Sax ‘n Wedge: A Life Goal

This last week I was so preoccupied with chasing storms that I hardly blogged at all. When I did, naturally it was about weather. Jazz, music, and the saxophone have languished in the background, at least blogically speaking.

Not, however, in practice. When I headed out west for some dryline action, my horn went with me. It always does. My chase partners know that when I head for any chase over a day in duration, the sax is as much a part of my travel gear as my suitcase, laptop, and camera. Some folks toss a baseball or football while waiting for storm initiation; I practice my saxophone. Any time is a good time to get in a few licks.

I have several reasons for bringing my horn along on chases, all of them having to do with eventualities. The most likely scenario is, as I’ve just said, that I’ll get a chance to woodshed my instrument. Far less likely–but still, ya never know–is the possibility of winding up in some restaurant where a band is playing, and it’s the kind of band that makes me wish I could sit in for a tune or two. Like I said, unlikely; most Great Plains towns aren’t exactly jazz hotbeds. Still, as I learned back in the Boy Scouts, it pays to be prepared.

My main reason for taking my saxophone with me on storm chases, though, is because of a particular life goal of mine: I want to get a good photo, or maybe some video, or even both, of me jamming on my sax while a monster wedge churns away in the distance. For that matter, I’ll settle for just a nice, photogenic tornado of any shape or size. I just want some kind of visual record that captures the raison d’etre of Stormhorn and the essence of who I am as a storm chaser and jazz saxophonist.

Assuming that a storm is moving slowly enough to make a photo shoot practical, my preparations once towers start muscling up are:

* Rain-X windows

* Remove camera from case and make sure it’s ready for action

* Get tripod out of trunk

* Assemble saxophone

Just a handy checklist. Reasonable enough, wouldn’t you say?

So cross your fingers for me, or better still, pray. This season could be the one where I fulfill an ambition and get some very cool photos to show for it.

I’m a maniac, you say? Of course I am. A maniac is just someone with a different kind of dream.

April 28, 2010 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Life, Saxophone, Storm Chasing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Diminished Lick for Cycle of Dominants

The following pattern is nothing new. If you’ve worked at all on the diminished scale, you’ve doubtless encountered it. But have you worked it out in descending half-steps until it lies smoothly under your fingers from the top to the bottom of your horn? Because that root movement downward by minor seconds is what makes it, or any diminished pattern, particularly useful.

Let’s take a look at  why this is. First, here’s the lick:

Diminished Lick

Note that while each measure brings the diminished scale pattern progressively downward by a half-step, the corresponding chord progression is moving around the circle of fifths. Why?

Remember tritone substitution?

The diminished scale functions perfectly as a scale of choice for V7b9 chords and their tritone substitutes because of its symmetrical nature. Due to its structure, every diminished scale will accommodate not just one, but four possible V7b9 chords.

For instance, a half-step/whole-step diminished scale beginning on the note A will obviously work with an A7b9 chord. But it will also work equally well with C7b9, Eb7b9, and F#7b9.

Note that the A7b9 and Eb7b9 have roots a tritone apart, as do the C7b9 and F#7b9. In other words, tritone substitution is hardwired into the diminished scale.

Herein lies the magic of diminished scales descending by half-steps.

Look closely at the above diminished pattern and you’ll note that root movement downward by a half-step gives you the same scales that you’d arrive at with the circle of fifths.

For instance, in the first bar, the diminished pattern starting on the note C repeats itself sequentially a half-step down in the following measure, starting on the note B.

But what scale would you have arrived at if, instead of dropping a by a minor second, you had dropped by a perfect fifth to the note F, as you would do if you were moving around the circle of fifths? Guess what? You’d have the same scale–i.e. B, C, D, Eb, F, Gb, Ab, A. You’d just be starting on a different note of that scale.

Now, if you’re thinking…

…you’ll realize that because every diminished scale contains four possible roots, you can also achieve the results I’ve just described by moving upward by major seconds, another easy root movement.

You can also move down by a major third or a perfect fifth, but it’s easier to focus on the two root movements that are close at hand.

In summary

When woodshedding a diminished scale lick, it particularly behooves you to get it laying smoothly under your fingers in root movements of descending half-steps and ascending whole steps.

And that, Grasshopper, is that. The rest is up to you.

September 26, 2009 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

“Will I Ever Become a Good Jazz Improviser?”

