Hi Herbie_29, welcome to the site. Firstly you should know that you are anything but a late bloomer here. I think you will find a very high percentage of people here started playing a long time after they hit 40.
If 29 is late bloomer than 58 is mouldy old dough*. I started with my alto at that age 3 1/2 months ago.
I got a teacher right away and stuck with him for 10 weekly lessons. I'm now "between teachers" and looking for another, but I can see the value of getting the creases ironed out before they become too well ingrained.
I have lots of books - maybe 6 all bought in a hurry and without too much consideration for what I needed to practice; and why. I am really only using one book now, because I'm set on learning some blues on the Sax before I get too old to play anything at all (I got Nick Beston's "Improvising Blues Saxophone") and it's really putting me through my paces. In the analysis section of the very first tune in the book (a self-penned simple 12 bar blues designed to introduce the main chords) he writes...if that was too easy for you try transposing it into D major. Yeah, right. And it's at moments like that I think...where's my teacher gone!!!!!!
I have subscribed to Nigel McGill's online
Sax School which may not suit everyone but it does have some good, basic and intermediate level lessons and he focuses a lot on Jazz, pop and blues standards in terms of the tunes he teaches. I am finding that I'm building up a nice collection of slow Jazz standards already - and playing some reasonably well.
Related to that, I'm downloading lots of music to my iPhone and iPad. I've never listened to some much Sax/ Jazz music in my life and it's really helping me to think about what I'm playing. I have a lot of the classic stuff already (Gene Ammons, Lee Allan, John Coltrane, Johnny Hodges, Cannonball Adderley, Charlie Parker etc and some contempory stuff; Michael Brecker, David Sanborn, Dave Koz, Phil Woods and some compilation albums.
I find that I'm preferring to listen to stuff like "Saxophone Ballads" as I then think..."oh, I could try that" and then I download the music from Wikifonia, or I might see it on the Sax School site, and listen to it on the iPhone. But the faster, more complex stuff found on albums like "Ultimate Jazz Saxophone" and "Gods of Tenor Sax" is good too, as it introduces me to players I would never otherwise have known about. These albums also tend to a bit lower priced than a current album, stopping me from blubbering if I buy one that I don't play twice - and it's great to sample the tracks on iTunes which can be a good "lesson" in itself.
I do have a tenor, too, hence the mix of players, but personally, I don't see a problem in listening to both the alto and the tenor played well, the techniques are probably transferable in most cases. That siad, I do have a (signed) Courtney Pine album, and I will never, ever come close to playing like that.
Stephen
*See what I did there? Bloomer/bread/dough? But some may not be old enough to know the tune reference. 🙂
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