>> James Wintle: Good afternoon. I'm James Wintle from the
Music Division at the Library of Congress and I'm here with
jazz pianist Aaron Diehl to talk about his impressions of the
library, his recent concert here in the Coolidge Auditorium, and look at a few items
from our collections. Aaron, how you doing today? >> Aaron Diehl: How
you doing, James? It's a pleasure to be here. >> James Wintle: All right. So you had a concert
on Saturday night. >> Aaron Diehl: I did. >> James Wintle: Yeah. And you played a lot of
early jazz repertoire. And how did you, in your
music education, come to know about that repertoire
since it's not something that is commonly
played I would say? >> Aaron Diehl: Okay. So I fortunately had a
grandfather who was a musician. He played trombone and piano. And so jazz was always
around when I was a kid. I didn't really become
introduced to early jazz piano, stride piano, and ragtime, until
probably my teens when I started to become more serious
about playing jazz piano. And a guy in Columbus,
Ohio where I'm from named Johnny Olreck
[assumed spelling], my band director, Todd
Stole [assumed spelling], he took me to Mr.
Olreck's house. And we spent a good
maybe three hours there. And he was talking about
people like Art Tatum, people like James P.
Johnson, Fats Waller, and a few other pianists. And before I left,
he had I think three or four cassette tapes. And this is when people
were still using cassettes. And he also gave me
some sheet music, which were transcriptions. Two of those transcriptions
were Snowy Morning Blues by James P. Johnson and
another James P. Johnson piece that became sort of
like the standard part of the stride piano
repertoire Carolina Shout. And that was the start of
my interest in stride piano and attempting to, even
now attempting to play it. You know? >> James Wintle: Yeah. So as you were learning
about that repertoire, did you have any particular
exercises that you did as a pianist, especially
to develop your left hand because I know that's
a big deal. >> Aaron Diehl: Well,
first of all I learned how to practice slowly and
understand that it wasn't as much about the
accuracy of playing, although that's important
making sure you make the links between the bass note and the
chords and back and forth, bass, chord, bass, chord, but
really getting the feeling between the syncopation
of the right hand and the consistent left hand. And that's something that
just took a long time to really figure out and then
hours and hours of listening to people like James P. or Fats or Willy the Lion Smith
play this repertoire, really understand the rhythmic
language of stride piano, which was very different
from, you know, I see you have some
Scott Joplin. I guess we're going to
talk about that in a bit. Very different from the
language of ragtime. What's so challenging about
playing jazz music is there's so many subtleties through the
eras in how the swing beat, the triplet beat is interpreted. So, you know, playing a piece
of let's say Jelly Roll Morton, which he was in a class by
himself, playing a piece by him like The Pearls as opposed
to playing something by Donald Lambert or something
in the style of Donald Lambert or in the style of Teddy
Wilson or something like that. They're connected in many ways
but also just very different in the way they approach
the language of rhythm. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. And I feel like anytime you
get to know a particular style of music, the further you get into it the further you
can see those differences and the subtleties of style that
permeate through that music. So thinking about Jelly Roll,
and you said he was in a class by himself, what do you think
the thing is about his style that really puts him there? >> Aaron Diehl: Well,
first of all, Jelly Roll was the
first composer pianist, the first person, to
really define what jazz was and to put it down on paper, to
arrange it, and to make it sort of organized, if you will. And the way he played the piano
was really the way you would hear say his small
ensemble, the Red Hot Peppers, or sort of any New
Orleans style small group, the way he played the piano
was the way he heard the horns in a jazz band at that time. You heard the clarinet
in the top and then the trombone
in the bottom. He really played in this very
rich, thick, polyphonic style. It's very difficult. It's taken me years
to really figure out well how does this
all work together. Yeah, I mean, it's a privilege
to be here at the Library of Congress and to play
in Coolidge Auditorium. As you know, Jelly Roll gave
interviews to Alan Lomax in 1938 on the stage at Coolidge. And I remember when I was in
college there was a box set, like a reissue box set that
looked like a piano that came out of all these
restored Library of Congress tapes of
Jelly Roll Morton. And I mean, just hours
upon hours of interviews, Jelly talking about New Orleans
and not just about his music. Of course he talked about that, but sort of like these shady
characters in New Orleans and some of these bawdy parlor
songs, The Murder Ballad, Make Me a Pallet on the
Floor, The Dirty Dozen. And I could never figure out, when I first got the box
set it said explicit on it. Like it had a E for explicit. It's like what could
be so explicit in this. And then you hear it, like
wow that rivals anything that you might hear today. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: But it's
such a rich tradition, a rich oral account
of a bygone era. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: And I definitely
occasionally reference some of what's on those recordings. >> James Wintle: Yeah. And you said during your
concert that you felt the ghost of Jelly Roll Morton
while you were playing. Did that inform what
you were doing onstage? >> Aaron Diehl: I mean, it was
a sort of a surreal experience because I've been listening to
the recordings for so many years and hearing the acoustics
of the room. I can understand why the
recordings were so resonant. You can really hear the sound
of the hall in those recordings. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: And when you
play on that stage, I mean, the acoustics, the quality
of the sound is just amazing. So, yeah, I mean I
definitely thought a lot about Jelly Roll Morton
being up on that stage. You know, that was
towards the end of his life when he made those recordings
and he was sort of considered to be, his style, to be archaic. I mean, he was basically
bartending, managing this place which is now Ben's Chili Bowl
on U Street, The Jungle Inn. And, you know, people
weren't paying attention. He wasn't this sort of like
iconic figure at that time. And Alan was very smart,
of course, to document him. And in fact I read that at first
he didn't really consider Jelly Roll to be a candidate for
what he was trying to do, which was very much in
the folk lore category. And he thought jazz to be a bit
more on the commercial side. And then once he started
hearing Jelly Roll speak about his history and about
the history of New Orleans, he was like, "Oh this
guy is very much a part of the American folk
lore tradition." >> James Wintle: Yeah, and a
keeper of an oral tradition. >> Aaron Diehl: Exactly. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: Absolutely. >> James Wintle: So you've
