There didn’t used to be many options when it came to choosing saxophone neck straps. Remember when everyone played Ray Hyman straps? Those straps cut of the circulation to your brain in about five minutes. I can’t imagine a more uncomfortable strap than the Ray Hyman. Now there are many more options to choose from. I’ve had a history of neck and upper back problems that have been aggravated by playing the saxophone, so I have tried a lot of different neck straps over the years. For a while I thought that a harness was the answer, but the harness design has it’s own set of problems (the least of which is the fact that they look really lame), so no sax harnesses were compared for this post.
I got a bunch of the most popular sax straps together and sat down with my buddy, fellow saxophonist and fellow gear-head, Mark Hutchinson to compare them.
This is the
ULTIMATE SAX STRAP SMACK-DOWN!Wiseman:This strap is make from heavy rustic looking leather and reminds one of the the old west, which is cool. Wide, stiff, not super comfortable but feels pretty supportive. This strap adjusts like a belt and if you don't like where the holes are placed you have to punch your own. Doesn't quickly adjust making it difficult to use the same strap for both alto and tenor on a gig. Nice heavy clasp. Generally high quality, though a little rough looking. You can use the Wiseman as a shoulder strap because there is no slider adjustment. This is a good strap for supporting a lot of weight, so it would work well for bari. I used this strap myself on tenor for a few years.
Price:$34+ shipping from Britain
http://www.wisemancases.com/Roberto's: The adjustment slider is a little bulky. This one cuts in on your collar bone because strap itself is too long. It’s also much too wide, making it pretty uncomfortable. Mark remarked "There's just too much on the back of the neck. I don't even feel like I can hold my head up straight!". Clasp seems cheap. This one felt kind of like wearing a neck brace while you play. Kind of expensive, like just about everything else at Roberto’s.
Price:$64.95 Roberto's website
http://www.robertoswinds.com/view_product.php?prod_id=8517Cebulla:
Slider on the Cebulla is also a bit big and bulky like the Roberto’s strap. This strap has good clasp, but the big problem with this one is that the pads two are too thick and bulky, almost seeming cut off circulation in the neck. We tried a medium and the leather part of the strap was too long. Overall pretty good and it ranked about in third place.
Price:$75 for medium strap w/metal hook
http://www.musicmedic.com/catalog/products/strp-100.htmlBG Yoke: Way too wide and doesn't really even distribute the weight the way it's supposed too, though it is better than a thin strap if you are prone to neck problems. This one is so big that it gets hot when you play for a while, like wearing a turtle neck sweater. You can't put it under your collar. Generally dorky looking. Nice idea, but meh.
Price:$65.99 WWBW
http://www.wwbw.com/BG-Yoke-Saxophone-Strap-465113-i1418935.wwbwOleg:Both Mark and I have used the Oleg in the past. The leather on the Oleg is quite stiff and has very little padding compared to some of the other straps, this doesn't help it's comfortability. The V part of the strap goes a bit too far back on the neck, which is the point of the design, but this this puts most of weight on the spine rather than the neck muscles. This strap gets really stinky after a while because of the way the leather is treated, which is the reason I stopped using mine. The plastic hook deadens sound and looks flimsy. I like how the cords are attached to the leather. If the crimp fails there is still a knot in the cord to keep the horn from falling. No denying that the strap is very well made and the design is cool looking.
Price:$59.95 Oleg
http://www.olegproducts.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=14&idproduct=26
Neotech Classic Strap:Material absorbs sweat and gets stinky quickly, not ergonomically shaped to fit neck, plastic hook deadens the sound, fairly comfortable and light for a traditionally shaped strap, the material is like wet suit material and has some give to it, which can be annoying at times when it stretches while playing. If you are looking for a decent cheap strap then this may be the strap for you.
Price:$15.95 WWBW
http://www.wwbw.com/Neotech-Classic-Strap-367522-i1130860.wwbwBrancher (Crescent & Strip):
These straps aren’t bad. We didn't really like the wetsuit material that they use for the padding. The way Brancher attaches the cord to the strap leather is well designed, maybe the best of the lot in this one respect. These straps have a long skinny rubber coated brass hook instead of a clasp. The adjuster slider is just kind of a ring, or more like a large bead that you’d string on a necklace. These come in three sizes. Overall these straps are not bad. The rank somewhere in the middle of the bunch.
