More reed problems

Q: "I play on Vandoren Java's. My M.O. is to go through a box of reeds and find the good one's; maybe practice/play on a good reed for a short while after it manifests; then mark an "x" on it's plastic holder and put it back in a box with the other 'good ones' as arsenal for my upcoming gigs. The "bad" (more stiff, difficult, cumbersome) reeds I save to practice on - sort of like baseball player swinging 2 bats in the warm-up area before going up to the plate. This of course makes my practicing less enjoyable. My question is: is this a bad philosophy? Reeds aren't cheap. I'm mainly doing this to make sure I have good reeds to play gigs on without buying boxes and boxes of reeds each week with money I don't have. But I'm also wondering if it makes sense, if it is constructive, to practice on more difficult reeds."
Thanks
- Adam

A: First of all, sorry I haven't written much lately. I've had the flu, it kicked my butt.

Ah, the constant reed struggle, the bane of all reed players. Now that you have a baby, I'm sure that reeds are even less a priority than before.

Your tactic is to practice on the shitty reeds and save the good ones for gigs. Bummer, who wants to really practice on a bad reed? It seems like if you always practice on bad reeds, then your chops will be unprepared to play on a good reed. I could be way off here. Personally, I can't even practice on a really bad reed. It's no fun.

I don't think that it is helpful to 'work your chops out' by using a reed that is too hard. If you do this regularly you may get used to putting too much bottom pressure on the reed. Contrary to some opinions, the saxophone embouchure should be very relaxed and almost loose. How can you practice relaxing properly on a stiff reed? My answer to your question then is to adjust your reeds to where they are no longer too stiff. These reeds may still not be concert worthy, but they won't force your chops into any unnecessary contortions.

When I first play reeds I categorize them with two factors in mind, hard or soft and good or bad cane. If a reed is too hard or too soft but the cane feels and sounds good to me, then it has the possibility of being playable. If the cane is immature and feels dead or chirpy then no amount of adjusting will make it good. I'll first pull the playable reeds out of the box and put them in a reed holder. Then I'll ditch the really bad ones back in the box, which goes to the bone yard in case a day of pure desperation arrives. Then I'll separate the reeds that have potential, except for the strength. If I were you Adam, I would be practicing on these reeds. Once your reed adjusting skills are honed, these reeds will even make it to gigs. The next time I practice I will soak these questionable reeds again and see if they're any better the second go 'round. Remember the thing that breaks down hard reeds the most is going from wet to dry. Each time you dry out a wet reed you really break down the Xylem and Floem (the fibers in the reed that carry water up and down the plant).

Break out your reed tools! You should never really need to play on a reed that is too stiff or too soft. A reed clipper, fine water proof sandpaper, a reed knife, reed rush and a piece of glass is everything that you will need to work on reeds. I also recommend Vandoren's reed resurfacing glass also. This is simply a piece of glass with sandpaper on both sides. They also have a model with rough glass instead of sandpaper.There is a strip of glass at the top that has no sandpaper on it. This is so that when you resurface your reed your can leave the tip as it is. The re-surfacer is a great way to make the entire reed softer and also to flatten out any warping on the bottom of the reed. Many times it is a safer bet it take a little off the bottom of the reed than to sand down or shave the top of the reed. Make sure you also have a reed clipper that fits the tip of your mouthpiece, or at least the reeds you like to play. For example if you always play Javas then buy a Vandoren reed clipper. Remember only to clip the tiniest sliver at a time off the tip of your reed!

Always check to see if the rails are equally hard. To do this turn your mouthpiece at at 30 degree angle and blow normally so that only one side of the mouthpiece is really touching your bottom jaw. Then do the same thing on the other side. You should be able to tell which rail is harder, then make adjustments with a knife or sandpaper. If a reed is shitty, then what do you have to lose by experimenting on it? Go town, carve the f%&# out of it! There have been many very strange things done to reeds for the sake of good tone. People have methodically split the tips of reeds with razor blades, carved circular divots out of the tops of reeds, cut channels into the tops and bottoms of reeds, and reeds have been treated with everything from Hydrogen Peroxide to highly refined Pig oil. Bacon flavored reeds aren't really my thing, but I'm willing to try just about anything else in order to get a reed to play.

Here is a very helpful reed adjustment chart to help get you started.

Remember these things abut reed adjustment:

A little at a time, not a lot.
Keep trying, you'll never run out of bad reeds to practice adjusting.

Terrible cane will always sound terrible.
Die Vandoren, evil scumbags! You'll burn in hell for all the suffering you've caused!

One more thing Adam, do yourself a favor and switch to Rigotti reeds.
Order them from Roberto's or WWBW. You'll never go back to Vandorens, I promise.

The Live at the Lighthouse Omnibook!!

Kenny Brooks, one of my oldest friends and most significant musical co-conspirator, came through town today with Rat Dog, a Grateful Dead spin-off band. The band was playing a one night show in Portland on their way up the west coast. I met KB on the band's tour bus in the afternoon and we talked shop for a while. He showed me his latest mint Balanced Action tenor and I let him play my new Mark VI acquisition. The usual gear geek stuff. He told me that he was now playing a Japanese brand of saxophone reeds that uses Rigotti cane (we both agree that Rigotti cane is the best on the market right now). The name of these reeds escapes me at the moment but Kenny thinks they're even better than standard Rigotti reeds. He had a friend who speaks Japanese call and order him 100 reeds, totalling $270.