been able to spend a couple of days here at the
library, yes? >> Aaron Diehl: Yes. >> James Wintle: And
what have you seen that has made an
impression on you so far? >> Aaron Diehl: What
haven't I seen? I mean, really. I've been talking
about when I go home in the evening I've called up
a few friends to talk to them about what kind of
experience this is. It's really a hidden
secret or an open secret. >> James Wintle: Open secret. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah,
open secret, not hidden. It's a hidden treasure,
that's what I meant. And I mean, I was taken
around the Jefferson Building, that's where we're at right now. Saw the rare book collection. I held a book that was from
1600, a book on Euclid. I saw Thomas Jefferson's
library, of course. I have to say out of everything,
one of the highlights of this trip has been
handling a Beethoven score, his Piano Sonata
Opus 109 in E Major. That was pretty trippy,
you know, just to see it. I had asked Ray. I was like, "This
is real, right? Nobody faked this to make
it look like a real copy." >> James Wintle: Yeah. Right. >> Aaron Diehl: And he let
me handle it and everything. And, you know, he told me how
to turn the pages and just that kind of connection to
history, it's very powerful. I can't overemphasize the
importance of being able to physically see something
like that, you know, that's part of our
cultural heritage or see something by
Jelly Roll Morton. I was here a couple years ago. In fact this is not my
first time to the library. I saw some of Jelly
Roll's submissions, including the original
Jelly Roll Blues 1915, which was the first jazz
composition to be published. Big Fat Ham, some of
his other compositions, some manuscripts, sketches. And just to physically handle
that and to see all the details. George Gershwin, I saw the
manuscripts of the Rhapsody and Blue, the first manuscript
submitted to Freddy Grofe for the performance with Paul
Whiteman in 1924, The Concerto in F. What's also interesting
to see how composers write, their handwriting
and their legibility. For example, Gershwin
was pristine. I could have literally taken
that score and read it, you know, or a conductor
probably would have been able to read it and conduct
an orchestra no problem. You look at Beethoven; I
don't know how anybody figured out how that went. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: Because I
mean, you see his sketches and it's just like, what was
this guy thinking, you know? [Laughter] Then you
actually see the manuscript and it's a little
better, but not much. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: He's
still a genius. You kind of get a sense of
their personality just by, you know, how they write. >> James Wintle: And something
about their thought process. >> Aaron Diehl: And there's
something about their process, something about their
thought process, of course. So of course yeah the
manuscripts were amazing. What else did we see? Just a few moments ago I
handled a Stradivarius viola. And there's a massive flute
collection that I saw. So, you know, these
experiences, I think, are so important not
only as a musician, but just as someone who's
interested in like our legacy, our heritage culturally. So yeah, it's really been a
fantastic experience here. >> James Wintle: Yeah. So, the way that you approach
jazz has, to me at least, a learned or studied
quality about it. >> Aaron Diehl: Really? >> James Wintle: You
deal with early jazz. You seem to be very
influenced by John Lewis, by Third Stream Music. >> Aaron Diehl: Mm-hmm. >> James Wintle: So
tell me a little bit about how classical
music and jazz study, the study of those two
things, has come to play in your life, if it has at all. >> Aaron Diehl: I mean,
certainly they've come to play in a sense that I've had some
sort of relationship to both. You know, I studied classical
music from a young age and even through college I did some study with a lady named
Oksana [Inaudible]. And even now, you know, I do try
to keep a certain relationship to it, even though I'm
not playing Beethoven or anything like that. But, I feel with music, and
you know classical music, it's so deeply rooted
in the written tradition and in serving the intentions
of the composer, you know, while also finding unique
ways to express certain kind of affects or sentiment
in the music. But there's still, I believe, even with music that's 250 years
old or more, there still has to be sort of an extemporaneous,
spontaneous quality to it. And when you listen to
Beethoven's first piano concerto or you listen to a Bach cantata,
it feels like this was something that could have been
written at any point in time. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: And jazz music, which deals in a completely
different time period and era, various cultural
influences, deeply rooted in the African American
experience and the American
experience, there's a lot of oral history there, oral
learning, aural learning. Much of jazz, a lot of what
we learn is through records and hearing records,
although we can learn from transcriptions
and, you know, from learning the
American songbook. We're going to look at sheet
music, but we're still learning in a tradition that's very
much, we have recordings, which you can't listen to
Mozart play one of his pieces. But we can listen
to John Coltrane. So, my point is that, you know,
one of the qualities that, you know, is so valued
in jazz is sort of the idea of improvisation. But even improvisation is
organized and structured. You know, the greatest
improvisers listen to Lewis Armstrong play that
fanfare on West End Blues. It's like that in itself
somebody could have spent hours upon hours figuring
out how to create that. And Armstrong made it in, you
know, one take on a record. It's this balance between
understanding structure and being true to a language
or authentic to a language, but at the same time, having
the feeling of spontaneity, feeling of exploration
and of adventure. And for me it's always
like the balance between the two, you know. I've heard many jazz
pianists, not many, I've heard some jazz musicians,
not just pianists, you know, play say in the style
of bebop or whatever and it's not very inspiring
and everything is correct. You know, all the
notes are correct and the language is accurate,
but there's something, some drive that's
just not there. And I've heard a number
of classical musicians on the other hand play a piece
that's hundreds of years old and it really feels like it's
speaking to you in the moment. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: And I
think that's just a mark of a great artist in any genre. They know how to communicate. Those people know how to communicate something
that transcends time. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: And genre. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm,
yeah, very much so. And one of the things that,
of course, before the concert on Saturday I gave
a little lecture about Gottschalk in here. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah, sure. >> James Wintle: And
one of the things that really made an
impression on me was the way that you played the
Danza by Gottschalk. >> Aaron Diehl: Wow. >> James Wintle: Because exactly
