm Afraid I Miss Liberty. 1012
Try it. Loved him 1013
Sweetie. He'd 1014
be better off with you. 1015
This is the verse, right? Yeah. 1016
I Could never make him 1017
Wilber wears, like figuring it out. Wil. 1018
See, I know the verse on this. 1019
Run my fingers through his curly lives. 1020
Curly Bend, his underwear 1021
Rhythmic than anything. 1022
And his socks. 1023
Yeah. It's just, it's like so much. 1024
Yeah, no, I was just gonna say, um, real quick. 1025
So what we were talking about 1026
before about like, the sophistication 1027
of her using triads is something you don't hear a lot 1028
of jazz p do when they accompany. 1029
Yeah. Which is like when she hit that, like when they walk 1030
that down, when the Key V here, 1031
most jazz pianists on this one 1032
would play maybe something like this 1033
at the least, right. By like an E 1034
Six nine, kind of Six nine thing. 1035
Yeah. Right. But she straight up went like, 1036
Da da Like a knee major triad. 1037
Yeah. Right. Which I, if you're like a, a rock 1038
or pop musician, you're like, uh, yeah. 1039
That's called a chord buddy. It's called a chord. 1040
But we are are kind of, we're 1041
Fancy. We are 1042
Fancy and we like these things. We're 1043
Sophisticated. We're sophisticated, 1044
but it really works for her man. 1045
Yeah. And like, that's 1046
what I'm saying with just like, her being 1047
Her, because it's like the, like that adds a lot of color 1048
and nuance to the sort 1049
of ver vertical thing that's happening. 1050
Well, but like her voice is able to add 1051
that when she just does that also, 1052
Man, it's a dang tonic cord. 1053
Like it's one, it's what going 1054
to the e going, you know what I mean? 1055
No's It's really, really powerful. And 1056
That's the thing she's got, I was just saying like, 1057
she's like a broad, she has the drama 1058
and understanding of the lyric and melody. 1059
Like a Broadway singer. Yeah. 1060
But then she brings like the jazz flair 1061
and the blues inflection. 1062
It's, it's, and but she considered herself a folk 1063
Singer. So this is, by the 1064
way, I did not know this fact that 1065
Wilbur Ware and Ben Riley were introduced to Nina 1066
as the curtain was rising. 1067
And I'm hearing everything now. Totally different. 1068
Like Yeah. Her calling them in. Yeah. 1069
Now I'm like, oh, she's just 1070
arranging on the spot essentially. Stick 1071
With me buddy. You'll learn some things. 1072
Okay. Oh my gosh. 1073
But I've learned so much already. 1074
Summertime track number six. Never 1075
Heard of it. 1076
Ooh. Little foreshadowing there. 1077
Coming along. Coming along. 1078
Ooh. So good. Wilbur 1079
Heard the way they played that 1080
line. Can I, can I take that back? 1081
Back it up. Sorry. 1082
And the fact they didn't know what was gonna happen. 1083
Ooh, We win. 1084
She's playing really quiet now. 1085
'cause remember how soft the drums were before in the mix. 1086
What A beautiful sound she gets too. Yeah. 1087
It's just such a great piano sound, 1088
Blooper Wear. 1089
Ooh. They're literally arranging it on the spot. 1090
Collective arrangement. 1091
And this would've been a song that they all knew. Yeah. 1092
That every juxtaposition is 1093
So the way This, and most 1094
classical musicians know real. 1095
Right. So the way this was on the original record was 1096
split up into like, instrumental, but it's, 1097
and then vocal version. 1098
Sorry, I fast forward a little bit. 1099
Great call. 1100
That's 1101
Such a great, yeah. 1102
She's singing the counter melody 1103
and playing the real melody on top 1104
And All As 1105
Are you changing your zone? Change 1106
my, my apex. These are, 1107
It's Like two zones. 1108
Yes. I mean, all this stuff is great. 1109
I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm going. 1110
We, we will talk about the apex 1111
and maybe even come back to it again because Cool. 1112
But that's such a, like, 1113
that would probably be the subtlest 1114
apex moment I've ever done. 1115
But it's so genius. 1116
Well, what she does there, 1117
and like, when you listen to this whole track, 1118
and I encourage you guys don't just take 1119
what we're doing for copyright reasons. 1120
We can't play the whole track. Right. 1121
But the thing is, it's, it's such a, um, it's such a, 1122
