Pierre Hurel, The Improviser

As we transition from those early experiences into the professional world , some side gigs evolve into real passions and sometimes even lasting careers . I've always been so curious about these stories , especially the less conventional journeys that redefine what a career can look like .

They remind us that success isn't always a straight path and that the heart behind our hustle can lead us to unexpected and fulfilling destinations . I genuinely love exploring how other people's passions have shaped their careers .

If you're into that too , join me , layla Palmer , as I chat with a captivating lineup of guests from various industries to uncover how they went from heart to hustle . Salut Bienvenue . Cette semaine , nous allons entendre mon prof , pierre Harrell , qui va nous parler de sa vie de musicien de jazz . Whoa , sorry , I don't know what got into me .

Let's start this again . Hi , welcome back . This week we're hearing from Pierre Harrell , a jazz musician , music improvisation instructor and my French professor . If you couldn't tell , pierre is a Paris native , originally from the 7th arrondissement . He came to Boston years ago as a student , drawn to the captivating world of jazz .

Lucky for us , he stayed well beyond his academic journey and I had the chance to sit down with him in person to pick his brain about life as a musician and artist and , well , about life in general . Our conversation got pretty philosophical , but that's only fitting when talking about the arts . I won't spoil too much .

So without further ado , voici Pierre Harrell .

But a lot of these activities that I do in my life have to do with communication and giving . I would say giving music , giving knowledge if you're teaching , sharing your paintings , and so I think a lot has to do with you know , the human interaction , the act of giving and sharing .

But looking back , I have to admit that my senses were always very active . So I , you know , I smell . I love to smell like wine , fragrance , the seasons . I love the winter , the smell of the winter .

I love , of course , the fall , I love cooking , but I also love to touch , you know , I know the difference between wool and cashmere , and you know what I mean . Or silk , I just , I think , all my senses , I'm a very visual person , but I'm also hearing details . Music is my primary language of expression .

So I think the common thread may be this sort of hypersensitivity that had to find outlets .

When you're very sensitive , everything touches you in a profound way , and if you do have an outlet , you can then translate , or try to translate , what it is that you have been feeling , noticing , sensing , into some art form , and I think that's what attracts me to the arts in general , when I go to a museum , I see primarily my fellow humans having had an

opportunity to express themselves , to express something they observed . Like you know , like philosophers we're all philosophers , we're all thinkers . We feel things very deeply and the lucky ones have an outlet and they can express it . And I think that is probably the common thread is the idea of expression is very important .

And so they had a summer program and I thought , well , I'm going to go to Berkeley one semester and I'm going to figure out everything that I need to figure out about music .

And at the end of the summer program I called my parents in Paris and I said well , you know , if I could stay , maybe one more semester , I think with two semesters I'll be done , I will know everything . And , long story short , I went all the way and I continue to study music .

I'm still studying music and I think that's one of the great great things about the arts . You , one of the great great things about the arts is that you never stop learning , you never stop . You never stop because the medium changes , but you change too .

And this is something I really did not realize when I was younger is the notion of cycle , just like the seasons . Or when my wife was pregnant , noticing how her belly would change , and after nine months our baby was born and he was totally awesome and you know , with the little nails and everything .

And I think life is full of these little moments , these cycles , you know . So when you're young , sometimes you think you know you're done . This is me . I believe this .

I don't believe that I want to do this and it's lovely to have convictions , but you know , what I knew about music then has nothing to do with what I knew even five years ago , 10 years ago , but also , as I was saying , not because the medium changes , but your perception changes . You know , you change as a person .

When I see people around me , I can see where they are in relation to the movie of life . You know , some just entered the projection room and they're about to sit down , some have been sitting for a little bit and they're eating their popcorn and some are halfway through the movie . Some are getting very close to the end and some are done .

The movie just kind of ended . They are maybe retired , maybe they don't seek the magic of life anymore . I hope it never happens to me , but I just think we go through all these cycles .

For me , the realization that the study of music is endless , absolutely endless , is something that I didn't know , when I was young I thought you study something , you sort of crack the nut , you figure it out , you get to the bottom of things and then you're done . Then you start touring or making a living from it and everything .

But over the years I realized that's not really how it happens . Fine , welcome to life , you know . Welcome to believing in something and betting on something .

What started as a conversation about where to catch live jazz quickly turned into a reflection on the clubs that once defined Boston's nightlife , many of which are now just memories , as the city's fascination with the genre has faded over time . On the topic of jazz , I cause I have to ask what do you think of Wally's Jazz Club ? I've never been on Mass Ave .

Back in the 80s it was more like a real jazz club like the 1369 in Cambridge or Riles , you know like these were just jazz clubs . They were still an interest . Riles doesn't exist anymore , 1369 , a lot of these clubs actually closed . So jazz , you have to accept it for what it is . Jazz is not a popular form of expression .