Kenny told me he had brought a present for me and we went up to his hotel room to get it. After rummaging around in his bags a while Kenny pulled out a bound book that looked like a small fake book. I was in shock as I leafed through the perfectly notated manuscript paper. It was the Live at the Lighthouse Omnibook. "You're kidding", I gasped. "Oh, yes", said KB with nodding his head with eyebrows raised. It was the entire Live at the Lighthouse album transcribed in beautiful clear computer notation. "This is insane", I whispered. Kenny explained how a Spanish bass player living in San Francisco had contacted him on his MySpace page and gave him a copy. The transcriptions were done a Petter Wettre, a Norwegian saxophonist and includes all the heads, changes, harmony parts and Dave Liebman and Steve Grossman's solos . There are ten tunes and the book is over 110 pages long. Anyone who is a serious Liebman or Grossman fan has by now shit their pants in excitement while reading this. Petter even has plans for a Play-a-long to go with the book and there is now a DVD available that features Petter playing some of the solos while the transcription scrolls by. This is an epic accomplishment.

Main Lighthouse Omnibook web page
WHY?
LIEB'S NOTES
SAMPLE
BUY NOW

Crack Spider

I try to keep everything on this blog at least tangentially related to music. This is very funny video and one could argue that it does have some relevance to music. Thank you Damien for this one.

The Crack Cocaine Spider

Spiders On Drugs

Scientists at the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have turned their attention from the mysteries of the cosmos to a more esoteric area of research: what happens when you get a spider stoned. Their experiments have shown that common house spiders spin their webs in different ways according to the psychotropic drug they have been given. Nasa scientists believe the research demonstrates that web-spinning spiders can be used to test drugs because the more toxic the chemical, the more deformed was the web.

* Spiders on marijuana made a reasonable stab at spinning webs but appeared to lose concentration about half-way through.

* Those on Benzedrine - "speed" - spin their webs "with great gusto, but apparently without much planning leaving large holes", according to New Scientist magazine.

* Caffeine, one of the most common drugs consumed in soft drinks, tea and coffee, makes spiders incapable of spinning anything better than a few threads strung together at random.

* On chloral hydrat, an ingredient of sleeping pills, spiders "drop off before they even get started".

Namyo-ho-renge-kyo

Rob Scheps forwarded me this from Jeff Pittson who knew Brecker from an NSA Buddhist temple in New York. This particular form of Buddhism that Brecker was involved in at the end of his life practices a very intense form of chanting, while concentrating on a Japanese scroll called a Gohonzon. Most of you have probably have heard of "Namyo-ho-renge-kyo". Many Jazz musicians have been proponents of this method of spiritual attainment, including Chick Corea, Harold Land, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter. The rhythmic emphasis of this chant seems to have a special call for musicians.


A little story; Mike told us, the last time he was able to come to a meeting. "I just wanted all of you to know that despite what's happened to me over the last 2 years, I fell happier now than I did before I started chanting. My life has been very chaotic and lately many mysterious things have been falling into place. I can definitely attribute this to my chanting." When he went to do the recording, he had been chanting for about 3-4 weeks and, of the recording session and being weak from bouts with chemo, he said "I can't believe I'm doing this! " and later he confided to me that he felt that he felt that he limped his way through the recording. We should all limp so well!! But later when I asked him, the last time I saw him, " Hey Mike, how the record going?" He replied" You know, I'm thrilled with this record and I'm never thrilled with a record." Actual proof from a man who was heard to say on at least one occasion ,"I have 11 Grammys (now 12) and I think my music sucks! Well, we all know differently, but we also know that Mike was hypercritical of his own playing and I think as he brought out his own Buddha-nature. He started to appreciate himself more and more and be more gentle with himself, and I also think that he definitely attained Buddhahood. He practiced with us exactly 6 months to the day...He received Gohonzon on August 14th and passed on Jan 13th. Pleases convey this to all the members that you know and non-members alike. Sam himself is chanting daily and says that when he does he feels his Dad's presence, as indeed we all do, and always will.
JP

The Serious Jazz Practice Book- seriously

Chuck Sher has continually put out some of the best Jazz Fake Books and Jazz educational books on the market. I remember when he first started publishing. He would takes his fakes books to the high-school and college Jazz festivals and sit at his little table wearing headphones while practicing his electric bass. Now he's catching up to Jamey.

I just got the 'Serious Jazz Practice Book' by Barry Finnerty last week. I was kind of skeptical because I've ordered so many practice books that turned out to be quite lame. It turned out to be a really great book. Here are a few endorsements that I think described the book very well:

• "The book I've been waiting for! Barry quite logically leads you through hundreds of wonderful studies with easy to understand text relating to how each study/pattern is set up and how it relates harmonically to chords and scales. This book will keep you busy for many years and is a compelling method with the overall goal of expanding your Jazz vocabulary. It is a great book!"

