Pete's Blog

Hi Pete
Your saxophone notes have been a beacon of light for me as personal tuition is too expensive. With regard to visualising ones tone, I find this endlessly fascinating and exasperating. I play a 1937 Conn 10m tenor so you can imagine how delighted I was to stumble across your La Marsalaise sound clip; just beautiful!

I’m totally obsessed by the variety of masterful tonal qualities that forms a collective legacy of the great tenor men. Dexter Gordon (another Conn 10m man) captures a bottomless gravitas in the lower register which gathers in sonority as it rises through the range. On ballads (Cry Me A River recorded in 1955 for example) his lamentating tone becomes a resonating chasm, masculine but nevertheless vulnerable. Those legendary players understood the power of vibration, of course I always understood that thanks to Coleman Hawkins, but Dexter sounds different again, investing Lester’s line with Hawk’s tone and some!

In stark contrast Harold Land (again an old die hard Conn 10m man) plays with such a rapid Parkeresque conception (a forerunner of Michael Brecker perhaps?) that the notes spill out of his horn like quickly poured champagne. He will then hold up his impulsiveness with a sustained, single note impassioned plea before continuing to tumble and cascade. There is so much harmalodic iridescent expression to his playing (whilst maintaining immaculate pitch) that I’m sure he keeps company with the devil! Where Dexter Gordon is measured and self assured in that titanic tone of his, Harold is sinewy like twitching nerve ends, he doesn’t play he springs; indeed, his nickname is ‘The Fox!’

Then there is the ‘vehement adherents’ of Ben Webster’s gruff and bellicose tone when he used to play boogie: Ike Quebec and Illinois Jacquet. This is a tone that I would dearly love to capture but it eludes me; a tone that blisters with edge. Maybe they hit the reed a certain way, I’ve never been able to get to it (certainly both Ike and Illinois achieved this on Conn’s as well during the 1940’s, which is more known for its smooth, rounded, voluptuous potential). It sounds like they tap into a kind of tonal dissonance, a distortion of pitch that gives them the Lion’s roar yet they always remain in tune . . . I can’t figure out how they do that.

Aside from long notes, I hope to achieve visualisation of tone through vocalisation. I am now trying to vocalise each note as a means of achieving greater colour. I’m not familiar with other tenor sax horns but what strikes me about the Conn is just how temperamental it can be in terms of consistency of pitch. Its tonal delivery is extremely sensitive to nuance. I’m now trying to control that sensitivity by nuanced inflections from the back of the palette like a vocalist. Unfortunately my diaphragm isn’t developed so support is lacking, but my instincts tell me that diaphragm, palette connection is vital, how else could Ben Webster hurtle out such majestic, masculine, swaggering vibratos? (I’m thinking of Poutin’ off his King of the Tenor album on Verve recorded in 1953). Listening to that track is like being pinned up against a wall by a grizzly bear and having your face licked!

I’m constantly amazed at the physicality of those old Conns, they really are like women with a big soft bottom end, feathery mid range and sing like nightingales up top. If you respond to their sensitivity and handle them the right way, the emotion can pour out of them.

I play with a size 8 Otto Link New York with two and a half, three, three and a half van dorens. I also have a 120 Berg Larson which gives me snatches of sound reminiscent of Buddy Tate or Harold Land but of course I’m nowhere near that; it’s nice to dream!

I hope I haven’t rambled too much. I’m just trying to piece progressions together so I can improvise on some simple melodies (is there such a thing?) so your notes have been just great. I know you’re busy but if you manage to find the time I’d appreciate any comments. I hope this gets to you so by for now and take care.

Kind regards
Wayne

HI Guys I'm really new to this only been playing for a few weeks but I was reading the above with interest. This evening I was playing some backing tracks via the computer to see if I could improvise against any of them. Some bits sounded alright at least to me anyway. I was using windows media player to play the tracks. This plays a kalidoscope effect which seems to change with the mood of the music. Just thought this might help in the visulisation of colours.

Regards

Bill

There's also something similar in iTunes, but I think we all have a much more personal visualisation.

BTW, I just realised I hadn't added the link to the article on tamingthesaxophone.com, it's there now.

Pete

Interesting. I do listen carefully as I play/practice, especially long tone exercises but never though bout this in these terms before. I'm not great at overtones and though I am improving steadily I struggle to get that great subtone sound. I remember this from your Taming book and the article. I need to do more work here I think.