Miscellaneous What are you working on right now?

[s.mundi]

Bright Eyes on soprano, La Vie En Rose on tenor.
Beginning to write an arrangement of Lily The Pink for wind ensemble, thinking of having a go at Libiamo (from La Traviata) aka 'Brindisi' for same.

What style or rendition of "La Vie En Rose" are you performing? I love that tune. Great pick

 

[thomsax]

"Looking Back" (Johnny "Guitar" Watson). A song that many, many .... UK blues bands covered (even The Beatles). We have some interest here for "pub rock" !!!! Plas Johnson did some works with Larry Williams.?

View: https://youtu.be/nIzSo7FISDw

 

[Jonesy]

What style or rendition of "La Vie En Rose" are you performing? I love that tune. Great pick

Trying to reproduce the Satchmo style. I have some of his embellishments, like chromatic runs, transcribed.

 

[Nick Wyver]

On baritone:
Fusion Suite - Catherine McMichael
Where Spirits and Demons Dance - Nigel Wood
Schwarzer Tanzer - Nigel Wood
Sonata - Ronald Caravan
Sonatina for Baritone Saxophone and Piano - James Rae

On soprano:
Cries of the Stentor - Nigel Wood
Miserere Paraphrase - Michael Nyman
Rumania - Dave Heath

Well, it makes a change from 12 bars.

 

[mrblackbat]

Necro alert. But this is a worthwhile conversation.

Currently working on Pat Metheny’s James.

On tenor it’s challenging with the range as you have a fair portion of the melody in altissimo territory. Front E getting used a fair bit along with my horn’s janky F# fingerings (actually a G fingering on most horns - Front F, L3, R1 and side Bb). I’m not consistent enough hitting the B above, which is a shame cause that sounds great on the final A.

Here’s Patrick Bartley playing it:

View: https://youtu.be/jhm1PQ6cJSU?si=9Q0ipOzk4IhGSXOi

 

[wakyct]

Bartley sets a high bar! Every time I hear him I like his playing more and more. That song reminds me I heard an interesting interview or maybe it was a master class with Lyle Mays a while ago I'll have to find it again.

This is the last week of the 10 week ensemble class I've been taking, our performance is on Friday. We're doing Comin Home Baby, Equinox, and Bessie's blues, I'm soloing on the first two. First ever band performance with the saxophone for me 😱

As a result of the recent b flat fingering thread I asked my teacher what they usually used, and it wasn't the bis key 😉. So among other things I've been practicing the first Klose exercise with side b flat.

 

[Wade Cornell]

I just posted this bit of strangeness. May be too dark to dig (unless you're a gravedigger).

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com

View: https://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-323064

To be honest I don't "work on" anything. I'm strictly a jammer. I get templates and then play/record an improvisation. If it doesn't come out OK, then I may give it another try. Nothing gets more than 15 minutes. If I can't make it work I go on to the next one. Life's too short (for me anyway) to work hard on music. it's a pleasure and I've got hundreds of templates that keep me plenty challenged.

 

[Woodpad]

working on the third generation of moulds for my pads.

 

[Vlad]

Working on?.. sussing out the 30 quid clarinet, the lower register sounds reasonably ok, just like a, erm, clarinet really.
(still seems happiest with the soprano reed )
the thing of the moment is mainly relating the fingers to the written notes and not thinking about what the saxophone would be doing. I have a few notes that I use as 'home' E C and B for instance and just relate them to the stave notes, there's more ledger lines than I've used previously. The old Tune a Day book is still a good 'un for this stuff.
Obviously I will often default to working out a few old tunes / xmas carols as a bit of relief.
I hasten to add I'm not blowing a clarinet or anything else for that matter at 8.30 am, just coffee 🙂

 

[Nick Wyver]

Martin Butler’s Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Strings. I need to pay special attention to some of the entries to avoid my accompanist glaring at me. 🙁

 

[Ballymenaboy]

Working through passages from Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto on soprano