Randy Brecker

• "This is an exhaustive, yet compact guide to the fundamental of scale vocabulary, written by an accomplished musician. The section on diminished scales is outstanding."

Dave Liebman

Barry has done a fantastic job of organizing this book. He starts simple diatonic exercises in chapter one, and moves on to pentatonic and arpeggio studies in chapters two and three. The last arpeggio patterns are cool sounding diminished and augmented arpeggios. In chapters four and five Barry introduces whole-tone and diminished patterns. There is a wealth of great ideas here. The closest book I can think of to this book is Slonimski's 'Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns'. In Slonimski's book you need to really dig to find usable patterns and then figure out how to apply them to changes yourself. In the 'Serious Jazz Practice Book' everything is laid out for you, it is very clear about how to apply the patterns to improvisation.
Here is an except from the diminished chapter:

• "But the great thing about the diminished scale is that it contains so many other kinds of triads, including major, minor and certain quartal triads. And these can all be moved around melodically in minor thirds. In fact, ANY combination of notes made from the diminished scale will transpose cleanly in increments of minor thirds. OR Tritones. The modern Jazz soloist will make good use of this convenient fact. Remember: all diminished triads can be the 3rd, 5th and the 7th of B7, D7, F7, and Ab7. And those are the tonal centers to be aware of within this particular scale. You can see them very easily in our first diminished scale exercise:"

There is also a CD included with the book that illustrates how some of the patterns sound over chord changes. The thing about the patterns in this book is that they all sound great, without being cliche.

I think that this book will be a great addition to my personal practice routine and I would highly recommend it to any musician wishing to develop a modern Jazz vocabulary.

Here are some samples from the CD:

• Patterns over 'Inner Urge'
• Patterns 'Impressions'

Sample Page: Page 1

The Serious Jazz Practice Book for All Instruments: Melodic Materials for the Modern Jazz Soloist (Book & CD)

Jack Reilly's Jazz blog- the Ornette Coleman debate

I've mentioned Jack Reilly's Jazz blog here before, but it's so good that I had to plug it again. He's got a great article on there right now called 'Shaping Jazz – an Ornette Coleman debate'.

Heavyweights weigh in about Brecker

Sammy sent me the question below about Brecker's harmonic concept. I thought it would be interesting to forward it to some of today's top saxophonists and get their answers. As more replies come in I'll update this post.

"Hey David, This one is not for the blog...yet. I am phrasing my question off the cuff, and it might be unintelligible if published verbatim...

Q: How do you go about analyzing Brecker lines? They are often quite disjunct, but always sound hip when you hear the recording. (Michael Brecker, may he rest in peace, was an incredible innovator.) I've yet to see a good analysis of one of his "in and out" type of solos. Some folks claim the style comes from Coltrane...but they never point to WHICH Coltrane solos were influential. (The only Coltrane I've found that even comes close is a small section of Night Has a 1000 Eyes, an interim portion between choruses. And I haven't seen that analyzed either.) I've heard that he uses the augmented scale, but can't seem to make an analysis using augmented scales. Await your thoughtful reply.. Sammy"
__________________________________________________________________
Bob Mover-
In response to that question re: Mike, I can respond by saying that probably the best sources to talk to concerning Michael's intervallic approach would be Dave Liebman, who was an influence on Mike in the years that we were sessioning a lot together in the late '60's and early
'70's. As for the augmented scale, a fellow named Gary Campbell, an excellent saxophonist who teaches at the University of Miami, turned us all on to possibilities of that scale around that time. Mike and I spent a lot of time jamming and listening and talking music together
during that period. I remember our listening to Sonny Rollins play "Four" on his RCA recording and the way he extended that augmented scale through a whole section of the tune, was something that knocked both Mike and I out, and we copped it off the record together. Another interesting thing concerning the "inside/outside" aspects of Michael's playing that I know had an influence on him was Paul Bley's solo on "All the things you are" on the "Sonny Meets Hawk" record, as well as Sonny's playing on that record which is definitely inside/outside. We went through Bley's solo many times listening and playing along trying to figure out what on earth he was doing. Then we would go to sessions together and try to apply these concepts. Later on when Mike was with Horace and I was with Mingus, we actually would get together two or three times a month and actually study from each other. We would each give each other an hour. Mike showed me how he was working on how to artfully use pentatonics and patterns around chord changes. I showed him some of my harmonic things, such as, some of the cyclic matrices I was working on. Mike was influenced by lots of music. At the end of his life, he was studying and trying to play Serbian and Balkan folk music. Years before, Mike had turned me on to practicing Irish/Scottish reels and transposing them into different keys. As Mike got busier, and sometimes I was busy too, we would practice on the telephone together. Mike and I also did this with several other people, especially, Tom Harrell.

Mike was a wonderful guy, warm, with a great sense of humor. A generous, thoughtful, meaningful friend and a brilliant musician. I wish that he'd had more time. - Bob
____________________________________________________________________

John Gross-
I do not have an answer. I do not, with few exceptions, analyze anyone else's solo. However I feel compelled to say that M.B. was, in my opinion, one of the most important Tenor Sax players in the history of the instrument. Besides being passionate and emotional in his manner of playing he also had a huge musical intelligence which he used to it's fullest. He, along with all the other important Tenor players, was a student and fan of the music. God bless him and all the other Giants.

