Jazz-Sax, all things Jazz and Sax
In moving this site to WordPress, and transferring all the old articles, I get to read some of my old posts. I think this one really touched me today, and made me remember what a great guy Jon was. Jon Van Wie cancer. Jon Van Wie loses his fight I traded some emails with him,…
Saxcessful writes “I have been playing a Berg 100/0 on my tenor with various reeds, depending on the mood. Recently I have been offered (on the net) a Beechler Bellite 8 which is about the same lay but I have no idea about what sort of sound they produce. I am familiar with a Lawton…
When the author of the Finale Productivity package
Two related items I finished recently. The first is a very interesting CD, Marcel Tabuteau’s Lessons, which Tabuteau himself explains his phrasing system. Well, it is more than that, it is lessons on music from a great master. It was started in August of 1965, using a tape recorder in Tabuteau’s apartment, and abruptly finished…
In a
MakeMusic, after much hype, delay, and then more hype, has finally released SmartMusic 10 in April. This is really what the program should have been from the get go. There are a lot of great Concert Band, and String Orchestra music on the screen selections. There are a few Jazz Band ones as well. The…
From a NYTimes article “The memorial program for the saxophonist Michael Brecker that filled Town Hall on Tuesday night kept landing on the theme of generosity. Mr. Brecker died of leukemia on Jan. 13 at 57. During his illness he enlisted family members and friends in sending out a call for bone-marrow donors — not…
Sadly, this time around it is true. I had seen a couple of emails in various lists I subscribe to this morning, but someone finally gave me a link to the a news site that has the details. “Michael Brecker, a versatile and highly influential tenor saxophonist who won 11 Grammys over a career that…
Blender.com, a great music music site, published a great list in 2003 of “The 50 Worst Artists In Music History“. While I don’t agree about #16, Oingo Boingo, I do agree with #4, Kenny G. “Hated equally by jazz and rock fans, Kenny Gorelick’s limpid instrumentals and obsequious cameos helped turn the soprano sax solo…
You’ve probably heard of YouTube. I’d say, it’s kind of like Napster of almost 10 years ago. People post all kinds of videos there, some are legal, some not (TV Shows, probably some of these videos, etc). Anyhow, there are a number of great Jazz videos there. Do a search of Coltrane, or Michael Brecker….
Michael Brecker made a surprise appearance at Carnegie Hall Friday. “In a surprise, they were joined on Mr. Hancock’s “One Finger Snap” by the saxophonist Michael Brecker, who has been ill for the last year with MDS, or Myelodisplastic Syndrome, a bone marrow disease. It was the first time he had performed since his hospitalization….
Yes, you knew it was coming. Backgrounds to practice Walt Weiskopf’s great new book, Beyond The Horn. A lot of these are based on “standard” tunes. A couple are original chord changes. All of them are very challenging to play with the Etudes out of the book. It’s different, it’s fun, it will bust your…
Over this weekend, I got into this heated argument on a Yahoo group about Wind Controllers. I was interested in perhaps getting a new EWI 4000 to supplement my practicing. I said in one post that I thought a lot of the people using the controller as a sax made it sound cheesy. And, honestly,…
Walt Weiskopf and Ed Rosenberg, have released a great new book, Beyond The Horn. It is more of a follow up to his great Around The Horn book. The 246 pages are filled with Octave Displaced Triads, and a bevy of Octave displaced minor, melodic minor, harmonic minor and a bunch of other modes. Plus,…
Congrats to Gordon Goodwin for winning “Instrumental Arrangement” for his “Incredits”. Sonny Rollins won the “Jazz Instrumental Solo” for “Why Was I Born?”. Wayne Shorter Quartet won “Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group” for “Beyond the Sound Barrier,” and the Dave Holland Big Band won the “Large Jazz Ensemble Album” for “Overtime”. Too bad Gordon…