Casa Valdez Studios

Free Jazz lessons: Matt Otto's new web site

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:14:26 PST

Matt Otto has a new web site and he's posted some very good lessons on there.

He has lessons on topics like: reverse 13th arpeggios, augmented scales over dominant chords, spread triads, minor ii-V7s, and rhythm changes.

Nice stuff Otto.

Matt Otto.org

Joe Henderson talks with Charlie Rose

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:21:07 PST

A conversation with jazz musician Joe Henderson

Reply to Josh from the comments of the previous post

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 08:31:40 PST

I started to reply to Jazz pianist/educator Josh Rager comment from the previous post and I just got kind of carried away. He does make some good points and my reply is wildly rambling and not even totally directed in response to his comment. I think this deserves a post of it's own though.

Josh Rager said...

"I totally agree with your advice on juicing the "city" for its inspiration. However I disagree with your prediction that the music business is on the verge of collapse based on a gluttony of young jazz school graduates. Personally I have only observed that institutionalized jazz education has served more to train teachers and audience members than jazz musicians. Degrees are a pretty poor indicator of career success in this field. Jazz education and being a jazz musician will always be separate (but perhaps slightly overlapping) fields."

My reply:

I don't know what city you live in Josh, but in all the major cities that I've spent time in over the last two decades I can say with utter certainty that there are a lot less Jazz rooms today than twenty years ago. Even up here in PDX in the last 10 years since I've been here there has only been a steady decline, no 'cycles' as half-full types like to say. Just a downward trend, it must be a good 75% decline in the last ten years here.

The schools keep churning these kids out every year. Now, I'm not saying that Jazz education is a bad thing, in theory at least, but are the school really preparing these newly minted graduates for the economic realities that they're going to find waiting for them? How about a double major in Jazz performance and catering, or maybe a Jazz comp/barista degree? That would be a bit more realistic.

Since you seem to have found teaching gigs at some of these Jazz schools you probably have a different perspective about the scene than the kids who you are graduating. What would your life be like if you had to survive solely on gigs? It used to be possible to raise a family playing music, not so much these days.

Maybe being a Jazz professor is the only stable Jazz career that there is right now? Just look back thirty years ago. There were tons of touring band gigs out on the road all year long for young players to cut their teeth on. There were house bands in hotels and clubs all across the country that had steady incomes, sometimes for many years at a time.

Who's the biggest employer of musicians in the country (or at least in Las Vegas) now? Probably Circ Soleil! Even Cruise ship musicians are getting the axe right and left.

How much were musicians making for gigs thirty years ago? Same as they do today! Things have changed in a big way over time, and not for the better.

Personally, I am having a great time playing exciting gigs and feel that my teaching is highly rewarding. I'm making more bread with music than I ever did in the past and I haven't had a day gig in years. It is possible to be a professional musician/teacher, but it also doesn't hurt to marry a white-collar wife. :-)

So kids, don't marry a painter, dancer, writer, actor or another musician- unless they also happen to have a teaching gig at a nice Jazz conservatory. Then you just might be able to actually afford to go to a doctor when you need to.

I think that Greg Sinibaldi is right on when he notes that Jazz schools don't teach students to become artists. Shedding won't get you there. You need to actually be able to play and listen to true masters of the art of Jazz night after night in order to learn the ART of Jazz. Those are the opportunities that are getting scarcer as each year passes. Some schools are lucky enough to have masters teaching at them, but players still need a chance to play with bands that are on a high level. Chops are easy to come by these days, but profound musical ideas are usually not nurtured in the woodshed.

The most difficult thing for me about the current situation in my city is that ever though there are some world-class players around, it is really hard to develop a project and keep a band together in order to really work out material over time. I can get younger players to commit to putting in time to rehearse enough to work out difficult shit, but the final result is never as good as using seasoned pros. The guys that I want to work with are too busy hustling their asses off to support families. I can't ask them to rehearse a bunch without some nice paying gigs on the horizon, and even then...

Back in the 70's in a place like NYC you could make your rent by playing just one gig a month. This gave cats the luxury of playing sessions all the time in the thriving loft scene. Now, if you're paying $1,000 for a share in NYC it'll take you 20 gigs at $50 a pop.

All that I ask is that we just be frank with our young students about how much the financial realities of a Jazz career have changed, and are changing. I just don't think that these kids are getting much straight advice about what they're getting themselves into by majoring in Jazz performance and taking on a massive amount of debt to pay for it.

