Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Jacob Collier, Part 2

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Jacob Collier, Part 2 · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. We're back today with part two of Bruce Edlam's
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: conversation with YouTube sensation turned five time Grammy winner Jacob Collier.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Were left out for our last episode, with Jacob talking
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: about what it's like to perform to an audience of
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: thousands of people after growing a fan base entirely online.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: In this episode, we'll hear Jacob play the piano and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: go deep on music theory. It's honestly pretty extraordinary. It
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: isn't every day that a musician of Jacob's caliber takes
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: a time to sit down at a piano and really
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: break down his creative process in the theory behind it.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: He also talks more about his new album, Piano Ballads,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: and about how the old standard Moon River taught him
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the power of centering his avant garde arrangements on emotions.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I'm just mich Here's Bruce Adlam and Jacob Collier. One
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: of your early experiences on stage, I read was you
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: sang in a couple of operas. I think you're sanging
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Fought sec and Magic Flute. But then you did Benjamin
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Britten The Turn of the Screw, and you said I
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: think it was his harmonies like blew your mind or something.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Now I thought I would have to sit here and
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: pretend to understand Benjamin Britten, and that was making me
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: very nervous. And I do like the interludes from from
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Peter grind. Since I didn't know, I reached out to
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: two people who do know. One's my brother Phil, who's
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a conductor in Europe. Actually he used to teach at
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the Royal Academy. Oh did I think? Yeah? And my
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: other is my brother Dave, who's he's a music theorist
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: at Eastman wonderful. So I said, what do I possibly
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: say about this? They say, Britain's harmonies not defined by
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: something in and of itself, but here's how they related
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to you. And maybe this is why you liked it
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: so much. Your negative harmony uses what theorist Carl Inversion
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: tell me about negative harmony and how you use it.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: So negative harmony is quite an ancient idea. It's an
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: idea based in polarity. So the idea that what goes
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: up must go down. You know, a tree has branches
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: that grow up and roots that grow down, and it
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: happens in nature. And so I had a teacher of
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: mine when I was at the roy Academy for a
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: couple of years. His name is Barack Schmoore, and Barrack
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: studied with a very very great saxophon play called Steve Coleman.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: And Steve Coleman is just one of the deepest musicians
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: who's alive, and he has got very deep into studying
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: certain musicians. There's one that he cites. His name is
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Ernst Levy, who wrote a book called A Theory of
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Harmony and and I've dipped into this book and it's
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: it's dense but fascinating, and the idea is actually really simple,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you know. It's it's the idea that if you have
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: a melody that goes you know, and you reverse every direction,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: what goes up must go down. So the reflection of
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: this is this, right, So when you see the reflection,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: if there's a full tone up, it's a full tone
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: down exactly. Yeah, It's like you put a mirror at
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: this note and this is upper tone, so that goes
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: down a tone right like that. So the idea is
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: very simple. So Steve has has thought about this as
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a melodic idea, you know, so a phrase, you know,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: like that you know, and and if I flipped that
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: as yeah, that's the reflection that kind of thing. So
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: it's a really amazing melodic device. But for me, I mean,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you know me, I'm all about the harmony. So I
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: think the thing that I gravitated towards the most was
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: that this in a harmonic sense. So if I'm if
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I'm in the key of F major in classical music,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: you think, what how would I get to F major?
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: While we get there from a C seven chord? Right?
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So I say five one. So what earned S. Levey
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: describes as one possible access of reflection is the idea
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: of you take you take F and C, which is
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: our kind of home key, and this this F and
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: F and c the note but exactly between F and C,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: so that them as a duo that becomes the reflection point,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the mirror. And if I reflect C seven over that access,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: then you come up with this sound. Right. So, and
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I mean you can imagine when I first say this,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I thought, oh man, that's so thrilling the idea that
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: the reflection of the dominant chord is as it's as
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: led to the key. Because if you think about C seven,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: this note, which is a B flat. This wants to sink.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: That's where it wants to go. Right, So you've got
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: this don't wants to this, don't wants to sink. That
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: note wants to rise, and in this that note wants
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: to sink, so that the gravity is equivalent that That's
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the crazy thing is that it's the same amount of
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: gravity to f but it's reflected. So in classical music
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: you might have or even in jazz you might have
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: something like six two five one games And so if
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: you do that with negative harmony, you get this amazing
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: like that. It's a different flavor. So you say, how
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: do I use it? Well, I'm not. I wouldn't claim
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: to have the deepest understanding of polarity in all of
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: its permutations musically, but I think that the concept of
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: that really got me excited because in a very basic way,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: it's it's plegalizing every perfect cadence. And when we see
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: plagueal cadence, it's like a four one instead of a
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: five one. So five one is this and four one
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: is this? Right, it's almost like a more of a
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: gospel sound. So rather than going yeah right, it's going
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: like what James Taylor would do? You know or Joanie.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: If if Joanie goes, oh, what she doesn't do is
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: she goes right, and then right there's plaguels to plaguel cans,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and then it's a plaguel cans on the plaguel cans,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: and you can even do a plague one on that
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and then on that, so you can actually do like
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: instead of And that's so cool to me. Four four
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: four one. And so do I think about this one?
