The Quartet Jazz Standards Podcast

Episode 23. Andrea Vicari (Piano) - 'On Green Dolphin Street'

UK Music Apps Ltd. Season 1 Episode 23

Geoff gets a visit from the wonderful pianist and composer Andrea Vicari who opens up about her rich musical journey inspired by her jazz pianist father and a house filled with the sounds of jazz legends like Louis Armstrong.

Andrea shares fascinating insights into her improvisation process, demonstrating how pentatonic scales and fourth-based voicings – influenced by McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea – shape her approach to standards like the 1940s classic ‘On Green Dolphin Street’ which she performs accompanied by the Quartet app. Rather than planning solos in advance, she responds organically to her initial phrases, allowing ideas to develop naturally through active listening. This responsive approach reflects decades of absorbing the language of jazz through transcription and performance.

The conversation takes us to the beautiful Dordogne region of southern France, where Andrea’s summer school has flourished for 22 years at Chateau de Monteton. What began as a practical way to spend time near her relocated parents has evolved into a beloved institution where two-thirds of participants return annually, forming lifelong friendships and even marriages. She describes it as like “Love Island on Jazz”. This blend of community-building and jazz education represents the holistic approach Andrea brings to music—valuing connection alongside technical mastery.

Perhaps most touching are Andrea’s reflections on performing in post-war Bosnia, where audiences would sing along to folk melodies integrated into jazz performances amid buildings still bearing bullet holes. These experiences, alongside her sophisticated approach to harmony and improvisation, reveal an artist whose musical expression is deeply informed by human connection and emotional resonance.

Discover Quartet for iOS, taking your jazz play-along experience to another level. Search for Quartet on the App Store or visit quartetapp.com to learn more about the top-selling innovative tool for jazz musicians.

Presenter: Geoff Gascoyne
Series Producer: Paul Sissons
Production Manager: Martin Sissons
The Quartet Jazz Standards Podcast is a UK Music Apps production.

Geoff:

Hello podcats, Geoff Gascoyne here, hope you're well. Today I'm at my house, my own home, and I'm expecting a visit from a wonderful pianist and educator and composer, Andrea Vicari. We're going to have a little chat about her life, her career and some improvising, writing musicals, teaching, some highlights, and she's going to pick a standard to play. So here we go.

Announcement:

The Quartet Jazz Standards podcast is brought to you by the Quartet app for iOS, taking your jazz play along to another level.

Geoff:

Hello Andrea, how are you?

Andrea:

Hi, Geoff, I'm great,

Geoff:

All right.

Geoff:

Thanks for doing it.

Andrea:

That's OK. I'm, you know, happy to be of service, as they say.

Geoff:

It's a service to everyone. I hope it's for the greater jazz community.

Geoff:

I would like to say

Andrea:

The greater good yes.

Geoff:

Can we start by talking about your background and about how you got started in jazz?

Andrea:

Yeah, my father was a jazz pianist, so we had a lot of jazz in the house, all the time and I was taken to a big band gig by my friend's father. My parents used to take me to gigs, but it'd be like the Waterworks in Birmingham and it'd be quite, I'd say, a bit more traddy sort of jazz and it was full of older people,

Geoff:

So nothing's changed there, then has it

Andrea:

No, but but anyway.

Andrea:

so, friends, dad took me to see the Midland Youth Jazz Orchestra when I was about 15 and I was just like, wow, that's incredible. And of course everyone playing in it was my age or you know slightly, and one of my friends at school was in the trumpet section just by chance, and so I said, oh, you know, I'd quite like to join that. And he said, well, why don't you come? And actually I lived really close. I mean, it's incredible, it was going on. I only knew it because my friend's parents had taken me there.

Andrea:

So I kind of feel like what, if I had never done that, that would I have still come to jazz? Because the big band was a really brilliant way to start improvising, because of course you'd be playing written music or just chord symbols. You know, I sort of take it home and teach myself how to play chords and then you'd have like four bar solo and it's really scary, you know, but you do the four bars and you kind of it's like an education when you're in a big band because you feel safe because there's so many people.

