Why don't tenors sound like this anymore?

[alljoe]

Thank you Dr. Foucault . I would have thought that the increasingly easy availability of access to this music--in the form of youtube vids, inexpensive cd re-releases, filesharing/downloading, etc.--would make it more likely that young players are going to be influenced by a wider range of players/styles beyond their immediate institutional environments.

i dont see why anyone would think the educational system would want to let students be influenced by sounds other than they want produced. directors and teachers get rated on how well their students perform particular styles at particular venues. its like the schools teaching the test material for standardized tests. im hearing a lot of these for the first time so i know it wasnt introduced in my school in the 72-80 time frame. sad but true

[rleitch]

i dont see why anyone would think the educational system would want to let students be influenced by sounds other than they want produced. directors and teachers get rated on how well their students perform particular styles at particular venues. its like the schools teaching the test material for standardized tests.

Because the reality behind "the system" are small faculties of players like this (follow the links to the woodwinds faculty section):

http://creativeandperformingarts.hum...sic/music.html

Of course there is a curriculum, but that hardly needs to be--or is--the only thing students are exposed to. Also, I would imagine that folks like the ones at Humber are as acutely aware of and concerned about these kinds of issues as anybody. I would imagine that all the good profs work hard to encourage their students to listen widely and develop their own tastes, styles, and sounds as part of the curriculum.

Pax
R.

[alljoe]

True...but at least when you get old people start to like your tone

or they just say that because youre old and they are being kind

[alljoe]

True...but at least when you get old people start to like your tone

or they just say that because youre old and they are being kind

[paulwl]

Thank you Dr. Foucault .

Foucault yourself, bud

I would have thought that the increasingly easy availability of access to this music--in the form of youtube vids, inexpensive cd re-releases, filesharing/downloading, etc.--would make it more likely that young players are going to be influenced by a wider range of players/styles beyond their immediate institutional environments.

I would hope so. Still, they have to be encouraged to seek it out. That is where that cosmopolitan attitude needs to have an influence. And I really think that so far, that is mostly a European and/or NY thing. Music outside the conservatories just means more there.

[mrpeebee]

EE, I had a feeling that you knew George. And I also know that both of you guys do a real good job of representing your Baltimore roots on the word stage!

Mr. PB, I've seen Jacquet do that mouthpiece cap/mouthpiece/reed thing a million times, but I never though much about it until MartinMusicMan brought it up just now. But I've seen a lot of oldtimers do that over the years, I just figured that they were just trying to get more clearance between the mouthpiece and the reed. I've seen players (not IJ) jam the cap between the mouthpiece and reed and leave it there between sets, while their horn was in the stand. So Mojo probably hits the nail on the head with his explanation. And yes, Mojo really does know his way around a saxophone mouthpiece.

That particular mouthpiece was history by the time I joined the band. It had just been stolen and IJ was sifting through quite a few old TM Links, trying to hone in on a permanant replacement. He sounded great on all of 'em to me. The mpc pictured is the one he obtained through a trade with Dexter Gordon, and the one he used on the Lionel Hampton 'Flying Home' recording session of 1942. So if this 'Texas Tenor' sequence was shot around 1988 or '89, Jacquet had been playing the thing close to 50 years by that time. So it was a high mileage piece, and I'm sure that he got his money's worth out of it!

Thanks for the additions Mr. side C. Mentioning Dexter, I think it's good to have some some clips of him here too.

First clip is Dexter playing 'Cheese Cake' in 1962. I think he still plays his Dukoff MPC here, that he started to play in the second half of the 40's.



Second one is a ballad of the North Jazz Festival of 1979 (posted and discussed before in this SOTW thread), where he is back on an Otto Link (Florida), after his Dukoff and saxophone where stolen around 1964:



The more I see that last one the better it seems to get !

[mrpeebee]

You can see in that Asleep At The Wheel vid how little mpc Arnett takes in. It does look like that's what he's doing when he slides the mpc cap behind the reed -- he's bending it back out to straighten the reed and widen the gap at the tip.

I'm not sure if Arnett also used that 'cap between reed/MPC' trick (the video and picture showing that trick are from Illinois Jacquet). Also, looking to close ups of video clips of IJ and Arnett, I'm not confinced that they only take in a little MPC. Arnett seems to me quite close to the start of the facing curve (about 2,5 cm from the tip) and also IJ seems to take in quite a bit of MPC, more then for instance Paul Gonsalves (who looks more like a 'real' MPC tip player to me). I play very big tips myself (Link 10*, sometimes 11* or a Berg 150, which is a 12) and when I take in a bigger part of MPC (to come close to where the facing curve starts, like Phil Barone always advices to do) reeds won't curve at all or much. When I play closer to the tip my reeds will curve at the very big tip MPC's (>10*). In the old days (up to the Tone Masters, so before 1950) Link mouthpieces had longer facing curves and smaller tips than now, but when those players played on bend tip MPC's (giving a bigger tip opening, like on IJ's MPC) it indeed could give issues with curved reeds (due to the longer facings). So I could imagine that the habbit of IJ (and other oldtimers, according to what Mr. sideC posted earlier) to bend back the reed with the MPC cap comes from that.

[mrpeebee]

I would hope so. Still, they have to be encouraged to seek it out. That is where that cosmopolitan attitude needs to have an influence. And I really think that so far, that is mostly a European and/or NY thing. Music outside the conservatories just means more there.

