Richie's story of learning dynamics from Chet Baker
In preparation for my interview with jazz pianist Richie Beirach a few years back, I asked his long-time friend Dave Liebman for a good question I could ask Richie. Dave said, "Ask him which of the masters was the most generous toward him."
So I asked Richie, to which he replied, "That's easy... Chet."
From that came the great story of a lesson Chet generously gave Richie about playing with dynamic control. It did not seem generous at the time, but Richie admits that it stuck with him throughout his entire career.
***A week after posting this video, I see two comments that I think get something wrong. Let me say something about them.
***First are the comments that view Chet as being a bad dude. The critical word used is "egomaniac." But stop and think about Chet's life up until then. Being a foreign prison inmate and junkie is a hard life. Lessons came hard-fought and that's how he and many other of the master apprentices taught. Through tough love. Richie talks a lot about this in his book "Teaching and Learning Jazz" - I've included the link at the bottom.
***The proof of his generosity is the fact that Chet shaped something lifelong important in Richie Beirach. I call this 'ends justifying the means.' It wasn't dinner-manners polite. It was what it needed to be.
***The second perspective in the comments regards Artificial Intelligence. As I replied to a clever comment saying that the Poet AI shouldn't quit its day job, I wrote that that 'poem' is not a replacement for human art. THAT RETELLING OF THE STORY USING RHYTHM AND RHYTHM IS NOT ART.
***To me, AI is fascinating and indispensable tech. Look at my other videos demonstrating Jazz Master Chat translating an important lesson. It may not be for you, but this is valuable information for the right person and along with it, a broader audience.
***My favorite AI comment on AI said, "Great information. Too bad it came from an AT." That's like saying "I don't like the books printed using the technology of the movable type press. Bad stuff did and do come from the printing press but so did and do great things. AI is no different in that regard.
**I think this debate is important, so feel free to offer your point of view.
You can check out the book Richie wrote called Teaching and Learning Jazz. It has more stories about the old master-apprentice method of jazz master teaching. https://musicsavvy.com/teaching-learn...