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World saxophone collaboration

Adrian63

Adrian63

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I think ive got the title correct :
Apologies for not giving a link ; I'm on a Samsung pad and not being familiar with it can't get my head around some stuff...
I would imagine this has been well covered but anyway...
I watched this last night ; The guy from Sax.co.uk. set this up in the present covid scare. Some fabulous players ripping it up on a heavy groove. Players include Tom Scott , George Shelby , Gerald Albright , Mindi Abair , Dean Mongerio ( sic ? ) , Chad LB amongst others.
Some of the players I have never heard of... session guys ?
There is an alto guy about three or four in who is just great. Big respect to Jay Metcalf and the sax.co.guy for participating. They held their own ; following Tom Scott is no mean feat ! Mornington Lockett is in there but wasnt imo on the same page as everybody else playing a very weird solo...
Gerald Albright stormed it..
Snake Davies did his thing...
Where was @Pete Thomas ? You should have been up there man !
Yup ; it's probably been well covered here already as I say. I thought it was great; if anybody can provide a link it would be good to get some opinions as to this stellar cast.
Cheers
Ade
 
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I get so nervous when I hear soo many saxes playing too many tones.

"I love horns, especially when the're used right. Stax had it down. I thought the horns in Chicago or Blood Sweat and Tears were too big, too much for rock and roll. I guess people feel. "Well I gotta pay him for the whole time, so I'm going to use the whole time." Horns really ought to play a little bit, and then to be quiet!" wrote John Fogerty in his book "Fortunate Son".
 
Good Morning folks : A nice early start ; I'm gonna be waiting on a neurologist for a while so need to get back into a structured practice routine albeit light.
Thanks @randulo ; I was pretty sure this had been covered and have read through it.
So ; mixed opinions...
I think it's fair to say most found it somewhat repetitive ? Yeah I guess so.
Some of the featured players taking the chance to essentially " show off " ?
First thing that struck me was how the " jazz players " seemed to have problems . Chad LB is a great player but what was going on here ? A cascade of patterns with no relative meaning whatsoever. He managed to stay on the groove for all of fifteen seconds. Mornington Lockett the same ; he also managed to lose his already weak tone. Jeff Coffin ? No idea where he was coming from at all.
Jay , Jody , and Snake played a nice part easing back on it . This is where things seemed disjointed : Ideally after those passages there should be a build in intensity rather than another crashing in with a meaningless " solo "....it's all about the groove and half the players missed that completely.
The guys name will come to me ( about three in playing alto ). I read up on him earlier and wasn't surprised to find he is a session player touring and recording with the best. He has an outstanding " modern pop tone "...not my cup of tea but I totally appreciate his ability.
Some of those featured I have never heard of and doubt I will be chasing them down . Less is more and surely they could have simply stayed on the groove rather than forcing totally unsuitable " outside nonsense " over it..
On the plus side some great performances including Mindi and especially Dean Mongerio...that guy can play ! ( check out his take on " Round Midnight " ).
The logistics involved getting this together must have been tough . Is is what it is however and we take from it what we can I guess .
 
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The COVID effort is a laudable effort, but there's too much there, too many players. Three or four would be plenty. Also, recorded separately, they were mixed by someone else, I think, so coherence would be hard.
 
Adrian63 said:
And which three or for would you have chosen ?
Click to expand...
The three I'd choose would be

Narrowed to three? They all play well, but several put way too much density without a story.

Mindi, Snake and Jody are very expressive and mostly stay in the genre without a lot of unneeded harmonic digressions that impress us sax players but aren't adding to the music.
Second team, Gerald is smoking, Simon sounds great, messing with the tone to give it a voice, Gerald nice.

They're all world-class players but a few bore the crap out of me, personally.
 
Also, as we said in the other discussion, the "song" (aka, excuse for solos) is too monotonous. They needed to add more breaks and dynamics. Maybe muted the bass and piano at different times, changed key, anything to break up the monotone rhythm and density.

I apologise for the above bout of negativity! I promised myself to not say things like that.
 
It's kind of repetitive and very full on, but I wouldn't say it's boring. I'd never get bored of listening to other players do the kind of acrobatics I wish I could do myself. I've listened to it quite a few times.

You have to remember that this is a massive advertising opportunity for these players, so of course they'd be inclined to 'show off'...imagine you get the call to appear..."hi, can you record a 30 second solo? We'll slot you in between Chad LB and Gerald Albright"... You'd definitely feel the pressure to play your flashiest stuff!

There are some different techniques in there though. In terms of solo construction/building I think jay Metcalf really nails it (and it's a welcome break from the more full on styles). I do admire Chad LB for just going full throttle straight away though

Most of all though, I like Tom Scott's section, just because of the Bizet quote he slots in. I'm a sicker for a cheeky quote.

And the biggest plus of all, is that it prompted all these cafe saxophone collaborations
 

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