Jazz Singer's Journey--Language, Art, and Immigrant Resilience

Key Quotes

"the best b2b marketing gets wasted on the wrong people man this tears me up so when you want to reach the right professionals use linkedin ads linkedin has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals including 130 million decision makers"

This quote highlights a common frustration in B2B marketing: the inefficiency of reaching the wrong audience. The speaker emphasizes LinkedIn Ads as a solution, pointing to its vast network of professionals, including a significant number of decision-makers, as a key advantage for effective targeting.

"i was walking along in search of an assistant you had like superman grown to maturity in the boat it took a long time yeah and then you you saw what you thought was a red headed woman walking down the street and you jumped out and said barev and i said oh my god remember and then i taught you everything you needed to know to become one of the most important people in america"

This quote humorously recounts the speaker's exaggerated story of meeting Lucy, an immigrant who learned English from him. The speaker uses hyperbole to describe Lucy's journey and her subsequent success, framing himself as a pivotal figure in her American assimilation and career.

"but jazz i don't know my dad was into it he had a lot of like kind of semi shady friends during the soviet union that would get these like jazz records that weren't supposed to be in the ussr so he always had these you know random recordings of things often times you wouldn't have a cover for it so you had no idea who was playing it and who was like recorded over a michael bolton cd you know but people weren't sure if it was ella or carmen or who but it but it was always to me it was like it was the sound of america it's what america sounded like to me and i was always drawn to it"

Lucy explains her early exposure to jazz music, which came through her father's illicit record collection during the Soviet Union. She describes how these often unidentifiable recordings, despite their questionable origins, represented the "sound of America" to her and fostered a deep attraction to the genre.

"well i get street cred because when i get into it sounds it's just absolutely true but whenever i take an uber i would say would you say sona like 80 of the time maybe even more the driver is armenian and he knows that i went to armenia with sona and he's seen clips from the episode and sona's taught me enough little bits of armenian that i can say hello how are you where's the restroom and we have a nice uh we have a nice ride together"

Conan shares an anecdote about his Uber rides, noting how frequently the drivers are Armenian and recognize his connection to Sona. He highlights how his limited knowledge of Armenian phrases, learned from Sona, allows for pleasant interactions, illustrating a surprising cultural connection through his podcast.

"i guess uh the most common you know thing people associate with jazz singing is scat singing right which most most people are really bad at it especially singers themselves but i think that easiest approach to it is to think like like if you were drunk at a bar and there's this song you remember and then you want to remind the guy next to you at the bar like you know this song and goes and how would you sing the melody that's what scat singing is you're like just trying to recreate a melody"

Lucy demystifies scat singing by comparing it to a drunk person trying to hum a familiar melody to a friend at a bar. She explains that the core of scat singing is essentially recreating a song's melody using improvised syllables, making it more accessible than its reputation suggests.