P.S. My personal list of the most important tenor players: Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Albert Ayler and Mike Brecker. Of course there are countless more great players but I believe these particular player had the greatest influence.
____________________________________________________________________
Pat Tucker-
I've only transcribed 2 or 3 Brecker Solos. But I do know one influence of his which is Steve Grossman. If you listen to a late 70's Hal Galper album called: "Speak with a Single Voice", there is a modal tune on there in D minor concert where Brecker was pretty much playing all of Grossman's Lines verbatum, but cleaner (Grossman solos to compare this to are on: Elvin Jones "Live at the Lighthouse", Grossman "Born at the Same Time" and all Stone Alliance albums). Even in later Brecker's solos after that you hear him playing Grossman stuff, Steve Grossman was definitely influenced by John Coltrane. David Liebman talks about the "Loft Days" where he lived in a Loft in Manhattan in the early 70's where he, Grossman, Bob Berg and Michael Brecker would have Jam Sessions and they would all try to play like Coltrane and as fast as they could. As far as the "in and out" playing that your reader asked about, when I transcribed Gossip off of Mike Stern's "Time and Place" Album; the solo starts off in C minor, but Michael is outlining the key of Db major for the first 14 bars, I think this works because of how sparse the bass part is. Then he goes through some Giant Step type changes bars 14 to 16. Then in bars 22 to 24 he goes right down the Augmented scale. Then towards the end of the solo (bars 33 to 41) he plays this diminished lick motive to build up to the end of the solo, which is influenced by many late Coltrane solos like "Transition" etc, so that may be a solo for your reader to check out. Later, Pat
Click on the small manuscript pages for a larger version ! _________________________________________________________________
Bird Lives! Bret Primack's Video Blog- Michael Brecker Tribute

also check out Jazz videoland at YouTube

Rhythm: The Music of the Spheres

"Music is a hidden arithmatic exercise of the soul, which does not know that it is dealing with numbers, because it does many things by way of unnoticed conceptions which with clear conception it could not do. Those who believe that nothing can happen in the soul of which the soul is not conscious are wrong. For this reason the soul, although not realizing that it is involved in mathematical computation, still senses the effect of this unnoticeable forming of numbers either as a resultant feeling of well-being in the case of harmonies or as discomfort in the case of disharmonies."

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Rhythm is the basis of harmonic proportions and intervals, fundamental physical mechanisms. This harmonious equilibration was expounded upon by Pythagoras, father of Philosophy. Pythagorean thought formed the basis of the philosophy of Plato, and later Neo-Pythagoreans and Platonists, and greatly influenced the development of western science.

Pythagoras laid the foundation for a holistic science which integrated spiritual, ethical, and metaphysical, as well as practical techniques. Pythagoras is famous for his axiomatic viewpoint that "there is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres." From Plotinus we hear, "All music based upon melody and rhythm, is the earthly representative of heavenly music."

And from Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan,

"When one looks at the cosmos, the movements of the stars and planets, the law of vibration and rhythm, all perfect and unchanging, it shows that the cosmic system is working by the law of music, the law of harmony; and whenever that harmony in the cosmic system is lacking in any way, then in proportion disaster comes to the world, and its influence is seen in the many destructive forces which are manifest there. The whole of astrological law and the science of magic and mysticism behind it, are based upon music."

Pythagoras systematized the laws which allow the creation of stringed instruments: musical scale intervals (octaves, fifths, fourths, thirds). He recognized that these fundamentally abstract relationships pervade all creation--even matter irself. In music, as in nature, a wave is a shape in motion. Each note has a wave-shape.

The octave comes from exactly doubling, or halving the string length, that is in 1:2 proportion, while the harmonious fifth has a 2:3 ratio and the fourth 3:4. There is also the less obvious 4:5 interval of the third, and even less obvious consonances.

Any tone in the overtone scale is higher than the preceding tone by precisely one whole number. These are the so-called harmonics. The lower the proportions of the numbers, the stronger the consonance, the more harmonious the sound of the two tones together. The primal polarity ratio of 1:2 is the most harmonious to our ears which are biologically geared to seven basic laws of harmony based on the primal law of whole-number quanta (which prevails in physics as well as music):

THE SEVEN LAWS OF HARMONY

1. the overtone scale

2. the interval proportions

3. the division of the octave into twelve semitones

4. the difference between consonance and dissonance, the consonance growing as the proportion of the numbers gets smaller

5. the difference between major and minor, the major proportion being the most frequent by far

6. the predominance of the 1:2 polarity, the octave

7. the law of the Lambdoma (a column of numbers written in the form of the Greek letter lambda, whose right leg consists of whole numbers going from one to infinity while the left leg contains the fractions of these same whole numbers, so that the coordinates of the open isosceles triangle follow the scale of overtones or undertones). There are correspondences in physics, acoustics, arithmatic, geometry, crystallography, cybernetics, theology and philosophy, the genetic code and I Ching.