What does it take to become proficient at improvising jazz? Will I ever become a decent player?

Have such thoughts ever nagged at you? Perhaps you’re at the stage where you’ve acquired a decent technique, but you’re uncertain how turn it into flowing, musically cohesive improvisations. Will you ever be able to make the leap between mere good chops and great jazz solos?

Or maybe you’ve been playing the sax for a while and you think you’re making strides. Then you come across a YouTube video of some young firebrand who’s blowing circles around anything you ever dreamed of playing, and your heart sags. At that point, you think one of two things: What am I wasting my time for? or I can be that good too if I work at it.

Depression or determination. I’ve felt both emotions at different times. When I was 26 years old, I took a year of music at Wayne State University in Detroit. During my time there, living on campus, I made arrangements to practice after hours in the music building, where I normally woodshedded from 9:00 p.m. to as late as 3:00 in the morning. I worked hard, doing scale exercises, running patterns, and memorizing solos from the famous Charlie Parker Omnibook.

One evening I walked into the building early and heard sounds of music drifting from the auditorium, where one of Detroit’s high school jazz bands was playing a concert. I listened for a bit. They sounded pretty good! But I had work to do, so I broke away and headed for one of the empty classrooms, which I preferred over the smaller practice rooms. Then I assembled my horn and began to work on one of the Omnibook transcriptions I was memorizing.

A few minutes later, several of the high school band members walked into the room. The concert had ended, and they had heard me playing down the hall and decided to get an earful. Cool. I didn’t mind if they hung out and listened. I chatted with them a bit, and then the bass player said, “Hey, we gotta get James.” The other guys agreed that James definitely needed to be gotten, and one of them left to look for him.

I continued to work on my Bird transcription. Pretty soon, in walked a fourteen-year-old kid with a tenor sax tucked under his arm. He listened to me for a minute, then said, “Oh, ‘Ornithology.'” He put his horn to his mouth and started to rip through the Parker solo from memory as flawlessly as if his genetic makeup included an ‘Ornithology’ chromosome. Then, having demonstrated his mastery of a solo that I was only beginning to get my arms around, the kid proceeded to double-tongue a chromatic scale up into his horn’s altissimo register, high enough to sterilize the flies in the room.

I wanted to slap him.

The kid went on to tell me how he planned to master not just the saxophone, but all of the woodwind instruments. Whether he has entirely fulfilled that lofty ambition in the years since, I can’t say, but I do know that today, jazz virtuoso James Carter plays a large number of the woodwind family in addition to the tenor sax.

Fellow saxophonist Tom Stansell, whose family owns and operates the celebrated Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Muskegon, where Carter spent a summer as a student years ago, once commented, “No one ever told the kid that it’s hard to play fast.”

As for me, I just kept plugging away at my saxophone. My journey as a musician hasn’t taken me to New York at age 21 or on international tours. Rather, it has placed me in Caledonia playing for cows in the pasture at the west edge of town and taking gigs as they come, which they seem to be doing more and more of lately.

And they should be. Because while I’m no James Carter, I’m a good sax player. I’ve been told on different occasions that I don’t realize how good I really am, and maybe that’s true. I hope so. Coming from capable musicians, compliments like that certainly encourage me, because I’ve worked hard to bring together all the technical stuff–the scales, arpeggios, patterns, solo transcriptions, and everything else I’ve labored at over many years–into something that sounds interesting, original, personal, passionate, and…well, musical.

I hadn’t initially planned to share the above anecdote, but there’s a point to it: discouragement and inspiration often come from the same source, and they’re just a matter of how you look at things. Maybe you’re not playing the way you wish you could play today. But if you stick with it, one day you’ll look back and realize how far you’ve come. The technique that you’re presently unsure what to do with will have become your servant, the building material of ideas which you spin with confidence and ease out of your horn. You may not be the next Michael Brecker–or maybe you will be–but that’s not what it’s about. Do what you do for the love of what you do, and everything else will follow in its time.

Not all of us have the same advantages. Not all of us grew up in musical families or were steeped in jazz at an early age. Not all of us have the same natural aptitude, the same educational opportunities, or the same life circumstances that permit us to practice as much as we’d like. But all of us have the ability to choose whether to persevere or give up. So…

“Will I ever become a good jazz improviser?”

If you quit, the answer is no.

If you keep at it, studying the music, listening to great players, and practicing diligently and consistently, the answer is yes.