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I'm improvising plane babs on stage consciously. No. But what
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I have done is familiarize myself with the materials of
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: what that feels like in my own experimenting at home
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and practicing, and understood that the feeling of that being
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: different from this is like a brighter version, and then
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the negative version it is darker, bright and darker. That's
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: a universal thing. You wouldn't meet a person or a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: creature or any living thing that does not understand bright
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: and dark. It's like, it's such a huge thing. And
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: obviously these things are very subjective, but musically talking, if
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I arrive at f Major, from there it feels very
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: different from him. I all right, from there, I mean
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: it's such as so exciting. That's the negative one and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the perfect one being you know, so what's the negative
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: version of the dominant seventh? He would describe it as
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: like the four minor six chord, so in f it's
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: B flat minor six like that, or you could also
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: describe it as the second degree of the scale half diminished,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: so g half diminished to fan he diminished. Is that's
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the tristan chord? Yes, yeah, it is, it is, indeed,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and that's something Benjamin Britten used a lot. Britain had
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: a way with harmony which still to this day. I mean,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: no one has touched him for the thing that he
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: has done. But he was one of the only composers
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: in the twentieth century who didn't go down the twelfth
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: tone wrote. You know, he didn't go down that the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: serialism route. He didn't go down the kind of neo
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: classicism route so much, and he didn't go down the
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: kind of austere a tonal staff for highly mathematical stuff.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: He just kind of continued a harmonic language on his
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: own terms, and it was really based in kind of
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: folk music because being English and also just I think
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: just being so deeply involved in the harmonic language of
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: what had just come before him, But I thought Turn
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of the Screw had a twelve town theme. It does
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: have a twelve tone theme, which is yeah, that's like
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the opening theme, which I just absolutely love. But I
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: guess when I say he didn't embrace twelve tonality in
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: a total form, it was it was part of his arsenal.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: He would draw in it to tell a story, a
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: harmonic story based in his otherwise kind of fruiting language.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: But the twelfth tone thing, there were certain people who
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: wrote music purely based in sure that as a form,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and I think Britain had a way of alcomizing all
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: that was going on around him. But he didn't do
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: it for that being the sake of it. He didn't
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: live and die by that conceptually, and I think he
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: was able to pull from it and tell these stories.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: The thing with Britain, to my mind is, you know
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: he would do this chord where it's as much about
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the notes that aren't there then the notes that are there.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: You know, a chord like that. I don't know whether
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Britain's uses chored. Maybe he has, but you know what,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: do you just tell me what you're playing there? Well,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: that's so that chord you could describe it as like
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: an a an a dominant chord with the ninth, but
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: it's a very strange voicing and I don't want to
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: call with the ninth is this right? But if you
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: do just there's no there's no e. If I did that,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: it's much more palatable. But he would Britain has a
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: way of these things shining here and your ear. Here's
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the gaps. It's like these big gaps, and there's there's
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: a there's like an austerity to it, like a cold
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: water nature to it. But there's also a huge power
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: and a delicacy, and he's just able to command such
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: extraordinary tapestries of color and sound. And I mean another
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: thing that was going on in the twentieth century and
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: even before that, I think Britain used beautifully was the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: idea of kind of biternality. You know, you have one
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: part of the music in one key and then another
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: part in it totally different key, and if you had
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: that's something very sweet up here. Yeah, it's really kind
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: of this is amazing. It's an amazing feeling because your
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: your mind has led in one direction by one and
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: one direction by the other, and there's one area in
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the tone of the screw called Marlow, which I sang
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: as a boy. Yeah, And it's this beautiful, like really haunting,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: innocent kind of thing, and beneath it, especially towards the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: end of the production, all sorts of really emotional, deep
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: cause going underneath the surface, and it just maintains this purity. So,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I didn't understand those cause at that age,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and I mean even to this day, I haven't sat
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: down and gone deep in analyzing them, but the feeling
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: of being a part of those cause as a member
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: of the cast has stayed with me for life. And
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the idea of being that part of the cord or
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: outlining that part of the innocence of the court and
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the storyline. It's reference to the darkness underneath. I mean,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: it's just so rich and so beautiful. And I think
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: that I approached that music at that time completely without
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: analysis because I was twelve, you know, and I was
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: missing a bunch of school. It was really exciting. I
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: got to skypoff lessons and go to Spain and learn
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: this really dense, rich music, and I really kind I
