Misc recording Dedication to the great Ronnie Ross - Walk On the Wild Side

[Taragot]

Ronnie Ross is my favourite Baritone player, I love his sound and phrasing as a jazz player and also what he did in pop recordings from Matt Bianco.
Here's me trying to play his famous outro solo on Lou Reeds "Walk on the wild side".
The story goes, that David Bowie as a boy convinced him to give him some lessons on sax and later booked him for the session of the "Transformer"-Album by Lou Reed.

I try to mimic the whole band with the instruments I have here, including a glass of wine.

Hope you like it.

best regards

Dirk

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsPpmGOeltA&list=RDWsPpmGOeltA&start_radio=1

 

[rhysonsax]

Good stuff - Ronnie Ross is also my favourite baritone player and I am lucky enough to own the modified Berg Larsen mouthpiece that Ronnie played for many years. Presumably it would have been the very mouthpiece that he used to record "Walk on the Wild Side".

Your video reminded me of this interesting story of how the bass part for Walk on the Wild Side came about.

View: https://youtu.be/XBXUP5GqYJs?si=eO39VXbeIQkScBo4


Rhys

 

[Taragot]

Good stuff - Ronnie Ross is also my favourite baritone player and I am lucky enough to own the modified Berg Larsen mouthpiece that Ronnie played for many years. Presumably it would have been the very mouthpiece that he used to record "Walk on the Wild Side".

Your video reminded me of this interesting story of how the bass part for Walk on the Wild Side came about.

View: https://youtu.be/XBXUP5GqYJs?si=eO39VXbeIQkScBo4


Rhys

I recall the story that you met Ronnie in person, no? I admire how he gives this certain extra to every popsong he plays in. It's always 100% himself, a bebop trained jazz bari player but fits so well. Walk on the wildside without him would be a good song, but with Ronnie's playing in the fading outro it's a milestone in pop history and you wish it would go on forever.

 

[Taragot]

And how does your/ his former Berg Larsen play? My "Bigband-Bari" is a low a Jupiter with a PPT mouthpiece, but going after this Ronnie Ross vibe feels much more natural on my (leaking) king zephyr with a very nice zinner mouthpiece.

 

[rhysonsax]

I didn't meet Ronnie in person but I did see him playing live once. He was playing alto exclusively that night at the Bull's Head at Barnes (famous London jazz venue) - I was sitting the the front row and had the good fortune to be mildly spattered with Ronnie's spit (well it was in the Punk era).

I was hoping that Ronnie's Berg Larsen (modified by Bill Wrathall) would carry some of his genius over to me and in particular would work as well on my Conn 12M as it did on his. The short version is that no magic transferred and it plays just like a good Berg Larsen. The main differences I could discern are that the shank has been extended and the bore of the shank is significantly larger in diameter. I think that bore increase may well date from when Ronnie was booked to play bass saxophone in the band for the soundtrack of the BBC "Beiderbecke Affair" series. Here is what that band sounded like (with the great Kenny Baker playing some Beiderbecke style trumpet or cornet and Ronnie playing in the style of Adrian Rollini, who also used a bari mouthpiece on the bass).

View: https://youtu.be/WN5vs0tb9hE?si=rLP2DIW03MeNZq8z


Rhys

 

[Nick Wyver]

I was hoping that Ronnie's Berg Larsen (modified by Bill Wrathall) would carry some of his genius over to me and in particular would work as well on my Conn 12M as it did on his. The short version is that no magic transferred and it plays just like a good Berg Larsen. The main differences I could discern are that the shank has been extended and the bore of the shank is significantly larger in diameter.

What variety of Berg is it?

 

[rhysonsax]

Ronnie's mouthpiece is the one in the middle. The shank extension obscures the Berg Larsen numbering completely but comparing it with these two more recent Berg Larsen pieces, I would say its tip opening and baffle are similar to the marbled piece (marked 110/2) and tip and baffle are smaller than the black one (marked 120/1).

Looking at the chamber area it seems that the sidewalls have been modified by rounding out a little but is still smaller than an Otto Link style chamber.

Rhys

 

[rhysonsax]

@Taragot - I have gone back to your video several times and listened on good computer speakers and now on very good headphones with a decent DAC. All the playing is very good, but I think that you could revisit the mix and make the baritone significantly more prominent. At the moment the bari seems quite distant.