Don’t rob yourself of the joy of playing music worth hearing. Don’t deprive the world around you of the pleasure of hearing you. And don’t belittle the talent God gave you, because into that talent is woven a purpose that is higher than you may imagine.

Stay with it. You’ll be glad you did.

August 5, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Music, Nature, Saxophone, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Playing Drums: Bet You Didn’t Know It Was This Easy

I’m visiting with my youngest brother, Brian, and his family in Dallas. Brian and I are the musical bookends among our siblings, Brian having earned his music degree at North Texas State University and gone on to make his living as a professional drummer. I haven’t yet shown him the following link. I’m sure he’ll feel stunned to know how easy playing the drums really is. Yes, stunned is no doubt the word. You don’t even need drums, not today in this age of quality technology. All you need is the miraculous keyboard featured in this video. If you’re playing rock and roll, just make sure to play the bass drum on da firs’ beat and on da turd beat.

Heaven help me and all other horn men if the guy in the video ever turns his eyes toward the saxophone. We’ll all be out of a job.

June 30, 2009 by
Filed Under: Humor, Jazz, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Sax on the Beach

Looking north along the Lake Michigan coast at sunset.

Looking north along the Lake Michigan coast at sunset.

Sax anywhere is great, but sax on the beach is fantastic.

Take a Squeegee to your naughty mind. I’m talking about playing the saxophone, thank you, and about one of the places where I particularly enjoy playing it. There’s something very special about heading out to the lakeshore and practicing my saxophone accompanied by the sound of the waves and the cry of the seagulls.

If you follow the jazz side of this blog, then you know that I love to play my horn outdoors. My practice habits are fairly eccentric in that regard. Many years of apartment dwelling, which include neighbors whom I haven”t wished to disturb, have taught me that my woodshed is wherever I choose to make it. The state parks. The cow pasture at the edge of town. Most often my own car, parked by the railroad tracks out in the countryside.

But there’s no place quite like the shores of Lake Michigan.

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken my horn out there, but yesterday provided a reminder of what I’ve been missing. Regretfully, I didn’t have my saxophone with me, but I did have my sweetheart and best friend, Lisa. From our little outing in Muskegon State Park, I thought I’d share a few images with you of…

sailboats out on the waters…

sailboats1

…the north boardwalk along the Muskegon channel…

muskegonboardwalk

…dune grass silhoutted by the setting sun…

marramsilhouette

As for the great sand dunes that are one of the hallmarks of this beautiful state, I’ve already given you a glimpse of them up at the top of the page, but the really imposing dunes lie in the northern and southern ends of the Lower Peninsula. Perhaps in another post I’ll include some shots of Sleeping Bear, Warren Dunes, P. J. Hoffmaster Park, and Nordhouse dunes–vast tracts of sand, marram grass, and wooded dunes that reflect the wild beauty of the Michigan outdoors. It is a wide open sublimity that speaks to something deep inside me, and that has colored the music I play for many years.

One of these days soon, I will visit the lakeshore again–this time with my saxophone, to serenade the gulls, the waves, the far-stretching sands, and the setting sun.

June 26, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Life, Music, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Saxophone, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Loudest Sax Player Ever

My friend and fellow musician Dave DeVos once told me, “You are the loudest sax player I’ve ever known.”

His words weren’t a compliment, just a statement of fact tinged with a slight mix of incredulity and annoyance. I’m a very loud sax player, much louder than I realize. As the old cliche says, I don’t know my own strength.

Of course I can play softly, but soft is not my default mode. Part of that is attributable to my horn, which is an old Conn 6M “Ladyface” that is very good at translating the air I move through it into immense volume levels. Another part is due to my mouthpiece, a Jody Jazz classic #8. But I think the main reason I’m a loud player is directly linked to the guy behind the horn. I just seem to have a knack for massive sound output.

I wasn’t always a loud player. I entered my freshman year in college a quiet young saxophonist. My sound at the time was styled after Tom Strang, a local alto man who owned a jazz bar in Ada called the Foxhead Inn. Tom had a smooth, mellow sound, very pleasing to the ears. He was not a loud sax player.

As an early influence, Tom’s tone pointed me toward a somewhat Desmondesque approach, not exactly the kind of robust Cannonball sound that could melt the wax in a listener’s ears at 100 feet. It was more a kind of foofy-foof-foof tone–subdued and, I thought, pleasantly sophisticated.

