Great Players The evolution of the saxophone sound

[Pete Effamy]

Well, classical flutists and violinists have been using vibrato for centuries.

In many African languages (I am told) pitch conveys meaning so timbre is often used to convey emphasis. This carries over from speaking to singing.

When Africans came in contact with European musical instruments and traditions, the use of vibrato in the European tradition was therefore similar and familiar to their experience in singing and speaking; early mentions of slave musicians in America often mention their use of vibrato and the tonal quality of their playing as well as their rhythmic usages. The creators of jazz were also in that tradition; they generally had extensive experience with European musical traditions through brass bands, piano music, etc., and so vibrato was naturally carried over into jazz.

The most characteristic aspect of jazz vibrato usage is what's called the "terminal vibrato" where a note starts straight and vibrato is applied after the start of the note, often increasing in width (and sometimes in speed) as the note persists. The application of the vibrato can create an effect much like a second breath accent thus giving a sforzando effect. In jazz playing you don't just play a note and let it lie there, you do something with a long note.

A tradition in jazz (though, sadly, disappearing) that does not exist in classical music is the concept of each musician having his "own sound". In the jazz tradition this is probably the most important aspect of musical development, more important than technique, or theory, or sightreading, or knowing hundreds of tunes. No one wants to be told "you just sound like a copy of XYZ." There are many things that go into a musician's "own sound" and his individual use of vibrato is one of those - an important one. I once was recognized from across a football stadium when warming up by sound alone.

Classical musicians sound different too (to one another), it just takes a better tuned ear to differentiate as the accepted parameters in which their tonal concepts lie are a lot narrower. It's a bit like telling the difference between Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Scott Hamilton, Brecker or Bob Berg, or Parker and Sonny Stitt. Having lectured a friend of mine on why I didn't rate a particular "star" "lead" trumpet player in a high profile 'crossover' orchestra (his vibrato is way too narrow), she then lectured me on how you can tell the poorer quality eastern european orchestras and in particular the "wrong" bowing of the strings.

The most characteristic aspect of jazz vibrato usage is what's called the "terminal vibrato" where a note starts straight and vibrato is applied after the start of the note, often increasing in width (and sometimes in speed) as the note persists.

I think that this is a long-gone cliche now. All types of vibrato are used in jazz these days, and if you come to think about the amount of recordings from all over the world of all styles of music, the cross-fertilisation has never been so abundant.

In jazz playing you don't just play a note and let it lie there, you do something with a long note.

If you mean by this that classical players don't, it simply isn't true. The examples of older music or choral music using 'pure' voices/tones have a beauty and delicacy of their own and fit the music.

 

[ChrisI]

Well, classical flutists and violinists have been using vibrato for centuries.

In many African languages (I am told) pitch conveys meaning so timbre is often used to convey emphasis. This carries over from speaking to singing.

When Africans came in contact with European musical instruments and traditions, the use of vibrato in the European tradition was therefore similar and familiar to their experience in singing and speaking; early mentions of slave musicians in America often mention their use of vibrato and the tonal quality of their playing as well as their rhythmic usages. The creators of jazz were also in that tradition; they generally had extensive experience with European musical traditions through brass bands, piano music, etc., and so vibrato was naturally carried over into jazz.

The most characteristic aspect of jazz vibrato usage is what's called the "terminal vibrato" where a note starts straight and vibrato is applied after the start of the note, often increasing in width (and sometimes in speed) as the note persists. The application of the vibrato can create an effect much like a second breath accent thus giving a sforzando effect. In jazz playing you don't just play a note and let it lie there, you do something with a long note.

A tradition in jazz (though, sadly, disappearing) that does not exist in classical music is the concept of each musician having his "own sound". In the jazz tradition this is probably the most important aspect of musical development, more important than technique, or theory, or sightreading, or knowing hundreds of tunes. No one wants to be told "you just sound like a copy of XYZ." There are many things that go into a musician's "own sound" and his individual use of vibrato is one of those - an important one. I once was recognized from across a football stadium when warming up by sound alone.