Berklee now costs as much as Harvard. Holy shit! How do you think a Harvard grad's earning power compares to a Berklee grad? WTF is that about?! $40k a year and four years later you can play Countdown changes like a champ, but you now make about $12k a year (if you're lucky). Hey, if you go on and get a doctorate in Jazz (at a good school) to the tune of about $220k all told, then you can make a fairly decent salary and think about maybe retiring one day.

OR...You can go to a two year community college to study nursing and as soon as you graduate get a gig starting at $45k/year and never worry about being out of work again for the rest of your life…AND in two or three years you'll be bumped up to$6k!

I know that if I had kids I would think twice about putting out $160k to send my artistic brat to Berklee.

"You get a FULL RIDE to Berklee like I did or else you're going to be learning to check blood pressure and empty bed pans at the local community college. On your off nights you can play your $50 Ska gigs and try to sneak in some bop licks on your solos."

If I had kids, oh, how they would hate me.

Josh, I don’t think that a glut of Jazz grads are the sole reason for the bleak situation we’re all in right now, but it can’t be helping things much. It's simple supply and demand, the kids are messing up the supply and the old Jazz fans who are taking their dirt naps are messing with the demand. The Jazz audience is aging too fast and even the legions of failed Jazz saxophonist turned Bop loving file clerks can’t replace the old fans fast enough. If degrees are poor indicators of career success then those students in Jazz schools are sure wasting a shitload of cash getting degrees. Even if these failed careers never get off the ground, the graduates certainly still flood the labor pool of working Jazz musicians for a few years (which helps to keep wages low) until the time comes that they have to get real jobs in order to pay off their mountain of debt.

When Jazz schools fail to inform students about the quickly changing realities of the music bussiness it is called Strategic misrepresentation, or good old fashioned lying. Would you pay $120k to get a four year degree in typesetting? How would you feel when you graduated and then realized that typesetting is obsolete? More realistically- if you could only made $50-$75 a night and you could work two or three nights a week as a typesetter if you were lucky? Hey, but you get a couple of free drinks on the job and 20% off the happy hour menu. Am I starting to sound jaded now?

You know that it’s a bad situation if Eastern Europe is starting to look like a better place to make a living as a Jazz musician than here in the States. Kids, you’d better start appreciating goulash and peirogis!

I wouldn't trade careers with anyone though. I still love being a Jazz musician and I have a better attitude and outlook than I ever did when I was younger (though you wouldn't know it from reading this post).

Josh, please just encourage your students to switch majors....to something in the medical field maybe?

Now I just sit back wait for the blogosphere to erupt and look forward to the deluge of comments .

A letter to a student at a Jazz Conservatory

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:13:29 PST

Here is part of a letter that I sent one of my students who recently moved out east to study at a major Jazz school in the New York area. I thought that it was worth reprinting because it contains a lot of advice that I wish that someone had given me when I was a student at Berklee.

"I'm glad you're enjoying school. It sounds pretty exciting. In fact I just had a dream last night that I was back at Berklee. In the dream I told myself- "this time I'm not going to get distracted with a girlfriend". What a huge distraction that was. :-)

Mr.X (major tenor player) sounds like a teacher that you need to be more pro-active with. There are a lot of great players out there that aren't as organized as teachers. You can still get a lot out of lessons with them if you as a student take more initiative. This means being more prepared for your lessons and not being so passive. Transcribe your teacher's solos and then ask them what they were doing, or you can ask them how they approach specific tunes or types of changes. If I were studying with X I would try to find out the what his approach to reharms is. He has some very cool harmonic devices that he uses.

In general you just need need to be more self directed and self motivated when you get to college. There just usually isn't anyone there to ride you and to make sure that you're being productive. You need to take more initiative and research things on your own with the help of what I'm sure is a great music library. I regret not copying as many arrangement as I possibly could when I was in school. Start copying or scanning whatever interesting stuff you can get your hands on- tunes, charts, transcriptions, harmony books. You'll be so glad you did after you get out of school.

It's all the things that you took the initiative to learn and weren't assigned that you'll really appreciate after you graduate. Don't make the mistake of just accepting the curriculum the school gives you as being your only option. You could go into the city and take classes with Barry Harris (only something like $15 a class at School of the Streets), or you could save up and go take a private lesson with about anyone that you may like, or you could find out when good master classes are happening at the New School, MSM or NYU, or you could go watch an open rehearsal of the Vanguard band. But whatever you do- MAKE SURE YOU GO SEE THE FRINGE WHENEVER POSSIBLE!!!! There's no better Jazz group than the Fringe and you'll regret not seeing them as much as you could once you leave NY.

