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My name is Bobby Stern. I'm a long time professional saxophonist, jazz player, educator, Bari Woodwinds and Brancher-France Saxophones endorser, as well as the author of "The Melodic Minor Handbook: A Jazz Player's Perspective" published by Jamey Aebersold Jazz, as well as a pair of self published eBooks "Slick Licks That Stick!", Vols. I & II, available right here.

I've been performing, teaching and studying for many years and it seems like the more I've learned, the more I've come to realize that it's a constantly expanding universe; meaning that no matter how much you think you might already know, there's always so much more to discover and learn; and that we are all students, regardless of our present levels of accomplishment and awareness.

In other words, the learning process is a perpetual one, and that's nothing less than exciting!

I am truly thankful for the opportunities - past, present & future - to perform within diverse musical contexts worldwide, with some of the greats, near-greats, as well as occasionally, a few not-so-greats 😀 .

So come on in and look around:

Become a premium subscriber today, and gain regular access to an ever expanding library of concise, insightful and clearly presented articles, downloadable exercises and exclusive content; all geared to increasing your musical vocabulary as you become a more complete and confident improviser.

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There is still a bunch of free stuff to check out and download. Everybody loves FreeB's!

As a long time professional player, I not only preach what I practice, but also practice what I preach. Check out some examples of my recorded musical history:

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Here are a few great music products which I use, endorse & highly recommend:

The Killer B's - Brancher, Bari ...& Bobby!