It's debatable whether flute players have been using vibrato for centuries, at least to the extent as is now common. To quote from the following article: Flute Vibrato: Breathe Life into your Flute Playing - The Flute Coach Vibrato originated merely as ornamentation and was not a component of flute tone. It was produced using the fingers over the tone holes of early flutes, termed flattement. Typically it was only used for longer and paused notes. The modern vibrato originated in the late nineteenth century in France and has now became an integral part of flute tone and music. Therefore, music written prior to the 19th century was traditionally played without vibrato.

 

[Pete Effamy]

It's debatable whether flute players have been using vibrato for centuries, at least to the extent as is now common. To quote from the following article: Flute Vibrato: Breathe Life into your Flute Playing - The Flute Coach Vibrato originated merely as ornamentation and was not a component of flute tone. It was produced using the fingers over the tone holes of early flutes, termed flattement. Typically it was only used for longer and paused notes. The modern vibrato originated in the late nineteenth century in France and has now became an integral part of flute tone and music. Therefore, music written prior to the 19th century was traditionally played without vibrato.

Interesting stuff. It must be remembered that virtually all the instruments of the orchestra has far less muscle than their modern counterparts - clarinet having a smaller bore and pitched in C for example. Vibrato being part of the 'modern' flute sound is as much part of adding muscle as well as interest I expect.

 

[turf3]

Classical musicians sound different too (to one another), it just takes a better tuned ear to differentiate as the accepted parameters in which their tonal concepts lie are a lot narrower.

The difference is that for classical instruments there is one (or two, or three, depending on how many leading "schools" there are) ideal tone characteristic that everyone aspires to. In jazz tradition this is not the case; although the increasing influence of the jazz education industry is tending to push everyone to sound and phrase the same. (When was the last time you heard a young tenor player playing in the Lester Young tradition?)

 

[jbtsax]

In this "Steps to Excellence" teaching video, Eugene Rousseau describes and demonstrates a "classical" vibrato. It should be noted that Eugene Rousseau studied with Marcel Mule at the Paris Academy.

 

[Targa]

Every time Marcel Mule gets mentioned I see a cross between Marceau and Muffin.

 

[Pete Effamy]

The difference is that for classical instruments there is one (or two, or three, depending on how many leading "schools" there are) ideal tone characteristic that everyone aspires to. In jazz tradition this is not the case

No? Explain Bebop, Hard Bop, Cool/West Coast, Funk and whatever the derivative's are.

(When was the last time you heard a young tenor player playing in the Lester Young tradition?)

There will be somebody - but I do know about these youngsters - and glorious it is too..

View: https://youtu.be/3a5NFg2R4qk

View: https://youtu.be/_ZdMxFiUf9Q

 

[Pete Effamy]

In this "Steps to Excellence" teaching video, Eugene Rousseau describes and demonstrates a "classical" vibrato. It should be noted that Eugene Rousseau studied with Marcel Mule at the Paris Academy.

The detail between the tenor player and Eugene in the piano trio first up is quite something. The vibrato and also the perfectly matched execution of the trill is lovely detail. The vibrato feels relatively big for such a slow piece. I like it a lot though, it really is very sweet playing - no naff use of the word "sweet" intended at all.

Use of vibrato in this quartet is quite different

View: https://youtu.be/Lr-IfERDyQk

 

[turf3]

No? Explain Bebop, Hard Bop, Cool/West Coast, Funk and whatever the derivative's are.

What, are you saying you can't tell the difference between Stan Getz and Arnett Cobb playing a ballad?

I was saying that an idealized "correct" tonal quality is not something in the jazz tradition. Yes, the guys who followed Bird tended to play with a tone similar to his, but note that Bird himself particularly enjoyed the playing of Johnny Hodges and Lester Young, neither of which has a similar tone concept to that of Bird. Remember, Lester Young said "Don't be a repeater pencil". Meaning, develop your own sound (sound being a combination of tone, inflections, vocabulary, and so on). How one uses vibrato is an integral part of his individual sound. Compare and contrast Lee Konitz, Sonny Criss, Pete Brown, and Hank Crawford.