what you're talking about, that relationship between
the spirit of the music and the notation of the music. Because so often when we hear
people play that repertoire, they're coming from
that classical tradition that ties them to the notes. And within that period, that
1850s period of music especially with Chopin with the influence
of opera and so forth, you have a rhythmic freedom
in that music that a lot of people don't take
advantage of. And that's the thing
that really struck me about your performance was
that you were playing the notes as they were written, but
you had a rhythmic freedom within the music that really
took it to a different level. Can you talk a little
bit about that? >> Aaron Diehl: I mean, I think about Alfred Cortot playing
Chopin or there's a video on YouTube I think he's playing
some Schumann and something from the Kinderszenen. Listening to him play
this piece of music, he had like a certain kind of
relationship that I don't know if that's something
that can be passed on. You know what I'm saying? >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: And I wonder,
I mean I'm not an expert on 19th Century romanticism my
any means, but I'd be curious like to go into a time
machine and go back and meet with like Claire Schumann and
Brahms or any of these people and just to hear how they
play their own music. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: And I
could bet money on it that it's a lot different than
how people consider it today. >> James Wintle: Oh yeah. Absolutely. >> Aaron Diehl: [Laughter]
And, you know, notation is just an
indication, of course. There's a limited amount
that you can really notate. I mean, there's a lot of
accuracy that you can get from notation, but still
the sound and the spirit of the music can only be heard. I have to be honest,
I played Gottschalk from my own references,
being someone like Jelly Roll Morton
who came much later. I mean, Gottschalk is the
middle of 19th Century. Jelly Roll's, you know,
born around 1885 or so. But I think of someone like
Gottschalk or even Cervantes, I played some of his Cuban
dances, I think of them as pieces for dance, pieces that have a certain
kind of rhythmic drive. A lot of that comes from
my experience with jazz. I mean, it has to feel
a certain way and it has to have a certain
kind of momentum and rhythmic propulsion to it. And certainly playing
the Danza, you know, it has a Spanish tinge
evidently or the Habanera. And I really want to
exploit that and bring that out in the music. But I'm not sure how Gottschalk
really would have played that. >> James Wintle:
[Laughter] Well, I think what you got
at was very cool. >> Aaron Diehl: Oh thank you. >> James Wintle: I mean,
that kind of vibrato, that rhythmic freedom I
thought was wonderful. >> Aaron Diehl: Oh thank you. >> James Wintle: And, you
know, the way that he sort of writes out ornamentation. >> Aaron Diehl: Oh yeah, yeah. >> James Wintle: Improvisation. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. >> James Wintle: So also
on stage on Saturday, you talked a little
bit about Billy Taylor. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. >> James Wintle: And we have
Billy Taylor's manuscripts here. >> Aaron Diehl: I heard. >> James Wintle: There's a
connection with the library. What was your experience
with Dr. Taylor? >> Aaron Diehl: I didn't
know him very well. We met a handful of times. Here at the Kennedy
Center he came. I think about 2008 I did
something at the Kennedy Center around Jelly Roll Morton. I believe he came
to the concert. He was involved with a
jazz museum in Harlem, if I remember correctly. I went to a few things
that he did there. I was living in Harlem
at the time. He told me a story once
and I told the story on stage the other
night about him going to hear Jelly Roll Morton
and basically, you know, he and his friends at the Jungle
Inn were sort of making fun of Jelly Roll's style, you
know, saying that it was old and kind of mocking him. He was playing the piano and
he turned around and he said, "You punks can't play this." And Dr. Taylor admitted,
he says, "He was right. We couldn't play it." And what a man and
his contribution, talking about Dr. Taylor, his
contribution to the education of jazz and exposing
people to television. Of course, he was an ambassador
on CBS Sunday Morning. I mean, he was one of the
first people I remember seeing on television talking
about jazz, maybe besides someone
like Wynton Marsalis. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: And there's
quite a few programs that I like to watch occasionally
on YouTube, his like duo piano series. Have you ever seen those? >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. >> James Wintle: Really cool. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. So yeah. I'm sorry I
didn't get a chance to know him a little
better, but I knew him. I mean, I met him
a handful of times. >> James Wintle: Yeah. Along that vein of the
question of jazz education, that's something
that's changed a lot over the past even 20 years
or so, even sooner than that. I went to graduate school at
the University of North Texas and there's a very
structured jazz program there. The curriculum is very set. Everybody has an idea
of what they're doing. But there are two
sides to that coin. I'm just wondering what your
impression is of jazz education as it exists today
when it's becoming more conservatory based. Because what you've been
talking about is much more of an oral tradition, a learned
tradition in a different way. >> Aaron Diehl: I
went to Julliard. I was in the second year or the
third year of the jazz program, the existence of the
jazz program there. I had a lot of great
experiences at Julliard, a lot of resources
available at my disposal. I was able to forge
relationships with my peers with whom I still perform today. I mean I can go on and on
about the list of assets that Julliard afforded me. But at the same time, I don't
think it's just with jazz. In classical music, it
is a life experience and you have to really live it. It can't just be
something that you go to school and you learn about. But you have to go out
and you have to play. You have to be around
people who want to listen. Maybe some people who
don't want to listen. You have to try to convert them. I don't know. Being in New York and living in New York certainly afforded
me a certain kind of opportunity to be around people, a pretty
robust and rich jazz community. I mean, it's still basically
the jazz capital of the world. I'm not going to say that
conservatories and universities with jazz programs aren't
valuable, because they are, but it's only supplementary,
okay, to the complete picture. >> James Wintle: Right. >> Aaron Diehl: It's
great to have, you know, your fundamentals in a classroom
about the history of jazz or theory or just sort
of practical application, but you really don't get the
experience until you play on the bandstands,
until you're actually around the culture of the music. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. You really have to
have the whole package. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. >> James Wintle:
So you play solo. You play in combos. You do a lot of different
