You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians

🔥 Don’t Miss Our Best Price of the Year! (Ending Soon) https://www.openstudiojazz.com/summer-sale-2026/ The Impossible follow-up: Michael Jackson's 1987 album Bad. Five years after Thriller changed everything, Michael returned with a record that would become one of the best-selling of all time, win two Grammys, feature some of the greatest musicians in the world (hey, Stevie Wonder!) ... and some...

Carole King’s Tapestry is so cozy, you'll want to hug it; sit with it. It sounds simple, warm, and totally unassuming. But it’s way more impressive than it seems at first. Adam and Peter break down what’s actually going on beneath the surface of Tapestry ... and what most people miss. Carole King was already an elite songwriter long before this album. You know Aretha Franklin's “(You Make Me Feel...

We're looking at the best jazz releases of January 2026! Listen with pianist Adam Maness as he breaks down and reacts to these great tracks. Start your free Open Studio trial for ALLLLL your jazz lesson needs:  https://osjazz.link/yhi    00:00 - Intro 00:50 - Why Don't You - Sam Fribush, Corey Fonville, Charlie Hunter 03:09 - Talking Drum - Julian Lage 04:58 - Flim - Winderman, Colman, Kimock 06:5...

New episode drops February 2, 2026! Keep your eyes on the feed for episodes on artists like Carole King, Michael Jackson, Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, Radiohead, Tears for Fears, D'Angelo and so much more!

🔥 Don’t Miss Our Best Price of the Year! (Ending Soon) https://www.openstudiojazz.com/summer-sale-2026/ We're looking back at the best jazz releases of 2025. Listen with pianist Adam Maness as he breaks down and reacts to these great tracks. This is a new segment from the team behind You'll Hear It, and we're looking to continue this music discovery pod as a weekly series in 2026. Help us shape t...

What does it really mean to live a musical life? As we look ahead to 2026, Adam and Peter talk about music as a way of being. Not a checklist, or a finish line, or something reserved for “professionals.” They share why they believe everyone is a musician, and why taste and curiosity matter more than optimization. Whether you're a musician, or a lover of music, anyone can lead a musical life. Start...

🔥 Don’t Miss Our Best Price of the Year! (Ending Soon) https://www.openstudiojazz.com/summer-sale-2026/ Prince's Sign O' the Times is one of our most requested albums at You'll Hear It. But, there is a certain window of millennial that doesn't really "get" Prince. If that’s you, this episode is your on ramp into his music.  We start with Prince's earliest albums, tracing his incredible run from 1...

Could this be peak Frank? Sinatra at the Sands captures the energy, the cool, and the incredible voice that made this crooner so iconic. Backed by the Count Basie Orchestra with arrangements by a young Quincy Jones, this live album still swings 60 years later! Sinatra at the Sands was recorded at a moment when Sinatra was emerging from a slump. Rock and roll dominated the airwaves, the Beatles wer...

How much do you know about Peter Martin? In this conversation with Kirk Hamilton of the Strong Songs podcast, Peter shares his musical influences and trajectory as a young jazz pianist. He brings us right back to the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s with stories of meeting Wynton Marsalis, and playing with jazz legends like Betty Carter, Roy Hargrove and Joshua Redman. Plus, he shares his take on jazz educati...

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was one of the BIGGEST records of the 90s. When you sell 20 million records, like Lauryn Hill did, you're into mass market territory; you're selling records all over the world and reaching across genres. With Miseducation , Lauryn Hill struck a nerve with humanity.  How did she do it? As you'll hear in this episode, the album sounded unlike other chart-topping hits...

Keith Jarrett's "The Köln Concert" is the best selling solo piano album of all time. But why this album? Possibly because it sounded like nothing else in popular music at the time of its release in 1975. It is cinematic, genre-fluid and masterful – in many ways ahead of its time. Jazz musicians Adam Maness and Peter Martin listen to one of the most popular albums in the history of jazz, pulling ap...

Songs in the Key of Life stands apart, even next to the other four albums in Stevie Wonder's classic period. It resulted in the most hit singles: "I Wish", "Sir Duke", "As" and "Another Star".  Chris Molanphy of the Hit Parade podcast leads us through this album's incredible charts story. Not only did it produce FOUR singles, but it inspired two other chart-topping hits: Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradi...