like this is exactly what great art is. 1123
Like, it's so beautiful and simple 1124
and you guys will probably hear that 1125
and you're like, why are you guys overexplaining it? 1126
That's just for fun. But like the sophistication, it's, 1127
it's just like one little way of, it's like taking salt 1128
and chocolate, whoever figured that out at first. 1129
Genius. 'cause it works. It shouldn't work, but it does. 1130
I eat it every night. I can tell you, 1131
You know, that's an American thing. 1132
Is that an American thing? Oh, you give some sweet and 1133
and salty to a European, they don't 1134
Want that. Yeah. They're gonna kick 1135
You outta their country. But this 1136
Is like that way of playing the me up there. 1137
It's so simple and but sophisticated at the same time. 1138
I love it. So yeah. What she's doing here in the key 1139
of D is, you know, normally you would sing 1140
what the melody is, which would be like summertime 1141
And A living is easy. 1142
What she sings is just the tonic. Right? Yeah. 1143
And summertime. And she holds it. Oh, 1144
While she plays the melody up high. Yeah. 1145
It's such a great orchestration technique. It is. 1146
Is what she's doing. And it's like, and 1147
Then Ben Riley and Wil were ware are like adding their 1148
parts to their, they're coming up with this, this, uh, 1149
spontaneous arrangement that just sounds right. 1150
And they'd be like, after you do that, 1151
you'd be like, oh, we, we should never 1152
Rehearse. You know what? I think we don't 1153
need to rehearse 1154
Peter. And there's, 1155
there's like the, that degree 1156
of like unexpected that you don't get if you over rehearse. 1157
It's nice. I think this, I think this young woman has a 1158
future in the, she has a future. 1159
She's got a future in this business. Well, you know 1160
What, let's, this will be a good time for 1161
us to jump forward a little bit. 1162
Speaking of a future, here's, but six years later, 1163
Flying high, 1164
1965 In the sky, you know how I feel. 1165
Breathe drifting on by, you know how feel 1166
it's a new dawn. 1167
It is a new day. It's a new 1168
life for me. 1169
Yeah. It's a new dawn. It's a new day. 1170
It's a new life for me. 1171
And I'm feeling good. 1172
Damn. Such a great, such a, 1173
such a great story. 1174
Ridiculously so I feel so, you know, 1175
there was a whole evolution there and, 1176
and you might say, okay, this is more indicative. 1177
The voice is the same, 1178
but there's like another, like, it's so recognizable, 1179
but there's like an even more enhanced sort 1180
of maturity the way to this very simplistic kind 1181
of like pentatonic based melody. 1182
And then, and then of course it goes 1183
So many qualities too that we hear in like a lot 1184
of well-known modern artists. 1185
Like whether that's like, you can hear it in Amy Winehouse. 1186
Yeah. You can even, I was just hearing like 1187
a little Tracy Chapman. 1188
Yep. You know, from that. 1189
Absolutely. Absolutely. Little Fiona 1190
Apple. Ooh. Like a lot of people. 1191
Yeah. Nina influenced. Yeah, for 1192
Sure. Alright, here's track 1193
seven. 1194
We got 10 tracks to get through Cotton igel. 1195
This is an old 19th century American folk song. 1196
Do you come from 1197
and where do you go? 1198
Do you come from, 1199
You crying? 1200
No, I got some, uh, I got some moisturizer. Nice. 1201
They Should play this version at sporting events 1202
instead of the nineties dance version. 1203
That's like you think. And I'm on a Cotton 1204
Been, Yeah. This 1205
Has been Country fight, hasn't it? 1206
I would love to hear this. The Cardinals game, honestly. 1207
There you go. Um, 1208
now we're gonna move actually Track eight. 1209
For some reason I don't have, what was Track eight? 1210
Oh, we turn home. I've got the LP here. 1211
We don't have that, but that's okay. 1212
'cause we're running outta time. 1213
Anyway, we're gonna start to kind of, we're going 1214
to get towards the end of here, 1215
but I wanna jump into a few categories 1216
because this one I believe you have as this is, uh, 1217
wild As the Wind. 1218
Yes. This is my Desert Island 1219
Track. This is your desert Island 1220
track. 1221
Yeah. Okay. So we're gonna check this out. 1222
It's a beautiful song. It is. 1223
Love Me. Love Me. 1224
This Is another one that was in the 1225