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: felt like I emotionally really understood it. I understood it,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: you know, far more than a lot of the having
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: mates and doing stuff that kids do and having to
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: socialize with children. I didn't get that as much as
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I understood Britain. With Britain it was like, Oh, I
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: understand what's going on here. I can I can emote
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: and relate to this as a form. Now you said
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: it's a different chord the way you're playing in the
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: right hand and in the left hand. Are they related
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: harmonically or are they two completely different thoughts? Well, they
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: can be related harmonically. I think normally there's a sense
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of gravity that each holds. And in the world of Britain,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: this has the D major has all of its own
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: gravities and C has its gravities at the same time,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and they don't have to connect. They doesn't have to
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: be like whoa, you know, it's just so it's so
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: boring when you think about harmony in that in that way.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: So and I think I used to I used to think,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: if everything is a scale, I think there's one unified sound,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: that everything had to be connected and analyzed vertically. But
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: now I think I'm getting more of a kick out
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: of horizontal harmonic thinking, which I suppose it is more
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: in line with someone like Bach who writes these amazing
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: four part things. But he doesn't think. I don't think
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: you necessarily thought about like, okay, F major C major.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: He thought, this melody is going here, and this melody
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: is going here. They can they connect in that way,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and harmony is a byproductive melody in that situation. We'll
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: be right back with more from Ruce Eendlam and Jacob Carlier.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: After a quick break, we're back with more from Ruce's
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: conversation with Jake Carlier. You have a video. You have
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: many wonderful videos, but there's one with you and Herbie Handcart.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that I'm thinking of now watching your play
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: whereas he describes, and I'm wondering if this is related
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: in playing jazz, he says, we'll play the arrival chord
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: in the right hand and then play the chord that's
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: getting there in the left hand. Yeah, there's this tune
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: that Herbie taught men called Don't Follow the Crowd, which
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: is a killing tune. And there's one moment in the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: tune where it goes like that, right, So you could
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: harmonize that as a good old fashioned A flat seven.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: But Herbie talks about the idea of it being a
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: C seven, oh, which is so great. And then after there,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: so he thinks about the right hand being that's actually
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: disconnected from the left hand because the left haun is
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: going five one and the right hand's going see D flat,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: just chromatic, right, And Herbie would say that that comes
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: from the twenties, you know, that kind of this, you know,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: rather than very chromatic. Yea chromatic approach rather than you know, functional,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: But I would I think my end seas was to
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: try and think of things vertically first. So I was like,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: how could you fit? How can you make that fit?
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: You know, because you've got a dominant seven and a
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: major seven, so you actually got all three of these
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: notes at the same time. But that's it's great, you know,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: And and I like it because it tears the rule
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: book up. And I think that's also why Herbie likes
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: because Herbie is such a maverick, you know, that guy.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: He loves he loves getting inside the cracks of these
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: things and finding chords that feel right. I mean. The
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: first time I ever met Herbie was in Montoya in
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Switzerland in twenty fourteen, and the first conversation we had
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: was it was like, hey man, how you doing, and
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: within two minutes were talking about minor ninths. It was
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: just like, hey, man, love minor ninths. This is just
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: minor ninth sounds like this. You know, it's really gnarly
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: kind of but if you put a minor knights in
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the right place, then it can be so beautiful. So say,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: for example, this it's such a beautiful austere sound, you know,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Or if I spread that out these kinds of bubbling sounds,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: there's so many cool things that you can do with
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: that interval, which you could say is the reflection of
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: that interval, and a major seventh is also very important interval.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: But it was just fun to sit in this restaurant
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: with Herbie over chicken and we were just talking about
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: minor knights. It was one of the most where I thought,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: what is my life, you know, right now sitting with
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Herbie Hancock and Talbot minor knights. This is crazy. You know.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Over the years, Herbie has become a really great friend,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: you know, and also a mentor, and I think I've
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: learned so so much from him and sitting down and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: listen to how he thinks and talks and plays and
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: so many life lessons with Herbie. It's not just musical lessons.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: It's not sitting down Herbie shows me a hit new voicing.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: It's it's you know, Hobby talks so much about you
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: permission and fearlessness and how music comes straight from life
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and all these kinds of things. So a minor ninth,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that's not that doesn't exist in a stuffy or textbook
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: in the back of a library and some you know,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: godforsaken music theory book. It exists because it holds tension
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: in the present. Now that is the sound? Now, well,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: what how do you use that? It's it's so expensive,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: you know, what expensive thing to use? And if i'm
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: if I'm singing wise males right, that is a minor ninth?