Andrea:

So that was my first sort of way into jazz. I learned classical piano so I was playing anyway to quite a reasonable standard.

Geoff:

So what age were you when you first actually improvised? You actually took your first solo.

Andrea:

I mean I'd say when I was about 15, 16, but I mean I always improvised. I was always writing music at home. Actually, to be fair, my dad did used to show me like some blues stuff that I do, so I can't really remember, but I know when I had my first official solo would have been when I was in that big band.

Geoff:

Did you listen to jazz as well around that time?

Andrea:

I think when I took an interest in listening to records, it was when we discovered that there were certain records that we really liked me and my brother we discover like Bitches Brew, Miles Davis and then one of my favourite albums was was Chick Corea and, um Stan Getz, Captain Marvel which we played over and over and over again.

Andrea:

you know, I think I was trying to find something that I could identify, but actually, I mean, my dad's record collection was ridiculous right it was just I had everything from Louis Armstrong, but of course you know when you're 15, 16 and it's your parents music you don't want to.

Geoff:

You know, and how did you actually gain a vocabulary? Did you transcribe uh, solos and things like that?

Andrea:

So, if we fast forward in time, I think I transcribed my first solo when I was about 20 or something like that

Geoff:

What was that?

Andrea:

It was Herbie Hancock Dolphin Dance

Geoff:

Wow, that's advanced.

Andrea:

It's a manageable one, that it's not too difficult. It's got a nice little shape to it.

Geoff:

But the harmony's pretty sophisticated on that tune, isn't it?

Andrea:

People go oh, you should do that, you should do that.

Andrea:

And then you do it and you're like, oh yes, why didn't I do?

Andrea:

this After school did you go to and studied music at Cardiff University? I'm of an age where the only place to study jazz would have been Leeds College of Music, which didn't give you a degree. So I think quite shortly afterwards some of the colleges started to offer degree courses. The Academy may have started it, but actually, to be fair, at that stage I wanted to be a composer. So I went and I did composition as my main thing at Cardiff. I think I came to jazz at a natural pace. I don't think I was. I loved all music at that age.

Andrea:

I wasn't ready to specialise and I also loved sport, so I thought music college might be full of people who didn't like sports.

Geoff:

Right. And then, after being in Wales, did you move to London? Presumably.

Andrea:

So I did a three-year course, then did a teacher training course, which in those days meant you got a grant and I started it. And I was like, hmm, don't know if I want to do that, because actually I'd just done the summer school at the Guildhall and everyone was like you should do the full-time course and of course I'd started this education course. But I thought you know what? What I'll do this because it'll be good to have on your CV, but also it's something to live on and I can practice all the time, which is what I did, so yeah.

Andrea:

I did the Guildhall. The postgraduate certificate, as it was known in those days, probably would have been a master's.

Andrea:

I like to say that because there weren't any jazz masters when I went to the Guildhall

Geoff:

And then you started working as a pianist.

Geoff:

Presumably did you

Andrea:

Oh yeah, I mean I've been doing lots of gigs. Anyway, before I came to, you know, um to to London, I've been working in Cardiff with some bands, so if you went to the Guild hall and you did get opportunities in those days, Dill Katz actually the bass player was was somebody who gave me quite a lot of work and got me into venues like the 606 and places like that which which was great um.

Geoff:

Dill was amazing, actually, in fact,

Geoff:

that bass there that's.

Geoff:

I bought that base from Dill Katz that's still my main bass.

Andrea:

Dorian's got one as well yeah and it's really important you know, when you're unknown, to get yourself known and that was a really good way to get around, so I suppose I, I I do, you know owe quite a lot to people like Dill and Phillip Bent for those opportunities, you know.

