Complete Saxophone Alternate Fingering Chart

This exhaustive fingering chart starts at low A and goes up all the way into the stratosphere.

Complete Saxophone Alternate fingering chart

Reed Smile

Smiling because I actually found one.

JazzQuotations.com- the #1 source of Jazz quotations on the web

This site is worth checking out. Lot's of great quotes.
Jazz Quotations.com

"Hipness is not a state of mind, It's a fact of life!" - Cannonball Adderley 

Blues Studies from Joe Pass Guitar Styles

When I was younger my teacher Paul Contos turned me on to a book called Joe Pass Guitar Styles.
This book had a big influence on my linear concept and I played out of it a lot. Joe's lines are pretty close to something like the Platonic ideal of Be-Bop lines. I used them as a model in learning to create long connected lines. I would play through the exercises until they were under my fingers and then I would try things like altering notes, displacing notes, using just the general shapes to create novel lines, and then just using Joe's changes to create my own lines.

I recently bought myself another copy of this book and I've been using it with my students. There are a few parts of the book that are guitar specific, but most of it is perfect for horn players. When you limit yourself to only using connected 8th note lines it forces you to focus more on the overarching shapes of your lines and it also makes you think more about how your lines connect from change to change. If you practice this way it also prevents you from playing as many familiar licks.

I highly recommend this book for any serious students of Jazz.

Blues exercises excerpted from Joe Pass Guitar Styles

Pere Soto's Swing Gitane videos

Pere Soto, my partner in crime, just sent me these links to YouTube videos. These are from a live gig and a radio show with his Mexican based Gypsy Jazz group Swing Gitane. The radio show was recorded in Guanajuato, Mexico and the live gigs were from San Miguel Allende. These guys are smoking.

Menor-K Blues
Viper's Dream
China Boy
La Gitane
Minor Swing
Take the A Train

Excerpts from Paul Bley: The Logic of Chance

The most excellent Point of Departure online Jazz journal has excerpts an interesting interview with pianist Paul Bley from a book called Paul Bley: The Logic of Chance by Arrigo Cappelletti (Véhiculr Press; Montréal, translated from the Italian by Gregory Burk).






Interview with Paul Bley

The hand of Bill Evans

 (click the graphic above for a larger view)

Nelson Hinds just sent me this page of tunes handwritten by Bill Evans in preparation for his 1971 recording session for Columbia records. Anyone care to compare the Time Remembered here to the Real Book version?

Melodic Minor Dominant Upper-structures

Thanks to Dan Gaynor for this exercise. Click above to enlarge.