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Well I could I could equally do which is that
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: minor night there? And suddenly it's suddenly we get into
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: into into Britain territory again, you know, the idea of
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: things that rob you know, Britain. Britain would use a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: chord like that instead of like you know, it's like
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: a chord like this. You could call this a D
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: eleven chord, which case and sister g well, why is
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: that chord so emotive? Well, you could say, you know,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: because blah blah blah has notes center scale as well,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: but that's not why it's emotive. I think because the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: g is already home. It's already home. Britain did this
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: wonderful arrangement of what maybe I think maybe even composed it.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: It's called the New Year Carol, and he goes, it's
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: a beautiful tune and that chord. Why is that so special?
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Because he could have just done yeah, it does a
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: similar thing, but no, he keeps this. He keeps it.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: It's like a constant. It's like I'm it's a steadfast,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: the steadfast at home and even though we're not at home,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: we've got this card. We're still home at the same time,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and you've got mine at night. This is the sacred
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: mine night is there fighting, but it's it's resolved and
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: unresolved at the same time. I mean, that's such a
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: human feeling. Oh, it's just beautiful and I mean that
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: And so where does an understanding of those sounds come from? It?
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: It doesn't come from reading books, doesn't come from taking
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: music classes. It comes from listening with an open mind
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and then playing with the things that move you about
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: it and just and getting inside a sound and you know,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and again it's a lot of this stuff is so subjective.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: But I think that that's one thing that Britain does
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: so well is he controls tension in a very sweet
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: but yet very dark way, where he's able to kind
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: of leave space for your ear to intuit a part
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: of the harmony that is maybe even not there, or
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: feel something visualized common tones throughout music. But I don't
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: think he thinks about this in a theoretic where I
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: think he just think that's just his soul, you know.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the interesting things about this album
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: is you can hear the audience reaction and there are
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: times you're improvising and they don't know where it's going,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and I'm not sure you can even hear it, but
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: there's a sort of tension yea. And this happens in
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of concerts, but more so in yours, because
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: they don't know where you're going. Suddenly you begin say
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: let it be. You really took a long time to
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: get to let it be. People are like, oh, that's
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: a relief, yeah exactly. I don't think I decided necessarily
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: that that was definitely the song I was going to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: play until I ended up here. I guess what interests
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: me about it is there is this tension in popular music.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: And we're talking about Benjamin Britain, we're talking about Herbie Hancock,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: but you're very much in the pop world as well.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: There's always been this tension between musical knowledge and ability
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: on one hand, and simplicity and what is thought of
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: his sincerity on the other hand. You know, progressive rock,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: punk rock people prefer punk rock. Country is famously called
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: three chords in the truth. Yeah. Right. Are there some
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: songs that you simply can't do this level of reharmonizing
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: on It surprised me. For example, you did Tennessee Waltz,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: which is very kind of traditional. It's probably a one,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: four or five. Yeah. Are you in the middle of
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: some songs going you know, the song can't take this? Yeah.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: There are definitely moments where a song does not guide
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: you to being reimagined heavily harmonically. There's one song on
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the album called all Let's Sea, which is maybe my
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: favorite song on the album. It's a song by a
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: guy named Jamie Cullum, who's just one of my favorite
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: musicians from from England, and it's funny, I didn't do
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: any rehrms or I did a couple of sneaky ones,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: but but I didn't fundamentally reharmonize that song because for
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: some reason, maybe it was my mood or whatever. But
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: but yeah, the song it just kind of I'm all,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: let's where no one bother Oh God, you fully for
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: it doesn't need you know, it doesn't need that. It
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: just it sings. And one of the joys of improvising
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: is that you have to take yourself as how who
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: you are on that day. So I remember when I
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: did Tennessee Waltz, that was the fifth show in a
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: row that we've done. We've done I think it was
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: two Copenhagen shows, a Sweden show, one more show which
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I'm forgetting now, and then Oslo was the was the
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: final of the five show. So I was exhausted, but
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I was also very kind of hyper. And my really
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: difference Steane Carsonson, who's totally unbelievable Norwegian button mccordion player
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: who also plays banjo and cabal and pedal steel. He
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: actually brought his pedal steel for this and I asked
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: him to sit in on the song Tennessee wats is
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: a fun place to start because it's a song that
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: kind of everyone knows, especially musicians, you know, really really
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: know that song, right that. I mean, it's such a
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: great song that actually it can survive some pretty severe departure.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: But I think for me that the thing I like
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: about that performance with Stand is that I both of
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: us have this way of climbing around and all some
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: weird funny things, but the song is like a north star,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: you know, it guides us back and then we'll go
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: off in and then Sonny will land at the song again,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you know, and it brings us back home, so you know.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: But then again I think if I thought, oh gosh,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I really shouldn't do this to the song, or oh no,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: that would be inappropriate, you know, or whatever thin these