Geoff:

And what about teaching? Were you always a natural teacher, do you say, or is it?

Andrea:

I taught from the minute I could earn money from it.

Andrea:

So, when I was 15, everyone was getting jobs at McDonald's and I was, like, didn't want to work on a Saturday as I just kind of hinted that I love sports. So I've always played hockey and I play on Saturdays, so I didn't want a Saturday job. So I taught piano. So I started teaching from home. I had a few students. I have to say I do enjoy it, but it's just nice to have a regular income. You know, it was just something that I needed to do when I went to London. I didn't have a grant by that time.

Geoff:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, do you run the Dordogne

Geoff:

Summer School, now

Andrea:

Jazz Summer School, yeah,

Geoff:

Right, how

Geoff:

did that start then?

Andrea:

So my parents, when I was 21, said we're leaving, we're selling our house in Birmingham, we're going to go and live in France, which was great in some ways, but also it meant that if I wanted to see them, I needed to go out there.

Andrea:

I mean luckily it's a beautiful area, it's the Dordogne. So I have spent every summer since I was about 21 in the south of France and then I had two children and I thought it'd be really lovely to spend a long time out there. So I thought if I'm going to justify six weeks, I need to have an income. I think I'd done some summer schools before that, maybe the Chelmsford Jazz Summer School, I can't remember, but I'd done a few little things like that. But it was just such a beautiful location. I was just like anyway, you found a venue of some friends and my parents run writing courses and so we did it there the first year and then we moved it after a couple years to where it is now, which is Chateau Montaton, which is just incredible.

Andrea:

It's a really old castle and it's not posh at all. It's just very basic, but everyone loves it. It's very outdoors. The playing is in an outdoor bar, covered obviously, but anyway, it's just a. it's an experience. It's called the Montaton Experience, Literally, we have two thirds that come back every single year. It's probably even more than that. You know, people have made lifetime friendships from that. We've had many marriages out of it. I tell you it's like Love Island , gone jazz. It's great. I also have to give credit to Dorian Lockett, who is my other half, but also he's brilliant at doing the admin, because I'm quite good at ideas, but sometimes you have to have someone who's there to answer the phone to do the emails so it's a joint thing.

Andrea:

I'm the musical director and he's the director of the whole place.

Geoff:

How long has that been going now then?

Andrea:

We've had about 22 years. I think Wow, 22, 23 years yeah.

Geoff:

But it's a big thing to organise, that isn't it? It is All the travel for everybody and you know the amps and the pianos and all that stuff that you have to do for that everybody and you know the amps and the pianos and all that stuff that you have to do, for that it is.

Andrea:

I mean we, we have connections out there. As I said, my parents lived out there so we could store stuff

Geoff:

And you speak French, do you?

Andrea:

I do. I would say, uh, I could always speak a lot better, but we run our course in English. But yeah, it's fine. I mean we've got a very good venue. We are hoping to have our own place there one day, so maybe we can keep it all there.

Andrea:

But you know, you just build it up and build it up. But I think when you've got a successful business it becomes easier and easier. The people who come on the course they basically know everything. So if you're someone new, I just go well ask them, you know, and and literally they know everything about it, what time they eat dinner, you know and that. But most of our everybody gets themselves there now. So we don't really pick anyone up.

Andrea:

We just sort our staff out, that's it so you know, if you want to come, you get yourself there and then you know we look after you while you're actually there.

Geoff:

Fantastic.

Geoff:

Yeah, can we talk about jazz standards? What part has jazz standards played on your development as a jazz musician?

Andrea:

I think it's a canon for us to play together, quite easily. I think it's a way we can jam, we can connect very quickly. It gives us core repertoire. I mean in terms of teaching it's really good, especially when you have sequences, harmonic sequences, that repeat. It's just part of the jazz history.

Geoff:

Is it still relevant today, as it always was?