Price: $49.99
http://www.saxforte.com/accessories/play/saxforte_straps/saxforte_straps.htmlDe-Light:
This is a German made strap that my buddy Tom brought back from Berlin. Tom thought that Oleg had copied many design elements of this strap. It has the same wing shape that the Oleg, Just Joe’s and Cebulla have that puts more weight further back on your the lower vertebras of the neck.The leather isn’t very soft, but it does have more padding than the Oleg. You can opt for the plastic of brass clasp. The slider looks nice. This strap is well made and comfortable, we ranked it number two after the Just Joe’s strap. I found the German website that sells this strap, but I couldn’t find the price.
http://www.saxophon-service.de/homep/infozube/gurte.htmlJust Joe's Gel Strap:By far the most comfortable of the lot, feels like it's not even there. Thickness, length and width of padded strap are perfect. The high tech padding material is great. This strap supports well without cutting off circulation. Mark said about this strap,“It really feels like it's a part of you.” The leather is the softest of all of the straps. This strap uses a medical grade polymer material that is divided into two separate pads on either side of the spine. The Cebulla strap uses this same design concept, but the Just Joe’s pads are the correct thickness. You can order this strap with a plastic hook, a small brass hook or a large brass hook (my favorite). Unanimous winner of the Smack Down by a wide margin.
Price: $59
http://www.saxophonegelstrap.com/de Jacques ultra strap:This strap is kind of popular at the moment. It has a pretty cool clasp design that is unlike any other strap on the market. You just push the clasp onto the ring and it automatically opens and locks closed. When you want to release it you just push the clasp on and kind of angle it upwards and it releases, pretty cool but is a cool clasp on an otherwise unremarkable strap worth the $100 price tag. No thanks. The strap part itself is an old-school straight fabric strap that looks like it could have come off a camera case, no extra padding or spine saving design. That said, it does feel alright, just not worth the money. One advantage is that the if you really sweat the fabric of the strap won't start sliding around.
The issue that has become more and more clear for me during this comparison is the fact that the clasp makes a significant difference in the overall sound of the saxophone. Many of you will scoff at this idea, as I once did, but it’s definitely true. All you have to do is try it yourself. Get a strap with a plastic hook and compare it with a strap that has a large brass clasp. The plastic hooks sound less resonant, less responsive and generally make the sound a little deader. I’m not saying that the clasp has as much effect as something like a ligature, but it is noticeable. A few days ago a gave a Just Joe’s strap to my friend Mary-Sue Tobin to show it to her sax quartet. She was a skeptical when I told her my clasp theory, but all four of them agreed that the large brass clasp made significant improvement in the sound of the saxophone. The de Jacque clasp may be cool, but it is mostly plastic aside from the two teeth that grip the horn, so it’s about like an all plastic hook like the Oleg has, and that deadens the sound. See my
later post about the acoustical testing I had done at the Rodger's laboratory. The large brass hook proved to bring out higher partials on certain notes.
Price: $100
http://www.dejacques.com/text/dstrap/dstrap.html
Posts
Saxophonist Jeff Rzepiela is a regular contributor to Casa Valdez and has a great website of his own called Scooby-sax, which offers a ton of transcriptions for download. Jeff has transcribed and analyzed Larry McKenna's solo on My Shining Hour. This solo utilizes a lot of chromatic Bebop approaches which Jeff examines in great detail.
Have you ever played the melody of a jazz tune from a fakebook and realized what was written there just doesn’t feel right? Something seems missing rhythmically but you’re just not sure what it is? Well, you’re not alone. Most of the time what our favorite and most swingin’ players play on a standard is very different than what’s written in a fakebook. 
The first melody note G normally starts on beat 2. By adding a delayed attack I’m now starting the melody note on the & of 2. Chet Baker and I both use the device every 2 bars as written here.
I got back from my trip to India last week. I'm still kind of recovering from the jet lag, cough and intestinal shock from the trip. It was the most incredible trip I've ever taken. My wife and I saw temples, ashrams, world heritage monuments, holy cities, Sufi durgas, museums, craft markets, and so much more. 
Next week I leave for India! I'm trying to get everything in order here before leaving the country for 17 days. This trip is something I've wanted to do for many years and it is finally happening. I will not even be taking my horn with me. It will be the longest amount of time without my lips touching a reed in my recent memory. I might try to pick up a ney or nadaswaram while I'm there, but this trip will not be musically motivated. I love Indian Classical music, but I know very little about it. Maybe I'll be able to hear some at some point. I'm more interested in the art, religions, history and architecture of the Indian subcontinent. I have a full itinerary planned that includes the usual monuments like the Taj and Red Fort, but also some interesting temples, Sufi shrines and museums. I have done a fair amount of traveling in my time, but nothing as exotic as India.
I'll be posting an interview with George Colligan soon, so stay turned.
