The Guitar Journal

Jesse Paliotto (00:10)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Guitar Journal, a podcast where we love to talk about making music, particularly through the lens of fingerstyle guitar and jazz guitar. I'm your host, Jesse Paliotto I love bringing the best of the music community to you here on the Guitar Journal podcast. I'm excited because we have with us today Jocelyn Gould. Jocelyn is a Juno award-winning jazz guitarist and a singer.

Truly a mind-blowing jazz guitarist. She's performed and recorded internationally with a whole list of amazing people. She was head of guitar department at Humber Polytechnic in Toronto, has a whole group of albums out, and her own very fun podcast and YouTube channel, plus all the other socials. So Jocelyn, I'm so honored to have you on the podcast today. Really looking forward to chatting. Thanks for being here.

Jocelyn Gould (00:49)
Thanks for asking me, Jesse I've been really looking forward to this. Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (00:53)
right on.

Maybe a good question just out of the gate. I'm curious how you got into jazz guitar. Like what hooked you? What pulled you into that? And then how did you pursue it? Because it's a pretty specific thing to go chase after,

Jocelyn Gould (01:08)
Definitely, yeah. So I'm from like a medium-sized city in central Canada called Winnipeg. It's a really isolated city. have to drive. The next major city is like Minneapolis, which is an eight-hour drive or something. So it's, you know, there's Winnipeg and kind of...

than nothing for hours and hours. And I grew up there and it's really not a jazz city. When you think of cities that are known for jazz music, think specifically the United States and New York or Detroit or Philly.

Jesse Paliotto (02:00)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Jocelyn Gould (02:04)
all over the major cities in the US. So I actually didn't grow up with jazz music at all. I was a really musical young kid. My dad for his career was a elementary music teacher and I loved singing. I was like just really like passionate about music from a young age but didn't take lessons or anything like that.

Jesse Paliotto (02:23)
cool.

Jocelyn Gould (02:33)
Both my parents were hobbyist guitar players when I was growing up. And my older brother started learning guitar when he was, four years older than me, so when he was like eight or something, he started learning the guitar. And then when I was 13 years old, he showed me my first power chords. He showed me how to play power chords, which for those who might not be familiar are just the first and the fifth of any chords. So they can be major, they can be minor.

Jesse Paliotto (02:55)
Yes.

Jocelyn Gould (03:02)
It's a really easy way to start accompanying yourself singing songs. So I, from 13 years old, got just obsessed with the guitar. I would, you know, skip school to sit at home and practice. And I remember, I remember in grade, I started, this was in grade eight. I remember in grade nine, my parents being like,

Why are there like 73 absence on your report card? like, you know, like I, I got very into and very, just like passionate and kind of had this inner, this inner thing. Nobody was telling me to learn the guitar, but I was just so dutiful about it. Totally self-taught, just learning songs that I liked.

Jesse Paliotto (03:54)
Mm-hmm.

Jocelyn Gould (04:01)
pop songs, songs on the radio, just music that I liked. And I learned like this until I was, I graduated high school. I started a science degree at the university just down the street from my parents' house and.

I was in my third year of a science degree and a couple of my friends had enrolled in the brand new jazz program that was starting at that school. And I went to a couple of the jam sessions that the program was holding and I was just like, I have to do this. You know, I knew I wanted to be a musician.

Jesse Paliotto (04:45)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Jocelyn Gould (04:52)
But when you're young, didn't grow up around any professional musicians. When you're, you know, I didn't know there was a path toward that I could take that would make me a professional musician. But when I went to these sessions, I was just like, this is what I have to do.

Jesse Paliotto (05:05)
Right.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jocelyn Gould (05:14)
And up until then I was just playing on my mom's like really cheap old crappy Yamaha classical like nylon string. So I went out and bought an electric guitar and started taking lessons and learning like the names of the notes. And I was 20 at this time and I just prepared. I took a year off school and prepared for the audition and auditioned and

got into this program, which was really cool. There were a lot of amazing teachers coming up from the US to teach jazz. So it was just a great place to start. And I just never looked back. I never thought about anything else ever again. That was it.

Jesse Paliotto (06:06)
Yeah.