Andrea:

Oh my gosh it's got to be relevant. It's got to be relevant. I mean, you don't have to play in a specific way. You can take a standard and completely deconstruct it, but I think it's nice to have that as a basis.

Geoff:

Like a benchmark.

Andrea:

Oh gosh, yeah, and it just means that you and I can go and play together, you know, without having to worry about you know what we're going to do, we can just go through that. Oh, do you know that tune? Yeah, of course.

Geoff:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've made some apps called Quartet, which I think you're aware of right. I am aware yeah, and I asked you to pick a tune. Which one did you choose?

Andrea:

On Green Dolphin Street played often in E flat. It's also played in C, but I quite like the key of E flat. I don't know why I like the key of E flat, maybe it just fits nicely under the fingers on the piano. What I like about that tune is that often it's played latin swing, so you've got a little contrast of rhythm, but the opening bit's a lot more open. So I love music that's got open openness so you can play a little bit more modally and then it's got the, the functional harmony afterwards, so that's probably the attraction of it.

Andrea:

So you can be a bit wilder and crazy in those sections

Geoff:

Right, okay, I'm going to give you two choruses to play on the piano. Great, okay, here we go. Thank you, do so. Thank you, yeah, how did that feel? I think that was myself and Rod Youngs. You were playing along to there.

Andrea:

Oh, it was very nice. It was very nice. I was trying to be very relaxed because I was aware that you were recording me and I was just like. So what I'm now thinking is, of course, that was a real accompaniment, that wasn't a computer accompaniment, and it definitely makes you feel far more relaxed because it's just like you're connecting rhythmically and harmonically. But that was, yeah.

Geoff:

Well, I think that's what we're aiming for. We're going for the iReal market, but much better.

Andrea:

Much better, yeah.

Geoff:

Yeah.

Andrea:

Much, much better.

Geoff:

Can we talk a little bit about the improvising process? Let's just take the beginning of that tune. Have you got any kind of ideas that you might kind of go into your solo with Anything you can like, demonstrate on the piano, anything you can play for us?

Andrea:

us. I think pentatonic scales are brilliant, so I do a lot of them and then, probably taking a pattern. Also the idea of fourths, because I kind of like playing fourths and the left hand and that. So my left hand kind of does inform my right hand. So if my left hand is playing that it's quite likely I might actually play and phrase it.

Geoff:

It just sounds like jazz, doesn't it, with fourths in the left hand and pentatonics in the right?

Andrea:

Yeah, pentatonics are great. I teach that when I teach jazz. I always focus on it and, sometimes I never get any further than the pentatonic scale because they get enough from it. You know without having to know it's this mode and this mode. So yeah.

Geoff:

So are you thinking of E flat major pentatonic, or C minor pentatonic?

Andrea:

You're thinking of both E flat major. E flat major pentatonic. Yeah, because it's like E flat major chord One two, three, five, six, yeah. I mean I think some of my language, when I use that, is very Chick Corea kind of focused and sometimes McCoy Tyner.

Geoff:

I was going to say that, especially the fourth in the left hand. That's very McCoy Tyner, isn't it?

Andrea:

And you wouldn't get it from that because I wouldn't have got there. But like, if you gave me quite a lot of choruses, I could actually start being quite rhythmically kind of I will push it. So it might be I might do things that take me completely out the key, are either joined by intervals or a rhythmic pattern and I really like that fact of going. I sometimes don't even know where I'm going, but I know where I'm going to finish up.

Andrea:

That's the thing

Geoff:

But as you're approaching your solo, do you? do you have a completely clear mind?

Andrea:

I think I do. I don't think I have much of a preconception. I don't think. I don't think I play in a way that is particularly like you know it's. It's obviously full of licks and full of like things, because improvisation is not just making it up, it's just recording stuff. So I'll have probably practiced stuff or played tunes, but I don't really think about what I'm doing till I literally start playing. But as soon as I've played a phrase, then I think what happens then is that I'm thinking, you know.

