So, we have wooden clarinets, oboes, flutes, piccolos…..but a whole saxophone?
Besides these guys NOT knowing how to play saxophone…….I just have to file this under the WTF category….
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Author: ericdano
Polymath, musician, awesome.
Brian Rust, Father of Modern Discography, Dies at 88
Brian Rust died. Don’t know who this is? Oh, but you know his work. Yes you do you jazzer you.
“Brian Rust, a discographic detective who compiled comprehensive guides to recorded jazz and other popular music, in the process setting the standard for the modern field, died on Jan. 5 in Swanage, in southern England. He was 88.
For decades, “Jazz Records” — known to jazz mavens simply as “J. R.” — has been the de facto standard reference work in the field, furnishing meticulous information on session dates, personnel and much else for tens of thousands of recordings.”
See, he’s the reason you know X, Y and Z played on a session at so and so studio on this date.
Thanks for your work Brian.
Mass User Purge
Sometime between the end of November and the first part of the year, Jazz-Sax was hit with tens of thousands of registrations of fake and spam users. Like marc162230205 and his brother marc247329716. The result was that pretty much the outgoing email (like registrations and passwords) was shut down due to being flooded with bounced emails that I didn’t know about (thanks google apps!). We went from a about 12,000 users to nearly 100K.
Anyhow, I’ve been using some tools to remove inactive and spam users. So, if you had registered here but haven’t ever posted a comment or submitted a story, you probably got deleted. Sorry.
You can easily enough register again, except it will ask a few questions and make you enter a CAPTCHA to help weed out the people from the bots.
John Barry
Barry composer of the classic James Bond theme died today. It’s impossible to imagine James Bond without it’s signature theme, but that almost happened.
“Shortly after this Barry would receive the fateful phone call from Bond producer Harry Saltzman. “I got a phone call from Harry,” recalled Barry in a 2006 article in the Telegraph. “He never used to come down to the recording sessions, and he says: ‘John, that is the worst fucking song I ever heard in my life. We open in three weeks’ time, otherwise I’d take that fucking song out of the picture. I’d take it out! Out!’”
Here are some other themes he did, like Dances With Wolves.
Another good link about John Barry.
Jake Shimabukuro plays “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Not saxophone, but not everything totally amazing is……and when you see or hear an amazing performance, it doesn’t matter what instrument it is. Here is one such performance….on Ukulele…..
Playing With Effects Pedals – Dean Mongerio
Sometimes, I find things that are just totally cool. This is one of them. Florida based Saxophonist Dean Mongerio showing off his pedals and stuff. Here is what I saw that he is using.
1. BBE SupraCharger Power supply
2. Eventide PitchFactor Harmonizer
3. Q-Tron (older model?)
4. Troop Bypass looper
5. Keeley 4 Knob Compressor
6. MXR M169 Carbon Copy Analog Delay Guitar Effects Pedal
7. MXR M-108 Ten Band Graphic EQ
8. DigiTech Hardwire Series RV-7 Reverb Guitar Effects Pedal
9. Radial ProDI Passive Direct Box
I’ve always loved effects on saxophone since hearing those amazing Brecker Brothers albums in the 70s. I have been experimenting with pedals using software on my iPad and EWI (working on an article/review) which is actually quite useable. Plus, the iRig also works with a dynamic mic like a Shure 57 Beta. So you can pipe your Sax into the iRig and run it through Ampitude on your iPad or iPhone.
EDIT: Upon further testing, the iPad/iPod/iPhone iRig and EWI is very cool. Though it does work with a microphone like a Shure 57, it sounds like crap and picks up way too much other noise to be practical.
But here is Dean doing it to more old fashioned and probably better way……
Part One
Part Two
Isaac Asimov on Education and Computers in 1988
If you don’t know who Isaac Asimov is then go education yourself. He coined the term Robotics, beat the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, and wrote a bunch of stuff. He also seemed to pretty much predict what we have today. He has some interesting ideas about education that we should pay attention to. He would have been in his 90s now if he had not died of HIV which he had contracted during a triple bypass surgery in 1983. He would be amazed to see what we have done.
What Happens When a CD Factory Closes
As we move more and more to everything being digital and available for download or to be streamed to you, some industries suffer. CNet.com has an article about Sony closing it’s Pitman New Jersey plant that makes CDs.
Kind of interesting that Sony used to have THREE plants in the USA that pressed CDs, one of them closed in 2003, and now the Pitman one is closing. I personally only get physical CDs when I go to Rasputins (used), or get something used off of Amazon.com. Though there has been a resurgence of “low-fi” and “audiophile” music, both of which seem to favor vinyl rather than CD. I do like the trend of iTunes and others upping the bit-rate and losing the DRM on the music….and keeping the price at $0.99.