If I walk around Berkeley I could find 10 people who know about jazz and they know this performer , that performer , they know who was playing the bass on this record and who was the drummer . They are really excited about it . But that's not representative of real life . Real life is that most people don't listen to jazz . They don't really care about it .

But that's not representative of real life . Real life is that most people don't listen to jazz . They don't really care about it . Some people think that jazz has become too intellectual , too complicated and , starting in the 50s , jazz starts to become far less commercial Jazz used to be like you're a young person .

If you were a young person in the 20s and you went dancing with your friends , you were listening to jazz . That's the what , that was , the music .

But jazz , which is profoundly different although you could say music is music , but profoundly different from classical music , is such a rich form of expression punctuated by true geniuses , creative people like people like Charlie Parker , john Coltrane , thelonious Monk , amazing , amazing geniuses . You know the , the music they have left behind .

We call them standards , jazz standards , and everyone is playing them to this day . Everyone is recording them and it's funny because we call them standards , but they're less and less standards for people because they don't know . You know jazz musicians be like . We should close with a well-known tune like a well-known jazz standards .

You can go along , you can say , sure , that's famous , but it's famous for for who ? For you know people who , who lived in the 60s maybe , but it's no longer really a tune that and that people would know . So it's kind of funny how that has changed as well .

Let's hear more about how it all started and what has kept it thriving for two decades . So why don't you talk about your teaching ? You teach an improvisation workshop that is coming up on its 20th anniversary Congratulations .

Conservatory . I was teaching French . There , I was teaching a French course to singers . Singers have to study Italian , german and French because they need to sing the repertoire , the classical repertoire , and I give them a proposal around 2002 , a proposal to do an improv workshop to teach improvisation .

And I did it because I was hanging out with a lot of classical musicians . My wife is a classical pianist and I noticed that classical musicians had the heart , the chops , the desire , but somehow they would rather die than be asked to improvise anything because they're so used to preparing things .

Score , you open it , you look if you're a pianist , you check the fingering okay , with your pencil and eraser okay , on this , a flat , I'm gonna do . I think I'm gonna do three and then four , then one .

Like you really think of the details , details , details , and it's a wonderful art form , but you don't spend any time improvising , which is ironic because the composers who wrote these pieces of music that they're playing today the Chopin , the Mendelssohn , the Liszt , the Bach , of course , mozart , beethoven , all these people , all the way to the 20th century .

People like Ravel or Debussy all these people were great improvisers , so composers were improvisers . But somehow , in the mid 1800s , more or less musicians started to pursue the art of playing other people's music without being themselves composers , and so they were not improvisers because those skills were not needed . Give me the score , I will learn it .

I have the chops , I have the intelligence to figure out what's going on and I will play it . But back in the day it was less perfect in a way , the playing was less perfect in a way , the playing was less perfect . But in any case , I thought I should do it . It would really change their life and it did . That's really what happened .

I started in 2004 . I had one section . Then very soon I was given two sections , right now , four sections . In September we're going to have five sections . The classes fill out very quickly .

You need to send a permission request because I need to give you permission , because I have only 10 students , so I need to make sure that I don't have , you know , nine flutists or eight violinists .

So I'm trying to have at least one percussionist , a couple pianists , some string players , maybe brass like trumpet , trombone , some woodwinds to make a coherent group . In fact , last night I closed the semester . I was talking after a class with students .

What we really discuss on paper , we discuss non-idiomatic improvisation , which is improvisation that doesn't belong to a particular idiom , like French is an idiom , english is an idiom , but Baroque is a medium and romantic music is an idiom . You have certain rules for different styles .

So what we're trying to do is like you play , you pull out your flute and this person pulls out a smaller instrument , maybe a bass , and you're at the piano . How do you improvise ? Out of thin air ? You never rehearsed it , you never discussed it . Very different from jazz , very different from jazz . You never rehearsed anything . How do you make music ?

I was talking about expression , I was talking about communication . When you study non-idiomatic improvisation , you really study the art of listening . You talk , so you believe in what you have to say , and then you listen to the other person .

So for my young musicians it's a life-changing experience because it makes them think about the music , but it also makes them think about the purpose , like why do we do these things ? Why do you make music ? What is the point If you overplay somebody , if you play too loud or too much , you overwhelm the other person . Is that really fun for the other person ?

I'm going to guess not at all If you underplay . If you're , so , it's not that you're respectful , but you're almost . You don't believe in yourself enough , you don't stand up for yourself enough . That's not good either , because the other person is like give me something , talk , place , do something .

So you start to work on the psychological dimension of making music with others , which makes you a much better player . You start to really think about why are we doing this right now ? And also you start to become more aware of others and you learn respect In French , le respect In Latin , spéciré , to see , réspéciré is to see around .