Geoff:

So you're listening to yourself and then reacting to your own ideas.

Andrea:

Yeah, so I might go BABBA DOO, babba DOO, boo, babba DOO DA, babba DOO, babba DOO, babba DOO DA, babba DOO DOO DA, babba DOO, babba DOO, babba DOO, babba DOO, babba. I'm singing in my head, basically the fact that I just sang it out there can sing and play, not that I, but people do.

Geoff:

That's a really valuable lesson, though, isn't it to be able to sing what you can play?

Andrea:

Yeah, yeah, and that goes back to language, which I started to acquire probably from the minute I was born, because my bad dad was a jazz pianist and they were just obsessed with jazz, but also goes along the fact that I've like start, I've just done loads and loads of transcribing.

Geoff:

When you transcribe a solo, would you extract licks from that and ideas? And then how would you use those ideas if you do?

Andrea:

What you're saying is really good educationally and originally no, but I had a very good piano teacher who was then later my line manager, which is Simon Purcell, and he loved the idea of extracting licks so um, I mean, I don't even know if I can play it now, just ad hoc, but there's a. I was transcribing some Chick Corea from a concert of schoolers jazz and it was called, uh, Fingerprints which is like a play on, you know, Footprints, you know those kind of things.

Andrea:

And that's like I just I thought that's something, so I tried to use that idea, but I think the process of the transcription in itself means that you absorb the information. I imagine there are some people who, like I will take the lick and I will do it in 12 keys and then I shall do this, but I think I probably struggle to be really, really efficient at that. I'd rather get on to the next transcription.

Andrea:

So right but I try and take things out just for my own needs and also because I teach, I'm always thinking, oh, that'd be really good for that class. So I think as a teacher I kind of grow as a musician because I'm always thinking of something. So therefore I probably make more of an effort for the students than I would for myself but, actually, I'm learning from the process.

Geoff:

Yeah. Yeah, I've got some questions for you, if that's all right. Just to finish off, if that's okay. First question is what's your favourite album?

Andrea:

Oh wow, oh wow, okay, wow. That's really hard, but I love so many things it's so hard, me too, I know.

Andrea:

It's so hard, and then sometimes I love things just because I played the music, you know.

Geoff:

I mean, I think that the point about this question is is we all have albums that have made huge impressions on us, haven't we? You know, formative albums, albums that we've we've you know, that have had profound effects on us as musicians.

Geoff:

you know, I suppose that's what, that's what I'm after

Andrea:

So I'm thinking of things that, as piano players, are just outstanding. There's a few that. There's The Real McCoy, McCoy Tyner, yeah, but then I love like really beautiful music like Esperanza. I love her, her album Esperanza Spalding. Yeah, and I love Herbie Hancock and I love Miles. I love Miles is like the concerts, the 64 concert, yeah, they do something that for that time, is ridiculous.

Andrea:

So, MccCoy Tyner, rhythm, rhythm and just the intensity of him, you know, and John Coltrane, it's just like, wow, the same with Herbie. So Herbie does these things that are just like you know, finds chords that they're just so magical you know, Really really tricky question that.

Geoff:

Okay, there's a few more.

Andrea:

Okay, hopefully I'll be able to answer them, yeah.

Geoff:

Is there a favourite musician, alive or dead, that you'd like to play with?

Andrea:

Well, I really liked Michael Brecker. I well, I really liked Michael Brecker I know everyone says, oh yeah, I really like Michael Brecker, uh, yeah, so that would have been great to play with him I really like Bill Stewart's drumming.

Geoff:

He's great that's still possible yeah, Pat Matheny, he's pretty cool. What's the highlight of your career or best gig moment so far?

Andrea:

Well, there's the one that I would say is probably what everyone would think would be the best thing, which is my gig at Ronnie Scott's in the piano festival, which was quite a few years ago when my trio played. But I think emotionally, the thing that I really got the most out of was going to Croatia and playing with Jazz ExTempore, with a great guitarist called Elvis Stanic, and probably some of the gigs that we did in Bosnia.