That's amazing. It's really encouraging, I think, for folks too, who are maybe at university age and getting into something and wondering, am I too late? And obviously the answer is no, like you just did that. And there's a book I'm thinking of, I don't know if you would have heard it, but it's called Range. it's, I forget the author's name, but he's talking about, you know, the different ways of learning. There's like the Tiger Woods model, the famous golfer who like,

you know, very early in life, all his dad had him do was play golf. And then, but actually when you look at the statistics, most major league athletes don't do that. They, they, they try a lot of things and they focus in later in their careers and achieve, you know, a lot of great stuff that way, which, so that's in my mind as you're discussing, like I was learning pop songs, I was doing all this stuff and then I showed up and it was actually at age 20 that like I dove in and said, this is the thing. That's cool.

Jocelyn Gould (06:58)
Yeah,

yeah. And I remember feeling, I felt very deeply that I was too old. And it was something that followed me around for years. was like, I can't be, I was 21 and everybody else was 18 and I just thought I was ancient. And...

Jesse Paliotto (07:06)
room.

Which later

on you're like, it makes zero difference, but at the time it probably feels so big. Yeah.

Jocelyn Gould (07:23)
Totally, totally. you know, I'm pretty confident that we, that people can learn a lot at any age and when you want to so young. for any young people, that's like, you have so much time.

Jesse Paliotto (07:41)
question I wanted to ask and this is sort of an odd question, but I know you were a professor So you may have some kind of very interesting perspective on this with jazz I think one of the tough things for jazz guitarist who's starting out is there's so much that you could learn But can you talk about like what's the minimum level like the phrase that's in my mind is like minimum viable? Product like this concept like there's probably a certain level you have to know

and that would get you in the door. What is that level? Because otherwise it just feels so overwhelming.

Jocelyn Gould (08:13)
Yeah, and I remember that feeling and I feel that way all the time. I don't know if it ever goes away. There is so much to know. I mean, we're, you know, over a hundred years into recorded music history now and everything that's ever been recorded is at our disposal for studying. And then everything, you know, that was written down on paper before that.

So we just can't learn everything. what I do with students when we're starting out is we just, we do the fundamentals. So we learn our major scales, minor scales in different, in all keys, in different positions.

and we learn basic chord voicings and mostly we dive right into transcription. So transcription is the most valuable tool that you'll have as a student of jazz. Yeah, yeah, and I really believe it to be true. It's because jazz music is an improvised music.

Jesse Paliotto (09:29)
Hmm. It's powerful statement.

Jocelyn Gould (09:43)
The way to learn it is the same way you would learn a language, like a speaking language. And that's by listening and copying and trying new sentences out, trying new phrases out. And slowly, over a number of years, when you're learning a new language, you piece together.

a fluent ability to have a stream of thoughts. And it's the same with jazz. It's a musical language. so many of the things that you'll play are not brand new. There's a misconception that improvising is just playing things that you've never

played before. But that's actually not true. It's a language that gets studied and you familiarize yourself with what has been done and what has been said before. You learn to say it back by learning solos, by transcribing solos and learning to play solos. And then through your studying of other jazz musicians, you come up with your own voice over time.

So for me, it's just basically the answer to everything. how does Kenny Burrell do that? Is always like, well, transcribe it, figure it out. And that to me is just the quickest way to the music and to the spirit of the music. You can practice your scales all day and that's great and facilitates improvising, but we have to get to the language too.

Jesse Paliotto (11:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's, it's interesting because I feel like jazz, one of the things that is intriguing about it as a musician is that the theory is so deep. And so it's tempting, at least it is to me, to run off into the wild blue chasing analysis or theoretical construction, which I guess like in your analogy, be like getting deep into a grammar book. And you're like, I guess that's interesting, but like how do people actually say it when they have real conversations? That's go study that. you want, especially if you want to sound

natural and effective. Yes, I love that like focusing more on just learn the language as it's actually spoken.

Jocelyn Gould (12:15)
Yes.

Yeah, and you can learn all the harmony from the solos. So you can, you know, take a part, can transcribe a Sonny Rollins solo and, you know, hear all these, all these harmonic tools, hear the altered scale, hear melodic minor as jazz musicians use them. And we need, you know, we need to know harmony too, because that's how we know how to play what we're hearing. But

Jesse Paliotto (12:24)
Mm-hmm.

Jocelyn Gould (12:47)
Really, it's, I think, just so much about the records.