Rhys

 

[Taragot]

Rhys,
thank you so much for listening so carefully. You are right that the mix is lacking and I revisited it again.

Here's what I did:
1. Made the Sax louder
2. Made the Bass a bit louder - these two are the main instruments
3. turned the guitar lower, I think it made the mix a bit muddy and rhythmical unclear and isn't so important (it's an accoustic guitar in the lou reed song anyway)
4. Dealt with the problem that I had no propper mic for the cajon. Therefore the bass(drum) was missing which is giving the downbeat, and the offbeat-heavy "snare"-sounds confuse when the "one" is missing. I tried to push the bass frequency with a notch filter and get rid of the (low) mids with an equalizer.
5. Made the high g (the wine glass) a bit louder and tried to get a better panorama

BTW: The mp3 sounds much "cheaper" than the wav-file out of my DAW. I never experienced that so clearly than this time.

I think, the track is clearer now. What do you think?

All the best
Dirk

View: https://youtu.be/FNSaDyJup80

 

[Stephen Howard]

I didn't meet Ronnie in person but I did see him playing live once.

I met Ronnie - once.
It was at the Bracknell Jazz Festival. Me and the guys I worked with in my London shop had taken a stall at the festival, providing on-the-spot repairs for the musicians.
Ronnie hoves into view, toting his bari. "Can you have a look at this? It's a bit iffy down the bottom end".
Something I've learned over the years is that the better the player, the more likely they are to blow through faults that would stop an amateur in their tracks.
Ronnie's baritone could stop a rhino.

I bunged it up on the table and started pulling keys off it. I honestly didn't know where to start. I'd been at it for half and hour or so and Ronnie says, while looking anxiously at the stage, "Is it going to be much longer?"
The guys he was playing with were setting up (a big band, if I remember rightly).

I've never put a bari back together so fast in all my life. It was nowhere near fixed but Ronnie seemed delighted with it. Took it up on stage and blew the nuts off it.

 

[Taragot]

Nice story, Stephen!
I'm shure that it's true what you say - a great player can easily blow over leaks and make horns sound great which would be unplayable for us.
However, I have the impression, that Ronnies "signature" range is the upper range of the bari and I did not hear him play low very often.
Of course that would be more true for his solo lines, whereas in section work he would of course play what's written down and of course major leaks would be a problem.
My King Zephyre has some leaks and I tried to fix them with all kinds of tricks. But Ronnies lines fly even on this horn 😉

 

[Stephen Howard]

However, I have the impression, that Ronnies "signature" range is the upper range of the bari and I did not hear him play low very often.

This is very true...but...that bari crapped out at around F, after which point it was 'Gorilla grip all the way'.
But maybe that's why he favoured the top end...'cos the low end didn't work! 😉

 

[rhysonsax]

Rhys,
thank you so much for listening so carefully. You are right that the mix is lacking and I revisited it again.

Here's what I did:
1. Made the Sax louder
2. Made the Bass a bit louder - these two are the main instruments
3. turned the guitar lower, I think it made the mix a bit muddy and rhythmical unclear and isn't so important (it's an accoustic guitar in the lou reed song anyway)
4. Dealt with the problem that I had no propper mic for the cajon. Therefore the bass(drum) was missing which is giving the downbeat, and the offbeat-heavy "snare"-sounds confuse when the "one" is missing. I tried to push the bass frequency with a notch filter and get rid of the (low) mids with an equalizer.
5. Made the high g (the wine glass) a bit louder and tried to get a better panorama

BTW: The mp3 sounds much "cheaper" than the wav-file out of my DAW. I never experienced that so clearly than this time.

I think, the track is clearer now. What do you think?

All the best
Dirk

View: https://youtu.be/FNSaDyJup80

I think that all of those changes together make the overall result miles / kilometres better. Great stuff.

Rhys

PS I have another story about Ronnie Ross that I have shared on the forum before. It relates to when he was playing baritone with Matt Bianco (I really liked them) and they had a single in the charts. They appeared live (miming) on BBC TV's Top of the Pops and Ronnie looked smart but slightly out of place as a middle aged jazzer amongst the other younger and prettier band members. Next week the single had climbed higher and Matt Bianco were back on, but this time with a younger and prettier musician miming to Ronnie's solo - but on trumpet !