This is how great players play great souls every time.

They start with a great idea.

I want to play a great solo, but I want to make sure that I play a great solo every single time.

How do I do that?

Well, we're going to get into that.

Okay, so a little backstory here.

The last six days, I played with Christian McBride in Inside Straight, two sets a night in two different jazz clubs,

Indianapolis and Chicago.

You know, when we're on a, if it's a recording, especially a live recording, or you go to a gig,

I think there's a lot you can learn about great players and like how they play and how they do

their thing and how they're different and how they're alike.

But there's nothing like playing with great players to really get an insight. Absolutely. But it's kind of funny because it's like you're having to do your own job too. So it's like you're listening in more of a like intent way because you're being paid to listen and play with folks. Like you're at a gig, you're paid to enjoy it. But then I also find myself enjoying it as well. and so it's like a weird thing. It's like a lot of like, it's not really stress, but it's a lot of like, I feel that I need to really be very, you know, really intentional about where my mind is at all different times. And then I also like to try to find some commonality between really great players and the way they do things.

I always feel like for teaching and for sharing with the pod, that can be really helpful. If I tell you like, well, Christian McBride played this incredible solo over theme for Kareem, you know, he started on a D flat seven, he just killed. And it's like just about him. It's very easy to be like, well, that works for him, but he's kind of like his own dude.

You know, like he's at such a level most people couldn't imagine, including myself, being able to kind of process things this way.

But when you find something that a number of players that are really good do, then that's

something that we can all grasp on to.

A great solo that's edifying to the listener is not, is by its very nature not boring

because it's like an interesting story that somebody tells, a great book, a great novel, a play,

you know, any kind of artistic work from something as small as a one minute solo up to a four-hour

movie or whatever. It doesn't mean it's not slow or to some people that are not engaged enough. It might be like, oh, I'm bored with that. That doesn't mean what's there isn't boring. Hey, Peter, I'm bored. I'm bored, man. Yeah. But, I mean, you want to be engaging from a listening standpoint with things that are not boring. So it's really easy to do.

Just listen to great solos that you like.

And you want to always be thinking about the many things,

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