configurations on stage. And I'm wondering how
you approach the piano and how you approach
improvisation differently depending on A, what kind
of configuration you're in on stage, and B, if you're
playing music that you wrote versus music that
someone else wrote? >> Aaron Diehl: Wow. Those are good questions
and I sort of have to think about them. I mean, certainly
when I'm playing by myself there's a certain
amount of freedom that I have because I don't have to
interact with anybody. >> James Wintle: Right. >> Aaron Diehl: But with that
comes a lot of responsibility because you have to be balanced with how you present
a performance and it just can't go off
into a tangent, you know. I find playing solo piano
to be very difficult. I mean, difficult in that the
responsibility is solely on me to communicate and
engage with the listener. And even playing at
Coolidge the other night, and I've played most of those
pieces a number of times, because the pieces
can be so different, some of them are similar
but some of them have gone from like Cervantes
to going to something like to Aaron Copeland, you
know, it's like very different. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: And I have
to pace myself and I have to really be focused and in
a frame of mind where I'm, you know, I'm not
just wondering. My mind's not just
wandering and this is kind of like, okay I'm playing. There's none of that. Now, when I'm playing with other
people, it's easier for me, I'd say, to draw
from inspiration. I mean, it can go both ways. It could just be an off night
playing with my normal band and maybe somebody
isn't feeling as strong or presenting strong ideas or
I'm not presenting strong ideas so it can be kind of hard
to really draw inspiration. But when it's on a
really good night and everyone's super
focused and very passionate, I find it just being so easy. Just you hear an idea, you hear
a motif, and you go with that. This sort of reciprocity
happening. I feel like it's a
lot easier, you know. >> James Wintle: Yeah,
it's not always your turn. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah, exactly. It's not always your turn. Yeah, you can be supportive. Playing with orchestra, for
example, I've been playing some of Gershwin's piano
works with orchestra and that's something
I haven't been doing as long, you know, really. So I'm still now
getting comfortable with that to a certain degree. But on one end, you have
orchestra musicians, you have 80 musicians who are
essentially playing what's in front of them. On the other hand, you've got
let's say 2000 people watching you and it's you
playing the piano. And I tell you, there isn't
a more nerve wracking feeling than that. I mean, and then also
wanting to feel free and spontaneous, you know. It's very hard. Like I played in Des Moines,
Iowa not too long ago, but last weekend it
was a cancellation for Concerto in F
so I got called. Somebody called me to do it. And I hadn't played it in
maybe almost a year or so. And first night I was
like, I'm going to go. Maybe I'm not super,
super comfortable because I don't have two days
to really get it back together, but I'm just going to just let
it all go and see what happens. And I had some missed notes
and, you know, things. I mean, I guess that's not that
big of a deal, but it wasn't as pristine as I
would have liked it. So the next night I was like, I'm going to just play
more accurately and focus on making sure everything
is right and maybe the tempos
would be slower because I was really pushing the
tempo the first night, you know, and I think the orchestra
was kind of trying to catch up with me. So, I played things with
maybe a few clicks slower and just being more, just
breathing more on the phrases. And then when I listened
back to the recordings later, I was like, I liked
the first night better. [Laughter] So, you know, just
because something is correct, doesn't always means it's good. You know. >> James Wintle:
Yeah [inaudible]. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. So having that fire, you know,
is important but it's hard when, you know, you have that pressure and all these people
just zeroing on you. And it's just like, yeah. >> James Wintle: Did you feel like you were taking the
other musicians on stage along on a ride with you when
you were doing that? >> Aaron Diehl: I tried to. >> James Wintle: Did
you feel that weight? >> Aaron Diehl: I tried to,
but you know it can be hard in those settings because
they're already playing a bunch of music. This is one out of maybe
five pieces on the program. You know, it might
not be something that they all really are that
excited about playing, you know. I mean, it just depends. It depends on the orchestra. I mean Des Moines
played very, very well and I enjoyed playing with them. It just depends. I know feedback I get
from orchestra musicians, because it's just not
really common in that world, is when I do improvise
on cadenzas they're like, I mean it's different
every night. And it might not even be that
good, but [laughter] the fact that I'm improvising, you
know, they're like, "Wow." And I just feel like that's
a tradition that I would love to see more in classical music, people who are playing
Beethoven. I know Robert Levin,
who's a great pianist. I don't know if he's been-- >> James Wintle: Oh yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: He's
really in that stuff. That music is just as
much modern and living and breathing as, you
know, music by, you know, someone who's writing today. I didn't come up, let's
say, I wasn't brought up in thinking like, Bach
is old and, you know, whatever's hottest
today is that's current. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: I always saw
music as being really great or, you know, okay, or really bad. I never saw music
or made opinions, judgments about music based
on the era they were in. >> James Wintle: Yeah. Isn't it Duke Ellington who
said there's two kinds of music, good music and bad music. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly that. I just, you know, I never
came up thinking like that. >> James Wintle: Yeah. So did you see the Rhapsody
and Blue manuscript-- >> Aaron Diehl: I did. Yeah. >> James Wintle: -
while you were here? >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. >> James Wintle: And you saw that Gershwin didn't
write out a cadenza. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. You know what, he wrote out
more than I thought he did. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: The
one that he submitted to Grofe I was like, "Oh okay. He did write out
more than I thought." But there was one cadenza
where he was just like, "Watch me for the cue." You know. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: You know,
Gershwin was an improviser, so I'm sure he had performances where he didn't play
exactly what was written. That's been actually I think
for some music critics, they aren't sure what to
do with it when I improvise on the cadenzas because
it's like sacrilege. Like this is not what he wrote
or whatever, which, you know, I can understand that
line of thinking. It could also be just that the
improvisations were that good. But that's okay too. That's the beauty of the music. I mean some nights