Jesse Paliotto (12:52)
Yeah, and for me a big, a really powerful thing is identifying when I really like a thing that somebody did. Be like, that's how they did it. And then all of a sudden you have this piece that you can plop into other parts. Plop sounds a little awful, but into other situations. And it's funny sometimes to like realize how not complicated maybe something somebody did was, or it could be the other way around. There was this Dave Brubeck thing on this piano. like, oh, that's an awesome riff. gonna try and learn it.

Jocelyn Gould (13:05)
No, it's Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (13:20)
Like, I don't think this is playable on guitar. But there are situations where you're like, that actually wasn't that hard. He or she just did the one thing, but it was in the right place. Good to know. I don't need to overcomplicate this.

Jocelyn Gould (13:32)
Yeah, yes. And then in transcribing too, in a lot of those situations, what I learned is that it was so much about the feel and so much about the swing and the sound of the instrument. And there's just so many elements more than the notes that you're playing, which you can't actually really notate swing. That's not our way of notation.

Jesse Paliotto (13:42)
yeah.

Jocelyn Gould (14:01)
standard for notation doesn't get a lot of articulations in jazz and a lot of the feel across. So that's all just through listening and copying.

Jesse Paliotto (14:11)
Yeah, yeah, and I guess it's helpful to think like the origination of jazz music is not from a kind of it's not it originated as a played for a format And it was passed around as a played form

Jocelyn Gould (14:23)
Yes.

Yes, yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (14:28)
On the subject of theory stuff, and this is sort of a question that I run into this a lot on YouTube, it just may be my own algorithm feeding me weird stuff because that's what my YouTube looks like. But I see a lot about the Barry Harris method with jazz, and I did not encounter that when I took music classes in college. Is that something you've interacted with? I'm really curious how that fits with people's kind of more traditional theory, understanding of jazz, how to play it. How do you think about that?

Jocelyn Gould (14:39)
you

Yeah, so Barry Harris, for anyone who might be listening who isn't familiar, he was one of the great pianists of jazz history. He passed away not too many years ago, and he was teaching until his very last day. He used to have clinics every Saturday, up until just a few years ago. Every Saturday in New York City, he would teach, and you could go, it was 10 bucks, you could go. And so not only is he one of the great,

musicians of jazz history, he also is one of the great pedagogues. And he's from Detroit, and Detroit has a really deep history of pedagogy, as well as, I mean, such a deep jazz history, but a lot of the great teachers have come out of Detroit. And yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I...

Jesse Paliotto (15:48)
Interesting. I did not know that.

Jocelyn Gould (15:55)
I might be a little bit skewed because I went to Michigan State, so I fully, I do believe it, but I do also believe it to be true. so Barry Harris taught, I mean, he was a master of bebop, a master of language, and he taught through basically showing people lines, almost showing people what to play and having them copy him.

Jesse Paliotto (15:59)
Little bias.

Mm-hmm.

Jocelyn Gould (16:25)
and

explaining how it all works. And he's particularly known for his use of the passing diminished system and how he taught using passing diminished. So a lot of people really associate that with him as well. But he's one of the icons of jazz music.

Jesse Paliotto (16:53)
And with his style of like using passing diminished, his approach to, mean, from what I've kind of encountered of his theory, it's all about basically you're in one or you're in like the dominant and he frames diminished around dominant and you're kind of moving back and forth and it's all about this tonality system. Do you utilize that? is that, because what strikes me is it almost feels like you have to rewire your brain in order to think from that perspective and or can you merge it with

sort of where you were talking earlier about like learn your scales, whatever, transcribe, like can you bring those streams together?

Jocelyn Gould (17:30)
Yeah, definitely, and I use that all the time. really kind of where it comes from is the idea that you take, there are these scales in jazz theory called bebop scales. And a bebop scale is a seven, just a seven note scale. It can be any scale really. Let's take in this.

circumstance we'll take a major scale. So let's take a C major scale. A bebop scale is a seven note scale that we add a passing tone to so that when we play the scale, the chord tones, so in this case C, E, G, and B, they land on the strong beats of the bar if we're playing in eighth notes. So we're gonna add a passing tone between G and A.

So we'll add an A flat to the scale.

Jesse Paliotto (18:28)
Mm-hmm.

Jocelyn Gould (18:31)
The incredible thing about just adding this one passing tone to a C major scale is that then when you play the arpeggios, you get C major six alternating with D diminished. D diminished is A flat diminished, they're the same scale, and A flat diminished outlines a G seven flat nine chord. So you're C six.

