Mike is a jazz saxophonist & composer committed to a brighter future for music. ...Full Bio
Starting around 1:30 Nate Smith really lets loose over this odd meter, funky Adam Rogers tune, wow! Also, it’s nice to hear Adam Rogers in his element. Hard to catch all of the Fima Ephron stuff, but I can assure you it was tasty and locked right in. This is another set from my 2011 stint in NYC.
Adam Rogers – Guitar
Nate Smith – Drums
Fima Ephron – Bass
55 Bar, NYC, 10.13.2011
Halfway through our week of bootlegs, it’s time for a little Kurt Rosenwinkel playing Coltrane’s 26-2 (come on, I’m still a sax player!). He visited Chicago a while back with his standards trio, and they swung their asses off. I couldn’t believe how effortlessly Kurt was able to work over one of the most difficult tunes out there.
Jazz Showcase, Chicago, IL, 4/19/2014
Kurt Rosenwinkel – Guitar
Orlando le Fleming – Bass
Jochen Rueckert – Drums
Back in October 2011 I spent a month living in Brooklyn trying to check out and play as much music as possible. I stumbled into Zinc Bar my second day in town – ready to throw down at their jam – after checking out Greg Hutchinson’s show over at Smalls. Aaron Goldberg was playing with Greg’s group that night, and when he later walked into Zinc, I was relieved to have already sat in and said my piece in the jam.
When Aaron jumped on stage, the room lit up, and Tivon Pennicott and Jaleel Shaw were ushered onto the stage. Drummer Francisco Mela and bassist John Benitez had already been playing and absolutely burning. So, the group started playing an uptempo version of the minor standard Lotus Flower, and they just tore it up. Check out Tivon starting around 2 minutes in, incredible sound & feel, and he builds a beautiful solo. Aaron Goldberg takes over around 5 minutes in, enough said…Enjoy!
Next up in our series, we present the incomparable Mark Turner in a set from just 4 days ago! He brought his group to Chicago’s newest and hippest jazz venue, Constellation. They played 2 sets that drew mostly from his latest album, Lathe of Heaven, which hit the shelves only a couple weeks ago. What an experience!
I must admit, I picked up the album as soon as it came out, and I listened to it a few times with a bit of difficulty. My ears were unsure of how to process some of the 2 part horn harmonies without chordal support. However, witnessing this group live in such an intimate setting as Constellation drew me in, and I was spellbound by the end of the show. Mark’s tone coated the room with such a lush, dark, and gentle hue, and his compositions proved both creative and satisfying.
This week I’ll be treating you to some of the incredible music I’ve experienced over the past few years. Each day you’ll be getting a new bootleg that I’ve recorded (yes, on my iPhone) from a live show that blew me away. We begin the series with the Ben Wendel Quartet at Smalls on June 5, 2014. Ben’s control of the saxophone is astounding. Notice his use of circular breathing in his a-capella intro: he doesn’t even break a sweat! And who can beat that rhythm section –Joe Sanders and Gerald Clayton have played so much music together that their level of communication is telepathic. I was also blown away by my introduction to Fela Kuti-inspired drummer Henry Cole.
Ben Wendel – Sax
Joe Sanders – Bass
Gerald Clayton – Piano
Henry Cole – Drums
It’s been a whirlwind of a summer. I almost moved to London, but then I heard the burritos over there are terrible, so last week my girlfriend and I moved into a new apartment together instead. So, the posts stopped for a while, but it’s time to get back on the horse!
I’ve been thinking a lot about harmony and come to believe that the difference between today’s best jazz musicians and the rest of us is their masterful command over the minutia of harmony.
I realized that I don’t have as a good a grasp of the plethora of dominant alterations out there as I should.
Those of you with some degree of jazz exposure may be thinking…
…I know what a dominant chord is, and I know what a b9 and #9 sound like. It’s not rocket science.
Fine. But are you sure you aren’t just blindly applying alterations regardless of each particular context? Do you REALLY know when the piano player is hitting a #11 or b13, or are you just thinking…
Let’s get one thing out of the way: you need to learn to play your instrument before you can start learning to play jazz. Trying to improvise over an Eb-7 chord when you are still trying to remember whether it’s a D-flat or D-natural is challenging, but it’s impossible if you are at all unsure of the fingering for a high Eb! There are many foundational elements that every musician must master regardless of their genre of specialty, including instrument-specific technique, music theory, and stylistic fluency. But how to build this foundation is a hotly contested topic in the world of jazz education.
I studied music at Northwestern University (class of ’07), where classical reigned supreme. I was fortunate enough to be afforded the opportunity to study as a part of Dr. Fred Hemke’s studio, where I took 2 years of classical sax rep, saxophone quartet, and technique lessons, all while simultaneously focusing on my Jazz Studies major. Through his experience, I gained enormous respect for the dedication, ungodly technique, and general mastery of the saxophone championed by my classical peers. Although everybody knew I was one of only a small handful of jazz guys, they all treated me as a saxophone equal, and I think we all learned a lot from each other.
When you hear John Coltrane, you immediately know it’s Trane. It’s not the notes he’s playing or his dazzling technique that makes him sound uniquely like himself. It’s his sound. Every jazz musician, at some point, ventures into the abyss in search of their own, unique sound. Your sound is what makes you, well, you. But where do you start?
Let’s begin by defining the core elements that determine one’s “sound”:
Charlie Parker played on any horn, mouthpiece, and reed combo he could get his hands on, and he always created the same, beautiful, distinctive sound that defines the music we continue to play. How was he able to do this? It’s not his equipment that made the sound. It was his conception.
In order to sound like yourself, you need to have a crystal clear idea in your head of what you want to sound like before you put any air into your horn. So save your money and stop buying new mouthpieces. Instead, find something that gives you a consistent sound and lots of control, and stick with it.
Jazz improvisation is inherently subjective. What makes one solo “better” than any other is often a matter of taste, a preference for a given style. But while articulation, swing feel, and phrasing vary wildly from one great player to the next, every noteworthy improviser is able to effortlessly demonstrate a tune’s chordal movement. Just as any writer worth her salt showcases complete mastery over grammatical convention, the conversant jazz musician must be fully in command of the harmonic structure on top of which they are improvising. Simply put: You’ve gotta be able to play the changes!
Arguably even more important than their virtuosic technique and impeccable rhythmic feel, what makes the great players truly great is their unshakable fluency of harmonic language. Until you are playing all the changes over a tune, your not really playing the tune. All the cool licks in the world won’t make you sound any more proficient than a truckload of glue will convince anybody that little Tommy’s mustache is a all-natural, glorious Tom Selleck.
Last weekend I met up with a former student, who is now a good friend and has since shifted his focus away from saxophone toward his studies in biology at the University of Chicago. But despite spending most of his time on science that I can’t even begin to comprehend, he still wants to keep improving as a musician. We were playing through a few tunes when he asked for a bit of help cleaning up his articulation. As I was offering a few exercises and tips, it dawned on me…
Why focus on eighth-note articulation? Eighth notes form the foundation of jazz. The style with which one articulates and swings their eighth note is, in essence, the core of one’s sound. This post will focus on the first part (articulation), and at some later date I would like to return to swing analysis.
