Posts in category J

Master Class with Hank Jones: John Snyder Interviews Hank Jones Backstage

Dec14
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

What would a week of interviews with great Jazz pianists be without Hank Jones, who in his later years took on a big role of ambassador for the art form. There are  many interviews with Hank out there, and I like to link to them, but if you can only listen to one, this is it. In 2004 the legendary pianist sat down for a full ninety minute talk during a master class produced by John Snyder of Artists House Foundation and David Schroeder of the NYU jazz department. He talks about everything from his early days to the greats he worked with to some more technical aspects of music. Fascinating stuff.

— Peter Blasevick

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Joe Lovano Discusses Hank Jones

Dec06
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

This week I am posting video interviews from JazzVideoGuy himself, Bret Primack. Check out his channel on YouTube, there is so much to watch, you’ll look up and realize it’s two in the morning.

I’ve mentioned before I’m sure that I just love Hank Jones…any excuse to post about him is fine with me. Here is a nice long talk with tenor great Joe Lovano in which he discusses  working with the legendary pianist and goes into detail about their 2007 live duet album Kids.

— Peter Blasevick

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Elvin Jones: Drumming Icon is Still Cooking

Nov29
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

Great interviews with great Jazz drummers this week. Today is a nice long 2004 interview with the legendary Elvin Jones from AllAboutJazz.com. From the interview, here is the master talking about his love of Jazz music:

“I always thought that great music is a challenge,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any music greater or a lot more exciting than jazz music, because it’s pure. You hear things that nobody’s ever played before and you hear things that are almost impossible for anyone to duplicate. It’s being done and you hear music that is so beautiful; it makes you weep; it’s more than anything any classical composers have written can be. It compares equally with some of the best that’s ever been done.”

Click here to read Elvin Jones: Drumming Icon is Still Cooking

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Conversations with Christian McBride: Hank Jones

Nov22
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

Any nine minutes you can spend listening to Hank Jones—playing, talking, whatever—is nine minutes well spent. Here is a quick audio interview from JazzOnline.com that Hank Jones did with Christian McBride for his Conversations with Christian. Hank is fantastic talking about George Shearing, cars being towed at gigs, and lots more.

— Peter Blasevick

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Wynton Marsalis and Ali Jackson at the Detroit Jazz Festival

Oct24
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

This week I will be listing some interviews from the very cool site IRockJazz.com, A great online Jazz journal with interviews, reviews, and a lot more.

IRockJazz had the opportunity to interview Wynton Marsalis back stage at the 2012 Detroit Jazz Festival, and we continued the discussion we began with Ali Jackson about coming up in the Jazz scene as a young musician, and the dedication needed to succeed, along with interesting insights into the Jazz family, including Chicago’s own, Von Freeman and his impact on the music. Wynton also talks some trash about playing hoops! Funny.

— Peter Blasevick

Posted in Jackson Ali, Marsalis, Wynton

J.J. Johnson: Jazz Will Survive

Oct16
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

This week I’ll be linking to some classic Downbeat interviews. Here is a cool 1970 talk with Trombone great J.J. Johnson. From the interview, his take on avant garde musicians coming to save jazz in the 1960s:

“Several years ago,” J.J. explained, “there appeared on the scene a number of musicians who looked upon themselves as the saviors of jazz. These players went around shooting off about ‘way out this’ and ‘avant garde that,’ but in the end they didn’t fool anyone but themselves.

“Once the public had a chance to really tune in, to see what they were all about, it didn’t take them long to tune out. That’s when the live jazz gates and record sales began to fall off. The public had caught on. As it turned out, instead of helping jazz, those so-called saviors nearly killed the music.

“That’s what I’ve always admired about jazz listeners,” J.J. said. “They can’t be fooled. They’re broad-minded enough to want to hear innovation. At the same time, they’re too hip to be taken in by false prophets. Not only do jazz people love their music, but they know it too.”

