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
Category Archives: Feature
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
I am taking this opportunity to happily announce here that I am now a proud endorser for BRANCHER-FRANCE Saxophones. I had the good fortune of meeting Msr. Pascal Brancher, Mr. BRANCHER-FRANCE himself, maker of fine saxophones and accessories, in March 2014 at the Frankfurter Musikmesse (Frankfurt Music Fair). The Brancher stand was located directly across the isle from the Bari Woodwinds booth (manned by Jim Cavanaugh and Ron van Ostenbridge) whose Bari Hybrid mouthpiece and synthetic reeds I have been playing exclusively and endorsing for a number of years, going back to the days of the company’s founder, the late … Read More
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
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
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
I recently discovered an awesome book by NYC alto saxophonist / composer John O’Gallagher, entitled “Twelve Tone Improvisation” (Advance Music) after stumbling upon it via a Dave Douglas podcast. O’Gallagher is a monster alto player with a fresh & unique concept. After hearing some of the music from the podcast off of his latest CD “The Anton Webern Project” and how “sophisticatedly funky” it sounded (Anton Webern gets jacked by Ornette meets Sun-Ra meets Bitches Brew), I got so excited I bought both the book & the CD. Although I’ve previously had some minimal exposure to twelve tone rows in … Read More
From the mid 1970’s until the early ’80’s I lived in Munich, Germany. Aside from being a beautiful, culturally oriented city lying at the foothills of the Alps, Munich hosted (somewhat unceremoniously, it seems in retrospect) one of Europe’s premier jazz venues at the time, known as the “Domicile” The “Domicile” was on par with Ronnie Scott’s in London, the Montmartre in Copenhagen, and several other major European clubs. It was part of “the circuit”, so one got to see all the major jazz legends who came over from the States (plus some of the top European musicians), on a … Read More
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
After seemingly scoring some points with Marvin (Gaye) and Harvey (Fuqua) with a brief tenor solo on “‘Til Tomorrow” (see Part 1), I talked my way into having them invite me back for some more fun the next day. When I found out they were going to be recording in Munich for a few more days, before Marvin headed back over to Ostend, Belgium, I had to try to convince them I could still be useful; and while I don’t consider myself one of those individuals born with the gift of gab, whatever I told them worked. … Read More