Jesse Paliotto (18:47)
Right, yes.

Jocelyn Gould (19:00)
to G7 which is 1515151. It's like this beautiful, just, I don't know, it's like art the way that comes together. Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (19:03)
Yep. Yeah.

Yeah, it's very elegant. It's a very elegant way to

look at theory overall and just how music moves from sort of home to tension and back home.

Jocelyn Gould (19:21)
Yes, yes, absolutely. And so if you're sitting on a one chord for a long period of time, you can always superimpose the five over it. So if I have four bars of one, I'll go back and forth from one and five often using this bebop scale.

Jesse Paliotto (19:38)
Interesting. all right, so I need to put some more time in on that.

Jocelyn Gould (19:42)
that's so cool. Me too, honestly.

Jesse Paliotto (19:44)
That's

my takeaway is yes, Jesse, you can improve. can blend this with other stuff, so I probably should. So I'm going to put that on the list. I also wanted to ask like playing wise on your right hand technique, you know, can you talk a little bit what that is? I'm curious, like if you had to change, because there's just so many different ways from, you know, West Montgomery to even like, you know, watch Joe pass and how he changed throughout his career. Like, can you talk about how you play and maybe some other stuff that you've tried or would potentially try?

Jocelyn Gould (19:52)
cool.

Yeah, so I a type of picking that's called hybrid picking. So I play with a pick between my thumb and index finger and then I finger pick with these three fingers. And that's how I learned to do it lot. This is like a common way that a lot of jazz guitarists pick. And I also do...

something that people have taken from George Benson, which is just for when they're picking linear lines. It's kind of like your wrist is tilted under and you're picking from your wrist, but there's a little bit of, it's like George Benson picking technique. So it kind of comes from under. But I'm, yeah, I find that's the...

Jesse Paliotto (21:02)
Okay.

Jocelyn Gould (21:13)
Best way for me to be versatile is to have a pick and hybrid pick with my other three fingers. And so I've worked a lot on independence and just trying to get out whatever I wanna play. And that way I can go back and forth very smoothly from being able to like roll a chord to being able to play just some linear lines, picked linear lines.

Jesse Paliotto (21:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, I was listening to, I think it was But Beautiful that you did a recording of. YouTube is an incredible, I'll put a link in the show notes. It's an amazing version of the song, but you're doing that. You're doing like moving between chords and you're also singing and then doing lines. And so yeah, it's just a really smooth technique. It's very, I feel like it's gotta be one of the most popular kind of right-hand approaches for jazz guitar.

Jocelyn Gould (21:46)
Yeah.

I think it is. I think it is. Another way a lot of people do it is that they just like find somewhere to put their pick. Somehow some people hold them. I've never been able to figure it out, but somehow people get really, I don't know, it's like a magician trick. Their picks go away, sometimes into their mouth. And they'll finger pick. I really, I mean, I love that.

Jesse Paliotto (22:14)
Yeah.

You neither.

Jocelyn Gould (22:33)
sound I just haven't been able to negotiate to negotiate the fact that I want to be able to go back and forth so quickly between between you know being able to break up chords and being able to just use my pick

Jesse Paliotto (22:50)
Yeah, one thing I'm curious about on that front, especially because like for folks that listen to the guitar journal or have been on the site, you know, we cover a lot of stuff on like sort of the acoustic guitar finger picking side of things. So folks like Tommy Emmanuel or that world and they're using, you know, people in that sort of sub genre or niche are using thumb picks in order to get that right. So you're getting the pick, but you're and they're using it for bass movement against fingers and stuff. But it strikes me like, would that be a viable option for what you're doing or your style?

Jocelyn Gould (23:19)
Yeah, I feel like the cool thing is that if somebody would just have to choose to do it and then it could be done. Totally, totally. I think so. That would be very cool.

Jesse Paliotto (23:24)
Right. Just commit. Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting with the guitars. There's so many approaches and speaking of West Montgomery, like really just went for it and did it his way and became like the defining, at least in my kind of limited understanding, became like a defining character with his own style and everybody says, it's the best. Be like, who did that before? They just straight up played everything with his thumb. Like that's wild.