So to be respectful is to see around , to realize that there are other people around , that you should acknowledge the existence of other people . So when you play with other musicians , you really want to be hyper aware of others , because it's the group that matters . And how can you be a good group member is really what we're studying .

It's the class I wish I had when I was their age . It's a class where you're asked to play , but you're asked to think , you're asked to articulate your thoughts , because you see , we play and then we critique .

He connected this idea to improvisation , explaining that , just as a musician must be fully present and aware of what's happening around them to improvise with others , we too have to be present in our own lives to truly experience its beauty .

What started as a discussion about music turned into a reflection on life , art and the simple joy of being in the moment .

For me , this is the kind of artwork that touches me the most . When I was a teenager , I was into surrealism , I was into impressionism in my late teens , but now this has been for many , many years . The type of art that moves me the most is abstract expressionism .

It corresponds to a particular sensibility that I have and the freedom that you have because you're not looking at an animal or a steeple or a woman . You know . You're not looking at things you would recognize . You're just looking at a combination of shapes , colors , contrasts , forms and you look at it .

And if you let yourself go , if you relieve yourself from the imaginary responsibility that it has to make sense , that it has to represent something , then you can really feel things very deeply . Actually it's really wonderful . My mother would say when she would look at my work . She would say qu'est-ce que ça représente ? What does it represent ?

And of course it doesn't represent anything because it is not figurative , it's not an apple , it's not anything . It's colors , shapes , contrast and all these things . But if you ever find a painting of that type of that style of painting that moves you , it really connects you with the magic of life . You don't even know why you're so moved by painting .

Motherwell was one of the great abstract expressionists , american , robert Motherwell , and he was one of the leaders of the movement . They used to have a painting at the MFA that I would go see almost weekly , pretty large painting , blue black line , very , very simple .

But , as luck would have it , there was a little bench in front of it and I would go straight to the American wing of was a little bench in front of it and I would go straight to the American wing of the MFA , to the top floor , and I would sit there and it was sort of a meditation on looking at this painting .

I can't really tell you what it , why it was moving me so much , because it's . I don't know the answer , but it connects you to all these things in life that you can't quite explain . You know , things move you in a particular way Taste , visual things , things you hear . It's a very personal thing .

Why is it that this movie so did it for you and doesn't do anything for this other person ? It's one of those things that we can't really explain , but it's kind of magic and magical , rather , and it's just , it's kind of beautiful , I think . Yeah .

You know you have listened to a million people talk , you have analyzed a million things dreams , conversations . What have you learned ? What is what , would you say ? And his words ? Well , it was translated from German , but loosely translated . He said love and work , those two things .

And as I get older I can see what he meant , because when you think of love , you could think of romantic love , but you could also think of loving life loving a good meal , loving to cook , loving to hold hands with a person , loving to go for a walk . There's a way of being engaged with the world .

But you have this moment of acknowledging the magic of life which never stops to amaze me . And it's funny because I was raised as a religious person , I was raised as a Catholic , but I moved away from it in in my 20s , like some people do .

But there are many times today when I'm still completely amazed , blown away , as they would say , by the magic of life , the beauty of life , the magic you know when they see nature , fish , the colors , the birds forget it . How is that even possible ? This was this just came about like that . It's . It's completely amazing .

Music , cuisine , life is just completely magical . I mean , it's just . You may not see it because maybe you're wearing the wrong lenses or maybe the lenses you have built over the years are , I don't know , tainted to a point where you really don't see .

You need to find a different pair of lenses or maybe put these down , which is not easy as you get older , I find . But if you have been constantly allowing yourself to be amazed by the magic of life , it really is . It's incredible .

I mean , it's incredible the seasons , the fact that you can see , the fact that you can hear , you know all these amazing senses that we have and that you can share . So I think the word love that you mentioned I think love is love is a big part of it .

I always feel like teaching is an act of love , making music is an act of love , cooking is an act of love . There's a lot of magic in life . If you remove the art , then we're really in trouble .

You know you're never creating things out of thin air . People came before you and so you have the history of it , which also helps . If you study the arts , you realize that you go through life pretty quickly . I mean , I used to hear this when I was a young person like you , and I don't think I understood it , but now I'm starting to really understand it .

That life , really , you don't live forever . You're here and it's completely miraculous that we're alive . Don't get me started on that too . It's completely miraculous that you're alive , that somehow you survived , your parents survived all sorts of things that could have happened .

Somehow you got a chance to live and if you're lucky , you fall in love with something , an art form , an activity . It doesn't have to be the arts , it could be anything . Really , I see life as this giant . You know these restaurants where you have all you can eat buffet . To me , that's life .

Life is all you can do , all you can experience buffet-can-eat buffet . To me , that's life . Life is all-you-can-do , all-you-can-experience buffet . There's so much Beautiful .