It was this mellow, sedate sound that I brought with me to the student big band at Aquinas College, where I sat under the august directorship of jazz professor Bruce Early. I was assigned to the first alto chair, and my lack of experience was such that I felt eminently qualified to fill the position. Clearly word of my abilities on the sax had preceded me, and Bruce had simply placed me where he knew I belonged. First chair. It was inevitable.

I’ll never forget my first awakening to the possibility that maybe I wasn’t all that and a supersized order of fries. The band was playing through some tune I’ve long since forgotten, and in the middle of the chart there was space for an alto solo. Cool. A chance for me to show my stuff, give Bruce a taste of my chops. I launched into the solo. Foofy-foof-foof, I played, subtly, while the rhythm section whanged away.

Bruce stared at me. “Play louder,” he said.

Ah. Louder. Okay then. Foof-foof-foofy-foof! I declared, in a volume that could almost be heard from ten feet away.

Bruce’s stare became a glare. “Louder!” he barked.

My gosh, what did this guy want? Here I was, foofing as loudly as ever I had foofed, and Bruce was calling for more.

I returned his glare with a desperate glance.

Foof? I played. Foofy-foof!

I was trying, but I quickly trended toward the softer, cocktail lounge volume that I was used to.

That did it for Bruce. “BLOW!!!!” he yelled. “For crying out loud, BLOOOWWWWW!!!!!!”

Some of the more seasoned musicians snickered, and my face went red as a beet. Hell’s bells. Fine, if it was volume Bruce wanted, I’d give him volume. And I did. I had a lot to learn about embouchure and tone production, but at that point I instinctively dipped into the raw essentials, filled my lungs with air, and blew my ever-loving cheeks off.

From that time on, while Bruce yelled at me for any number of things, my volume level wasn’t among them. He never again complained that I was playing too softly. Nor has anyone else, for that matter. Not ever. I’ve played with highly amplified blues bands and church worship teams and outblown them without using a microphone. I’ve been asked plenty of times to turn it down a bit, please. But no one has ever come to me and said, “Could you play louder? I can barely hear you.”

Just ask Dave. He’ll be glad to tell you, as soon as his ears stop ringing.

June 22, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Church Worship, Entertainment, Humor, Jazz, Life, Music, Nature, Relationships, Saxophone, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Grover Washington Jr. Playing “Winelight”

Before there was cool jazz, there was Grover Washington. If you ever want to find out just how much you can pull out of a pentatonic scale in a one-chord jam, Grover is the guy to listen to.

That simplicity was the reason I felt lukewarm toward him back in my coming-up days when I was cutting my teeth on bebop. Charlie Parker was my man back then. Grover was pabulum. Not that I could play like him, but I felt confident that I could easily reproduce what he was doing if I wanted to.

Evidently I had a lot more ability back in college when I was just learning my horn than I have today.  Then again, there’s the possibility that I was just plain dumb. Listening to Grover today reminds me that music doesn’t have to be harmonically dense and lightning-paced in order to be both challenging and good. Grover Washington had a beautiful sound, fabulous chops, and a distinctive,  personal approach–and what he could do with a simple groove is by no means simple.

Just check out this video of a 1981 performance in Philadelphia and you’ll see what I mean. Here is Grover Washington Jr. playing “Winelight” on the alto sax. I think you’ll agree it’s a sublime rendition.

June 15, 2009 by
Filed Under: Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Nature, Saxophone, Tornadoes, Video Tagged With: , , , ,

Francesca and Friends at Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts

Next weekend the annual Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts will draw several hundred thousand people from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon. The festival, now over thirty years old, is one of West Michigan’s most popular springtime events–an amalgam of literature, art, dance, music, and ethnic food, with the operative word being variety.

On Saturday, June 6, I will be playing sax with Francesca and Friends on the Calder Stage from 3:15 to 4:00 p.m. If you follow this blog, then you’re familiar with Francesca Amari. She’s a stellar performer who covers the spectrum from jazz standards to pop to show tunes, and a lovely friend. It’s always a pleasure and privilege to share the stage with her as a side man, and it will be very cool to have the band featured on the festival’s main stage.