Andrea:

Just incredible people singing all the tunes and especially knowing they'd come out of the war and we'd be driving around I mean, this was quite a few years after the war, you know they'd have whole we call them cheese houses, houses with bullets in them, and then we just go and do a gig and like we play jazz, but they'd have like folk melodies and they'd just sing them. I just couldn't imagine that happening in the UK going and playing and people singing along to your gigs although, yeah, although I know it does happen so, yeah, that's fantastic, fantastic.

Geoff:

What was the last concert you attended?

Andrea:

I think probably, if I'm honest, because I spent a lot of time with students. I probably went to The Oval Tavern to see to see a trio of students from our college The Oval Tavern.

Geoff:

That's a yes that's still running, isn't?

Geoff:

it. That's a that's been around for a few years

Andrea:

yeah, I mean, that just happens to be uh last gig I attended.

Geoff:

What would you say is your musical weakness?

Andrea:

Probably playing On Green Dolphin Street in G-flat. For me, the weakness bit is there'll be people who will just do it straight off, like I heard you accompanying earlier and like you were just really good, and I think although my ears That- was a guitar, though.

Geoff:

That was yeah.

Andrea:

the difference is you just got to move your hand up a fret or two so I think my weakness is is is just sometimes being able to play tunes in all keys right I think partly because I'm probably not very interested in doing that. If I'm absolutely, it's not, but I know people have ears where they can just play things instantly.

Geoff:

But that's a technical thing. We've already talked about that, haven't we? That's a technical thing of being able to play in all the keys. You know that's. I mean, it's difficult on the piano, isn't it?

Andrea:

Well, I think so yeah, yeah. I mean, we've all got limits technically you know, I think I'm pretty good technically, but then, there are some people that are just outrageous you then there are some people that are just outrageous. You know, you see them on YouTube, don't you? Just ridiculous technique.

Geoff:

Do you ever get nervous on stage?

Andrea:

Not generally, but it does happen from time to time. I don't know why I would get nervous. There was one instance that I felt very nervous, but it's because I wasn't prepared. So I was in South Africa and I had been judging a jazz competition, a Unisa jazz piano competition, and we did a workshop in one of the music schools and it threw me because they asked us to play Body and Soul, each in our own way, and I hadn't played the piano much because I didn't. I mean, we were judging and we didn't have a lot of time to practice and I knew the tune, but I didn't.

Andrea:

I mean, we were judging and we were. We didn't have a lot of time to practice and I knew the tune but I didn't know it well enough and I didn't have like 10 minutes to just check it out and obviously it's got those horrendous you know modulations, which, if you just can't remember it or you know, yeah, so we all got up to play.

Andrea:

Also, you know, we'd been partying a bit the night beforehand and I literally came out in a sweat because I, I felt that I, I wasn't prepared and I think that probably is the yeah, I think that's quite a common thing, isn't it? Yeah, you know, but the others were fine they seem to be really okay with it and I felt very. But I tell you what I did as soon as I got home I learned Body and Soul. I can play it really well now, so it had a very positive effect.

Geoff:

But how many keys did you learn? Did you really know it? That's the question. Yeah.

Andrea:

Yeah.

Geoff:

Yeah.

Andrea:

Yeah, but I think if you gave me half an hour to think about what I'd probably do, think of it in a completely different way I'd be looking at numbers and going how does it relate back to the original key? Yeah, which I'd be great at teaching but, actually remembering it myself, I had to have to go through that process.

Geoff:

Right, right, right. Okay, a couple of off-topic questions. What's your favourite sandwich?

Andrea:

My favourite sandwich is prawn mayonnaise.

Geoff:

Okay, what about a favourite movie?