There's a point in Art Pepper's autobiography where he describes playing more and more tenor under the influence of Coltrane, until he realized that he needed to get back to alto and to his own sound on alto, before he got "lost in Trane".

The great jazz musicians have always spoken of the importance of developing one's own sound, not copying others. As jazz becomes more and more a creature of the conservatory, which is by nature a teacher-obsessed learning method, I expect this emphasis will decline and the need to emulate a "ideal" sound and way of playing (the one of one's teacher) will predominate. There are also innumerable stories of great jazz players enjoying the playing of those whose concepts and sounds were dramatically different than their own, all the way back to Louis Armstrong's admiration of Bix Beiderbecke (and, of course, the reverse).

 

[Pete Effamy]

Compare and contrast Lee Konitz, Sonny Criss, Pete Brown, and Hank Crawford.

I'm making the point of people in the same eras, not a comparison/contrast the likes of David Sanborn and Paul Desmond. Largely people played to the style of the day, which also fits with classical music. Music evolves, though classical music - playing practices - evolve rather more slowly as they are steeped in far more tradition and mostly the genre has the vast majority of its players recreating music. Having said that, it happened for much of jazz too - Miller, Basie, Ellington - all creating their own brand of 'classical' music and going on to play it for much of their gigging lifetime. In this respect, the old adage of having to play what the audience knows and loves rather than the 'new direction' - to be 'Tap' about it - holds true for all genres.

What, are you saying you can't tell the difference between Stan Getz and Arnett Cobb playing a ballad?

I hadn't mentioned him.

 

[jourard]

Tone, or timbre, is a vast area of musical expression, and saxophone is especially flexible in that area. Wayne Shorter reflects on tone in this excellent interview. The John he mentions is Coltrane. His reference to "J.J." is to J. J. Johnson, who had a signature trombone sound...

View: https://youtu.be/1xWt053BBP0?t=1900

 

[turf3]

I'm making the point of people in the same eras, not a comparison/contrast the likes of David Sanborn and Paul Desmond. Largely people played to the style of the day, which also fits with classical music. Music evolves, though classical music - playing practices - evolve rather more slowly as they are steeped in far more tradition and mostly the genre has the vast majority of its players recreating music. Having said that, it happened for much of jazz too - Miller, Basie, Ellington - all creating their own brand of 'classical' music and going on to play it for much of their gigging lifetime. In this respect, the old adage of having to play what the audience knows and loves rather than the 'new direction' - to be 'Tap' about it - holds true for all genres.

Well, certainly at any given time there's a fad in sound and people tend to follow that fad. But Lee Konitz, Sonny Criss, Pete Brown, and Hank Crawford were all active professionals in 1960 and their styles varied widely. (I picked some of the biggest contrasts I could think of.)

Anyway, my point still remains that the jazz tradition strongly values a player's individuality, and one's vibrato is part of that individual style. The classical tradition sets an "ideal" sound that individual players try to emulate, and deviation from that ideal carries a much bigger risk in the classical world than in the jazz world.

And my other point is that in my opinion, the conservatory model of instruction tends to lead to the classical mode of establishing an ideal that needs to be followed, even when that model of instruction is applied to improvised music; and that the jazz tradition of learning one's craft on the bandstand tends to foster individuality so that each musician can set himself apart from others.

I bet if we could travel back in time and hear the performances of classical musicians in 1700s and 1800s, when they too "learned their craft on the bandstand" and there were no recordings, I bet we'd find a lot greater variation in playing styles amongst those musicians, than one would find amongst a similar sample of today's classical musicians.

 

[jbtsax]

Anyway, my point still remains that the jazz tradition strongly values a player's individuality, and one's vibrato is part of that individual style. The classical tradition sets an "ideal" sound that individual players try to emulate, and deviation from that ideal carries a much bigger risk in the classical world than in the jazz world.

And my other point is that in my opinion, the conservatory model of instruction tends to lead to the classical mode of establishing an ideal that needs to be followed, even when that model of instruction is applied to improvised music; and that the jazz tradition of learning one's craft on the bandstand tends to foster individuality so that each musician can set himself apart from others.