Jocelyn Gould (23:59)
The legend is that, so he lived in Indianapolis for most of his life and the legend is that because he worked during the day, he would practice at night. And so he practiced with his thumb to not wake up his family, apparently. And it turned into just this iconic sound. But I mean, just the sound of like the flesh on the strings and just the... It's...

Yeah, I mean, he was unparalleled in basically every way.

Jesse Paliotto (24:32)
Yeah, I was talking to somebody and they were saying that like essentially when you're playing with a pick one of the challenges, maybe I'd be interested in your feedback on this, that one of the challenges with jazz guitar is you're playing with a pick and you're playing on this arch top and what you're having to do is kind of roll off the highs and really emphasize all the mids and lows to try and get it to sound fat. Whereas what Wes did was he got all that fatness in his hand by playing with his thumb and so the tone started out very warm sounding and he didn't have to go correct it basically later in the.

in the signal chain.

Jocelyn Gould (25:03)
that makes so much sense. That's totally, that's very, cool.

Jesse Paliotto (25:08)
I'm gonna have to link in the show notes to give credit who said it might have been Adam Rafferty who was saying that it was another guitar player. yeah, I went, I thought that was my, my same response. Like, yeah, that makes sense. You're just starting with the warm sound right there.

Jocelyn Gould (25:21)
Yeah, yeah, amazing. That checks out.

Jesse Paliotto (25:26)
Yeah, right. Speaking of tone and gear, maybe could you talk for a second just about your own, you know, what do you put together to get a good jazz sound? I know that's a loaded topic, so feel free to take that wherever you want to take it.

Jocelyn Gould (25:34)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, I have been playing the same Benedetto since summer 2019. So I've had the same guitar since then. And I've really worked pretty hard on drawing a sound that I want out of an instrument.

So.

So I play super clean just into, I mean, I'm on the road all the time, so usually the amps that are available to me are Fender tube amps. That's kind of the stock amp that's in all the clubs. so I play direct into usually just a tube amp. And for me, it's so much about just like how I'm playing.

the instrument and having a Benedetto really helps. They're beautiful instruments with beautiful sounds. But it's so much in how you're physically playing the instrument. So I have with my pick, I actually strike the string with the side of the pick rather than like perpendicularly like flat.

Jesse Paliotto (27:06)
yeah.

Jocelyn Gould (27:09)
It's like the side. I've really worked to try and use a pick to draw out the most desirable sound and how to draw the sound out of strings. And for me, it's, so much in how I'm playing that I really wanna be able to kind of play through anything. I don't have the luxury of

Jesse Paliotto (27:38)
Yeah.

Jocelyn Gould (27:39)
bringing too much gear

Jesse Paliotto (27:40)
Yeah.

Jocelyn Gould (27:41)
on tour, I'm often just going from place to place by myself just with my guitar. So I have to be able to make anything sound good. And sometimes what you're working with is not that exciting. being able to make anything sound good is really my goal.

Jesse Paliotto (27:55)
Hahaha!

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. Like, so you're really, I'm producing all the sound on the, like if I were to kind of just reflect back what I'm kind of taking away is I'm producing all the sound as much as I can in my hands and on the actual guitar, no effects, no outboard stuff, and then just relying on hopefully a decent Fender tube amp at the venue that I can plug into. And that's, that's pretty much it.

Jocelyn Gould (28:29)
That's pretty much it. And of course, Fender amps are so variable. Like they're such a a huge variation in how good they can sound. They're not well quality controlled at all. So sometimes you just don't sound that great. You take what you can get. Yeah, unfortunately. But for me, it's also like a fun challenge.

Jesse Paliotto (28:50)
Yeah, take what you get.

Jocelyn Gould (28:58)
really want to just be able to make anything sound good. And that's also my personality. Like anytime anything happens, I'm like, well, yeah, but I could, you know, like, am I really gonna like blame? I don't know. Ask blame. Anything that happens, I'm like, well, I should be able to address that myself.

Jesse Paliotto (29:18)
Yeah, you can either be very demanding or you can be someone who just says, can solve this and move on. And I feel like you gotta be in the solve it mindset. There's just too many other things. If you require perfection for you to able to do your job, you're gonna have a rough go.

Jocelyn Gould (29:32)
Absolutely, yeah, yes. And like there have been, you know, so many great Joe Pass records where his playing is just amazing, but the sound is, you know, not... He was known for like... Yeah!