Click here to read J.J. Johnson: Jazz Will Survive

— Peter Blasevick

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The Magnificent Life of Elvin Jones

Sep09
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

September 9th is the birthday of the great Elvin Jones, so today I’ll list a great combination interview and retrospective piece (Jones had just passed earlier that May) originally published in the August/September 2004 issue of DRUM! Magazine by Robert Doerschuk, with the original interview by Mike Sherpa.

Early in the interview, the legendary drummer talks about his two famous older brothers:

“From 13 to maybe 21 I didn’t even see them,” Elvin says. “Hank would go out with his trios and with Ella Fitzgerald, Jazz At The Philharmonic, and all of that. Thad was out in the Southwest, in Oklahoma and Missouri and Kansas, places like that, working with what they used to term ’territory bands.’ When he came home, of course, I thought he was an accomplished musician. He could do a lot of things that I’d heard Dizzy Gillespie do and all the things I’d heard Miles Davis do — and I thought he did them twice as good. He knew a lot about harmony, so he was a great arranger. When he was with Basie, for instance, he could do arrangements on the bus without benefit of a piano or anything else, and all of his music was extremely accurate — hardly any corrections. He was able to unleash his talent and do what he desired.”

Click here to read The Magnificent Life of Elvin Jones

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The Nimble, Young Hank Jones

Sep08
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

I admit I have a soft spot for Hank Jones. The whole thing: being part of an immortal family of musicians; his job for all those years as the CBS house piano player; playing piano on Marylin’s “Happy Birthday Mr. President”; the elder statesman thing later on in life…the whole story is great.

Here is a quote from this 2007 “All Things Considered” about his time at CBS:

“Sometimes you played accompaniment for singers. Sometimes you played for groups. Sometimes you played for operatic sequences that went down,” Jones explains. “Sometimes you played for elephant acts. Sometimes you played for dog acts. So you did a variety of things, all of which, when you added them up, it contributed to your repertoire.”

Click here to read and listen to The Nimble, Young Hank Jones

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2009 Interview with Keith Jarrett

Aug10
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

A great, long, revealing interview with Keith Jarrett by Ethan Iverson from his great DoTheMath blog. The interview starts:

EI:  Do you play the piano every day?

KJ:  Now I do, yeah. There was a long time in my life (when I was ill) when I didn’t practice really at all regularly, but now, yes, I do. It really depends on what I am working towards or away from or both. Sometimes I have to slowly erase one thing and move towards another.

I was just working on Bach over the last few months, and now I have to shelve that and pretend that I know how to do a solo concert, and while I’m pretending that, that’s practicing. But! I thought I was going to shelve the Bach, but now I’m playing the Bach, and for the last twenty-five minutes I do the other thing and it works very well. Because by the time I do the finger-work that Bach requires, and the control thing, my fingers are ready to be completely out-of-control and in-control at the same time. I didn’t realize that it was helping me improvise until Gary Peacock looked at me between sets and said, “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”

 Click here to read 2009 Interview with Keith Jarrett 

 

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Keith Jarrett On Piano Jazz

Jul23
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

This week at TNYDP I’ll be listing some of the great episodes from NPR’s Piano Jazz.

Host Marian McPartland tried for years to line-up elusive pianist Keith Jarrett for a Piano Jazz session. Following his stellar performance at Carnegie Hall in 2005, McPartland confronted the elusive performer and convinced him to put in an appearance on her show. The Allentown, Pa., native graciously invited McPartland and a small crew to his home studio, a converted barn next to his 18th-century farmhouse. The intimate setting and the chemistry between the two made for an exhilarating session.

Jarrett plays totally in the moment — he sits down at the piano with no musical pre-conceptions.

“Usually if I have an idea it locks me in its little room and keeps me there unless I get rid of it before I put my hands on a keyboard,” Jarrett says.

Appropriately, he begins the session with a lyrical, improvised piece reminiscent of jazz great Bill Evans and classical composer Aaron Copland. It’s a complete musical idea of which McPartland says, “Lovely chords!”

Click here to listen to Keith Jarrett on Piano Jazz

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The mission of The Notes You Don't Play is to be the Web's first comprehensive library of jazz interviews. Click on an artist below to go to their collection, visit our about page for more information, or contact us to suggest interviews to include in the library. Read more...

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