For me it sounds like a natural thing that a (any!!!) saxophone player starts to listen to as much as music as he can trying to find what he really likes. In my days that was via radio channels, buying records (later CD's) and visiting jazz concerts (and now also via YouTube). Nobody had to tell or encourage me to do that, it was a natural behaviour being interested in jazz, sax and sound development and getting inspired by what I heard. I did those things long before I started playing saxophone (at age 23 only, and without taking lessons). Maybe only people who start playing sax out of love for the sound or music (jazz in my case) behave like that. It could be different when you are 'forced' to play sax by your parents or school. But even then, when you get hooked to the sax after a while, I can't believe that those players won't explore everything they can get their hands on, like I did. It's hard for me to believe that only cosmopolitan guys from NYC or Europe (like me) have that behaviour, but you could be right seeing what's left from the 'big sound tenor school' !

[MartinMusicMan]

I'm not sure if Arnett also used that 'cap between reed/MPC' trick (the video and picture showing that trick are from Illinois Jacquet).

You're right mrpeebee. I got confused between the IJ and Arnett videos.

[Rennie]

Mr PeeBee, wonderful thread. I just got back from holiday and have been listening to the great clips that are sprinkled throughout this thread, and enjoy them enormeouslly. Jimmy Forrest 'Night Train' with Basie gave me some good old goose bumps, but I certainly want to thank you to include Red Prysock, who I didn't know - next to sound, that guy has the most wonderful timing and spacing of his notes.

He is not from Texas, but I think Archie Shepp should be included in this thread. Listen to this:

http://youtu.be/b95E8gOd6YA

or this

http://youtu.be/3dPK-YQMnEM

When I think of Texas tenors in Nederland, there is another name to mention I think: J.C. Tans. That man has a real big sound - I loved his band, J.C. Tans & The Rockets.

[Tim Price]

Tubby Hayes 'Cheek To Cheek'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03p7DByA_o4

I agree about Shepp too, I never see his name on SOTW, more so even from guys whom I kinda might expect it from. He seems very distant from mind sets. Not mine..but he really sounds great.

[piwikiwi]

For me it sounds like a natural thing that a (any!!!) saxophone player starts to listen to as much as music as he can trying to find what he really likes. In my days that was via radio channels, buying records (later CD's) and visiting jazz concerts (and now also via YouTube). Nobody had to tell or encourage me to do that, it was a natural behaviour being interested in jazz, sax and sound development and getting inspired by what I heard. I did those things long before I started playing saxophone (at age 23 only, and without taking lessons). Maybe only people who start playing sax out of love for the sound or music (jazz in my case) behave like that. It could be different when you are 'forced' to play sax by your parents or school. But even then, when you get hooked to the sax after a while, I can't believe that those players won't explore everything they can get their hands on, like I did. It's hard for me to believe that only cosmopolitan guys from NYC or Europe (like me) have that behaviour, but you could be right seeing what's left from the 'big sound tenor school' !

I buy about 3/4 cd's a month and I'm 24. I also can't imagine that you would listen to the same set of cd's all your life.

[mrpeebee]

I buy about 3/4 cd's a month and I'm 24. I also can't imagine that you would listen to the same set of cd's all your life.

Sounds great Mr. piwikiwi, a good way to find inspiration and your personal preferences . But you are also a cosmopolitan from Europe (like me) and an exception according to what Paulwl stated before in this thread. I'm 49 now and don't buy as much CD's anymore as I used to do. Sometimes it's just like I already discovered years ago what I like the most in jazz. I still listen a lot to old (and some new) stuff, mainly on YouTube and CD's and still like to visit concerts regularly. I'am often surprised by the quality of the (sometimes young and unknown) musicians I see than. But for sound and style I know I'm more attracted to the old school and thus have to find that mostly in the old recordings.

[mrpeebee]

Tubby Hayes 'Cheek To Cheek'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03p7DByA_o4

I agree about Shepp too, I never see his name on SOTW, more so even from guys whom I kinda might expect it from. He seems very distant from mind sets. Not mine..but he really sounds great.

Hmm, the great Tubby Hayes . I have a wonderful CD of him with Clark Terry. A pitty he (Tubby that is) died so young.

Have seen Archie Shepp a few times here in Holland. Sometimes great with a good sound and energy, and sometimes very very bad (tired and looking like an old man, maybe due to certain temptations you can find easily in Amsterdam ).

[mrpeebee]

Mr PeeBee, wonderful thread. I just got back from holiday and have been listening to the great clips that are sprinkled throughout this thread, and enjoy them enormeouslly.

Thanks Reine, and welcome back . I hope you had a good holiday with good weather (for which you must have been outside The Netherlands)!

Red Prysock did a fantastic tenor battle recording with Sil Austin called 'Battle Royal'. Couldn't find clips on YouTube, but this is a link to the LP (it doesn't give much info, but I have three mp3 clips of it and it's GREAT):
http://www.amazon.com/Sil-Austin-Pry.../dp/B003Q3GGB0

Here some Sil Austin clips (in a romantic setting with strings, a bit modeled on Sam The Man Taylor stuff):

[mrpeebee]

And here some Sam 'The Man' Taylor stuff:

[fsaxwas9]

One of the best threads in some time!!!

It's inspiring/life changing - the music these men played. A guy like Gene Ammons - his sound was so huge and coud just grab and shake you...and he could play so pretty it would bring you to tears. That's connecting at an emotional level and what we all strive for.

Just nothing like a big juicy saxophone sound that burns a hole right into your soul....

Shawn

[patmiller]

Great thread. My contribution is Julian Dash"

[LampLight]

Neat clip Pat. Reminds me of jukeboxes, bobby socks, and root beer floats. Thanks.

[Tim Price]

Neat clip Pat. Reminds me of jukeboxes, bobby socks, and root beer floats. Thanks.

When the world was a simpler place, and things were in a WAY different place. Also- harmonically, the use of the _chord progressions_from DASH thru Cobb or Illinois...it related to people.

Times were different, sometimes I wonder. Julian Dash sounds great tho'...yes sir.