Oh, the cheese! I can't help but alliterate. It's just far too tempting. Anyway, I felt I should blog about the saxophone. I've been doing far more practicing lately, partly down to a new year's resolution to practice an hour-a-day. While I haven't actually lived up to it, well I'm kind of there, but need to make up about eighteen hours …. I'm in that deluded frame of mind where I'm convinced that I'll make up these odd hours when I have a spare minute. We'll see.
Today, I wanted to share a batch of Michael Brecker licks that I found on Steve Neff's web site. He's posted a PDF of forty trademark ideas that the late great saxophonist played. Brecker had such a distinctive sound, being inspired by rock guitarists as much as some of his R&B sax contemporaries. Hendrix-like squawks play as pivotal a role in his improvisation as arpeggiated chords and pentatonic patterns. Anyway, have a look at the web site and let me know how you get on – these are equally useful for guitarists and other instruments. http://www.neffmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2010/09/40-Brecker-Licks1.pdf
On another note, I was surprised this week while reading about Stan Getz by what Coltrane said about him: 'Let’s face it—we’d all sound like that if we could.'. I find this remarkable considering that Coltrane has such an amazing and distinctive tone. I mean, he basically led the way for tenor saxophone playing for the second half of the twentieth century. Brecker would had learned his solos by rote. Getz does have such a superb sound though - and it would be poor to simply associate him with those Jobim tracks that most people think of when they hear his name. He has such a clear, effortless sound that I really need to hear more of.
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