Here is a beautiful ballad composed by Elmo Hope titled 
I've been co-leading a Tristano project with pianist Dan Gaynor for the last several years. We don't gig very often, but it's always a lot of fun when we do. After our last gig tenor saxophonist Tim Wilcox said to me, "I feel like I just got my ass kicked by a blind dead man". The tunes written by Tristano and his students (Konitz, Marsh, Brown, Bauer) is some of the most challenging and interesting material in the history of Jazz, imho. I've learned a lot about improvisation just by learning to play these compositions.
Here's a Bb chart to an Alvin Batise's blues entitled Bayou Magic.Alvin Batiste is an unsung hero of the clarinet. I heard him several times in New Orleans over the years, the last time being 2001 for the International Clarinet Conference there. He was a forward thinking musician, and his small output of recordings hardly does justice to the depth of his work. Here you can hear him using the interval of a fourth, something he did often when constructing his unique and original lines. He blurred the line between inside and outside playing, and it takes a while to hear where he's coming from. He mentored so many young New Orleans players, and his contributions are significant. Check him out! Markos
Saxophonist Peter Spitzer writes a nice blog on Jazz and general saxophone topics and is also the author of the Jazz Theory Handbook (Mel Bay). He has put together a nice article on reed adjusting.
Regular contributor Ed Saindon wrote this solo chorus of Giant Steps using only Pentatonic scales over the Major chords and Symmetrical Diminished scales on the Dominant chords.
dredsan and brianji were meditating on a large rock overlooking a gentle stream. brianji turned to dredsan and said,
I was thinking the other day about Joe Viola and how it would be valuable to try to assemble some of his teaching methods and create a website similar to the Joe Allard Project website. Joe V and Joe A were there two greatest saxophone teachers of the 20th century, imho, and they both deserve to have their knowledge recorded for the sake of posterity. Of course Joe Viola has left us several great saxophone technique books, but his unique methods of teaching sound production haven't been recorded anywhere (as far as I know).
You can email me directly at: casavaldez@comcast.net
A while ago I reviewed the Airturn Bluetooth pedals. I've been using my iPad as a PDF sheet music reader for months now and the Airturn pedals solved the page turning problem, which allowed me to start playing tunes that were more than one page long. A few weeks after I got the Airturn pedals the company discovered a problem with the mono jacks and had to recall most of the units they had shipped out. I sent my pedals back and waited for the replacements to arrive. The post office lost my package for several weeks and I was getting quite impatient because I was back to only playing one pagers on gigs, which was a big drag. My buddy Joe had picked up a new foot pedal called the PageFlip Cicada that looked pretty cool. I went ahead and ordered one while I waited for the post office to materialize my Airturn pedals.
Throughout the history of the jazz clarinet, there exists no such figure as the mercurial clarinetist Perry Robinson. The man is a living legend, having recorded on such famous albums as the first Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra recording, Carla Bley’s epic Escalator Over The Hill and The Call, Heny Grimes legendary free jazz disc on ESP records. His debut as a leader, Funk Dumpling on Savoy Jazz (1961), features a band of legendary proportions: drummer Paul Motian, pianist Kenny Barron and Henry Grimes on bass . Recorded when Perry was 19 years of age, it has withstood the test of time, still sounding fresh and interesting to this day. This recording was my introduction to Perry’s work. I remember bringing it home and listening to it the first time, and being stuck by his highly original tone and conception. Little did I know how much influence he would have on me over the course of the next 15 years……..Initially, merely through his recordings. 
My friendship with Perry, often referred to by his friends as Meist, short for Maestro, began after reading his hilarious biography The Traveler (Writers Club Press), co written with Florence Witzel. The details of his life are incredible and too much to go into here, but the accounts of his days gigging with Dave Brubeck (while Jerry Bergonzi was in the band, I might add…) and other jazz legends is truly fascinating. At the end of the book it states that Perry was alive and well and living in Jersey City, NJ. I called him up and literally told him he was my spiritual clarinet grandfather and that we should be friends. We had several conversations over a few years and traded CD’s. Over time a plan was hatched and the result was my recording Sinfonetta, made in 2004 in New York City with Perry, George and Ed Schuller, and Frank Kimbrough. During the recording process, although I was familiar with Perry’s playing, I was struck by the lightness of his tone and attack, and the strength of his solos and the presence of his personality in the music. I must defer to some written words that I believe describe the personality, style and imagination that came across to me in the Meist’s playing: Critic Rich Scheinin described Perry to me in an email recently….”It’s almost like folk music, and with such a free and impish kind of spirit, and very melodic.” Perry’s friend from New York, Matthew Snyder, said this to me in an email recently, “Nice transcription, it shows what great, understated and beautifully constructed solos Perry was capable of playing even in 1962.” In short, I couldn’t have said it any better myself.