Jesse Paliotto (29:44)
It is terrible. I love Joe Pass. He's my hero. Like, if I could be somebody,

I'd want to be Joe Pass. And you listen to these, I'm like, what was going on? Like, why did nobody like to do something? And he's still amazing to listen to.

Jocelyn Gould (29:56)
Totally.

Apparently he was just like, he's famous for just not caring about his setup and just wanting to just play and not really worry about it.

Jesse Paliotto (30:07)
Yeah.

And I think for a long time, especially earlier in his career, he didn't even own his own guitar. He was a loaned, I think. Yeah. If whoever wants to go look up the legends, but basically there's a long period of time, I think where he did not own it, he was loaned a guitar. So you've got like the most amazing jazz guitar player just using a loaner and having nothing and showing up and dealing with whatever he's got. So yeah, I guess if he can make it work.

Jocelyn Gould (30:35)
Yeah.

I hope to, you know, have... I want to be somewhere in the middle, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (30:41)
Yeah, right. Maybe could have a decent guitar, maybe?

Have you worked with, this is an odd question, apologize in advance, you ever worked with nylon string? Speaking of Joe Pass, who actually did record on nylon string, I think Unforgettable, maybe one or two other albums. And I've talked to a few people, and it's always a very loaded suggestion for somebody like, what, no, it's terrible, or I love it. I'm curious, have you ever tried to do that?

Jocelyn Gould (30:58)
Yes.

Yeah, well, I haven't recently, but like I mentioned, I grew up just like bashing on my mom's nylon string. She still brings it up, how I wrecked her guitar in my teens. But I would love, I mean, would love, love to, I love the sound. And in a lot of ways, I think it's like pretty close to the sound I'm trying to get on an archtop.

Jesse Paliotto (31:26)
Of course.

Jocelyn Gould (31:41)
is kind of that full, that fullness and yeah, I mean, I would love to at some point experiment with playing more with a nylon string.

Jesse Paliotto (31:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, especially for like solo. Actually, how much do you play solo versus with a band?

Jocelyn Gould (32:00)
I do a lot of solo and in my gigs, even on gigs that I'm playing with a quartet or quintet, I'll still do like a solo portion for the audience.

Jesse Paliotto (32:11)
Yeah, yeah, the, yeah, now I'm string. have a, one of these mini cordobas, which is like a small scale guitar, but it's tuned to a normal tuning and, it's an nylon string and it's, surprisingly fun. And I find it, I'm like, I'm like, this actually sounds kind of good. I I'm slowly falling in love with a nylon string and didn't realize it. I'm getting, I'm getting into this. So it's yeah, I've considered him like, maybe I should get a full size real one or something.

Jocelyn Gould (32:36)
You

Yeah, that's a great idea. That's, you absolutely should.

Jesse Paliotto (32:45)
I've got a couple quick hits I just wanted to close this out with and we'll kind of head towards our wrap up here in just a second. But I wanted to know what is playing in your playlist right now? I don't know if you do vinyl or Spotify or collect CDs, but what are you, what's Jocelyn listening to right now?

Jocelyn Gould (33:06)
Yeah, well, I did a gig last Friday at Dizzy's in New York that was a tribute to Thelonious Monk. It was a really cool band that Jazz at Lincoln Center put together. so I have just been binging Monk for like weeks over. It was my first gig. Like I played my last gig of 2024.

December 9th and then this wasn't till January 10th. So I the incredible luxury of having weeks to prepare for a performance which never happens. And so I just have been going deep on Monk.

Jesse Paliotto (33:51)
Where would you have somebody start if somebody's like, I've never listened to Thelonious Monk. What would you give him first?

Jocelyn Gould (33:58)
Yeah, Monk's Dream is an incredible album. it's got, the cool thing about Monk is that he just wrote so many, it's almost like you don't even realize how many iconic songs he's written, just how many amazing popular songs in the canon that are his until you write them all down and it's just, you know, from like Bayeux, which is like essentially a funk tune to Round Midnight.

Just the his incredible output as a composer was amazing. So I would also even just suggest like Thelonious Monk, like greatest of whatever, just like an anthology of his tunes. Carnegie Hall with John Coltrane is a great place to start as well.

Jesse Paliotto (34:48)
Mm-hmm.

I love those. I'm gonna be putting those on today. Who is your favorite jazz musician and why is it Bill Evans? Sorry, I just, you're probably not Bill Evans, but I feel like I talk to a lot of people who play jazz and it's always Bill Evans and I love Bill Evans, so you don't have to say that.