From Iona Miller's Sydex: a Synergetic Perspective on Number Dynamics

The Mysticism of Sound: Music, The Power of the Word, and Cosmic Language (Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan Ser: Vol. 2)

Max Beckman- 'On My Painting'

"My aim is always to get hold of the magic of reality and to transfer this reality into painting -- to make the invisible visible through reality. It may sound paradoxical, but it is, in fact, reality which forms the mystery of our existence.
What helps me most in this task is the penetration of space. Height, width, and depth are the three phenomena which I must transfer into one plane to form the abstract surface of the picture, and thus to protect myself from the infinity of space. My figures come and go, suggested by fortune or misfortune. I try to fix them divested of their apparent accidental quality."


"When spiritual, metaphysical, material, or immaterial events come into my life, I can only fix them by way of painting. It is not the subject which matters but the translation of the subject into the abstraction of the surface by means of painting. Therefore I hardly need to abstract things, for each object is unreal enough already, so unreal that I can only make it real by means of painting."

"In my opinion all important things in art since Ur of the Chaldees, since Tel Halaf and Crete, have always originated from the deepest feeling about the mystery of Being. Self-realization is the urge of all objective spirits. It is this Self for which I am searching in my life and in my art.
Art is creative for the sake of realization, not for amusement; for transfiguration, not for the sake of play. It is the quest of our Self that drives us along the eternal and never-ending journey we must all make."

"Color, as the strange and magnificent expression of the inscrutable spectrum of Eternity, is beautiful and important to me as a painter; I use it to enrich the canvas and to probe more deeply into the object. Color also decided, to a certain extent, my spiritual outlook, but it is subordinated to light and, above all, to the treatment of form. Too much emphasis on color at the expense of form and space would make a double manifestation of itself on the canvas, and this would verge on craft work. Pure colors and broken tones must be used together, because they are the complements of each other."

Excerpts from the lecture , given at the New Burlington Galleries, London, in 1938. (source: Herbert)
Max Beckman

Carlos Valdez senior and Matisse

Being the only son of a painter I grew up listening to my father's ideas about the mystical experience of art. As a kid I was bored out of my skull when he would start rambling on and on about art, but as I grew older I realized that pops had given my a pretty good artistic education. I just applied everything he talked about to Jazz music. It would behoove every Jazz musician to take some time to study the writings of the masters. Visual artists often have more developed philosophic concepts about the artistic process. There are many books by painters that have profoundly influenced my concepts of music.

A few of these books are:
Concerning the Spiritual in Art
by Wassily Kandinsky,

Kandinsky: The Art of Abstraction



Here's a note my father sent me about abstract expressionism. Carlos senior could be described as an abstract expressionist painter, so here's what he has to say about one of his favorite painters- Matisse.


"You mentioned being an abstract expressionist player-

So what if a line bleeds through or some canvas shows?

Matisse worked those elements intuitively, brought them along with the rest of the painting.

They had as much rich distilled feeling as anything else in the painting.

Did this make the painting complex? no

Matisse condensed his elements fantastically- some wonderful works are nothing
but a few scratches.

He said that he wanted an art free of all troubling subject matter-
what he really wanted was to be in his oriental paradise, and he did get there.

Imagine decades of that experience of beauty.

He called it in his characteristically concise way- expression.

I can't understand how he was ever recognized-his work is so subtle.

Contemporaries talk of seeing him scrape away works of fantastic beauty- that's not what he was after.

He said that he experienced god at those times when he did something that he was not capable of, but he felt cheated that that was as close as he could come.

I found this Matisse quote-
"Instinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the branches of a tree so that it will grow better."

but you know he got his major jollies when he worked-intuitively.

Maybe he meant something different than it seems.

I think that Matisse followed the sense of what mattered to himself in his art no matter what.

He learned everything he could about painting then simply left himself open to what might happen.

He was suicidal at times in despair over being unable to do what he needed to do. He lived through 2 world wars where artists were starving- but if he could identify with it it stayed in. This can be seen in the work just after the fauvist period. Once that was solidly established, which I believe involved cultivating his nervous system as a tibetan monk would do- through the practice of painting.

He went to the light and ultimately transcended himself.

The matisse flower is actually a tamed demon.

Liner notes for my new CD w/Pere Soto

Tim Price wrote the liner notes for Oasis, my new CD project with guitarist/composer Pere Soto. We're still shopping the CD to European record labels and have a few leads so far. We found a record label that really likes, but can't afford the advance we need. They are acting as our agent at the MIDEM international music industry convention. I'm just trying to be patient.
I wanted someone who really understood my playing to write the notes. Tim knew all the teachers I studied with. I also felt that he really appreciated the direction I was headed as well as the musical influences that had shaped my playing. He have been trading our music for years but have never met in person. I'm very happy with how the liner notes turned out. He really understood what we were trying to do with this CD.

