I saw a poll on Sax on the web at today about who the greatest sax player ever is. Here are their results:

Charlie Parker	48	27.75%
Ornette Coleman	0	0%
John Coltrane	38	21.97%
Brecker	18	10.40%
Mule and Rascher	10	5.78%
Branford Marsalis	3	1.73%
Lester Young	11	6.36%
Plas Johnson	1	0.58%
Cannonball Adderley	14	8.09%

So Charlie Parker and John Coltrane get the top two spots. Makes sense. The other players on the list certainly sound great as well. Who do you think should also rank in the top tiers?

A few more contenders I would add to the list of possibilities would be-

Coleman Hawkins
Stanley Turrentine
King Curtis
Joe Henderson
Dexter Gordon
Paul Desmond
Hank Mobley
Eddie Harris
Wayne Shorter
Sonny Rollins

It’s somewhat a question of taste. Charlie Parker and John Coltrane were pioneers of bebop though.

Another question might be who you think the greatest living saxophone player is.

Here are a few books that I have used in learning the sax

Jazz- Patterns For Improvisation By Oliver Nelson, Charlie Parker: Charlie Parker Omnibook - E-flat, Charlie Parker: Charlie Parker Omnibook - B-flat Basic Aebersold Play-Alongs- Volume 54 - Maiden Voyage,

The Aebersold books are great fun to play with and are useful in learning tunes. They range in style and difficulty across over one hundred books.

The Charlie Parker Omnibook gives you many melodies and the improvisational genius of Parker in a single book.

Even if you mostly play jazz or another style, being comfortable with classical music will add something to your playing- specifically technique, precision, and a different set of musical ideas you can draw upon. Just listen to Bill Evans to hear the classical influence.

Intermediate/Advanced Aebersolds- Volume 64 - Salsa Latin Jazz, Volume 16 - Turnarounds, Cycles & ii/V7s

If you play some classical music or even if you mostly play jazz, it can be beneficial to study from the classical perspective.

Rubank Method is a series that ranges from beginning to advanced. It includes scale exercises, fingering challenges, classical melodies, and other exercises.

Rubank Elementary Method Saxophone
Rubank Intermediate Method Saxophone
Rubank Advanced Method - Saxophone Vol.1
Rubank Advanced Method - Volume 2 (Saxophone)
You should definitely haveThe Jazz Theory Book.

As James Moody says, “The Jazz Theory Book should be in every musician’s library regardless of the level of their ability.” As author Mark Levine says himself,
“A great jazz solo consists of:
1% magic
99% stuff that is
Explainable
Analyzable
Categorizable
Doable”

You’re on your own for the magic bit, but his book will help you with the 99% part. And while The Jazz Theory Book is great, Mark Levine is a piano player and for saxophone specific issues the Art Of Saxophone Playing can help. It can be a bit dry though.

Starting with any note if you ascend by fifths you will reach all twelve keys. Descending by fifths is the same as ascending by fourths. If you begin with C major there are no sharps or flats. F Major has one flat. G Major has one sharp.

Enharmonic equivalents, such as G# sounding the same as A flat, have the same pitch, but are written differently. They show relationships and one may be easier to read or think about than another.

I went to Carmel this week for a master class by George Young.  The week started off with a concert on Monday night.  George played classical music for the first set and then jazz for the second.

Talking about his piece “For Diz” written for Dizzy Gillespie and somewhat based on ‘A Night in Tunisia’ he said that Dizzy Gillespie was in the audience one night when he played it and then came up to him after the show.  Dizzy gave George a hug and a kiss on the cheek and called him a “greasy *&$# $*&@.”  He didn’t understand this for a long time, but then was told many years later that it really was a great compliment.

Throughout the week I learned tons of things about the saxophone and playing music.  Heard some more great stories too.

A saxophone quartet generally is made up of a soprano saxophone, an alto saxophone, a tenor saxophone, and a baritone saxophone.  It can also have two altos, one tenor, and a baritone.  Occasionally they will use bass saxophones or other varieties even.

Arrangements have been written for many jazz pieces and classical pieces.  Here are two videos of saxophone quartets.

Above- World Saxophone Quartet playing ‘Hattie Wall’

Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin

So I bought and received a course on ear training.  It’s actually directed at piano players, but everyone should play a little piano.

I’ll write about my progress on it.

Saxophones are mostly made out of brass, but they can be plated with other metals, painted, or lacquered.  Almost all saxophones have a clear lacquer on the surface.  A black saxophone gets its color from black nickel plating or paint.  Silver is another metal used to plate saxophones.

The metal, black nickel or silver usually (occasionally gold), actually changes the tone of the horn and can give it a bit different characteristic.  Flute can be made with a high percentage of silver- and that is usually desirable.  On saxophones, silver gives a “brighter” sound while black nickel produces a “darker” sound.  Maceo Parker plays a gold plated Selmer Mark VI alto.  Probably mostly for visual effect.

My Keilwerth tenor (in photo) is plated with black nickel.  Overall I like the sound of the horn.  However, the plating is not the biggest factor in how you will sound.  The mouthpiece, reed, and ligature among other things are much more important.

When saxophones are painted however, it does not help the sound.  There are no acoustic benefits to putting paint on top of the metal.  In fact, many saxophone players think it “deadens” the sound.  Basically, the paint is for effect and can only hurt your sound.  Some players go as far as saying the clear lacquer on most saxophones hurts the sound as well and that as it peels off over time the sound actually improves.