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: these principles are, I think less is less is always more,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: or you know, if you really have to treat things,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: these things with the respect and don't know, I don't
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: think that's a that's that's not how life works. And
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I also don't think that that is a sound way
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: of learning. I think that you have to give yourself
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: permission to try at all. I think when I was
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: a teenager, I kind of irrespective of the song. Sometimes
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I would take these things way way, way, way way out,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: And I think now I'm more inspired by the idea
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: of kind of controlling the the density of the language
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: in favor of the songs that are being sung, on
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the stories that are being told through the songs. And
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things I'm enjoying about
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: growing older, actually is you know, if I look at
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: myself ten years ago, when I was eighteen, so much
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: of the language was so new and I needed to
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: push it that far. If someone, I mean people did
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: try and tell me this, I didn't listen. But if
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: people say, you know, to calm down, don't do less chords,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: you just just play the simple song, you know what
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I mean. That's like telling Stevie Wonder not to make
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: where I'm coming from, it doesn't work. You can't make
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: someone different from who they are, and it's not in
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: anyone's best interesting. I mean, why am I making music.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not making music for other people to like it.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I'm making music because I must make it. It's part
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: of my skeleton, it's part of my expression, and I
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: think that it's only in giving people the permission to
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: be their full authentic selves, that you end up with
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: a person that is actually grounded in the truth of
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: who they are. And again, when you grow old. One
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: things what growing older is that you're understanding as to
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: your language and how to use it. I think it
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: deepens and grows as you become older. So I think
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: I'm now much more inspired by I mean, you could
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: say simple, cause, but tryads. I mean simple you know,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: these simple things I really adore, like the clarity of
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: these kinds of sounds when I was sixteen, and all
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I wanted to do is think was you know, wow,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: are these such cool sounds? You know? But I'm glad
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: that I went through that, and I'm glad that I've
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: come into the triatic world with those experiments in tow
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: because it means that if I'm playing you know, wise
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: men say or whatever, there might be a moment where
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I do sprinkle a chord that's quite expensive, followed by
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: a simple chord, and then then you get into like
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: really painting with with that language. It wasn't a question
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: of should people have permission to experiment, because of course
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: they always should. It's the degree or which a tune
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: can absorb that kind of treating you know, rhythm changes
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: are a lot of the big jazz songs are built
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: that way. You know. I'm thinking one of because I
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: do like country music and I like the pleasure of
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the three chords. You know. One of my favorite versions
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: of a country music song is do you know Ray
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Charles doing You or My Sunshine? I think I've heard that. Yeah,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: it's fantastic, But I don't think he does much. I
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: think it's a lot of he just sings the song.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of rhythmic stuff. Yeah, it just moves
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: like nobody's business. But I don't actually think he does
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: much substitution. Yeah, yeah, But to me, and maybe it's
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: almost a self consciousness that do I like music that's
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: too simple? Yeah? No, I don't think that that that.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's that's such a thing as that.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: It's hard as a listener sometimes, you know, I mean,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: because those the pleasures are very kind of well regulated,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, Willie Nelson's a nice guitar player. There's
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of fabulous guitar playing in country, but but
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: it's based on that foundation. They're not throwing in a
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: lot of half diminish No, no, and I love it.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: For that reason. Yeah, yeah, I think certain songs can
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: survive being kind of messed with, and other songs do
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: kind of just fall apart. We'll be right back after
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: a quick break with more from Jacob Collier. We're back
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: with the rest of Bruce Ellen's conversation with Jacob Collier.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about Moon River because you
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: once said that's a song that taught you a lot. Yes,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: what did you mean by that? It's another It's an
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: all of these songs like like Can't Help falling in Love,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: where every every note in that melody is in the
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: major scale. So what's that song taught me? It's very simple,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: but it has such a journey intervaliqually, So when I
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: said intervalidly, it's like the arcs of the melody are
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: so lovely, is it. It's like rainbows, you know, It's
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: like a line that's drawn like this, and those shapes
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: are so strong that I think it held my language
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: together a little bit, because you know, I came with
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: that song ravenous for some chords. You know, I really
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: want to take this song out on a journey, and
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: then there are times where the song will dictate no, no,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: you stay within my world. You stay within the key
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: that it's in, and then there are moments where where
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: it almost physically it says fly go fly, and I'm thinking, okay,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: all my all, my language comes out, and I just
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: think that kind of almost spiritually, I think that song
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: is so beautiful, and it's just the idea of the
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: wonder of the world opening up before your eyes and
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: almost having this this going on a journey as with
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: a companion whier than a mile I'm crossing you in
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: style someday. It's it's like it's imagining a world that
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: that is endless and large and big and that you
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: could share where after the same rainbow's end waiting around
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the bend my Hockerberry friend. It just describes a feeling,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: and I think some of my favorite songs describe a feeling,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: either through the lyrics or just through the chords and