studio, not for the live version. 1226
This is written by Dmitri Temkin 1227
and Ned Washington for the 1957 film Island is The Wind. 1228
Yeah. 1229
So good. 1230
Give me more Than 1231
One. 1232
I just really, I love, I love the song itself. 1233
I love the lyrics, but I also love that it really leans on, 1234
you know, like the ninth of the chord. 1235
Yeah. A lot. It leans on some really odd notes. 1236
And to hear again, this amazing voice 1237
that she has this unique, uh, soul that comes 1238
through in her singing for her to lay on those notes 1239
that aren't, um, folk song notes. 1240
Right, right. That is more of, 1241
I I would say like a jazz musician. Kind of like melody, 1242
Right? Yeah. Melodic 1243
movement through the Ballad. 1244
More jazz. It sounds like Mount Davis. Exactly. Right. 1245
You know, and I love her in that zone. Yeah. 1246
And it was, it was originally sung by Johnny Mathis. 1247
So, so, you know, I don't know exactly 1248
where the influences for this. 1249
This is Shirley Horn's original 1250
recording, but she definitely love 1251
Me Of the same song. 1252
Love me. So two years later, 1253
Say you do 1254
Similar Vibes. 1255
Yeah. 1256
Lemme fly Away with You 1257
Beautiful song. 1258
And then this is Shirley Horn. 1259
Here's to Life Jumping ahead to the early nineties. 1260
We've covered this one. 1261
Love me. Love me. Save. You do. 1262
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. 1263
Oh, that one. Got that, that one always gets it. 1264
I have, he loves this record. Man. I've got 1265
A moisturizer in my eye, man. 1266
You know, you don't, you, you, you hadn't looked like 1267
you'd had a dry eye before. 1268
You didn't need to put moisturizer in. You're all good. 1269
Um, cool. 1270
Alright, we got one more track, 1271
but let's get to some, uh, actually no, let's listen 1272
to a little bit of this because this is not officially 1273
'cause I switched my Apex moment. 1274
Okay. But this is a great, this is fine. And Melon fine. 1275
And Meow the, the classic Billy Holiday. 1276
My manny don't love me, 1277
he teach me. Oh, show me. 1278
So Nina Moon had definitely hurt Billy Hol. 1279
I mean, you can tell from this. Yeah. 1280
Famously there's that video, right? 1281
Yes. Billy Holiday 1282
singing this. I forget what the name of that. 1283
Ben Webster. Yeah, Jerry Mulligan. That's 1284
Right. 1285
That was like early fifties I 1286
Think. I think so. Yeah. 1287
I've ever seen, Man, she wrote this in 1939. 1288
Really? Holiday. Yeah. 1289
My baby wears high peg pants 1290
And like beat Simon Old's choice of when not to comp 1291
or to play on the piano is really cool and important 1292
Baby with hot pig pants. 1293
Yeah. Stripes are really yellow. 1294
Stripes are really yellow. 1295
When he starts in to love me, he's so fried and mellow. 1296
Can I get you a wet nap or something for 1297
Your eye? S SPF 30 1298
in my eye, man. 1299
Love will make you drink and gamble. Make it stay 1300
Back. Is it a break or not a break? 1301
It doesn't 1302
matter. Ben Riley's gonna keep going. 1303
That's right. He just played right 1304
through it. He didn't know 1305
Love will make you drink again if you, 1306
I mean, you guys, you meant to do it. 1307
Yeah, that's right. That's so awesome, man. 1308
Like I said, I gotta, now I gotta go listen to this 1309
and like hear all these things that are happening. 1310
Amazing. 1311
Yeah. But what a cool thing to have something that was 1312
that spontaneous to be preserved for. 1313
It's beautiful feels Preserved. 1314
It's not just like, oh, that's a fun thing, 1315
but it's like, no, this is a great record to listen 1316
To. You know? I mean, buddy, how 1317
many live shows have you been 1318
with at where like people are just meeting each other 1319
for the first time and it's a great 1320
vibe. You're getting to know each other. 1321
I've been at 'em, but that's like 1322
one outta 10, to be honest. 1323
When they're good. Yeah. 1324
I mean it's like, it feels good, 1325
but if you were to listen back 1326
to a lot of those, you'd be like, ugh. 1327
It wouldn't be as consistent as this. I would say. 1328
That's okay. That's unusual. 1329
I'll give you that. But occasionally, yeah, 1330
you do get some really good energy. 1331
Of course, for sure. Because everybody's like, 1332