Jazz isn't about grades, so don't let that mentality keep you from doing whatever is possible to get better as a player. You're not there to get good grades or even graduate ( which are of course nice things to do, but not the reason you're going to school). You are there to become BURNING. All night practice sessions should be the way you spend most nights. Try to listen to everything on that hard drive. Fall asleep with headphones and listen to X all night long every night!!

You are there to try to prepare for a music career and it's a brutal world out there right now and it's only getting worse. You simply cannot just sit back and accept that the school is going to teach you everything you'll need to have a successful career. You need to work harder than all of your peers and when they're partying you should be shedding. What you're doing there (going to college for Jazz) is a fairly insane proposition to begin with and the percentage of students there that will actually end up as full-time professional musicians is abysmally low. You seriously do not want to get out of school and have to take a shit job because you don't have a gig and absolutely no marketable skills.

"Would you like fries with that?"

The music business is on the verge of a total collapse. This is something that they probably don't tell you in school. The colleges are churning out more and more young players with Jazz degrees every year and the number of gigs is drastically declining. This formula is not promising to say the least. If you want to make this happen then you're going to have to work harder than 99% of your peers, because only the top 1% achieve any measure of success at this thing. Even if you end up having a good Jazz career you will most likely end up working at something other than performing, so you've got to make yourself marketable in other areas as well.

Working as a musician is rewarding, but you need to understand the reality of the situation that you're going to find yourself when you get out of school. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that everything will just work itself out once you get out of school. You have four (or more) years to start working on your career before you'll have to support yourself. Don't wait until you get out before you start working on your website, putting your book together, making connections, thinking about making a CD, writing original music, and presenting yourself as a professional. Hit the ground running or you stand a good chance of falling flat on your face and into a job in the wonderful field of food service.

I hope this letter has motivated you and not discouraged you. You just need to make yourself better than everybody else and you will be fine. This is completely possible, but it will take discipline, motivation, focus, and a little luck.

Good luck! DCV"

WTF: Pops sings Pharaoh's 'The Creator Has A Master Plan'

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:14:46 PST

Yes, it's no joke.

This is from the great Avant-Garde Jazz site Destination: Out

"We tend to think of Armstrong and Sanders as inhabiting entirely different universes, but one of the interesting things about the late 60s and early 70s was the generational overlap of so many key jazz figures. But rarely have worlds collided in more unexpected and almost hallucinatory ways.

The mere concept of this track smacks of the most clueless sort of commercial pandering. For some reason, it brings to mind Jackie Gleason’s LSD trip in Skidoo (check out the Youtube clip here). Did Louis really need this so late in his career? Initially, we wondered if producer Bob Thiele didn’t foist this track on Armstrong at gunpoint.

But… but… but… the surprising thing is that the music isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s an interesting concoction. There’s a solid arrangement by Oliver Nelson and check out the list of stellar musicians above. And to his credit, Louis doesn’t seem nearly as out of place as you might imagine

LA, vocals; Leon Thomas, vocals, percussion; James Spaulding, flute; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Sam Brown, guitar; Frank Owens, piano; Richard Davis, bass; George Duvivier, bass; Gene Golden, congas; Bernard Purdie, drums, plus strings."

The Creator Has A Master Plan

The Jazz Personality- by Aaron Johnson

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:43:30 PST

Aaron's last post caused quite a stir all over the blogosphere. Readers and bloggers either loved it or they wanted to wring his young neck.

The role of the musician in our society has become so domesticated over the past 30 or so years. I believe this has to do with the modern trend of conservatory jazz education. Now, Jazz is just another degree that one can get...with a monetary return that is similar to a degree in Norse Folktales (with a minor in Finnish arts and crafts).

What happened to the role of the jazz musician as the romantic, wandering free spirit as it used to be during it's youth. The role of the Jazz musician is something so entrenched in the subculture of America that, if taken out of that context, it loses so much of it's power and mean. Jazz was something that you WORKED for just to have the honor to PLAY it. Now, anyone can play jazz and if they are marketable, they get a career in it!

"Oh, you're a 12 year old from the suburbs? You have a Charlie Parker album? AMAZING. Let's get you a recording contract. You'll change the music, kid!"

Let's examine some jazz badasses of renown:

Sidney Arodin: Travelled the United States playing in territory groups. Played in a later incarnation of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. Listening to recordings of him, his playing sounds like a great american folk legend. So happy, however, shrouded in despair and the nature of the Artist.