Selmer has even made a line of saxophones which do not have the clear lacquer at all.

The craziest material I heard of for an instrument is the a solid platinum flute.  William Kincaid played one, which he bought at auction for $187,000.   His critics say that he needs an $187,000 to sound good…. but it seems to work for him and apparently he can afford it.

I told you that your marketing should be an extension of your art, so here’s a real-world example:

Back in 1997, when “The X Files” was still on the air, a friend of mine who called himself Captain T put out a record called US Aliens that was all about conspiracy theories, Area 51, alien cover-ups, and the Incredible Hulk. It was intentionally funny, but he would stay in character and play it straight : a guy who was trying to tell the world, through music, about the aliens and conspiracies.

He wanted to send his album to college radio stations, but couldn’t afford to hire a real radio promoter. When we decided to do it ourselves, I was about to do things in a very normal way, but I thought I should take my own advice, and make his marketing an extension of his art, his image, his message.

(Also, I was thinking about that kid in the college radio station that gets 20 CDs a day, all exactly the same, in boring envelopes. I wanted to make his week.)

So - we bought 500 black envelopes, 500 sheets of brown oatmeal paper, 500 alien head stickers, and the best part : 500 huge stickers that said “CONFIDENTIAL MAIL - DO NOT OPEN FOR ANY REASON”.

We did a mail-merge to the 500 program directors at 500 college radio stations, so that each one got a personalized letter that said this:

---

Dear __name__,

You don’t know me, but I live in the bushes behind your station.

I have been here for 12 years and your station has saved my life many times over.

The music that you play has kept me going through my darkest of days and for this I owe you everything.

In this spirit, I must tell you that a man named Captain T found me in the gutter yesterday, and he taught me about what is really going on with the government and what really happened down there in Area 51. This man has a message that you have to get out to the world, because people need to know the TRUTH!

Signed,
Man in the bushes, looking through your window right now

---

We took each letter out to the backyard and literally rubbed it in dirt, crumpled it into a little tiny ball, then flattened it out a little bit, put the CD inside, sealed it into a black envelope, put the alien head sticker on it, covered it with the huge sticker that said “CONFIDENTIAL MAIL - DO NOT OPEN FOR ANY REASON”, and mailed them out to each station.

We laughed for hours while doing it.

Now, imagine you’re that kid working at the radio station, getting 20 CDs a day with normal boring packages, saying “Please play my record!” Then you get this scary black mess of a package that says “DO NOT OPEN”, and when opened is covered in dirt and says, “You don’t know me, but I live in the bushes behind your station.”

375 of the radio stations played it.

Every now and then, my friend Captain T gets approached by someone that used to work at a college radio station back in 1997. They tell him they still remember it, because it was the coolest package they ever got.
–
Derek Sivers
CD Baby (cdbaby.com) - sales and distribution for musicians
HostBaby (hostbaby.com) - web hosting for musicians

First off, don’t buy a fuzzy saxophone swab!

I had one myself, but then I cut off the cap and threw it away. They work somewhat well at first and are convenient. BUT as they age, the fibers come off and get stuck to your saxophone’s pads. These fibers then create micro leaks which can hurt your sound. Some saxophone players have used them for years and think that they work wonderfully. However, I know of problems they have caused too. If you go to a repair shop and they have a special light, it can reveal the micro leaks in the horn.

It takes a little more time, but get a swab with a string that you run through the saxophone. I have a one for the body and one for the neck and mouthpiece.

Personally, I clean my saxophone after I use it every time. Some players almost never clean their horns. My cleaning consists of running the body swab through twice and then cleaning the pads on the spoon keys as well as swabbing the neck and mouthpiece.

A few weeks ago while I was taking some music classes, I started writing a list of songs that I mostly know, somewhat know, or would like to know.  When I began learning saxophone, a lot of emphasis was placed on reading tunes.  These days I am playing more things by ear and trying to have more to play.

Paul Contos once made up a story about a hypothetical guy who had played third chair trumpet in a symphony for years, but when his friends asked him to play something at home he didn’t have a chart and couldn’t.  Don’t be that guy!

Here’s my growing list (in no particular order):

• Nica’s Dream
• Night in Tunisia
• All Blues
• Green Dolphin Street
• Dolphin Dance
• Freedom Jazz Dance
• Come Candela
• Mambo Inn
• Afro Blue
• Sabor
• St. Thomas
• Billie’s Bounce
• Anthropology
• Fee Fi Fo Fum
• Wave
• Desafinado
• Girl from Ipanema
• Favela
• Four
• Bye Bye Blackbird
• Skylark
• Crazeology
• Bebop
• Sugar
• Midnight Special
• Song For My Father
• Ceora
• Watermelon Man
• Maiden Voyage
• Impressions
• So What
• Scrapple From the Apple
• Moose the Mooch
• Don’t Stop the Carnival
• Harlem Nocturne
• Moanin
• Work Song
• Somewhere Over the Rainbow
• Spain (with intro)
• La Fiesta
• My Funny Valentine
• There is No Greater Love
• Have you Met Miss Jones
• Black Orpheus
• Softly as the Morning Sunrise
• Alone Together
• You and the Night and the Music
• Shadow of Your Smile
• Recordame