what's gonna happen for like, when the musicians kind 1333
of don't know, there's like this excitement 1334
and danger in the air is great. 1335
Yeah. And you guys might not realize when you hear this 1336
because it's such great performing, 1337
but there is an, I mean, 1338
Nina's probably the most confident on there in a way, 1339
but Wilbur Ware, I mean, because she's leading the thing. 1340
Yeah. But they are like, 1341
you wouldn't know that they never played 1342
Together. Well, let's be honest here. Wilbur 1343
Ware 1344
and Ben Riley are, they're good. 1345
They're pros. I guess they're pros. 1346
Like it's, this isn't their first time 1347
that they've accompanied someone 1348
without a rehearsal. Are you 1349
Saying it's not their first rodeo? Definitely. 1350
You're about to say it. Definitely 1351
Not. I'll say it. These are two masters. 1352
So yeah, we're 1353
Getting to some categories here. 1354
Let's do it. Desert Island tracks. 1355
You already said yours is wild as the wind. That's great. 1356
I mean, that one would be correct. 1357
I said exactly like you just, 1358
because it's probably in, in a way, the most sort 1359
of stylistically atypical on this. 1360
But like, I don't know, needless is swinging so hard. 1361
Wilbur and band of course is. I mean, I don't know. 1362
It's just such a fun thing. 1363
I love that song and I think it's so, it's, it's probably, 1364
I I can just listen to that every day on my desert on We'll 1365
Allow it. We'll allow it. 1366
Okay. Uh, apex moment. 1367
So I have this portion 1368
of the under the lowest solo, right? 1369
Yeah. Which is that blues. Yeah. 1370
Uh, starting at about a minute 30 Peter, if you don't mind. 1371
Here we go. She gets into this repeated note, 1372
Huh? Yeah. Yeah. It sounds very 1373
modern. 1374
Yeah. 1375
Like, Is that Brad Mill now? 1376
Right. And shout out to Ben Riley 1377
for not going 1378
crazy. Yeah, 1379
Yeah, yeah. And then the, 1380
yeah, at the end it's all just like, 1381
that's such a great, that's a great 1382
cherry on top. That's my favorite part. 1383
I think the, the, the mini apex moments on 1384
here are so understated. 1385
That's, that's the fun part about it, you know? Um, yeah. 1386
And so the summertime when as we explained the two zones 1387
for me, that is the, uh, well, 1388
when she's playing the melody and top singing, 1389
Singing the tonic, The 1390
Counter melody, and then eventually she sings like the 1391
fifth when it goes to the five chord. Yeah. 1392
But she's still like, storytelling 1393
with, with, with both of them. 1394
It's like she's telling two different stories. 1395
It's f*****g amazing. You know, it's really fun. 1396
Uh, bespoke playlist. What you got? 1397
Uh, I, wait, you Know what? 1398
We have a lot of new 1399
listeners and viewers. Did you know that? 1400
Did you just ask me a question and interrupt me? Yes, 1401
I did. Okay. I, 1402
I, I, no, I just want you to, 1403
can you let people know what we're talking about? 1404
We assume everyone knows what we mean by bespoke 1405
Playlist. Okay. That's actually a great call. 1406
So, bespoke playlist is, 1407
Did you just question me and then come 1408
back and dap me up right after that? No. 1409
Okay. Bespoke playlist is, uh, imagine a playlist 1410
that was created by a Spotify Apple Music YouTube user, 1411
where they put their favorite things into a playlist 1412
and they give it a stupid name, which people love to do. 1413
And so we thought, well, we can do this with this album. 1414
If this album were to appear in one 1415
of those bespoke playlists, 1416
what would be the stupid name we would give it? I'm 1417
Glad I had you explain it. I never knew there 1418
was a stu stupid angle to it. 1419
I mean, everything we do has a little bit 1420
of a stupid angle to it appear. 1421
But I have, for this one, I have from Conservatory 1422
to the club and you got it. 1423
Not my best work, but it works. 1424
You've got it. The both Cs are capitalized. I like that. 1425
I've got it. I'm calling this quartet of three. Okay. 1426
What that which is both stupid and crafty at the same time. 1427
Well, because it's a 1428
Trio quartet of three, 1429
But there's four instruments playing. 1430
It sounds like a, I Confused him. Look at him. 1431
He's doing the math now. 1432