Nick LaRocca: The leader and Trumpeter of the ODJB. Imagine, with nostalgia, hearing jazz playing in this context...LIVE. I've heard that the ODJB was considered immensely loud during the time that it existed. LaRocca was a dark, crazy nutjob who died in an insane asylum.

Bunk Johnson: Early jazz cornetist of mythical status. He dropped off the scene for a period of time, only to be picked up by his old friend, Sidney Bechet, to record during the 1940's trad-jazz revival. Claimed to have taught Louis Armstrong.

Bix Beiderbecke: I become teary-eyed thinking of the little white boy in Davenport, Iowa who had enough courage to do what he truly loved. Bix would wake up at 4 am to blow his Cornet into his pillow. He had total dedication to the music that drove him. Bix died in love with his horn, at age 28. He changed the music in so many interesting ways, however, the one that strikes me as being the most notable was his innate sense of lyricism.

Sidney Bechet: How many Jazz musicians here in NYC that have been banned from Paris? Who have gotten in gunfights? Sidney Bechet was a wild man with a HUGE musical personality.

Louis Armstrong: The KING of early (and Jazz in general, in my opinion). A masterful technician and an intuitive improviser, Satch' lived a varied and colorful life. He smoked reefer and took laxatives every day. He wrote a diet book. 'Nuff said. Badass.

Coleman Hawkins: The Bean was known by that namesake for a reason; he could eat! Guys would tell stories of his eccentricities from his days touring with Fletcher Henderson. He would fly into rural, Midwestern towns in a huge, expensive car. Then, he would proceed to eat 2 large meals at a local diner. He also never used a bank and kept large amounts of money on him at all time.

Lester Young: Prez barnstormed all over the southern states with his father's territory band before settling in Kansas City, MO and changing Jazz music. He was a hard living, hard drinking character who invented a hip form of the english language; used to alienate those "not in the know". Whenever I pass 52nd st. and Broadway, I think of the hotel that Prez died in, drinking himself to death. He would sit in his room, listening to Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra, drinking all day and watching the front door of Birdland.

Benny Goodman: How many nerdy Jewish guys do you know that slept with Billie Holiday and Helen Ward in addition to marrying a Vanderbilt? He was a trained classical musician in addition to being the "KING OF SWING". Benny Goodman's early small groups changed the direction of Jazz and contributed heavily, in my opinion, to the bebop era.

Artie Shaw: This man was married 8 times (including marriages to Lana Turner and Ava Gardner). He was extremely well read (I believe his library consisted of over 10,000 books) and an accomplished writer. He decided that he didn't want to deal with the INDUSTRY (haha, who knew?) so he quit playing in the early 50's.

Charlie Parker: The most mythical figure in Jazz history, Charlie Parker led a life of heroin-induced debauchery. His music has a spirit that will always live in the hearts of many jazz musicians. Among the legends that exist, my favorite is the story of him living in a storage unit, strung out in Los Angeles. Howard Mcghee found him and drug him to a recording session for Ross Russell's Dial label. After barely being able to stand, he playing his heart-throbbing rendition of "Lover Man". After the take, he threw a whiskey jug at the control booth, breaking the window. He was then taken to Camarillo State Hospital, where he regained considerable strength.

I'm losing track of time and my point telling stories. Obviously, I could go on forever, however I'll move on now. My point is simply....where are the characters today? We need eccentrics and wildly passionate people to play the music!

Master Class videos on Banddirector.com

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:10:34 PST

There are quite a few interesting videos on Banddirector.com, including a bunch of Bergonzi improvisation workshops.

Fourths Practice Template

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:01:44 PDT

Nat Kline wrote some very helpful exercises to practice fourths after he saw Dan Gaynor's Fourths Exercise. Nat designed a template that covers the entire range of the saxophone (or flute depending on where you start). He calls it a 'template' because he meant for the player to play through it while adding different key signatures each time. If you're ever tried to practice fourths you'll know that it is sometimes confusing when you come to the bottom or top of your range, because it can be hard to determine how to turn around smoothly. By adding your own key signatures you are also forced to think rather than just reading through the exercise on autopilot. Often improvisers get stuck in the rut of playing either horizontally or in thirds, ignoring wider intervals like fourths, fifths and sixths.

Fourths Practice Template

IMAGINE THE SOUND-Tim Price's Improv. Workshop

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:00:57 PDT

(From Rico's Facebook with Rico artist Tim Price)

In this lesson, I’ve taken an in-depth approach to give you all some information, new ideas, ear training, and fresh approaches to this form.

http://www.saxontheweb.net/Price/Blues1.html

Pick out a few licks that you like and that lay well for you that you can hear. Now, think of how your favorite player such as Sonny Rollins might play this lick articulation-wise or how Lester Young might play one of these licks very legato and behind the beat, or from a rock frame of mind, how someone like King Curtis, Gene Ammons or Cannonball might play these.