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: the melody. Rather than being about it's about this personal
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: it's about this experiences, it's about a feeling of the world.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Because that that song, it just opened my mind to
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, and I also idea harmonically, I
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: really kind of pushed the boat out down Moon River
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: and really kind of wanted to find new things. The
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: final verse of that eight minute arrangement actually is in
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: a it's in a key that does not exist on
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the piano. It's like between E flat and E oh
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: you did, dude, And it's actually not on the piano.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: It's it's a quarter tone away. And but there's a
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: a portion at the end of the arrangement after that
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: where I moved between all these keys there aren't on
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the piano. And it's something I've been very, very excited
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: by and interested for some time. But I really in
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: a musical sense that arranging that song gave me a
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: lot of understanding as to how to achieve things in
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: a microtonal world, but based in and based in the
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: emotions of a song that kind of held it together.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: So how does that work? How does the what's the
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: emotional effect of switching to not a semi tone but
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: a semi semi tone one? Yeah, yeah, microtone. Well, it's
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the same feeling as changing key chromatically on accano. Um.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: You know, if I'm playing Moon River, I have I've
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: changed gay or whatever. Um um. Right, So it's a
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: new world, it's it's it's just a different thing. Well,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: what's different about these keys that it's different, different color,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: different flavor, different feelings. So so with microternal keys, it's
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: the same thing. It's just it's just even more subtle.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: So you know, if you, for example, are aware of
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: only the major scale and you go this all sounds
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: good or pentatonic, and every style of music in the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: whole world pretty much incorporates the idea of this pentatonic scale.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: It's a universal thing. And if I go, oh, that
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: doesn't fit, that's that note is not in my language.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Oh it feels really out and strange. How could anybody
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: ever use that note? You know, why would you do that?
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: But actually you can do it. Say if I take
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: the E and I pivot, then I'm there. So the
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: same is true with with microtonality. I think right now,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: based on the last five hundred years of musical instruments
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: that have been built in twelve tone equal temperament, which
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: is the idea that every semitone is the same size,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: and there are twelve notes in the noctive. There were
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: lots of other ones, you know, there's thirty one note
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: equal temperament, which is I'm actually a huge advocate for.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: I think it's really good. And so instead of do
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: do do do do do. It's like you know, et cetera,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: and all these individual notes that all it's the same thing.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: You can still pivot. You could pivot two notes that
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: feel outside you know, I can pivot from too, even
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: though that note feels oh wow, no that's wrong, it's
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: a wrong note. It's like, no, it's not wrong. And
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: there are also some ways you can you can pivot,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: you know, using things like just intonation, which is like
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: a system of tuning based in physics and harmonic ratios
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: and things like that. It's just that our ears aren't
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: are weak enough to it in the same way that
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: if we are pentatonic people and someone goes, well, that's
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: just never going to be in my system. It's not
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: in the system. It's wrong. And assuming sometimes we have
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: a way of think that's wrong. It doesn't fit into
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: my system, you know what are damaging and dangerous concept politically, conceptually, philosophically,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: energetically to say you don't belong in this because it
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: doesn't fit in my system of understanding and think of
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the things I think of the opportunities we have to
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: connect with each other and ideas, but we shut them
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: down because we are close to our own systems, and
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: all of us do this. I mean, I do this
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and many aspects of my life because I'm a human too.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: But I try not to because I think that music,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, which has taught me so many things, definitely
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: teaches me to welcome things and in the idea of
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: not being a wrong note but more just like an
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: opportunity to go somewhere else is way cooler as a
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: way of thinking than thinking, well, that's just wrong. Rule
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: it out. So when you did Moon, did you change
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: it electronically like post production or did you adjust the
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: instruments or was it all vocals? It was all vocals. Yeah,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: it's about hundred hundred voices at once. It's a massive sound,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: And that's what I mean. It's the reason why I
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: think the voice is the most kind of important and
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: versatile instrument of all. But yeah, I just sang it
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: in as I wanted to hear it. Having perfect pitch
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: does that allow you to hear the in between notes
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: as well? Well? It's funny because you know, perfect pitch
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: is one it's you would say, oh, you know, it's
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: absolute pitch. I can pluck a note of the air.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: But I mean it's just based on the notes that
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: we've been given. So we've been given twelve available notes,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: and I think now I'm excited to kind of expand
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: my you could say, perfect pitch into more than twelve.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Have you played the Harry Partch instruments. Well, so I've
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: never played one of his instruments, but Harry Partch, it's
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: one of the most kind of important pioneers of microturnal instruments.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: There're been so many people over the years who have
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: attempted to solve the problem of how do we make
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: our chords sound really good but also put them in
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: equal temperament. So yeah, I mean not to get too nerdy,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: but every note in the universe has a set of overtones.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: So if I if I say, which is a B flat?