it's going to be good and some nights it's
not going to. I think in classical music
there's this pressure it has to be this, you know. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: And that's
not part of the journey of a performer, you know. You're a human being. But, yeah. I mean, Gershwin, he was a great
improviser and he knew a lot of the great Harlem
stride pianists. He knew Fats Waller. He and Fats were friends. I think he knew Tatum. I remember reading somewhere
he commented on Earl Hines, his Gershwin album that he did
and how much he liked that. He really loved jazz music. He had a lot of respect
for jazz musicians. And, you know, some people feel like maybe George
Gershwin had sort of swiped their ideas from him. And I'm not going to really get
into that debate, but you know, certainly you can hear the
influence and the homage to a lot of these African
American musical giants, yeah. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So one of the
things that we deal with a lot here obviously
is notated music in the music division, right? >> Aaron Diehl: Really? >> James Wintle: [Laughter]
We've talked a little bit about how that notation is
a framework for jazz, right? We have a lot of jazz here. And a lot of scholars
tend to come in and look at the early printed music,
you know, the Scott Joplin, the early rag and the early
blues and the early jazz up to Jelly Roll Morton. And there seems to be a lot
of ambiguity in those terms. >> Aaron Diehl: Like
early jazz versus ragtime? >> James Wintle:
Rag versus blues. >> Aaron Diehl: Rag
versus blues. >> James Wintle: Versus jazz. So you have people like Jelly
Roll Morton calling things blues that are really jazz. You have people playing ragtime and saying it's also
known as the blues. So, as a pianist, and I'm
not looking for, you know, history necessarily, but as a
pianist playing this repertoire, what do you see as
the distinction between specifically ragtime and
blues as it existed at the turn of the century in
1910, 1915, and that? Either in the way that you
approach it or the music-- >> Aaron Diehl: Let's
talk about, I mean, blues. I wrote a composition I played at Coolidge the other
night called Blues People, which was the title of a book
by LeRoi Jones or Amiri Baraka as he was known later. And it's really interesting. His sort of definition of, you
know, blues and how blues came to be is not so clear cut as we
all would like to make it to be. >> James Wintle: Right. >> Aaron Diehl: I mean,
certainly blues, I mean think about the instrument
that I play. I play a piano. The piano was the primary
instrument for ragtime, you know, at the end
of the 19th Century. I mean, the Maple Leaf
Rag was in what 1896? It was written for the piano. Now, you had various
arrangements for large ensembles and,
you know, brass band or whatever people
would play the tune, but it was written for piano. I mean, and this was the common
instrument in a home, you know, at the end of the 19th Century. Blues, you know, I see as much
more itinerant type of music. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: And the
piano isn't really a mobile instrument. >> James Wintle: Right. >> Aaron Diehl: The piano is,
you know, very stationary. So, I see something like
the guitar or the harmonica or certainly the
human voice, you know, these being primary
instruments of the blues and the blues culture. And so as such you're going
to hear more repertoire in the blues tradition, you
know, in that framework. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: Now obviously
the blues can be transmitted to the piano, but even
when I play the piece by Robert Johnson,
Come on in My Kitchen, it wasn't really
a transcription, but it was in essence
my interpretations based on hearing Robert Johnson and
transmitting that to the piano. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: But I still
think even the piano can't get that kind of quality
that the guitar and certainly the human voice
can get when singing blues. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: You know, so I
think a lot of the distinctions, I mean asking me as a
pianist, you know, it has a lot to do with the instrument. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: Jelly Roll
even, I mean, his pieces, although he had his Red
Hot Peppers in the 20s, and his pieces though were
definitely he had the idea of the New Orleans band
in mind, but, you know, he basically transmitted
that sound to the instrument of the piano, you know. >> James Wintle: So does it have
a lot to do with the bending of notes and finding
that space in between or is it something else? >> Aaron Diehl: I don't know. I mean, I really don't
know how to define it. It's like going back
to Robert Johnson. I remember in jazz history
class in Julliard my first year with Lorne Shamburg [assumed
spelling], he had us try to transcribe Robert
Johnson blues and it was almost impossible. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: I mean,
we think of the blues as being this 12 bar
form and, you know, this very clear cut
structure and I mean, Johnson would switch chords
in the middle of measures. No chords would be a
precise 12 bars, you know. I mean it would just
be all over the place. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: If you really
sit down and you try to analyze, I mean it took us maybe
an hour to kind of figure out what he was doing. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: There's only so much precision you're
going to get out of that. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: Really. >> James Wintle: Yeah,
I heard an interview with Keith Richards once
that said as young kids, when they were listening to
Robert Johnson they thought that there were two
guitarists playing. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> James Wintle: Because
there was so much happening. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. I mean, you know, it's really
a lot to process for sure. >> James Wintle: Yeah. [Laughter] All right,
well I wanted to show you a couple things
from the collection just to kind of get your impression of-- >> Aaron Diehl: Sure. >> James Wintle: --
different things that we have. And talk a little bit
about ragtime, a little bit about blues like
we've been saying. This Maple Leaf Rag
obviously, as you said earlier, everybody knows what Maple
Leaf Rag sounds like, right? >> Aaron Diehl: Sure. >> James Wintle: And this
is the first addition of Maple Leaf Rag. >> Aaron Diehl: Wow. >> James Wintle: And this
was actually published in 1899 for the first time. It says Tempo de Marcha. Right? >> Aaron Diehl: Yes. >> James Wintle: And one of the
things that Scott Joplin says about ragtime in his school
of ragtime sort of tutorial that he wrote is to never
play ragtime too fast. >> Aaron Diehl: Yep. >> James Wintle: Right? >> Aaron Diehl: Yep. >> James Wintle: And this march
tempo that he has here sort of speaks to that as well. So when you're approaching
ragtime, how do you approach tempo? I mean, is it that simple? Don't play it too fast or
do you play it too fast? >> Aaron Diehl: I
mean, I'll be honest, I'm not really a ragtime expert. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: You
know, I play some ragtime but I had mentioned earlier off