"When one considers what makes a meeting of two master musicians interesting, there are several common factors that can be observed throughout the history of jazz. The interest is found in the contrast between a common vocabulary and lineage but interpreted individually which of course is one of the main facets of jazz. In other words, there is enough similarity for some semblance of a unified approach, but at the same time enough differences to attract interest. With David Valdez and Pere Soto the unity and differences are clearly demonstrated.
Stylistically, David and Pere approaches are very distinct. They both stretch the rhythm and harmony, but in completely different ways. David seems to slip and slide around within the framework of a tune in with a wide range of articulations and intervallic choices. He plays with the beat creating a kind of spiraling vortex of sounds. One of the very best modern day alto players!

Pere Soto dives straight into the center of the harmony and pulse using his incredible imagination to create a universe of its own within the structure of the tune. Speed and dexterity are fundamental to his style .Ya know, when I close my eyes and listen to him, it’s amazing.

Finally, there is the sheer joy and camaraderie the David Valdez and Pere Soto of playing and listening to each other. Classic! This disc is stellar and packed with just the kind of experience needed, which is to the advantage of the listener because it brings a relaxed informality to the recording.

Pere in his own way has extended the language on his instrument to a level prominent enough to have a major effect. It has been my feeling that with our culture's emphasis upon and rewarding of conformity rather than originality has been increasingly stifled in the past decade or so. You won't hear that stifled approach here! In his playing you hear the history of jazz!

David Valdez can do so much and has always struck me as rather distinctive on that level as well. He tends to go more directly head to head inside the music. Maybe this translates musically to more chances taken, more densely packed lines, more roughness and use of combinations in the sound.

Most of these tunes allow the artists to use their common language, as a vehicle for creativity and self-expression. It is a vital source of listening experience, I've known Valdez for years musically, and his playing is a vital asset to this music. This disc combines a kind of textural austerity with the sometimes forbiddingly jagged melodies that just make you return to it daily, the results are very attractive.

This new recording by these two modern day masters is a step in a well-needed direction. This excellent project brings together highly respected players whose paths have crossed before in various configurations over the years. As a unit, they authoritatively and creatively play the music on this disc with great personal integrity coupled with intensity and energy, formidable chops and intelligence that recalls the forward thinking.

Hear It! It is something very special.
Tim Price

Here is a link to the title track Oasis.

Cannonball Spectacular!

This Cannonball transcription site is out of control, truly amazing, and totally Kick-ass, unless of course you don't love Cannonball. Doc Stewart put these solos together. Doc has a Cannonball tribute band and he actually plays the transcriptions.
Nice work Doc, thanks!

THERE ARE 263 Cannonball TRANSCRIPTIONS ON THIS SITE!!!!!!!!

"This page is a comprehensive list containing the title and recording date of every RELEASED song - past or present - that Cannonball Adderley plays a solo on. The following recordings were/are available in either LP, EP, 45rpm, CD, DVD, casette, 8-track, or VHS formats. If the song name is in red, that means the recording exists but I haven't found it yet. Black means I have the recording. Links are provided to some of my transcriptions and session tables."

I found this on Steve Neff's site. Steve has just started a very promising Jazz blog, and has some nice material on his main site, like clips of him playing lots of different mouthpieces (including a nice early Babbit Link I recently sold him).

Michael Brecker Dies at 57, the voice of the modern saxophone

If you've never checked out Brecker's early recordings, now would be a good time.

When I first heard Brecker in high school I was pretty much captivated. He had such a highly developed personal style and sound. Even though his playing was based in Trane, he had an ability to personalize everything that he borrowed. I got my hands on everything that I could find with him on it and listened with wonder at the complex lines he effortlessly wove. There's always a period when you first discover a great player when they can do no wrong and you see only genius in their playing, it's like the honeymoon period. For me it lasted several years until I got to Berklee where everyone was trying to sound like Brecker. Before then it was like he was my personal discovery, only I knew about the magic lines he played.

My roommate at school was a Swedish flutist named Anders Bostrom who sounded very Becker influenced, he had really studied Brecker's harmonic concept and could play many choruses on Brecker solos. Brecker came to school that year to do a clinic and play a concert. I sat with Anders in the balcony at the concert. Every single line Brecker played that evening Anders was able to tell me what record it was off of. These lines weren't just short licks, they were entire phrases of music. I heard it then for the first time. Brecker was more of a composer than an improviser! Everything he played was carefully worked out before hand, he wasn't just letting the creative flow take over, he was copping his own shit. I was crushed and very disillusioned, I felt like I had been duped. All those freaked out complex lines were pre-composed, not improvised!! What a sham, what a rip off!!! I had never even considered that anyone would have the gall to do something like that, except maybe a Japanese high schooler. I couldn't listen to any Brecker for a long time after that evening, it was just smoke and mirrors to me, not real living creative improvisation. I vowed not to ever take that approach with my playing. I started to see just how many players approached music like Brecker did, more as composers than improvisers.