There are infinite ways to take all these licks and patterns and make them your own and, as I always say, get an ACTIVE MENTAL IMAGE of the sound you want this phrase to have and start to shape it. Also, another technique is called... IMAGINE THE SOUND.

Imagine how one of these dominant 7th blues licks might fit somewhere else. Hear the sound in your head, then try to apply it. This can be a very subliminal approach that will come out in your playing when you least expect it.

These are just a few little ideas that everybody can start to get a personal technique on these blues licks with. Last but not least, try to play them by ear in other keys. The possibilities are endless.

A lot of lines are self-evident..."I just played the blues scale..." but a lot of them aren't. As an example (a very simple lick and line, but interesting to analyze) is #17 of my Blues Phrases & Licks. While it appears to be a simple chromatic climb from the root to the 9th and then a b9 to contrast against, there are more possibilities for the improviser to think about:

a) This is a G blues scale over a C7 -- so you can borrow blues scales from a 5th above. This helps connect lines through blues changes. Once you get used to this, you can even use the blues scale from the b3 (Eb in this case)

b) The "interior" line here is D-Db-C -- so when you think about playing a line, you can aim at each of these notes in succession and you'll get a coherent blues line. This means you can jump away from each of these note, play around, and come back to the altered (chromatic) note, and continue along. You get intervallic lines, but with a nice chromatic, linear signpost for the listener to grab.

c) Displacement of the accented note; the Db (flat 5 in the g blues scale) appears on the 3rd beat, but you can experiment with putting the unaltered note on the beat and the flatted note off the beat. You get interesting contrasts as you go back & forth (similar to what happens when you play consecutive triplets using the same 2 notes).

This next study, is a fun and "hands on" study in making the ii-v sound bluesy and funky.

http://www.saxontheweb.net/Price/BluesScaleMatrix.html

EG-
#1. ON Dmi7 ... Blues scale off the root.

#2 ON G7...Blues scale off the 5th ( same as Dmi )

Just check the scale degree, and listen.Many times there's some built off the 6th of the chord. Everyone from the old blues guitar players to Keith Jarrett have used this.I've heard Gene Ammons use things like this on pop tunes or Jimmy Forrest lay stuff like this down behind singers.All the r&b and rock guys use this as well.

It's universal, and...a nice way to add your touch to the chord via some inflections from the blues scale. Cannonball, had this going on big time.

Check them while jamming with a friend,or against various Aebersold tracks, and put them to use.At first keep it simple.Listen,make motifs you hear, and make the music FEEL good. Play these...and keep the sound in your mind and ear. Good luck!

Moments are memorys, MUSIC IS AS BASIC AND NECESSARY AS THE AIR WE BREATHE.

Music should inspire, also uplift the soul. Keep this in mind as you perfect your music.

Till next week, thanks. I hope your path is filled with untold vistas and knowledge as you practice this week!

~ TIM PRICE

Musician Wages.com- The website for working musicians

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:51:39 PDT

I ran across and interesting site called Musician Wages.com. It's all about the business side of making music, from ideas for hustling new gigs to motivating musicians as a bandleader. It's worth checking out.

Musician Wages.com

The Jazz Problem- by Aaron Johnson

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:24:54 PDT

Here's an article written by Aaron Johnson, one of the most talented students I've had in the past few years. Aaron recently moved from Portland, Oregon to NYC to study as a Jazz performance major at the Manhattan School of Music.

Here I am, at a world-renowned conservatory in the greatest city in the world. I am sitting in a class with 15 or so other musicians, bright young artists from all over the world. I can't help but wonder, "Who here will actually end up with a career?” It doesn't seem very fair or indicative of the spirit of Jazz that musicians, depending on aesthetics, will starve or headline Birdland. Since I’ve been here in NYC, I've hung out with a lot of true WORKING musicians. The foot soldiers of the scene per se. The players that are out at smalls until the early morning, NYC swing and traditional jazz musicians and other students, trying to hustle a career out of thin air. None of these musicians are playing at the Village Vanguard or the Blue Note, yet they are in my opinion, the greatest that this city has to offer.