Bopland.org
I came across this website/project, Bopland.org its a database of Jazz licks. It has some potential. Couple of things I would LIKE it to do are:
- User uploadable patterns, that are tagged with whom uploaded them
- User comments on the lick
- Ability to upload Music XML files to it.
- Ability to generate a “print page”
- Ability for a user (registered) to favorite licks
- Ability to generate favorite licks or selected licks in various keys easily (so if there is a lick in C major, and I want to see the same lick in 5 other keys, I can get it to do it)
It’s a cool project. Needs some additional features, but I like it. Check it out.
Interview With Louis Gerrits
If you ever have visited Michael Brecker Live Recordings.com then you know Louis Gerrits.
The Best Saxophone Website Ever has a GREAT interview with Louis Gerrits up. Check it out. Amazing guy, and his site is a great resource on the web. And I agree, Michael Brecker was the best Tenor Player….
Fantastic Free Finale Plug-ins
Use Finale? On Mac? Need some cool Plugins? Then check out finaletips.nu.
Jari has ported over most of his fantastic plugins to Mac. Plugins like his top line notation plugin already have saved me a few keystrokes already. Go check them out. They are absolutely free.
Donations and Stuff
Jazz-Sax has been around a LONG TIME. I’d say one of the longest running sites, since 1997 I believe. And all the stuff here is free. I do require you to register in the hopes that perhaps people comment on stuff, ask questions, etc, etc. I’m not going to password protect posts. Nor require a subscription (I hope that link people are not paying to see!). It is kind of frustrating that some of the guys on the net are charging for things like fingering charts when other people like Charles McNeal are giving away amazing transcriptions for nothing. Something is wrong out there!
Sometimes I receive donations. That is a great thing. Someone just donated some money for one of the arrangements I have up. Thank you very much. I just wish I had time to put more stuff up. More stuff is coming…..soon I hope.
TED – Your Brain On Improv
TED talks are always interesting. This one a little more so than usual.
iKlip
I received my iKlip today. So, now, I can live the good life and read music on my iPad anywhere? Well, not quite.
If you read the first part of the iKlip page, it says: “IK Multimedia introduces iKlip™ — a multi-angle lightweight iPad microphone stand adapter. Now you can take your favorite iPad™ music apps on stage for live performance.”
But the next paragraph says: “The new iKlip for iPad makes it easy for you to use your iPad in any live setting — on stage, in the studio, at school or in the boardroom. With its multi-angle adjustable design, you can now securely position your iPad for optimal viewing and accessibility, while all controls, buttons and connection ports remain free from obstruction.”
So, are schooling supposed to have a microphone stand for each kid? The iKlip DOES NOT FIT ON A MANHASSET stand. Ok, technically, if you were standing, had it extended a ways and were over 5′ tall it fits, but certainly NOT if you are sitting. The connecting thing does NOT FIT AROUND a Manhasset stand. Period. HUGE design flaw. Seriously. Even my simple Pop Filter has an adjustable mount that can handle various stand sizes.
SECOND major problem is that if you want to rotate it from page to landscape, you need to loosen a screw, turn it, and then put it back. Seriously? They couldn’t come up with something else? I mean, it’s made in Italy, did they totally not see the problem? It’s like having a Ferrari with like little Yugo tires on it. You have this beautiful stand. And it is very nice, except there is this screw……ugh!
A MINOR grip would be that you have to take your iPad out of its case to use it. Not a BIG deal compared to the two other problems, but if the two other problems didn’t exist I would probably say that would be the ONLY minor complaint I have about it.
IK Multimedia had a chance to hit it out of the park. The two design flaws are huge in my opinion. The totally missing that it can’t attach to a music stand? Stupid. And the screw adjustment? Stupid. I see about maybe 20 times someone being able to get the screw attachment in, but heaven help you if you screw the screw in at an angle.
I give this a 5 out of 10. For $40 its alright. Don’t plan on using it with a music stand, especially Manhasset ones. And don’t plan on switch it between landscape and portrait a lot. If you can live with these limitations, it might work for you.
Pictures I took, including me showing it will not fit around the base of my microphone stand, but will on the upper part, of the infamous screw, of me showing it not fitting on a Manhasset stand, and of my $10 mic pop filter stand attachment that IK Multimedia SHOULD HAVE designed/used.
Spam and Stuff…..
Seems like the emailing of user registrations was not working for a while. Sorry about that. Seems that a lot of spammers were registering using bogus email addresses and then the server would try to send them off via gmail, and they would bounce back, and gmail would then restrict the account for a few hours. Ugh.
That has been taken care of I think. I also weeded out inactive accounts….so if you registered at some point and didn’t do anything other than take the PDFs here, well, chances are your account was deleted.
Happy New Year!