It's time for the career countdown , A segment here on Heart to Hustle that offers us one last glimpse into our guest's journey in a fresh , inspiring way . Through five rapid fire questions , Pierre will share the creative inspirations and personal moments that have shaped his career and artistic path . Let's dive in .

So let's start with number five . What are five tools or instruments and this could be literally or metaphorically that you can't live without ?

So it's nice to empty your mind . Three , obviously my piano . I don't know what my life would have been without my beloved piano . When I was younger I was a tortured Parisian romantic . I would get my heart broken all the time . I don't know how many times the piano cheered me up and helped me go through life .

So definitely piano Canvases and painting equipment or drawing equipment . If I couldn't draw , if I couldn't paint , I think life would be terrible . And the last one would be YouTube . I love YouTube . I cannot tell you how much I love YouTube .

Quite well , it's Monday , you do it Tuesday . Look , it's a little bit better . Within a week you can really play them . So I think patience is one . Three , be able to connect with others . You need to be able to pick up the phone or pick up you know your Gmail and send emails and send . You know you need to make these connections with people .

For some it's very easy . For others , like me , it's very hard . I always find it difficult to sell anything . I could sell other people's work more easily , I would think , but to sell your own work is difficult . So definitely , ability to connect with others . And four , and it's very important is your ability to pay attention to details .

If you meet directors , chefs , bakers , musicians , sooner or later you're going to start to notice the importance of details . If you're going to be sort of flying over the experience , you're going to wake up feeling like , how come I don't know this . How come I never noticed this ? Because I think you need to really pay attention to details .

Details really matter .

So black , you would have to have it , because I would want black , I would also want white . So definitely white would be one of them . The third one is difficult because I find that , again , going back to this notion of cycles , I think 10 years ago my response would have been maybe different from what it is .

I am going through a sort of a reddish , pinkish period . But you know , a year ago I might have said blue , because blue is also one of my favorite colors when I was younger . Yellow , but see , now yellow and the pigment is getting close to red , to orange first and then red .

So it's difficult for me to give you three exactly , definitely black , definitely white and at the moment red hues . Yeah , I would say number two .

And that tells you something , because to the outside world , with a few good photos like a lot of great photos of Bill Evans , you know , with the glasses hunched over on the piano maybe you would never imagine this to be the case . But the reality is that , yes , he was insanely insecure . He doubted himself .

A lot of musicians doubt themselves , so I think the sense of self-doubt reminded me that you need to stay with it . The second roadblock I hate to admit it , but I come to an age where I have to admit it is a lack of knowledge of the business of things , business of music especially .

I think if I were to advise young people I would say it doesn't matter what you play . In fact , berklee has a lot of classes for the business of music . I think it's very important . You shouldn't be able to read a contract . You shouldn't be able to know how to protect your music , especially these days . Good luck .

It's much more difficult now with the internet . So yeah , knowing the legal aspects of what it is , you do .

It would be like a great Bordeaux , maybe Chateau du Silence , which is counterintuitive , because why would a musician want to create a wine that would be called Silence , but actually one ? There is silence in music . You have pauses and the music that comes right after has so much more power because there was silence before .

But essentially , it's because there's some kind of wisdom that comes from being silent and from stopping the narrative in your mind and not talking , which is ironic because right now I'm being interviewed . So I'm doing all this talking .

But I do like silence a lot , and it may be the reason why I love to paint , because when I paint I don't turn on the music . I paint in silence . You can just hear the brushes brush against the canvas . That's all you can hear . So , Chateau du Silence , that's all you can hear .

So , Chateau du Silence In terms of description , I think I would put and we haven't talked about this , but I would put plaisir , confusion and clarté . So pleasure , confusion and clarity .

Pleasure , because I think that one of the primary forces , one of the primary motivators , is the pleasure the pleasure of connecting with the canvas , the pleasure of seeing your work when it's done , the pleasure of going through the process of creating work . And then I chose these two opposite or are they opposite which is confusion and clarity .

I feel pretty clear about the fact that I'm confused at this stage of my life . I have accepted confusion , I've accepted that there are things you're not supposed to explain and in that sense I'm very clear .

I knew Pierre would have incredible insights on music and art , but I didn't expect to walk away feeling like I just had a philosophical awakening . He really has a way with words .

Maybe it's the French upbringing , maybe it's the artist in him , or maybe I just got lucky enough to sit across from someone who sees the world through such a poetic lens a poetic lens .

Either way , this conversation was a reminder that , whether through music , art or just how we move through life , being present , embracing the moment and acknowledging the beauty around us is what makes this experience of life so worthwhile . If you enjoyed this episode , be sure to subscribe , leave a review and share it with a friend .

It really helps others find the podcast . And on that note , it's the end of the episode . We'll see you next week . Until then , thank you for listening .