It seems like a cruel joke to me, that young, hip 20 year olds are getting GREAT gigs while jazz LEGENDS aren't even touching their horns. Why isn't Bob Mover playing the Vanguard this weekend? Why did Clarence "C" Sharpe (The Genius altoist on Lee Morgan's Indeed album) have to lead a sad life of obscurity? Why was Frank Hewitt living in the freezer at Smalls in his last years?

Because the public is too stupid to realize that Jazz is a cultural treasure.

Instead, young "lions" are sought out by the media to "push the barriers". It's funny, to me, because very few of these young lions will ever find their own voice. Even if they do it will either be excessively modern without any validation or sense of lineage or it will be a sad, lukewarm pastiche of the music of years past (lacking the true essence and spirit). If I don't sound the least bit jaded or bitter, wait until you read what I have up my sleeve next.

 The Modern Jazz Scene in a Nutshell (ie. What is hip?)
 1. Your website must claim all of your innovations without detailing any of it. *This is especially important if you are young and inexperienced. *

2. You must wear the hippest, most urban looking clothes possible. Skinny jeans, v-necks....anything slightly hipster-esque is adequate. Oversized Nike kicks are a *MUST*.

3. It's very beneficial to have dreds. This means that you have soul.

4. Abandon every American Songbook, standard tune you know. Replace this with rock and classically influenced, odd metered and through-composed numbers. This IS 2009, right?

5. Never, ever mention Louis Armstrong, Lester Young or Charlie Parker as your influences. They aren’t obscure or hip enough for you to land a career from. Mention Bjork, Schoenberg, Aaron Parks, Mark Turner and Ambrose Akinmusire. That way, you might win the Monk competition.

6. Go to a really hip jazz "school" and listen to everything your professors tell you. Do everything they tell you to do, never attend real sessions and let your peers at school influence you more than the masters. Dismiss any musicians that learned on "the street". Chet Baker? Schmuck! (He didn't have a degree to prove his genius.)

7. If your name isn't hip enough...change change change it! Joshua Redman wasn't always his name....

8. Watch the Spike Lee film "Mo’ Betta Blues". It will show you more about jazz than listening to it or playing it ever will.

9. Move to Brooklyn

10. Become a vegetarian and look emaciated. The moodier you look, the more albums you'll sell. Don't smoke cigarettes or use any substances; instead, do lots of yoga and investigate eastern religions (not for any true interest in it, rather, just to be able to say in your liner notes that Tibetan chanting and Buddhism changed your conception of "sound").

 If you couldn't tell, that was a little tongue-in-cheek. I'd like to hear some responses from musicians and my peers. Maybe I'm not alone in my thinking? At least I know that I'll never have a career playing the music that truly touches me (Armstrong-Young-Parker continuum).

Aaron's MySpace page

Fourth Exercises for Saxophone

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:46:57 PDT

Dan Gaynor wrote these nice exercises for saxophone:

Fourths exercises

Tom Garcia's neck mod

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:52:13 PDT

A while back I wrote about my buddy Tom Garcia's neck modification. Right about the time I wrote about this Tom left town to spend the summer in New Orleans and touring Europe, so he wasn't able to make neck mods for anyone. Tom wanted me to let my readers know that he's back home and ready to bust out some of his special neck mods. He charges $100, but if you don't like how the modification sounds he'll give you back $50 (since each neck ring is custom fit).

Tom says:
I did one on this guy's horn last week and it worked great. He had a Yamaha Custom and a Springer mpc and he wanted to play in bands with electric guitars. I know his setup isn't great, but it was the exact setup we were talking about. A darker mpc that didn't project. When I put the piece on, the horn got ballsier and louder. He was very happy. I think tenor might be the best horn for this mod."

Contact Tom Garcia at: garcia.thomasb@gmail.com

Allard/Dempsey Overtone exercises

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:11:41 PDT

Regular reader David Wells, a smoking tenor player who teaches at the University of Maine at Augusta, sent me some overtone exercises that Dave Dempsey adapted from Joe Allard's overtone routine. You can hear Michael Brecker demonstrating some of these exercises in the Berklee master class that I posted a while back.

These exercises really force you to play with no pressure, and make you deal with forward/back jaw position ("covered" and "uncovered" as Allard called it).

I believe that overtone exercises are the fastest way to develop full control of your sound. They isolate jaw and upper oral tract positioning like nothing else can. They pay off by giving you a bigger sound, more control of intonation and timbre, and a more centered altissimo register.

Overtone Exercises

David Wells' home page
David Wells' transcription of Sonny Rollins' solo on 'Scoops'

Recordings of new sextet charts

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:22:34 PDT

This week I finally got a chance to play through the new sextet charts that Dan Gaynor arranged for me. Last month I posted all of the charts here on this blog.