1959 gave us Kind of Blue, Time Out ... and Mingus Ah Um. Adam and Peter dig into Charles Mingus’s most adventurous, soulful record: gospel, bebop, and pure Mingus genius. You’ve never heard it quite like this. Charles Mingus was one of jazz's greatest bass players AND composers. Listen with us as we break down the genius in every track of his best-selling record, and share stories of the brillian...

At Town Hall captures a pivotal moment in Nina Simone's story, when she left behind her dream of being a concert pianist and embraced her identity as an indefinable and remarkable talent. At Town Hall shows off Nina’s classical chops, infused with the jazz influences from working in nightclubs and mixed with the folk and gospel sounds of her youth. Adam and Peter pull apart the tracks to highlight...

🔥 Don’t Miss Our Best Price of the Year! (Ending Soon) https://www.openstudiojazz.com/summer-sale-2026/ In 1981, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones set out on one of the most ambitious projects in pop music history: an album where every song was a hit. The result was Thriller. The record-breaking, chart-topping masterpiece produced six top-ten hits, became the best-selling album of all time, and pr...

In light of D'Angelo's passing, we're replaying our episode on Voodoo from June 2025 . This Grammy-winning, genre-defying album changed the sound of R&B, soul, and hip-hop forever. And it has seriously influenced the playing of so many musicians, including our own Adam Maness. From Questlove’s behind-the-beat drumming to Roy Hargrove’s horn arrangements, Voodoo is packed with the kind of deep...

Hip hop wouldn’t sound the same without jazz. From A Tribe Called Quest to PinkPantheress, jazz provides the groove behind of some of the most iconic tracks of the genre. Diallo Riddle and Luxxury of One Song join Adam and Peter to geek out on deep cuts and the genius behind hip hop’s greatest jazz samples. We explore how sampling has shaped both genres, why the art of “borrowing” has always been...

The RH Factor’s Hard Groove might sound uncontroversial to modern ears, but in the early 2000s it was revolutionary. With this record, Roy Hargrove broke away from the straight-ahead jazz revival of the Young Lions era and created something entirely new. Hard Groove blended Roy’s trumpet with the voices of R&B and soul heavyweights like D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, and Common, artists whose platinum...

Joni Mitchell’s Blue , a folk masterpiece, has inspired jazz musicians since its release in 1971. Is it because she sings like a horn player? Her improvisational melodies? Her unconventional chord structures? Her confessional songwriting? We dive into every song on Blue , breaking down her favorite chords and her vocal phrasing to understand what makes this album great. You’ll never hear this reco...

🔥 Don’t Miss Our Best Price of the Year! (Ending Soon) https://www.openstudiojazz.com/summer-sale-2026/ John Coltrane's A Love Supreme: Some call it the greatest album of the 20th century. Others say it isn't even Coltrane's best album ... of 1965.  No matter where you think it sits in the jazz music canon, Coltrane's love letter to God is a masterpiece. We break it down track-by-track, chord-by-...

We're talking jazz influences in hip hop today with Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding from Switched On Pop . We dig into tracks from Kendrick Lamar (there's that TPAB acronym!), Common, Cautious Clay and David Bowie to surface the musical qualities that explain why jazz musicians love these artists. Plus - we explore the striking similarities between jazz and hip hop, especially in the recording boot...

We’re diving back into Stevie Wonder with Innervisions, right in the heart of his classic period from 1972 to 1976. There’s something magical about this stretch of music history, and Innervisions stands as one of the greatest albums to emerge from it. Stevie wrote every song on this album, and played every instrument on many tracks. From "Too High" to "Living For The City" to "Don't You Worry 'Bou...

There is no more important relationship in this era of music than that of Miles Davis and John Coltrane; two masters ever-present in the musical and cultural landscape. Someday My Prince Will Come marks the last time Coltrane and Davis played together, and it couldn't be more perfect. We dive into how their partnership played out on stage and in the recording studio over the years, and how their d...

You'll never hear music the same way again. In this popular music series, Adam Maness and Peter Martin break down the greatest albums of all time. Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Joni Mitchell, D'Angelo: Jazz is the foundation of the most GENIUS music in recent history. These seasoned jazz pianists bring their deep musical knowledge to every joyful episode to help you hear the hidden qualities tha...

When does Afro Blue and Smells Like Teen Spirit belong on the same record? When it's a Robert Glasper album! In 2012, Glasper's Black Radio brought together artists like Erykah Badu to bring a jazz standard, Afro Blue, back into the popular music canon. Black Radio hit #1 on the jazz charts, while simultaneously reaching #4 on the hip-hop R&B charts and #15 on the Top 200. The Blue Note pianis...