JoHen Tunes Up “Night & Day” – A Joe Henderson Reharm and Solo Transcription
Joe Henderson’s tenor saxophone solo on his reharmonized version of Cole Porter’s “Night & Day” (downloadable transcription below), was recorded for the Blue Note label at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio (where else!) in Engewood Cliffs, NJ on Nov. 30th, 1964, ten days before John Coltrane recorded “A Love Supreme” in the same studio. “Night & Day” would be the final track on the “B” side of the original vinyl LP “Inner Urge”, Henderson’s fourth as a leader for Blue Note; and featured then current Coltrane Quartet members McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones on piano and drums respectively; as well as … Read More
Sympathy for Melodic Minor – Major’s Evil Twin, Pt. 1
The scale and it’s harmonic system known as Melodic Minor (aka: Jazz Minor, Ascending Melodic Minor, Ionian b3, etc.) is probably the most misunderstood and under digested of the traditional diatonic derived scale systems being used in improvised music. Many students, and professionals alike, tend to freeze up like they saw Frankenstein when presented with chord symbols or mode choices native to Melodic Minor, or for that matter, not native to Major. Most of us have been taught to view any altered chord type as an altered form of it’s Major counterpart. … Read More
Bari Good! – The “Bari Hybrid” Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece
As I revealed in my post on synthetic reeds from 12/02/2012, I have been an endorser for Bari Woodwinds for about eight years now and I’ve been happily playing their synthetic reeds since 1987. So, you ask; what does an endorser do? He or she endorses, of courses! But only if the product in question warrants an endorsement. Right? … Read More
Square in the Circle – Diminished Scale 4ths
On the heels of my last posted exercise, which was inspired by Walter Bishop’s “A Study in 4ths”, and which ended with an ascending figure of a diminished scale in Perfect 4ths, I thought it could be cool to further investigate some of the possibilities of P4th relationships within a diminished scale. I had considerably diminished the use of the diminished scale in my own playing for quite a while now, since I’ve felt that the modes of Melodic Minor (which is 2 notes shy of being a diminished scale), primarily the “altered scale” (seventh mode, diminished / whole tone) … Read More
Back to the Future ‘Trane – A Transcription of John Coltrane’s 1954 Solo on “In a Mellow Tone”
This transcription of the first chorus of John Coltrane’s tenor solo on Duke Ellington’s “In a Mellow Tone”, was taken from a live (possibly radio) recording from sometime in mid 1954, when ‘Trane was on the road with Johnny Hodges’ septet. The band included Hodges’ fellow Ellingtonians, Harold “Shorty” Baker – trumpet, and Lawrence Brown on trombone. This version of “Mellotone” was originally released, to my knowledge, in on a “bootleg” vinyl in the 1970’s on the “Enigma” label. A friend of mine had it and I promptly copied it to cassette (remember those?…..OK, maybe not). Then as now, ‘Trane’s … Read More
Notnowmom! – An Interview with Saxophonist Carolyn Breuer
I remember the first time I ever heard about Carolyn Breuer (pronounced Broy – er). I was sharing a quiet taxi ride in Munich, Germany with her father, trombonist / pianist Hermann Breuer. As I recall, I was about to doze off in the back seat, when Hermann remarked suddenly, “Saxophone players tend to practice a lot of patterns, don’t they?” I must have answered something like “Yeah, I guess so. Why?” “Well my daughter, who’s 12, started playing alto and she practices a lot of patterns.”, he replied. I mentioned to him that I had a few students at … Read More
Marvin Gaye Sessions – ‘Til Tomorrow, Pt 1
It was a typical Munich summer’s afternoon in 1982 when I got back to my apartment and found a message, that I was to call Arco Studios back about a “Marvin Gaye Session”. I had been doing a modest amount of studio work in those days, mostly as a tenor saxophone soloist, as saxophone solos were common on many pop recordings of the ’70’s & ’80’s. Munich, as far as Europe went, was a pretty major recording town. It was a center of the “Disco” boom of the ’70’s, and the city boasted several film music recording studios, hosting rooms … Read More
Curacaoan of Renown – A Conversation with Guitarist / Bassist Roy Louis, Pt. 1
Guitarist / bassist (or bassist / guitarist) Roy Louis has been a close friend and musical colleague for almost 40 years. As I discovered, it’s not easy interviewing your long time friends, as the conversation can can very easily get sidetracked into many different cracks and crevices of shared experience. “Man, do you remember…….?”, became the common theme, only to realize, half an hour later, that we’d gone way off on a tangent. * * * * * * Roy Louis is a native of the island of Curacao (pronounced KEWR-ə-sow) formerly of the Netherlands Antilles, which has a unique … Read More
Transcriptions That Stick! – Dig Big Nick!
Here’s a transcription of John Coltrane’s soprano saxophone solo on his composition “Big Nick”, recorded April 11th, 1962 at Rudy Van Gelder’s famed studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ and was included as part of the CD release of the album “Coltrane”, on the Impulse! label. This is the first of two versions of the tune recorded by Coltrane that year; the second, which appeared on the aptly titled Impulse! classic, “Duke Ellington and John Coltrane”, was recorded in September. The main difference between the two versions, is the form (and the intention). The “Ellington” version is a standard 32 bar, AABA … Read More
