Invitation - Yes, it's finally done!

Ok, it took a while but it's ready. The new album features Matt Littlewood - Tenor sax and piano. Mishko M'Ba - Bass. Suresh Bascara - Drums and Holger Jetter - Guitar

You can contact me for a copy at saxindia@yahoo.co.in

Cover design by Leonard, Auroville

More polyrhythms

The "Methode de Batterie" series of books by Dante Agostini are well known by drummers as a comprehensive method for the kit. Check out volume IV for a number pages of polyrhythms that can also be used by other musicians. There are two part exercises that can be played between the hands. They start progressively with 16th and 8th notes, and then explore 2 against 3, and 3 against 4. Although I have not reached the end yet, I have found this a very systematic and practical method, which followed step by step helps to learn these rhythms thoroughly.

http://www.danteagostini.com/methodes/volumes.html

Why did I wait so long? - Developing your own Personal Sound

Don't wait as long a I did to read this book! I was aware for a long time of this great book by Dave Liebeman, but never got around to getting a copy. It's a gold mine of very valuable, not to mention absolutely vital information regarding tone production on the saxophone. It is well explained, includes diagrams, and has chapters on breathing, embouchure, articulation, mouthpieces, reeds and much more.

A preview from the publisher can be found here:

http://www.dornpub.com/BooksPDF/liebsnd.pdf

There is also a review on Dave Liebman's site here:

http://upbeat.com/lieb/Publications_Reviews/soundrev.htm

James Carter

I saw this hilarious article on Kelly Bucheger's Jazz pages. Its Kelly's account of the time when James Carter, sixteen and already an amazing tenor player joined the same big band him. This is really a great story and very funny too.

http://www-cs.canisius.edu/~bucheger/JamesCarterRuinedMyLife.html

Sax Embouchure

Ive been working on some changes with my sax embouchure recently, and while doing some research on the net, came across this thread on saxontheweb with pictures of famous players and their embouchures.

http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?t=52352

There are many other articles on this subject, but this one by Pete Thomas was one the most useful I found.

http://www.petethomas.co.uk/saxophone-embouchure.html

Free Stuff!

This link regarding free downloadable books was posted recently by charlie on rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz. There are mainly guitar books here, but it looks like there are interesting articles on jazz usable for other intruments.

http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/freebies.html

Sonny Rollins - Weaver of Dreams

Thanks Holger for putting me on to this fantastic Sonny Rollins clip on Youtube. An incredible display of presence and sound with so little fuss! Best for me though are the close ups of his hands and the way they portray such control and confidence over the instrument. A beautiful clip of a great player.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4LBDbcCR-E&mode=related&search=

Saxophone Sound

Sax players are often looking for the perfect embouchure and set up. This article on Stan Getz was posted recently by steevemcbry on the saxontheweb forum:

http://www.du.edu/lamont/Getz.html


Here too is Dave Liebman's interesting article on the search for a perfect mouthpiece:

http://www.upbeat.com/lieb/Feature_Articles/nirvana.htm

Jazz Polyrhythms

This is probably the most useful page I have found on the internet in a while. This article by Ron Jones gives detailed explainations on the most commonly used and essential to learn polyrhythms in Jazz. It's very well explained and comes with pdf examples.

http://www.iaje.org/article.asp?ArticleID=267