It seemed like a cop out to me, a trick to fool the audience into thinking that you just invented something that you actually had worked out very carefully. Pure crowd pleasing. I wondered if Brecker took this approach because of all the time he spent as a studio musician, having to play perfectly on the first take. Maybe it was just the way is mind worked, was he just not a creative guy in the first place? He still sounded great on recordings though. Maybe he was more methodical than I liked, but he played some pretty cool shit. To me he represents a kind of extreme, the rational pole of Jazz improvisation. Every note has a function and reason, every line fits every chord change. Brecker is the anti-christ to the savior of Ornette. Both are needed
for evolution to take place. Both poles are part of the same scale of creativity. I know that my views won't be popular with those Brecker-heads out there that are now mourning the passing of their savior. I do appreciate what he gave to the modern saxophone, in a way he was the modern saxophonist of our time. I don't need to take his approach to appreciate him, I can even steal some of his lines and harmonic techniques without feeling guilty.

It's interesting to listen to some of Brecker's earliest Jazz recordings, they are some of my favorites and they are also some of the rawest. You can hear more of the direct influence of his peers like Berg, Grossman and Liebman. There is a more authentic emotional passion in his sound, not the calculated and controlled emotional affectation of his later years. My all-time favorite Brecker recording are the two records he did with Hal Galper's quintet in the late 70's- Speak with a Single Voice and Reach Out. If you like Brecker you owe it to yourself to hear these two CDs.

Again, I'm only writing about my experience of Brecker's music. It's all a matter of taste. I can't say that he didn't have an effect on my development as a saxophonist, he did. He was the voice of Post-bop tenor saxophone. His playing influenced just about every moden saxophonist and will continue to do so for a long time.


Michael Brecker Dies at 57; Prolific Jazz Saxophonist

By BEN RATLIFF

Published: January 14, 2007
New York Times

Michael Brecker, a saxophonist who won 11 Grammy Awards and was among the most influential musicians in jazz since the 1960s, died yesterday at a hospital in New York City. He was 57 and lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.

The cause of death was leukemia, said Darryl Pitt, his manager.

Having taken a deep understanding of John Coltrane’s saxophone vocabulary and applied it to music that merged with mainstream culture — particularly jazz fusion and singer-songwriter pop of the 1970s and 80s — Mr. Brecker spread his sound all over the world.

For a time, Mr. Brecker seemed nearly ubiquitous. His discography — it contains more than 900 albums — started in 1969, playing on the record “Score,” with a band led by his brother, the trumpeter Randy Brecker. It continued in 1970 with an album by Dreams, the jazz-rock band he led with his brother and the drummer Billy Cobham.

His long list of sideman work from then on wended through hundreds more records, including those by Frank Zappa, Aerosmith, James Brown, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed, Funkadelic, Steely Dan, John Lennon, Elton John, and James Taylor, as well as (on the jazz side) Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Papo Vasquez. His 11 Grammys included two for “Wide Angles,” his ambitious last album, released in 2003 with a fifteen-piece band he called the Quindectet.

His highest achievements were his own albums, both under his own name (starting in 1986) and with the Brecker Brothers band, as well as his early 80s work with the group Steps Ahead. Mr. Brecker was scheduled to tour with a reunited version of Steps Ahead in the summer of 2005 when his condition was publicly announced — initially as myelodysplastic syndrome, a bone-marrow disorder, which finally progressed to leukemia — and much of his work had to stop.

Mr. Brecker grew up in a musical family in Philadelphia; his father was a lawyer who played jazz piano. He started playing the clarinet at the age 6, switched to alto saxophone in the eighth grade, and finally settled on tenor saxophone in the tenth. He started to attend Indiana University — as did his brother Randy. After initially pursuing a music degree and then briefly switching to pre-med, he quickly discovered he preferred to be playing music. He left for New York at 19.

For most of the 1970s and through the mid-80s he worked hard in studio sessions, becoming a fixture on albums by the Southern California pop singer-songwriter movement, including those by Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell. But for hard-core jazz enthusiasts, it was his work of the early 80s — on Steps Ahead’s first two albums, when the band was simply called Steps — as well as Chick Corea’s “Three Quartets,” from 1981, and Pat Metheny’s “80/81,” from 1980, that cemented his reputation as a great player.

His tone was strong and focused, and some of his recognizable language echoed Coltrane’s sound. But having worked in pop, where a solo must be strong and to the point, Mr. Brecker was above all a condenser of exciting devices into short spaces. He could fold the full pitch range of the horn into a short solo, from altissimo to the lowest notes, and connect rarefied ideas to the rich, soulful phrasing of saxophonists like Junior Walker.

In the 1980s and 1990s he experimented with the electronic wind instrument called the EWI, which allowed him to blow through an electronic hornlike device, play a range of sampled sounds, and multitrack them in real time. He began experimenting with the instrument again in the last few years.

With the onset of his illness, he and his family called for bone-marrow donors at international jazz festivals, synagogues, and Jewish community centers around America; tens of thousands responded. Working sporadically over the last year, he managed to complete his final album two weeks ago, Mr. Pitt said.

He is survived by his wife, Susan, of Hastings-on-Hudson; his children, Jessica and Sam, of Hastings-on-Hudson; his brother, Randy, of Manhattan; and his sister, Emily Brecker Greenberg, of Philadelphia.

Django's Castle videos

My partner in crime Pere Soto just posted a bunch of videos on YouTube of his Gypsy Jazz project Django's Castle. Check out his two fingered version of Nuages to get an idea of what Django was working with.