Keep in mind that these are recordings of a band sight reading, so there are a few rough spots. I thought that it might be helpful for some of you that have played, or are considering playing, these charts.

The musicians on these recordings are:

David Valdez: alto
Tree Palmedo: trumpet
Nate Kline: tenor
David Goldblatt: piano
Esiet Esiet: bass
Todd Strait: drums

Desert Flower
When You Meet Her

John Nastos & Clay Giberson's Duo Chronicles

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:11:15 PDT

Portland saxophonist John Nastos is doing something quite interesting with pianist Clay Giberson. They'll be recording one tune a week (mostly originals) in HD video for an entire year and posting everything on the web. This is a novel and resourceful way to get their music heard in an era when decent Jazz venues are but a distant memory.

Duo Chronicles web site

You can subscribe to the Duo Chronicles here.

Quotes about Jazz

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:54:14 PDT

My buddy Joel Frahm posted a bunch of great quotes about Jazz on his MySpace blog.

Quotes about Jazz

Django Reinhardt's solo on Nuits de St.Germain des pres

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:04:00 PDT

Transcribed by Pere Soto

Nuits de St.Germain des pres

Wes Montgomerey's solo on Grooveyard

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:01:43 PDT

Thanks to Pere Soto for this transcription

Grooveyard

You GOTTA BE ORIGINAL Part 2- by Tim Price

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:11:54 PDT

BOMBAY BAR WALKING-

The point here is to emphasize what Rilling calls the "architecture" of the music. For example, the way Pablo Casals varied the tempo according to what he was trying to convey. Indian music and jazz are much in the same.

Hopefully, what's going to be remembered, I hope, is going to be the intertwining of the present living person whoever it is, whether it's Casals or Tim Price, YOU ,Ray Pizzi, Claire Daly or Lester Young in the context of the art form, its tradition, its future, its present, and that whole mixture together. I have great respect for the "tradition," the rules, and playing it within context and everything, I think it's great, but…what are YOU creating as an offering.

Try to think the term "syntax" , which means a vernacular, a way of speaking. This music is speech and dialect. And there is a way of speaking. A common form and feeling. The vibe of a sax player who walks the bar and a guy cross legged in India in a trance blowing –It’s all the same- they BOTH are after the same thing. It’s…that THANG…that place the music goes.

Like that groove that exists in R &B AND Jazz and Indian ragas.In essence, we really have something called the language, the syntax, the vernacular, and it's immediately transferable to personal creation anyway. So in jazz, the art form itself says you're supposed to individualize it , that's the point . All that's understood, but your goal is not to repeat or to objectify this thing. It's to take it and have it be a living thing that you put your personality on. The goal sould be- to try to bring a spiritual dimension to the music.Be it some booty shaking funky jazz, a swinging standard or your agenda.

I feel that the music speaks absolutely louder than any dogma, any words can speak at all. And in the end, the music is connected- there's a great book by Hazrat Inayat Khan of the Sufis. <> It's about how music ties into the "realms" and everything like that. It's just an understood, it's a given.

In my thinking it is an artist's duty is to try to get in touch with that vibe through his work. It's the work and it's the art that will do. SO.. it's freedom, individual creativity !! Not button pushing nor trying to sound like the flavor of the month or the guy on a DownBeat cover.Nobody can be a better YOU than YOU. It is obviously possible, as many do, to improvise within certain stylistic or other constraints.<> While this is perfectly valid, and while it transcends such constraints, such as simplicity vs complexity, tonal vs atonal, intellectual vs intuitive, and so on. A step towards music-making where all possibilities can be genuinely embraced.There is a strong sense in which this really is playing music. Approached like this, it unlocks the natural, spontaneous creativity within each participant who lets the process flow deep and operates simultaneously on many levels. This is a very liberating experience and is often found to be therapeutic as well. It feels good to start from zero, or just be you.

So this is what's going on now, what I'm thinking about, kind of a PART 2, to last weeks rico blog;

I hope you enjoy it-

Peace and goodwill to you all, Tim Price
( Forum Admin for RICO REEDS )

Bill Anschell's Treatise on Careers in Jazz

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:20:46 PDT

Seattle pianist/humorist Bill Anschell just send me his newest treatise on Jazz. This one perfectly details every possible career path of a Jazz musician. Bill is painfully spot on and always hilarious. The world of the Jazz musician has never been more meticulously and accurately portrayed. You'll be laughing when you read this thing, but you'll really feel like crying.