camera, a guy named Terry Waldo, who is from Columbus,
Ohio, my home town. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: And going back
to my experiences as a teenager, when I went to New York,
made a visit to New York, I might have been
auditioning or something, I went to Terry's house
on the upper west side. And he spent a good two
hours with me talking about ragtime and
how to play it. And he as a really great
book called This is Ragtime. And he studied with U.B. Blake. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: And it's
so different from anything in terms of, I mean,
its relationship to jazz, the rhythmic feel. How do I say it? It's not as strict as some
people probably think, ragtime, but it also has a certain
amount of rigidity in the sense of it's, like you say, it
should be played a certain way. I try to be as true to the
genre as I can be at this point, but one thing I've learned
is not to play it too fast. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: But people
can play it too slow too. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: It can
be choppy, you know, and that's something I
always had to work on is not to make it too sounding
like too metronomic. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: It has to
breathe in a certain way. Yeah, it's actually I
think one of those genres, ragtime specifically, that very
few people get right, you know. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: Dick
Hyman is one who really, I mean he knows all
kinds of piano styles. And of course Terry. But, you know, maybe I
have to look into doing like a serious Joplin thing in
the future to delve into it. >> James Wintle: Yeah,
you really have to study up on this stuff, right? >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah, but you
know the thing about something like the Maple Leaf,
that was adapted in so many different
settings in jazz. You know, jazz takes from all
kinds of genres and styles and there's like the Sydney
Bechet version, you know that? >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: There's
a Jelly Roll version. Actually he plays it in the
Library of Congress recordings. He plays it really fast, if
I remember this correctly. He plays it really fast in
one example as sort of like as an example of
correct ragtime. And in another example he
puts stamp on it, Jelly Roll. And it is incredibly groovy. I mean, I remember listening
to that over and over again. Like how do you get that right
kind of balance of syncopation? I mean, also ragtime,
just one last thought. I think about Willy the
Lion Smith and the memoirs of Willy the Lion Smith. He talks about how he was sort
of mocking ragtime pianists as, you know, pianists who really-- they don't have a
good left hand. I don't know. You know, there's always
these kinds of one-up-manship that some of these pianists
like to say, "Oh, you know, he didn't play-- this style
isn't as good as my style." >> James Wintle: Right. >> Aaron Diehl: And, you
know, that kind of thing. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: Anyhow. >> James Wintle: Yeah. So another thing that is in
this folder is actually a copy of the publishing agreement
that Scott Joplin had with John Stark and
Sons in St Louis. And it talks about-- >> Aaron Diehl: What kind
of fine print is in there? >> James Wintle:
[Laughter] This is the thing, is that it's really known
as a pretty fair agreement that Stark's selling this
music and Joplin gets one cent from every piece of sheet
music that Stark sells and then Stark will sell him
pieces of the music to sell for five cents and he can't
sell it for more than 25 cents. >> Aaron Diehl: Okay. So how much was a
piece of music-- >> James Wintle: So the sheet
music was about 25 cents. >> Aaron Diehl: Twenty
five cents. Okay. >> James Wintle: So he
got his own copies to sell for five cents and he
had the whole profit. >> Aaron Diehl: Okay
and then any-- >> James Wintle: Then
anything that Stark sold, he got a penny from it. >> Aaron Diehl: Was
there an inventory of how many sheets
of music Stark sold? He could've said, "Well,
I sold 200 copies." But then he really sold 500. >> James Wintle: It's possible. It's possible. >> Aaron Diehl: I'm
just thinking about this because also the Melrose
Brothers really screwed over Jelly Roll Morton like
big time and also Ascap. He got ripped off big time. And one of the reasons why he
was I think so bitter at the end of his life because he-- >> James Wintle:
Yeah, and tending bar. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, anyhow. >> James Wintle: Yeah, but I thought this
was interesting just to talk a little bit about
the business of music and kind of how that effects the way that you approach
being a jazz musician because there is
this long history. This was comparatively
fair, I think, but there's a long history
of the business side of jazz really getting
in the way of people reaching
their potential. I just wonder what
it's like today and how that history speaks
to you as a musician. >> Aaron Diehl: I was just
talking to another musician about this last night. You know, so many
musicians I feel like are-- the business of music is
important and you have to know what is fair, what's
within your rights, you know, how to get the maximum potential
out of your creativity. You know, it's already
difficult as it is. I do think though that we're in
a position now where it's harder to really focus on our craft
without becoming too consumed with the business aspect of it. And that partly could be
because the music is more entrepreneurial now than
certainly, you know, somebody like Scott Joplin
would have, you know, it was much more
hierarchical at that time. And maybe there are a
few exceptions, you know. But certainly as a black
musician in America, I mean, you know, you were lucky to have
someone like Stark, you know, on your side selling your music because it was a
difficult playing field. But even now, I think
what's essential is to provide good content and
really letting the content speak for itself and doing what you
can to sell or promote it. Instead of the other
way around where a lot of people are finding,
you know, very catchy ways and attractive ways
to sell content that might not be that great. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: You know? >> James Wintle: They
put a nice bow on it. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah,
they put a nice bow on it. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: I don't know. So many musicians I run
across, you know, they talk more about the music business
then they talk about music. That really bothers me. >> James Wintle: Yeah. I can imagine. >> Aaron Diehl: I want
to talk about this. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: You know,
of course you have to. There's a time to talk about
business but I love like, I was a kid in a candy store
going in that archive today, yesterday, looking at
all those manuscripts. And it's like, "Wow, all this
stuff is available for free?" >> James Wintle:
Yeah [laughter]. >> Aaron Diehl: Like really? But a lot of the conversations
I can have sometimes is more focused on, you know, other
elements and it doesn't have to do with the content. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. Well, let's look at