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: If I go, I don't know if you can hear it,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: it's going So this is naturally occurring. So if I
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: go in a cathedral, which people did hundreds of years ago,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: no doubt you hear those overtones back come back at you.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: And so within every note is actually inherently a major chord.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: It's crazy. So this is why I think major feels
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: consonant to human beings is because that sound is if
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I go, it's the it's in the chord, it's in
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: the note, it's in every sound, so of course ours
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: seek to hear that. The thing about the piano, which
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: is a compromise harmonically, is that the third that D
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: the third on the piano is actually it's actually really
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: sharp on the piano in real life. In physics you
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: could say everything's real life, but see it's really sharp.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: But the pure tone we call it the justly tuned third.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Here's fourteen hundreds of a half step or a semitone flatter.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Then the piano is tuned. So this is crazy to me.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: What does this mean? Well, it means that you can
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: pivot to microternal keys. And this is this is the
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: thing that really freaks me out. So if I if
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: I take the D and that's now my tonic, then
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: that my entire chord is fourteen cents flat. So now
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: if I do that's a D major chord, the third
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: of that chord would itself be fourteen cents flat. So
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: now my F sharp is, which is quite a lot
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: flatter than the one on the piano, and then that
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: itself can become a major chord, and then the third
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: of that is fourteen cents flat. So by this point
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: we are what's what's my math forty two cents flat,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: which is almost half for semitone flat. So this is
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: how at the end of Moon River, and also in
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: other arrangements I did, I actually moved between microternal keys.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not just jumping there. I'm pivoting using just intonation, ratios,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: harmonic physics based intervals to guide the ear to a
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: place where it doesn't know or sense anything is wrong
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: or untoward. Because it's the same way as pivoting to
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: a major from C major, but using the E. I
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: don't feel like I've gone huge. It's not like going
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not like you're not jumping to a
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: foreign place. You can do that. But the thing I'm really, really,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: really excited and interested in right now is how do
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: you unpack microternality but completely in functional chord systems and
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: functional harmony, Because there's also people who make microtnal music
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: that sounds really unlistable and it is very intellectual and
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: it's just really jarring, and it can be very beautiful
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: as well. But I think for me, the idea of
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: these justly tuned cares and intervals pivoting using those sounds.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's crazy, man, that's so exciting. You're now
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: on the hunt for ghost notes between the notes. What's
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: next for you? Well, we haven't spoken about this too much,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: but I'm in the middle of a quadruple album. This
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: is besides the Piano Ballots album Jesse Volume one, two, three,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: and four, And each of the volumes of Jesse has
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: been a different It's like a different musical genre, different
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: musical space, different set of sounds, and so it's like
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: a fifty song, sprawling, kind of insanely ambitious project that
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I began four years ago, now over four years ago. Now.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: I wanted to lay down the foundations of my own
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: musical understanding so that at the end of the fourth
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: one of Jesse, I could like start my career. That
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: was like my plan, and the way I wanted to
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: learn was by collaborating with all my favorite musicians music
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I believe to be the most kind of extraordinary important
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: people to me. And some of those people are old legends,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: and some of those people are ten years younger than me.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: But I was really really ravenous to collaborate because I
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: just made this album in my room, and I taught
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: it for three years on my own on stage, and
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I just really wanted that that human connection, so I
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: started this project. So jesse Volin one was an orchestral album.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: By no means was it classical music, but it was.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: It was just it was music, just music made with
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: an orchestra and my mind and instruments skills too, and
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: so there was that. The Take six were on the album.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Lauren Mvola was on the album All Sorts of Amazing People.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: And jesse Volin two was more of a sort of
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: a folk record. I suppose, a record based out of
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: the guitar and running songs, and and that album was
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: packed with the collaborations to Sam Amidon, Katherine Takel. Leanne
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Lavas was on the album, Jojo Umari, Mark Romley was
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: on there and she's extraordinary, and Steve I, the legendary
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: rock guitarists, was on there. Jesse Voldin three was more
