Tom Garcia's neck mod

A while back I wrote about my buddy Tom Garcia's neck modification. Right about the time I wrote about this Tom left town to spend the summer in New Orleans and touring Europe, so he wasn't able to make neck mods for anyone. Tom wanted me to let my readers know that he's back home and ready to bust out some of his special neck mods. He charges $100, but if you don't like how the modification sounds he'll give you back $50 (since each neck ring is custom fit).

Tom says:
I did one on this guy's horn last week and it worked great. He had a Yamaha Custom and a Springer mpc and he wanted to play in bands with electric guitars. I know his setup isn't great, but it was the exact setup we were talking about. A darker mpc that didn't project. When I put the piece on, the horn got ballsier and louder. He was very happy. I think tenor might be the best horn for this mod."

Contact Tom Garcia at: garcia.thomasb@gmail.com

Allard/Dempsey Overtone exercises

Regular reader David Wells, a smoking tenor player who teaches at the University of Maine at Augusta, sent me some overtone exercises that Dave Dempsey adapted from Joe Allard's overtone routine. You can hear Michael Brecker demonstrating some of these exercises in the Berklee master class that I posted a while back.

These exercises really force you to play with no pressure, and make you deal with forward/back jaw position ("covered" and "uncovered" as Allard called it).

I believe that overtone exercises are the fastest way to develop full control of your sound. They isolate jaw and upper oral tract positioning like nothing else can. They pay off by giving you a bigger sound, more control of intonation and timbre, and a more centered altissimo register.

Overtone Exercises

David Wells' home page
David Wells' transcription of Sonny Rollins' solo on 'Scoops'

Recordings of new sextet charts

This week I finally got a chance to play through the new sextet charts that Dan Gaynor arranged for me. Last month I posted all of the charts here on this blog.

Keep in mind that these are recordings of a band sight reading, so there are a few rough spots. I thought that it might be helpful for some of you that have played, or are considering playing, these charts.

The musicians on these recordings are:

David Valdez: alto
Tree Palmedo: trumpet
Nate Kline: tenor
David Goldblatt: piano
Esiet Esiet: bass
Todd Strait: drums


Desert Flower
When You Meet Her

John Nastos & Clay Giberson's Duo Chronicles

Portland saxophonist John Nastos is doing something quite interesting with pianist Clay Giberson. They'll be recording one tune a week (mostly originals) in HD video for an entire year and posting everything on the web. This is a novel and resourceful way to get their music heard in an era when decent Jazz venues are but a distant memory.

Duo Chronicles web site

You can subscribe to the Duo Chronicles here.

Quotes about Jazz

My buddy Joel Frahm posted a bunch of great quotes about Jazz on his MySpace blog.

Quotes about Jazz