Which one are you???

Career's in Jazz

Bill Anschell's web site

Jazz on the Tube- Jazz video search engine

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:26:50 PDT

Jazz on the Tube

Intuition and Imagination- Tim Price blogs for Rico

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:37:26 PDT

Tim Price has been blogging for Rico Reeds on MySpace and Facebook for a while now. He has written some very interesting stuff that is well worth a read. The article below is his most recent post about the higher states of consciousness reached by improvisers.

"Tim Price here for RICO REEDS, This is what is on my mind as we go into the end of August.

Using your intuition and feelings when improvising is most important be it at the most advanced level or just a basic beginner. To thoroughly approach this as an art form and something that has deep meaning is most important. The masters when they played, be it Johnny Dodds or Sidney Bechet or Bud Powell on through the greats like Wayne Shorter or Charlie Mariano all came from a very deep place. At times, this place is something that you must go to in a natural way. Nothing cosmic about it, it's almost like a trance. It's almost like when your telling someone a story and you close your eyes and you're taking them somewhere with you. Art Pepper wrote a song about this called "The Trip." Stan Getz called this frame of mind the "alpha state."

Whether its experienced in dreams, altered states, or simply sitting in solitude, the artist must be aware of the visionary realm. In Buddhist culture and other forms of spiritual thought, this is called the "third eye." It is the sixth in the series of energy centers in the body known as Charka. The sixth Charka contains and controls knowledge, intuition, and perception. Inherent to any of these philosophies of the "third eye" is recognition and attention paid to the source of human creativity. This human creativity can be one of the deepest subconscious forms of communication in the world. Opening your thoughts to the unknown realms of your own imagination. Many times musicians inquest to unlock the force behind this theory of the eye has shadowed their colleagues throughout ancient history. In my humble opinion, the subconscious travel that one can take studying Buddhism or any of those particular forms runs a very strong parallel to the stunning body of work of many jazz saxophone players.

How many times have we witnessed a player deep in a trance way beyond the environment he is in, whether it's a club, or a concert or just in a corner practicing? He's in another space for sure! What I have experienced is a kind of network between the people improvising (a mental network you could say) where many are connected and there is a kind of dialogue going on without any words being spoken.Like the great bands of Miles Davis or Wayne Shorter or John Coltrane.

I'm pretty sure that many times, a person sitting cross-legged in deep meditation is in the same spiritual space as a tenor sax player behind a bar with a screaming organ trio and his eyes closed...playing from the deepest spot in his soul. What I'm getting at here is nothing cosmic or nothing too whacked out...what I'm trying to bring your attention is music needs all the imagination from an individual it can get. When unconscious-unspoken communication, traveling at the speed of thought, becomes the only or at least the truest form of communication, you just know everything is clicking just like it should ... the energy is like a ball and bounces around through glances and body comunication.It is awesome, it's the inner spirit of your mind in it's highest form.

At this point in time in jazz, everything seems to be published and everything seems to almost be written down. We are in a great educational state. But where are the people who are really reaching within and trusting themselves to their own creative muse? This is the element that I am addressing here. As a student of music, take some time to think about using your intuition. As Bird said, "First you master the music, then you master your horn, then you forget all that shit and just play!"

We need to keep that in the front part of our minds and make that a slogan similar to the many people who look to their "third eye." As you see, I'm trying to point out a parallel in creative paths. It's not easy. But it is easy when you bring it into your own consciousness and try to practice these aspects. Sure, licks, lines, inversions, and all that good stuff is of paramount importance. But let us not forget to keep the magic in the music.
Give all that you have and you shall receive more than you can imagine experiencing when playing jazz!

Your gratitude empowers others to play even better. Remember fear destroys the souls ability to create. So start now and use the power of love to encompass all your decisions so fear has no room to exist in your life. Remove fear from your thoughts and you remove and limitations. All is illusion and all illusion is yours to control. So be connected. Everything happens for a reason. Chance is limited to a coin. Decision is limited to free will. We are limited to our decisions.

So decide to burn and get down with the music you love. Decide to bring something to the music.

The word is ~ imagination !!

See you next week- and thanks."

Tim Price

Rico Reed Facebook page

Jingles- Wes Montgomery solo transcription

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:42:32 PDT

Thanks to Pere Soto for this.

Jingles

S.O.S.- Wes Montgomery solo transcription

casavaldez@comcast.net (David Valdez) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:43:01 PDT

Another one from Pere Soto.

S.O.S.