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: of a kind of R and B. I hesitate when
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I say pop, but it was the most pop album
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: I've ever made. These songs had electronic production four on
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: the floor, so those things as well as you know,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: really kind of dense experiments and that album was t
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Paine and Jesse ray Is and Tory Kelly and Mahalia
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Ty Dollar Sign, Keyana Laday some really extoring people rhapsody.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: So what's next for me? Well, Jesse Vain four is
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: on the horizon, and that is it's been a couple
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: of years in the works and more excited by it
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: than I can possibly say. It's been a challenge to
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: kind of contain the overwhelmingly dazzling potential of what it
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: could sound like and be in my mind because there's
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: just so many things. But it's it's finding it's nor
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: if it's finding its form, and it's it's really getting
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: to the point where it's it's it's approaching a finished state. Now.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: I think within a few months it should be done,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: so that's cool. One of the things I'm most excited
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: about is I actually recorded every audience on tour for
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: the album, and so it's like a one hundred thousand
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: voices singing in harmony on the record, And I think,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: to me, that's so exciting and feels philosophically very correct
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: because I began my career laring my own voice on
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: top of itself to create harmony, right and It's almost
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: like I pose the question of what is harmony? What
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: is connection? If harmony is the connection between things, what
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: am I seeking here? What began as a journey in isolation?
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: And it's by no means ending, but it's it's it's
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: definitely the end of an era, Jesse era, the last
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: five years of my life. What have I learned? While
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: I've learned that everyone in the world has a voice,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: and what happens when you bring those voices together, that is,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: that's as much harmony philosophically harmony as I could possibly
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: dream of conceptualizing. That is a feeling, that is a
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: north that's the special thing. And so I'm really excited
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: to incorporate their voices onto the album. I'm then excited
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: to tour that album with the audiences themselves singing what
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: they said. You know, there's this amazing kind of loop
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: that goes around. Yeah. I'm working on so many other
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: things besides Jesse Volume four, some of which I can't
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: talk about, In fact, most of which I can't talk about,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: but with all sorts of different people on many different
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: stages and different environments, in many different forms of art,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: and I think I'm just fiercely ambitious, but I'm also
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: just trying to stay as in the present as I
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: can with what I can pay attention to and give
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: my due two right now, and right now, that's finishing
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Jesse Volume four, which I'm so proud of and so
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: excited to share, and finishing off this world tour this year,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: which is Australia, New Zealand and Asia and a little
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: bit of Europe for good measure, and then you know,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: soaring into the campaign of the album, which is creating
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: videos and creating narratives and having conversations, and there'll be
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: a tour for that album, I'm sure in the future,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: and after the album comes out, and you know, then
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I think the biggest challenge for me is leaving a
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: blank page so that things can take me by surprise,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: you know, because I could plan the next ten years
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: of my life and actually fill every day. So I
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: think it's it's almost amount of just thinking, well, let's
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: just leave room for things to come and surprise me,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: and people to come and surprise me, and for me
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: to be swept off my feet a little bit, you know,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: by the things that happen in life that you can
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: never plan for. But it's almost like improvising a ballad.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: You go on stage or you step forth in life,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: and there are certain things that you can hold on to.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: There are certain parts of language and knowledge you understand,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: and then then you have to just let it all
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: go and see what happens. Well, thanks for spending this
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: time with us. You've swept us off our feet, just wonderful.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks thanks to Jacob Carlier again for sitting down to
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: talk to us about his career and about his process
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: and about some insane musical dude. You can hear piano
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: ballads and all of our favorite Jacob call your songs
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com. Be
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: com slash broken record Podcast. We can find all of
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: broken Record. Broken Record is producer Helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Benaladay,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, Jennifer Sanchez, our editor, Sophie Crane, our executive
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: producer is Label. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
• 47:08
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• 47:19
  Speaker 1: remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Right theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richard.