Obviously, I want to be in prime playing shape. I hope to spend some serious time this week practicing my horn after having been away from it for several weeks. A truly nasty bronchitis put me out of commission, and I’m still suffering from an irritating dry cough that feels as if a little gremlin were sitting inside me, tickling my lungs with a feather. The doc finally prescribed an inhaler for me Thursday to help me get past this thing, and I’ve spent some time getting reacquainted with my saxophone. Feels so good!

While time away from the woodshed unquestionably has a deleterious effect on one’s technique, I’ve found that it often frees up creativity. I don’t know why this is–I just know that it’s not a bad thing to take a break from my horn every now and then. I lose something, but I also gain something. And I’m not the only musician who has experienced this phenomenon.

Anyway, I’m back to my patterns, scales, licks, and interval studies. It’s nice to hit them afresh. What’s already there comes back quickly, and it has the advantage of feeling new.

But about the festival. Come on out and get an earful of Francesca and Friends, not to mention the many other sights, sounds, and savory tastes of Festival 2009. It’s a great way to spend a June afternoon in West Michigan.

May 31, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Event, Jazz, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Chicken Soup for the Solo

The meds that the doc prescribed for me seem to finally be working their mojo. I’m still coughing, but it’s no longer a painful cough, and yesterday’s feverishness has passed. Today I went out and bought a bunch of Amish chicken and a whole passel of assorted veggies and rice, and I made up a huge potful of chicken soup. I’ve heard more than one person tell me that the old wive’s tale is true: homemade chicken soup has a wholesome, curative property. I believe it. People breathing their last gasp have been known to revive at a mere whiff of my chicken soup.

Anyway, it’s been a week since I’ve played my horn, and in the interrim, I’ve felt so lousy that I haven’t even thought about it. As for storm chasing, ha. Good thing I didn’t go down to Tornado Alley last weekend with Bill and Tom–not only would I have been miserable, but by now they would be, too.

Storms have been lighting up the Plains pretty much all week. My friend Kurt Hulst was out in Oklahoma yesterday with his pal Nick, and he posted some nice pics on his blog. I’m assuming he caught the supercells in northern Texas earlier today as well. Can’t wait to see those photos.

Of course, I’ve been out of the action. Out of practice on my sax, out of the picture for chasing storms. In another couple of days, though, I should be ready to rumble. I just hope the weather feels the same way. My head is finally back on my shoulders only barely enough that I might start giving a rip about the forecast models, and maybe even be able to make some sense out of them again.

Enough for now. Tornadoes can wait. Right now, a bowlful of chicken soup is calling my name. If I eat enough, I might find myself in good enough shape by tomorrow to blow a few notes on my saxophone. Chicken soup for the solo. I like that idea.

May 1, 2009 by
Filed Under: Humor, Jazz, Life, Music, Saxophone, Storm Chasing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Sax Practice and Railroad Tracks

I just returned from a nice, two-hour saxophone practice session out by the railroad tracks.

The railroad tracks?

Oh, I guess I haven’t told you about my practice habits. They have as much to do with where I practice as what I practice.

Living in an apartment, I try to be considerate of my neighbors. I like to think that they’d enjoy my music, but realistically, there’s only so much that even the most ardent jazz lovers can take of listening to the same licks, patterns, and scales repeated ad nauseum, blaring down the hallway and through the walls. So for years, my practice room has been my car. My routine has consisted of driving to the outbacks of Kent County and parking at various locations along the CSX tracks between Kentwood and Lansing, where I practice my horn and watch for the trains to roll by.

I love trains. Obviously, I also love playing my sax. It’s nice to be able to combine those two interests in a productive way. Tonight, as I do so often, I parked at one of my favorite trackside spots near a small community called, appropriately, Alto. I didn’t see any trains, but I had a most productive practice hashing out some diminished and diminished/whole tone licks, and woodshedding the Charlie Parker tune “Ornithology” in several keys.

I always return feeling good about my playing after a session like tonight’s. The time goes so fast! And that’s as it should be.

The best way to make a living is to earn money doing things we’d pay money to do. Playing the sax is one of those things. I can’t say I make a living at it, but it certainly supplements my cash flow; it’s part of the picture of my livelihood. I’ve been at it a long time now, and most of that time I’ve been practicing in my car by the tracks–or, during the warm months, often outdoors. If I ever do buy a house and gain an honest-to-goodness practice room of my own, I think I will still maintain my railroad track sessions. I’d miss them far too much not to. Habits are hard to break, and there’s no reason to break a good one in the first place.

April 3, 2009 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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