a couple more pieces. One of the composers I know that you've played a
little bit is Lucky Roberts. >> Aaron Diehl: Oh yeah. Yeah. >> James Wintle: This
is actually a manuscript of his Navy Blues. >> Aaron Diehl: Okay. >> James Wintle: So can
you tell me a little bit about your experience
playing Lucky Roberts and where you came
across that name? >> Aaron Diehl: Well,
actually through Terry Waldo. >> James Wintle: Yeah? >> Aaron Diehl: He had this
NPR or PBS or something like a radio broadcast
back maybe like 15, 20 years ago called
This is Ragtime. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: I heard this
piece that I really liked. Glen Miller actually,
I don't know if he made it famous,
but he did play it. It's blanking now. It's like Moonlight Serenade. No, not that one. I think it's called
Pork and Beans. >> James Wintle: Okay. >> Aaron Diehl: You
know, Pork and Beans? And then there's
another name for it. It's escaping my memory now. But anyhow, I did
record Pork and Beans or I can't remember
the other name. I recorded that on a
live album at Caramoor. What's interesting about him
is apparently he was a really successful real estate guy. He made some money
on real estate. I don't know. It seemed like sort
of an obscure figure that I never heard about
that I wanted to sort of to explore a little bit more. Yeah, Luckieth Roberts,
Navy Blues. I never heard this
one to be honest. >> James Wintle: Yeah, it's
a song, it was published in World War I, and
it's, you know, about the military and so forth. >> Aaron Diehl: Again, I love
to see people's handwriting. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. [ Silence ] >> Aaron Diehl: That's great. You know what would be really
cool is I know there are probably like a lot of
liabilities with it, but like at Coolidge to
have people do concerts with the original music. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: You
know, like actually use-- I think that would be so cool. >> James Wintle:
Yeah, it would be. >> Aaron Diehl: You'd
have to have like a-- >> James Wintle: That
would be something. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. Probably have to have someone
standing making sure you don't tear the page. >> James Wintle: So speaking of
seeing someone's handwriting, so this is the manuscript of
Keeping out of Mischief Now. And then this is the
first published edition. >> Aaron Diehl: Okay. [ Silence ] >> James Wintle: You see in the published edition he's
added some dotted rhythms and some different things, but you've got the
basic melody here. >> Aaron Diehl: Right. I mean, and also you have
to understand I mean all of this had to be transferred to the sheet music
for like home use. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: I get
asked even by students like why are the piano
parts so simplistic and sometimes they're not
that interesting in terms of, you know, the accompaniment. It was basically just
written for amateurs, you know, to use at home. So it's interesting to see how, like sometimes I wonder
how much, and it depends on the composer, how
much of the harmony, like this is just a
leaching, but the melody, there are no chords or anything. If you had like someone in the publishing house
actually realizing the harmony or if the composer
helped do that or, you know, how that worked. If this was in fact what
Fats Waller submitted to whoever the publisher
is, then, you know, how much information
was at their disposal. The same question I have about like Beethoven
and his manuscript. If you see the sonata
you're just like, how could anybody
know what that is? >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: When
the publisher saw that, how did he go from
what's on the manuscript to essentially what we
now know and see today? >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: You know. >> James Wintle: And you
have a number of fair copies and first editions and things
that are always being corrected because there is that ambiguity. >> Aaron Diehl: Right. >> James Wintle: What struck
me were these dotted figures that I thought maybe
were written for somebody who didn't know how to swing. >> Aaron Diehl: Well yeah. That's an interesting
observation because a lot of times the sheet music
doesn't have any real sense of syncopation at all. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: It's pretty much as straightforward
as you can get. But the great thing about that
as a jazz musician is that, I mean, this should be, and
Bill Charlap, the great pianist, told me that this should
be our first reference when we're learning a piece of
song from the American Songbook. You know, don't go to
any of the recordings. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: But
go to the sheet music because then you can
see the actual melody. Now, maybe the rhythm isn't
that hip and we're not looking for rhythmic sophistication. We're looking for, you know,
what's the original melody? What are the intervals
that are used, you know? >> James Wintle: Right. >> Aaron Diehl: What
are the lyrics? Is there a verse? You know, is the verse good? Can we use a verse? You know, sometimes those versus
weren't as great as others. So, you know, what are some of the original harmonies
to the tune? I mean, and sometimes we try to
get so fancy and sophisticated with the way we harmonize
things that it's maybe too rich for its own good, you know. And when we go and see
the original sheet music, something that's so simple can
really be even more effective than trying to put, you
know, too much sugar, you know, in your oatmeal. >> James Wintle: Right. Yeah. So I just wanted
to show you that and sort of get your impressions. And I think we're getting close
to time, so we don't have time to go through all of this. But there's one thing
in particular that I wanted you
to see, which is-- >> Aaron Diehl: Oh wow. This is Ellington. >> James Wintle: Blind
Man's Bluff, which from 1923 and this is the first pop song, the first copyright
deposit of anything-- >> Aaron Diehl: Oh really? >> James Wintle: -- that
Duke Ellington wrote, that he submitted. And it was a pop song that
he wrote with J.H. Trent and there were a number
of songs that came out. But this is the first one. So can you talk a little bit
about Duke Ellington and sort of your impressions
of seeing this? >> Aaron Diehl: I mean, again, there's like so little
information on this. What's interesting to me
about these submission, because I saw this
somewhere else in the archive, not from Duke Ellington,
where they submit the melody and on a separate sheet
they submitted the lyrics. Like, why wouldn't they put
it on one page, you know? I'm just curious if there's like
some sort of protocol format that they had to follow because
that would make sense to me. Like, okay I mean just kind of
analyzing it, I wish there was like a camera above so
people could see it. Yeah, it's kind of hard
to see, but, you know, where does the verse start? The verse starts right here
and it goes all the way to this double bar
line presumably. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: And then, of
course, starts right here. So you look at the
verse, that's right here. You can, you know, sort
