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
Category Archives: Product Reviews
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
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
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
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
Is it just me, or does it seem like every other month there’s another ad for a fledgling synthetic reed co. that I hadn’t as yet heard of? Due to advances in technology, better marketing, the current tight economy, dissatisfaction with the inconsistencies of cane and the availability of a real and viable option; the result seems to be that more woodwind players than ever before are switching to synthetic reeds and regretting it less. The cane vs. synth debate is presented pretty much on point elsewhere, so no need to go down Redundancy Rd. here. Reeds, like mouthpieces, combs … Read More