Jazz pianists Peter Martin and Adam Maness have two wonderful YouTube channels, “You’ll Hear It” and “Open Studio Music,” where they not only dissect significant pop, jazz, and R&B recordings, but offer their own interpretive renditions along the way.
Their analyses run the gamut, from Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins to Stevie Wonder, Prince, and Michael Jackson. Their recent discussions of Jackson’s albums have been revelatory.
As song interpretations go, MJ’s “Smooth Criminal” has gone through its share of covers. There’s Alien Ant Farm‘s post-grunge version, Tony Succar and Jean Rodriguez‘s Latin-tinged rendition, the 2CELLOS‘s blend of percussive sounds and classical strings (which they reprised on “Glee“), and now the Martin and Maness smooth-jazz version [YouTube links]. Check them out!
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