These ideas match closely what I was taught and experienced studying instrumental music education. Take the wind sections of the major symphony orchestras for example. From one orchestra to the next, there is a "characteristic" trumpet sound, a "characteristic" flute sound, a "characteristic french horn sound, etc. Some players who have careers as solo performers often have a more "distinctive" sound. But even that sound stays within the narrow boundaries of the "characteristic" orchestral sounds for that instrument. Individual players who cannot match that "characteristic" sound do not blend well in their section, and if there are too many of them their section doesn't balance with the other sections.

In symphonic bands and wind ensembles the same principles apply, although there is even more of an emphasis of each instrument blending well within a section, primarily because the sections for the most part are larger than those in the wind sections of orchestras. There is also a bit more leeway as to the tonal color of the ensemble as a whole leaning toward brighter or darker sound, but much of that is determined by the instrumentation chosen by the conductor.

Liebman's "Find Your Personal Saxophone Sound" concept just doesn't apply to classical saxophone playing in my view. There is often a lot of confusion in discussions about embouchure when those posting their views don't designate whether they are talking about jazz and popular styles of playing or classical playing.

 

[jourard]

The first day I was a member of the USC Concert Band sax section (1976) the director saw my metal Beechler mouthpiece from the conductor's chair and said what are you playing? Everyone else had a Selmer C*, I was coming from Florida, straight from an r 'n' b and rock musical setting. The first chair alto sold me a C* because he was trying out the S-80. They had a challenging repertoire and my private lessons focused solely on basics and on the band book.

 

[jbtsax]

The first day I was a member of the USC Concert Band sax section (1976) the director saw my metal Beechler mouthpiece from the conductor's chair and said what are you playing? Everyone else had a Selmer C*, I was coming from Florida, straight from an r 'n' b and rock musical setting. The first chair alto sold me a C* because he was trying out the S-80. They had a challenging repertoire and my private lessons focused solely on basics and on the band book.

That reminds me of an experience one of my best private students told me about. He went to a try-out for the Utah All State Band and that year's director wouldn't even let him audition because he had a metal alto mouthpiece (which, in fact was a Selmer C* identical to the mouthpiece played by Fred Hemke). The student was devistated since he would have made it into the band---probably first chair. Needless to say the director, a classical clarinet player, was a complete idiot.

 

[squeak]

I don't possess any profound insights, but think the major drive in evolution of saxophone sound is desire to innovate and the need to stand out from the crowd to succeed. For the most part, it is the direct opposite of classical music, where I still struggle to find Bach more interesting to listen to than interpreted by Glen Gould. There is no shortage of supremely gifted saxophonists, but must be utterly brutal to make a living that way when there is no longer a need to play at local venues. You really have to stand out relative to everyone else. Like his music or not, Derek Brown, a very humble individual when it comes to rate his own proficiency, is an example of the latter:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxnlR0AvaRY

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18D7d6chum0

 

[jourard]

Nothing in style becomes more dated than vibrato. Cannonball Adderley had flawless technique, and the only aspect that now sounds dated to my ears is his vibrato on the mid to late fifties albums, mostly standards, it is much faster than today's players. Long before he jumped on the funk bandwagon, his playing of standards, despite some very saccharine string arrangements, remains astounding. "I've Never Been In Love Before" being a good example.
I was totally Berg Larsen metal with wide tip opening back in the eighties, but I eventually realized it was impossible to get a warm tone with these macho mouthpieces, and have settled on Beechler hard rubber mouthpieces for alto and a Beechler Bellite for tenor. The goal is Johnny Hodges haha...

 

[peterpick]

oh gosh, vibrato.... i find mine takes over when my mouth is tired. there are good and bad examples, nearly everyone uses some..... but the classical opera singer vibrato, such as luciano pavarotti, i find actually unbearable. there is some nasty singing done in all forms. in jazz, what about albert ayler? that's some sensational vibrato, almost comical, almost parodic, harking back to an imagined history of gospel music, dragging up the ghosts. not all vibrato is sentimental.