Andrea:

Oh, it's these things again, isn't it? It's like, oh my God, all right, okay. Favorite movie oh, it's these things again, isn't it? It's like, oh my god, all right, okay, all right. I'm gonna say, um, I think it's Leon. Is it the one about the, the, the contract killer okay with Natalie Portman yeah, okay, okay yeah, it's just so in.

Andrea:

I mean, there are probably other films that I also like, but I just remember it and that's why I'm saying it, because the opening scene is a girl who's just gone to get a pint of milk, lives in a flat in France and Leon, who's the contract killer who does assassinations and stuff, lives in the next flat along. Anyway, she goes out, gets his pint of milk and when she comes back her entire family has been murdered. I think her father was a drug dealer or something. And she walks past her flat and sees the door's open and just glances and then realises that everyone is dead and knocks on Leon's door and goes I've got your milk for you like this. And that moment, that tension, oh my God, it's just like. And he's like what milk, what milk? What milk? You know the milk that you know. And you realize that if he doesn't get let in, they'll know that she's gonna you know she's gonna die basically. So, of course, the film's about their relationship Natalie Portman, who's about 12, with um with William anyway, but it was just it's.

Andrea:

It's it's when you get an intense emotional situation yeah, yeah that, yeah, that yeah, makes an impression on you.

Geoff:

Yes, exactly, amazing. What about a favourite venue to play in?

Andrea:

I'd have to say the 606, because you know the piano's great there and Steve's been running it for years and years. He's a great chap, and I had my album launched there recently, so why wouldn't I say it was the?

Geoff:

606?.

Andrea:

There you go um what about a favorite country or city? Well, I'd have to say London. I mean I live here. I mean, I have to say it, I live here well, that's yeah.

Geoff:

I think you're right to be honest. All right, one last question uh, what's your favorite chord?

Andrea:

Well, I, I should say F7, flat 9, because a certain, a certain person has that tattooed on his leg, which would be this one that, that's Lewis' 13 flat 9, actually, oh, 13,.

Andrea:

I forgot the 13, yes, but is that my favourite chord?

Andrea:

I'm a sucker for a first inversion, so I'm going to go for a first inversion with the 9th, so this is their first.

Geoff:

That is nice yeah. So, it's got a G in it as well. Yeah, it's good yeah.

Andrea:

Yeah, yeah, it's good. I like that. I also like D, minor ninth, which is kind of the same as well.

Geoff:

That's tell us what's in that one.

Andrea:

Okay. So I mean it's quite hard because the soft pedal's on, I can't hear very much, but it's got the root and the fifth and the ninth. The root and the fifth and the ninth and then I'm scrunching next to the ninth, the third and the eleventh and uh and the seventh, and then I'm doubling the third at the top, but sometimes I put a b in the middle

Geoff:

that reminds me a bit of Don Grolnick.

Geoff:

Did you know he played that a lot, didn't?

Andrea:

he yeah, I like those chords when I teach and I show the students I go. You can't play F minor like that. Why would you do that? You can play it like this. And they all go ah. And the next thing they go. I've written this song and they take those chords and it's got that. I know.

Geoff:

That's exactly what I did when I first heard that, that Don Gronick album. I remember I learned about voicings just from that, just the way he spreads those chords, those gorgeous 13 flat nines and amazing. Yeah, it's an orchestra at your hand, so you should use the you should use the range.

Andrea:

So if I hear people just playing, you know, root position, root position. You know I'm not saying that there isn't a need for a G7 chord like that, but you know there's so much more.

Andrea:

I call it sophisticated. They're sophisticated ways of playing chords, you know,

Geoff:

yeah, yeah, amazing.

Geoff:

Well, thank you very much for your time and your lovely playing

Andrea:

Well, thanks for talking about the things that I, I enjoy talking about, which is a lot of jazz and harmony. It's my favorite subject

Geoff:

Me too.

Geoff:

All right, we'll see you very soon.

Geoff:

Thanks, Andrea

Geoff:

Thanks, bye, bye.

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