Jocelyn Gould (34:54)
cool, me too.

That's awesome.

favorite jazz musician. Oof. Charlie...

Jesse Paliotto (35:14)
I know that's that's maybe a hard question. You could just give a favorite,

not the favorite. That might be too much.

Jocelyn Gould (35:21)
I guess kind of two that immediately popped to mind are Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. Both just had such massive imprints on jazz music and we don't really know even what it would sound like if either of them hadn't contributed the way that they did. So I think that would be my answer.

Jesse Paliotto (35:28)
Yeah.

Yeah, mean, yeah, talk about two giants. Good Lord. Just so much, like, you know, in the scientific community, when there's certain papers that are referenced a lot by other scientists and those become like, that's what they are. They're like, everybody references that. That is a source material that everybody plays off of. That's incredible.

Jocelyn Gould (35:52)
Yeah.

They're the source.

They're the source. Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (36:09)
Yeah.

On the other side of it, any recent musicians that you've started digging, like new folks or maybe obscure folks or just somebody that you're like, I actually just got into this person.

Jocelyn Gould (36:22)
Yeah, well, I was already into her, but there's this newly released, it's two live recordings from the 80s of Emily Remler that just came out like a month or two ago. And I helped, I did an interview for the liner notes, so was really excited to contribute in that way. And

So there's just this like new, previously never heard, just burning Emily a bunch, two, yeah, it's two dates, one in 84, one in 88, in Las Vegas, live in Las Vegas, and they're just amazing. So I've been checking that out. So it's older but new to me.

Jesse Paliotto (37:11)
Yeah, I will try and find links for those and put them in the show notes. Her version of Soft Lays in a Morning Sunrise is the best. She just kills it.

Jocelyn Gould (37:19)
yeah, absolutely. Wow, you checked out so much jazz.

Jesse Paliotto (37:21)
and then.

I long time listener, first time caller. Yeah, I love listening to stuff. Slowing down like your point earlier about transcription, I think is the other part of the picture that I know I and probably have most musicians could stand to spend more time on like get deep on the pieces that are meaningful for you for whatever reason. But yeah, I love I love so much stuff.

Jocelyn Gould (37:30)
That's so awesome.

Yes.

Jesse Paliotto (37:57)
And then final question, just kind of on this little theme we've got going with musicians and artists and stuff, is there any particular jazz standard that you're like, this is my jam, if I gotta do a show, it's last minute, I gotta quickly jump up and play something, this is what I'm gonna play. Like what's Jocelyn's jam?

Jocelyn Gould (38:14)
Yeah, I love if I'm like somewhere and someone asks me to sit in or those types of situations. I often call My Shining Hour. It's just a nice, a nice tune. You can play at any tempo. It works at any tempo. Nice melody. I mean, there are great recordings of it. I'm always thinking of Roy Howard Grove's recording with

one of my teachers from back in like, 94. And yeah, that's kind of one of my go-to bangers is my Shining Hour.

Jesse Paliotto (38:55)
Yeah,

I feel like it's so nice to have those where you just feel like I could do that anywhere, anytime, and it's gonna be okay. And I'm always into it. That's the other part of it for me is like, ones that, for whatever reason, you're always kind of engaged with. I know there's some songs I go in and out of, and then some I'm like, nah, every time I play this I like.

Jocelyn Gould (39:02)
Yes, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. They speak to us.

Jesse Paliotto (39:17)
Well, let's

do this. We're gonna put a comma here. For those that are listening, Jocelyn and didn't get quite as much time as we wanted today, just based on the world as it is. So I'm hoping, Jocelyn, that we can come back and do a part two sometime in the near future. I had more questions I'd wanted to ask you. Would love to get a little bit more breathing room to just chat. So hopefully we'll get to do that sometime soon.

Jocelyn Gould (39:37)
I would love that. Let's do it.

Jesse Paliotto (39:39)
Very cool. Thank you for being here today. Thanks everybody for joining us. Again, I'm your host Jesse Paliotto. Love talking about music here on the Guitar Journal. Thank you Jocelyn for being with us today.

Jocelyn Gould (39:51)
Thank for having me. See you next time.

Jesse Paliotto (39:53)
Have a great day everybody, cheers.