He's like, it sounds like a Max Jazz album. 1433
Corte a Max Jazz album. 1434
A Max Jazz album. Quibble Bits. 1435
Should we explain quibble bits 1436
Too? Yes. Should we explain 1437
The Show? Are we overexplaining it? 1438
Uh, Quibble. I think that one's self-explanatory. 1439
You got any quibble bits? Um, just, you know, 1440
I think there's a little bit of inconsistency 1441
as you would have for the sound and the vibe, 1442
and possibly even on the rhythm section. 1443
We don't know between the, the three studio redos. 1444
Um, although you can tell they mixed it in a way to try 1445
to make it sound like you almost wouldn't know. Did 1446
They add tape, tape p**s to the studio? 1447
They, I mean, there's a lot of reverb. 1448
Probably more than, yeah, there's a town hall reverb 1449
That was probably, Sam, can you add 1450
some tape p**s to the show please? 1451
You know, so to me that gives it a little bit 1452
of an inconsistent vibe. 1453
And the order seems like it is not, 1454
it doesn't feel like this is the way 1455
it was presented, which is fine. 1456
You can change, but I love live albums when it's 1457
like from beginning to end. 1458
I, there's, I have no quibble bits with any of the tracks. 1459
I think they're all, 1460
and it's probably put together in, in the best way. 1461
But this is not, the sequencing 1462
and the vibe inconsistency is a little bit off 1463
For me. Yeah. Mine 1464
is very similar. 1465
The the sound is noisy. That tape p**s is, 1466
Well just come out and say it. The 1467
sound is noisy. Got it. Sound 1468
Is noisy. And I would, there's 1469
Some p**s. You 1470
Know. A and that's 1471
a very, 1472
it's actually a pretty small quibble bit 1473
because a live albums, 1474
especially if it's a fifties live album, 1475
I'm not expecting it to sound 1476
like kind of blue. You know what I mean? 1477
60 59. We don't know. It Was, we don't know. 1478
S anter. Now this, we really have to, because I look 1479
To your, we should not even Talk about No, no, no. 1480
We have to explain it because on, don't know. We don't 1481
To, we can't explain it. 1482
There's no explanation for the snow. Well, but 1483
You've, you're really getting aggressive here with your 1484
Sno Sno bombers from one to 10, 1485
formerly the SnoBall meter. But you, 1486
I'm tired of these weak ass fives, Peter. 1487
That's true. But, 1488
but explain why you're giving it a one. Because I see that big 1489
Fat, I'm giving it a one because I think it's very, 1490
very not snobby. 1491
I think it's very, very available to your average listener 1492
who doesn't know anything about jazz. 1493
Yeah. But this is, okay. That doesn't make any sense. 1494
Why, because this is probably like, if you were to say, 1495
what's your favorite, if I were 1496
to ask you what's your favorite Nina Simone record 1497
and you said Sim Nina Simone at Town Hall, you'd be like, 1498
you would be the Snubbies Jazziest 1499
guy wearing a blue blazer. 1500
Okay. That's, that's a But you've, you've reduced it down 1501
to the category of Nina Simone, if I, if you were to say, 1502
what's your favorite, uh, jazz album? 1503
And I said, Nina Simone Live at Town Hall, you'd be like, 1504
that's pretty commercial, don't you think? You 1505
Know what I mean? I don't know. 1506
Well, maybe you're right. 1507
So I that, that's why I put two or nine. 1508
'cause I wasn't sure which one of 1509
those. Look at that. I've got it there. 1510
Maybe we should explain the category to you, Peter. 1511
No, it's a two or nine, 1512
depending on which way we look at it. 1513
Let's move on. Uh, average of five. 1514
Is it better than kind of blue? Nope. Nope. Uh, acc malts. 1515
Okay. I'm gonna get mine first, if that's okay. Go ahead. 1516
Uh, because I'm, I'm very surprised by yours. 1517
I'm going with a seven. 1518
And that's really low for me in a way, 1519
because like, I'm not crazy about the picture 1520
of Nina Simone, 1521
although it's like compositionally, it's interesting. 1522
You've got these mics here. 1523
It's out of focus, but it's just not a great 1524
picture, I don't think. 1525
I mean, you, you can go look at it, but I love this design. 1526
Like, I love the combination. 1527
Uh, you know, it, it is really interesting. The, so you 1528
See this design, you mean the Nina that's at the top? 1529