of put the verse on there. And then there are two
choruses, but it even chorus and then it says third chorus,
so do you sing this twice and then the third
time you sing that? I don't know. It's just interesting like format wise how people
would submit the lyrics separately from the
actual music. >> James Wintle: Yeah, and
sort of the whole issue of text underlay and all that
sort of thing, I guess, maybe. >> Aaron Diehl: Maybe. >> James Wintle: Was it
that important to them? Or I've also considered
the fact that maybe because this is the
work of J.H. Trent and this is the work
of Duke Ellington. >> Aaron Diehl: That
is a good point. That definitely could be. I mean, is this proven
to be Duke's manuscript? I've seen Duke's
manuscripts before. >> James Wintle: It's not. >> Aaron Diehl: It's not. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, this doesn't
look like Duke's handwriting. >> James Wintle: No. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. >> James Wintle: So if you
were going to play this piece, and that's what you had,
I mean would you do it? Or would you have an approach? >> Aaron Diehl: I mean, there
are some tricks that you can use as a musician to realize the
harmony based on a melody. You can see where the
direction of the melody's going. It starts on a one chord maybe. This looks like it's in
E flat major or C minor. Yeah, it's I'm guessing
like a blues maybe. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: So,
even the chorus. The chorus could
be more difficult, but I could with relative
confidence, say that this is in one cord, tonichord or E
flat major chord right here. And then because
this is in F sharp and the augmented five
was used quite frequently, that might be a B
flat augmented chord. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: You
know, there are ways that you can kind of guess. Would I perform it? Maybe, but I'm going to actually
listening to a recording of this later on today to
see how it goes, you know. But yeah, there's so little
information there, you know, you can't really say with
100% certainty that, you know, this would be correct
if I were to play it. >> James Wintle: Right. And so, you need to
have that recording. One needs to have
that recording. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah. And that's also the privilege
that we have today that, you know, if you were looking at
a piece of Chopin's, you know, you're kind of out of luck to really know how
it's supposed to go. >> James Wintle: Yeah. You were talking about blues
and this is Pine Top Smith, Nobody Knows You When
You're Down and Out. >> Aaron Diehl: Okay. See, this has the lyrics. >> James Wintle: Yeah,
it has the lyrics on it. You see how the melody
works and all that. Is this a song that you know? >> Aaron Diehl: No, I don't. No. Okay. I do not know it. Nobody Knows When
You're Down and Out. >> James Wintle: Yeah,
it's a really great blues about living the high life
and having all these friends. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah,
I have to look it up. Yeah, it's Pine Top. Okay. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: 1929. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: Okay. Lots of blues. >> James Wintle:
And one last thing. Here is James Reese Europe. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah, sure. >> James Wintle: And this
is the Castle House Rag-- >> Aaron Diehl: Yes. Okay. >> James Wintle: -- that
he wrote, obviously for Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Castle. >> Aaron Diehl: Yes. >> James Wintle: The
dance duo, right? >> Aaron Diehl: The
dance duo, yep. Mm-hmm. >> James Wintle: And if you
could just say a little bit about James Reese Europe
and your impressions of him as you've been sort
of studying jazz and getting to know this music. Do you have a sense of
who he was and why he was such a major figure
at this time? >> Aaron Diehl: That's a
question for Jason Moran. [Laughter] He's been studying. I have not studied as much James
Reese Europe to be quite honest. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. [ Silence ] >> Aaron Diehl: He
was an ambassador for early American music,
you know, of course. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. And was one of the first to really unionize jazz
musicians in New York. >> Aaron Diehl: Exactly. >> James Wintle: With the
Cluck Club and all that. >> Aaron Diehl: Yeah, I've
seen copies obviously. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: This
is first edition? >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: Oh wow. >> James Wintle: Then you
have the trio section, like you'd suspect. And it really speaks, I think,
to the idea of the importance of dance as a part
of jazz, right? >> Aaron Diehl: I mean the
music pre 1945 really was rooted in dance. It was functional music. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: And even
though we're not dancing to jazz much anymore, I feel like that's an
essential for me personally. This is my own personal
like esthetic choice. But I feel like in some ways
the music always has to have that quality of dance to
it, the rhythm, the groove. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: You know, even
if it's not as demonstrative, you know, and it's a little
bit more could be subdued but it's still always present. It's maybe a bit subliminal but it's always present
in the music. >> James Wintle: Yeah. >> Aaron Diehl: You know. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. >> Aaron Diehl: I mean, there
are some people who believe that we should bring, you know, dance back into the
forefront with jazz. I think in a way
like with hip-hop, you think about somebody
like Robert Glasper, which I know is a bit of a
different tradition, but, you know, people
are dancing to sort of this jazz hip-hop
fusion, you know. >> James Wintle: Mm-hmm. And do you think that's really
taking jazz back to its roots in a certain way,
even though it's going in a different direction? >> Aaron Diehl: I think in terms
of the functionality it is. I mean, as far as the
content of the music itself, there are certain threads
and elements that are rooted in jazz, but, you know, jazz uses the triplet
beat, the triplet figure. I mean, hip-hop is very much,
although there are elements of the triplet figure;
it's also very duple based. So you're also dealing with
like two different sort of rhythmic subdivisions,
you know. >> James Wintle: Right. >> Aaron Diehl: And a lot
of people just cannot, I mean because it's not
prevalent in our society, not on the radio, not
necessarily on TV, it's hard for people to feel
that swing beat, you know. If they hear a piece of, you
know, somebody like Elvin Jones, it's not going to hit
them as hard as, you know, someone else who's, you
know, closer to, you know, the things that they
grew up with. >> James Wintle: Right. Sure. Yeah, and I
mean music's all about your personal experiences. >> Aaron Diehl: Absolutely. Absolutely. >> James Wintle: Well I appreciate you
coming to talk to me. >> Aaron Diehl: James. >> James Wintle: It was a
really interesting conversation. Thank you so much. >> Aaron Diehl: Thank
you so much. My pleasure. >> James Wintle: Yeah. And it was great having
you at the library. >> Aaron Diehl: Oh, my pleasure.
