Travel/Jazz Truth

  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.

 Before I leave I'm going to be recording a couple of different projects, one will be a duo recording with pianist George Colligan. If you haven't checked out George's blog called Jazz Truth you should. It is one of the most interesting Jazz blogs on the internet because it is written by a Jazz musician who is touring and recording with some of the best players on the scene, like Ethan Iverson's Do the Math blog or Darcy James Argue's Secret Society blog.  (I just totally redesigned George's blog and I must say it's looking pretty spiffy). George regularly tours with Jack Dejonette and Don Byron, as well as a lot of other great musicians. He has some fascinating interviews on his blog with different members of the bands he tours with.

Today Colligan posted an interview with David Fiuczynski, who is an old buddy of mine and one of my favorite guitarists of my generation. George, his wife (and pianist) Kerry Politzer, and their son Liam have been settling to the Portland groove nicely. I'm sure in no time they will both be gigging like crazy. George is now teaching at PSU, but he still does a decent amount of touring. There aren't many blogs out there that can keep my attention enough to read back through the archives, Jazz Truth is certainly worth some consideration.  


I'll be posting an interview with George Colligan soon, so stay turned.

 I may post a few pics of India from the road, but I probably won't be writing much until I get home in December.

George Colligan's Jazz Truth blog
George Colligan's web site

Later for You- Elmo Hope

Here is a great Elmo Hope tune based on the changes of  
All God's Chilun.

Later for you

Gaslight- Duke Pearson

Duke Pearson is one of my favorite composers. Here is his tune Gaslight.

Gaslight

Eyes So Beautiful As Yours- Elmo Hope

Here is a beautiful ballad composed by Elmo Hope titled  
Eyes So Beautiful As Yours.


Eyes So Beautiful As Yours
 Elmo Hope's biography

Bella Rosa- Elmo Hope

Here are PDF charts to Elmo Hope's tune Bella Rosa.


Bella Rosa

Tristano School Bonanza!- two-horn transcriptions

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.

Dan Gaynor recently transcribed more of these two-horn arrangements. Much of the alto and tenor parts are in unison, but at times there is some interesting counterpoint and harmony. Thanks to Dan for allowing my to post these charts.

Two Not One
Marshmallow
Jazz of Two Cities
Kary's Trance
Lennie's Pennies
Sax of a Kind

Sonny Rollins' letter to Coleman Hawkins

I recently got my hands on a copy of a three page handwritten letter that Sonny Rollins sent Coleman Hawkins in 1962. It is written on Sonny's personal letterhead and there is even an AMORC Rosicrucian seal on the final page of the letter, an organization that Sonny has been involved with for many years. At the moment my scanner isn't working, but I'll try to scan a copy to post soon.

   My Dear Mr. Hawkins, 

 Your recent performance at the 'Village Gate' was magnificent!! Quite aside from the fact that you have maintained a position of dominance and leadership in the highly competitive field of 'Jazz' for the time that you have, there remains the more significant fact that such tested and tried musical achievement denotes and is subsidiary to personal character and integrity of being.

 There have been many young men of high potential and demonstrated ability who have unfortunately not been 'MEN' in their personal and offstage practices and who soon found themselves devoid of the ability to create music. Perhaps these chaps were unable to understand why their musical powers left them so suddenly. Or perhaps they knew what actions were constructive as opposed to destructive but were too weak and not men enough to command the course of their lives. But certain it is that character, knowledge and virtue are superior to 'MUSIC' as such. And that 'success' is relative to the evolution of those qualities within us all. That it has been positive and lasting for you Coleman is to the honor and credit of us, your colleagues, as well as to your own credit. For you have 'lit the flame' of aspiration within so many of us and have epitomized the superiority of 'excellence of endeavor' and you stand today as a clear living example for us to learn from.

 It has always been a task to explain in words those things which in nature are the most profound and meaningful. Now you have show me why I though so much of you for so long. Godspeed in your travels and may I be fortunate enough to hear you play the tenor saxophone again in person.

     Yours truly, Sonny Rollins

The Master Speaks- Joe Allard videos

These YouTube videos were taken from a DVD entitled The Master Speaks: Joe Allard, which is available from the Sharper Video Productions website.
 Joe talks about a lot of the same concepts that are covered in an earlier post
Joe Allard Method Unveiled!

To learn more about Joe Allard check out the Joe Allard Project website.

Bayou Magic- Alvin Batise

Here's a Bb chart to an Alvin Batise's blues entitled Bayou Magic.

Bayou Magic- Alvin Batise

Thanks Markos.

Bat's Blues- Alvin Batise's transcribed solo

 Here's another post by Casa Valdez regular contributor Mark Sowlakis:

 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

Bat's Blue's transcription- Alvin Batise

Konitz's solo on There Will Never Be Another You

 There Will Never Be Another You- Lee Konitz's solo
 (From Lee Konitz With Warne Marsh Atlantic 1217 June 1955, NYC)

JK Chang's excellent site

JK Chang is a composer and visual artist living in Taiwan who has a beautiful website with a lot of great Jazz resources. In the Bebop Cookbook of his site he has a lot of interesting articles on Charlie Parker, but what be even more interesting for you is all of the PDF downloads his has available. Chang's PDF books include: II-V-I Bebop Lines,  II-V-I Coltrane Lines, Jazz Lines in Fourths, Sight-Reading Etudes for Saxophone and more. This site is well put together. You will need to complete a quick registration form in order to download the PDFs.

JK Chang's website

Peter Spitzer's reed adjustment overview

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.

Sax neckstrap smackdown

  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=8517


Cebulla:
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.html


BG 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.wwbw


Oleg:
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.wwbw

Brancher (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.html

De-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.html


Just 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

Wardell Gray's solo on Pennies From Heaven

Wardell Gray is without a doubt one of the most under recognized tenor saxophonists in the history of Jazz. This Pennies from Heaven solo was transcribed by saxophonist and Jazz blogger Jeff Rzepiela, who has a nice blog called Scooby-Sax where you can find a lot of other saxophone transcriptions.

This solo is a great example of Wardell's melding of Lester Young and Bird, though he definitely has a strong personal voice of his own. It's been issued on a CD under Wardell's name as Live in Hollywood or Live at the Haig, bit it looks like it's out of print (and very expensive). You can also find it under Hampton Hawes' name as Memorial.



Pennies from Heaven transcription