Multi topography, multicolored block typography. 1530
It reminds me of Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, 1531
zoom on PBS in the seventies. Oh, 1532
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. 1533
I gave it a two. 1534
And the only reason it gets a two and not a one is 1535
because of the block, Nina. Yeah. Because the, 1536
That's what got a seven. The 1537
photo is out of focus and it's not a 1538
great composition of a photo. No, I said 1539
That. They 1540
Don't even mention who's playing bass 1541
and drums on the album notes. 1542
I that, I hate that Hate. It's ridiculous. Yeah. 1543
I mean, there's a little bit, like, there's a couple 1544
paragraphs of a blurb from, uh, 1545
Don Ross. They got both Howard 1546
Burke. Yeah. They got the 1547
producer's name on there. Not the 1548
Musicians, but not the rhythm section. 1549
Yeah. Yeah. It's also, if you look at this too, 1550
it's like this is crooked. 1551
This like, the notes are crooked on that. Okay. That 1552
Might be the, uh, bootleg reprint. Well, we 1553
Can't name that. I'm just saying 1554
like, I don't think it's great. P****d. 1555
Future months. You're p****d. I'm not 1556
p****d. Think they could do better. 1557
Oh, you said because of this. She's 1558
such a striking looking person. I 1559
Know. Put 1560
A picture of her, an amazing looking face on the 1561
cover of the album, you know what I mean? I know, I know. 1562
And if you're gonna have a picture from the concert, 1563
capture the trio. 1564
Yeah. Playing together for the first time. 1565
Thats a cool thing, man. Yeah. Okay. 1566
Um, what do you have up next? 1567
So up next is like something that would pair with this. 1568
It doesn't have to be the same artist. 1569
It doesn't even have to be the same time. 1570
It'd be like, you listen to this 1571
and then you listen to another record 1572
and it would be some sort of congeniality between them. 1573
Yeah. I have Roberta Flack killing me softly. Ooh. 1574
And I'll tell you why. Great call. Great call. 1575
We've done a whole episode on Roberta Flack 1576
and they have such a similar story. 1577
Like, I don't know if you remember Yes. 1578
But Roberta Flack grew up playing classical music. Yes. 1579
She went to Howard University and studied Chopin. Yeah. 1580
You know, a lot, lot like how Nina Simone wanted to play Box 1581
and Chopin and she eventually started playing at 1582
a club in the DC area. 1583
Yeah. And people discovered her for this sort 1584
of like folk singer songwriter. 1585
Right. And this is going on 1586
after Nina Simone had already had a very successful career. 1587
So I think those two women, um, making very different music, 1588
but from a very similar, at 1589
First take kind of a jazz, kind 1590
of her jazz record too, but 1591
Not really a jazz. And I don't think, maybe even 1592
Less than this, Less than that. 1593
I don't think Roberta Flack would consider 1594
herself a jazz musician at all. 1595
Right. But I do think that, um, 1596
there's a lot of similarities there. 1597
And also I think they would sound nice next to each other. 1598
Absolutely. That's great. I've 1599
got Sarah Vaughn live and Mr. 1600
Kellys, we listen to some of that. 1601
That's the, like, that's a incredible record. 1602
Yeah, that's a great call. It's from two years before this. 1603
It'll, it, it's, you know, two sides of a, 1604
of coin that are very different. 1605
Uh, but I think super complimentary. So, 1606
Hey Peter. Yeah. I just wanna 1607
remind our dear listeners here 1608
that we do have a newsletter 1609
that comes out every week called You'll read it. 1610
You're gonna get a nice email with some 1611
behind the scenes stories of the podcast 1612
and even some things that we've left out 1613
of the show. So in the description, 1614
Maybe some corrections, we 1615
need to start putting some corrections. 1616
There's usually a lot of corrections. 1960. 1617
Um, so you can check that out. 1618
There's a link in the, in the show notes here 1619
where you can sign up for our newsletter 1620
and you get a little message from, 1621
uh, the team here at, you'll 1622
Hear it. And then you get a whole 1623
bunch of spam from Open Studios. So 1624
You do not get a whole bunch of anything 1625
Useful stuff, useful stuff. 1626
Only until next time You'll hear it.