Pere Soto plays Django

More Slonimsky questions...

Q: Carlos,
Hey, can you elaborate more on this idea of "resolving" your harmonic lines? Obviously things like taking the leading tone of a dominant to the tonic make sense to me, but in your last email regarding Slonimsky you said the following....

"Just make sure you resolve them strongly, you'd be amazed what you
can actually get away with and still sound good."

and ..

"Tonal harmony is after all mainly about forward motion, so the lines
found in TSMP offer away to still retain forward motion while playing
outside. It just becomes a matter of being able to resolve these
lines in a logical way...."

A: Charles McPherson has an exercise that he makes his students do. He has them play totally outside over dominants and then land on a strong chord-tone on beat one of the next resolving bar. He says if you resolve on the downbeat with a strong chord tone you can play anything and it will sound like Bebop. This is just about true, even though it does sound quite extreme.

Q: Related question.....do you use diminished stuff freely against dominants resolving to both Major and Minor, or just for dom's resolving to Major? I've heard both suggested....and can you specifically tell me how you resolve a diminished scale, like do you actually try to resolve each dissonance (flat 9, sharp 9, sharp 11....) or just go to the Lydian mode/melodic minor of the tonic and leave it at that?

A: I do use diminished modes when resolving to major or minor chords. To determine what chord-scales are available I only look at the root motion of the chord that the dominant resolves to. If the root motion is going down a fifth (up a fourth) then anything is fair game, no matter what chord quality the resolution is. Yes, there are scale choices that are smoother as far as voice leading when resolving to a minor chord, like a harmonic minor scale from the fourth or and altered dominant scale.

Remember that if the dominant chord is moving down a half-step in root motion you only should play a Lydian dominant (even if the #11 isn't notated) because it is functioning as a tritone!

Berklee teaches that certain tensions are available for each of the secondary dominant chords:

V7/II b9, 9,#9, b13
V7/III b9,#9, b13
V7/IV 9, 13
V7/V b9, 9,#9, 13
V7/VI b9, #9, b13

The most important thing is to watch for root motion! Where do the dominants move to?
Don't worry about resolving individual tensions, this will drive you nuts and slow you down.
Some people would argue with me, remember I consider myself a post-bop player, which to me is like an abstract expressionist painter. The rules are a bit more relaxed and I'm looking to use a more 'painterly technique', I don't want photo-realism in my playing. So what if a few lines bleed over or if some canvas shows? You could follow stricter rules than I do as far as finding scales for chords, but mine keep you out of trouble and I can always break them if they get too constraining.


Q: Also, other than Bird, what specific solos would you prescribe for an intermediate level aspiring improviser on alto to learn by ear and transcribe? How about tenor?

A: I usually get intermediate level students working on Sonny Stitt transcriptions, both alto and tenor. Stitt is very clear rhythmically and he has nice long lines. Early Phil Woods is also a good altoist for transcription, the Phil and Quill records.

Q: And what about more advanced concepts, are there some specific examples you could point me to for my students that aren't too long or too fast but that would show in detail some specific stuff. Most of the stuff I have them do is Bird and Lester, but you don't get into more far out harmonic stuff with them. Some I've graduated to Dexter, but I'm trying to get them onto some newer material. Cannonball? Who else and what else?......If you could toss out a handful or so that would be great....

A: How about Dick Oatts, Grossman or Rick Margitza for 3-tonic lines, Jerry Bergonzi for use of pentatonics and digital patterns, Kenny Garrett for triads and pentatonics used for outside playing. Try to find examples that are rhythmically straightforward, since complex rhythmic figures are the bane of young transcribers.

Q: Also, the Gary Campbell article is great on the blog, and I've seen the book. I seem to remember it being detailed but mostly covering the triad pairs being practiced up and down in their various inversions. Are there other ways to use these that sound good?

A: Gary does offer many examples of situations for triad pairs in his book. Triad pairs can also be used to play outside. Kenny Garrett does this very well. You can use one triad that fits the chord alternating with a triad that doesn't fit at all, this slips you in and out of tonal harmony.
Triads are so strong that they can supersede any chord progressions. Once you learn to create lines that shift inversions as they move between triads you can then use these lines to navigate outside harmony. Triadic lines are so strong that you can use them over any changes regardless of how they fit over the changes.



Q: Also, I worked with one of my former students who's in the jazz program at USC yesterday, he's now studying with Jason Goldman. Ever heard of this guy? Anyways, my kid was using the bis key for b flats exclusively, so I questioned him about it. He said his teacher told him to do it this way. So, since you do the same, I ask you, is this orthodox technique? I make my students master the side b flat, particularly for chromatic stuff, and then show them how to use the bis for leaps, like g minor or b flat major. Isn't that the way it's generally taught? What did Viola teach?

A: Joe V taught the use of both for different situations. Joe had a very pragmatic approach to technical questions. He always want you to find the most comfortable and smoothest fingerings for any given situation. The less motion, the better. There is usually one fingering that is clearly mechanically and ergonomically superior, just slow things down, watch your fingers and see which fingering feels best.