There’s no good improviser in any style of music who hasn’t spent time mastering their pentatonic scales. The question, as always, is how do we master them and make them work for our own playing? The Pentatonic Pitfall Many beginning improvisers immediately start working with basic patterns and simply aim to rip through them as [read more…]
Background Max Ionata (Born in 1972), is one of the top Italian saxophonists on the scene today. Thus far, Max has released 70 albums as a leader and sideman with international and national artists. Max has performed as both a leader and a sideman at many of the world’s most popular jazz venues with musicians. [read more…]
I’ve loved Lester Young and Stan Getz since I was 10 years old. Something about their warm tone and assertive yet flowing time moves me, as I’m sure it does many of you. I’ve spent most of my life wrestling with my horn trying to achieve this fluency, with countless transcriptions and hours upon hours [read more…]
Introduction Mark Sepinuck has been collecting and selling vintage mouthpieces and saxophones for over 30+ years. Over the past few years, Mark decided to come out with his own line of mouthpieces since he was not entirely happy with the vintage/modern mouthpieces available on the market today. His goal was to create a mouthpiece that [read more…]
Playing the saxophone requires a lot of practice and repetition if you want to be the best. Warmups are a big part of keeping your muscle memory sharp and increasing your lung capacity so that you can play better, for longer. Doing saxophone warmups and practice exercises before performing also help to focus your mind [read more…]
Like many of you I’m sure, my first loves on jazz saxophone were people like Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley, Phil Woods, Stan Getz, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Joe Lovano, Michael Brecker, etc…. you get the idea – the modern lineage that I connected to easily and shaped this music that we love. I immediately wanted [read more…]
I know I’m not the only guy out there who loves to futz around the music store, trying the latest gear, wanting to play a different horn or a different mouthpiece, looking for that edge – that mystical “something” in the sound that just gives me that little “extra boost” toward sound nirvana. But if [read more…]
This article is a lesson that comes to us courtesy of world-renown saxophonist, Jon Gordon, and also appears in his book, Foundations for Improvisors. For nearly all jazz improvisors, the chord progression that is most familiar is the two-five-one (ii-7, V7, I), which is the basis of be-bop harmony. However, as we learn to expand [read more…]
This article is in response to an article by renowned NYC jazz saxophonist, Mike Lee titled, “How Did ‘Licks’ Become a Four Letter Word?”. Click here to read it if you haven’t done so already. Mike and I agree on one thing. There is no faster way to go from a clueless beginner to [read more…]
The advent of social media has allowed me to witness the re-emergence of the phenomena of “lick” haters. The complaint against licks, I think, boils down to musicians sounding uninspired and clinical because their improvisations sound like exercises and don’t illicit a sense of freedom and spontaneity that true art requires. The conventional wisdom is [read more…]
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