Marvin Gaye Sessions #3 – Tomorrow’s Gone
Part 1 Part 2 When “Midnight Love” finally hit the streets in the autumn of 1982, it marked the triumphant return of Marvin Gaye. I first got wind of it when, half asleep in the back seat of a car riding through Belgium on a November afternoon, en route to a gig in Luxembourg, I heard this tenor saxophone coming over the radio and, in my half conscious state, thought it sounded like Michael Brecker on one of his top forty disco type solos of that era. … Read More
Stowell from John – 4 Melodic Minor Scales as Dominant Subs
Actually, your honor, I ain’t stole nuthin’! I just borrowed a little bit, which I’m tryin’ to return, by way of the Universe! Hey, I hadn’t even heard of Master Guitarist & Educator, John Stowell until a few months ago, when my long time buddy, Prof. Dave King of the University of Music & Performing Arts in Mannheim, Germany (see post from 5/29/2013), took part in one of John’s master classes which was given at the school and sent me some video links. Needless to say, I was intrigued by Stowell’s harmonic and scalar concepts; especially his ideas of mixing … Read More
Granted! – A Joe Henderson Solo Transcription
It’s Joe Henderson time again, ladies and gents! Joe, as you should know, was one of the music’s more stylistically unique and influential tenor saxophonists and improvisers, as well as the composer of a healthy number of classic originals. His influence and legacy live on in his many recordings, made both as leader and sideman, during a career which spanned nearly four decades. Henderson’s tenor saxophone solo on one of those original compositions, an uptempo C Minor Blues entitled “Granted” (dedicated to the renowned NYC Jazz Radio personality and promoter, Alan Grant, who recently passed away at 93), is the … Read More
Be-Boppin’ the Harmonic Major
As I’ve been recently treating the Harmonic Major scale like a new found toy, I’ve discovered, for myself at least, some of the unique and interesting qualities of this “hidden in plain sight” seven note harmonic system. The practice of adding a non-diatonic passing tone to the Major, as well as the Melodic & Harmonic Minor Scales and their modes began as the “eighth note” became the basic rhythmic pulse unit of the music called “BeBop”, and became known at some point as the “BeBop Scale” I think it was David Baker who first “bopularized” the term. In order to … Read More
The Best Music Transcription Software – Transcribe!
Simply put, Transcribe! is an amazing music software tool that allows you to take any standard audio file (mp3, wav, aif, & more), of a song, lick, solo, etc. which you’re trying to master; and, among other things, slow it down to variable speeds without changing it’s pitch, in order to make the transcribing or learning process so much easier. Transcribe! has been around for some time, and chances are you either already have it or have heard about it. If you haven’t, I’m happy to do some of the preliminaries and introductions. I highly recommend you make it’s acquaintance, … Read More
Pentatonic Power Drill, Pt. 2 – Pentatonic b3 One Note Jam & the Bergonzi Factor
The idea for this post is the merging of an exercise I posted previously on playing 5 Pentatonic modes from a common tone (it’d probably be helpful to check it out first), with formula #1 from the book “Inside Improvisation Series, Vol. 2 – Pentatonics”, by the eminent saxophonist and guru, Jerry Bergonzi. In this book, the Gonz presents 8 different formulas (4 descending and 4 ascending, based on steps and skips up or down), for creating pentatonic lines. What we’re doing here this time is taking Bergonzi’s pentatonic formula #1 (which is (x) skip step down (x) step down … Read More
Quick Picks That Kick – Bobby Hutcherson “The Kicker”
As I’ve been frantically trying to finish my new eBook “Slick Licks That Stick!” during the past several weeks and hadn’t had the chance to post anything new, I thought I’d do a quickie “Marc Meyers type” record review of an album I’ve been digging a lot lately, Bobby Hutcherson’s 1963 recording, “The Kicker”. Featured here, besides Hutcherson on vibraphone, is the always amazing Joe Henderson on tenor (of course), as well as Duke Pearson – p, Grant Green – guitar (tracks #4-6), Bob (he’s everywhere, he’s everywhere!) Cranshaw – bass, and Al Harewood on the tubs. Not only does … Read More
Feature: Russ Nolan – Jazz Composition and Improv – “One & the Same”
Friend and fellow tenorman, Chicago native and long time NYC resident, Russ Nolan features a very concise and insightful look into some of the processes that go into both jazz composition and improvisation, as well as highlighting similarities of bot Russ refers to composition as “improvisation out of time” and improvisation as “composition in real time”. Being an accomplished composer as well as a world class improviser, he knows well of which he speaks. Check out his 3 part post, and learn more about Russ. … Read More
Sonny Stitt Redux: Was he the “Stinkmeaner” of the Saxophone?
I recently received a comment on one of my posts from last summer entitled “Sonny Stitt – “How Many Keys on the Saxophone?” from a well informed gentleman by the name of Leo Cluesmann. In my post, I detailed the experience of my encounter in 1980 with the jazz legend, saxophonist Sonny Stitt, believing, correctly as I found out, that many people who are still around had their own Stitt stories. It is obvious, using Mr. Cluesmann’s comment as an example, that even more than thirty years after his death, Stitt still elicits some strong emotions from folks. I’ll include … Read More