Digital Pianos - Yamaha P95

This week i was fortunate enough to be able to buy a new digital piano for gigs. I chose the Yamaha P95 having regularly performed with a friend of mine who has the P85. This is a great piano, ok not the most expensive in the world, but for the price has a great action and very good quality piano sound. Furthermore it's light! Very useful if you travel alot. Only 12kg compared to more than 30 of my S90 with the flight case.

For help choosing a new digital piano i found these resources very good:

http://www.pianoworld.com/

http://www.ukpianos.co.uk/

http://www.yamahamusician.com/

I should add the S90 is a wonderful piano too, and for a keyboard synth has a beautiful piano action and sound to match the best.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec03/articles/yamahas90.htm

New Blog

Considering that i would like to keep Saxindia relatively free from posting of my own material since it is dedicated to more educational postings, I have created http://mattlittlewood.blogspot.com/in order to promote some of my work. Do check it out in a few days when i have had time to put it together.

Please feel free to mail me with any comments or suggestions at matt-jazz@hotmail.com

Little Waltz

This is one of may favourite early compositions, and one we continue to play quite regularly. This was recorded live in 2008 on January 1st. This was a special gig for me as the band came together at the last minute (Patrick didn't even know he was playing till just before) and the playing was so fresh and together.

http://www.toofiles.com/en/oip/audios/wma/littlewaltzlive2008.html

Just click on the file to play or download it. You may need as i did to have the latest update of Firefox for this to work.

Matt Littlewood - Tenor Sax
Patrick Goraguer - Piano
Mishko. M'Ba - Bass
Suresh Bascara - Drums

Stella by Starlight

Several people have been asking me to be able to listen to my music on my blog so from time to time i will post some material. Here is a little home recording i did sometime back of Stella by Starlight. I play both Soprano Sax and piano. Originally this was left on my hard drive untouched for some months but when i came back to listen to it i liked it very much. The photo is taken outside the practise studio in Auroville where this was recorded. Please feel free to give any feedback - in fact it would be much appreciated.

Toto, Bona & Kanza 2008 - Lisanga

Richard Bona has been one of my favourite musicians for a while now but somehow I had never checked out this group with Gerald Toto and Lokua Kanza. On top of it a friend of ours, drummer/pianist Patrick Goraguer is also in the group playing keyboards and Percussion!

Have a look at this video from 2008. Its a beautiful song with a melody that you could listen to for hours. The way they are on stage and the pure enjoyment they show is also a wonder to watch.

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=6r7EjKg_giY

The Agenda - Live in Bangalore - B Flat Bar

Well, for so long Ive had little to post in terms of videos and recordings and now suddenly several have turned up all at once. Here is our band "The Agenda" featuring Sunitha Sarathy - Vocals, Matt Littlewood - Piano, Mishko M'ba - Bass, and Rahul Gopal - Drums. This was recorded at the superb B flat Bar in Bangalore in June of this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtq1WGIzMwM

Fusion gig with Sangoma Everett

Last month i had the pleasure of doing a couple of gigs with fantastic American drummer Sangoma Everett. The band features Debi Prasad Gosh on Sarod, Mishko M'Ba on Bass, Sangoma Everett on Drums, Manosh Bhardan on Tabla and myself on Keyboards and Sax.

He is the link to the Auroville Radio who recorded the gig live at Bharat Nivas Auroville.

http://www.aurovilleradio.org/arts-a-culture/music/1733-fusion

Download or listen directly on the site.

Bale Pandiya

Some time last year i was asked to play a couple of songs for the new Tamil movie Bale Pandiya with music by composer and singer Devan Ekambaram.

Here is one of the songs, a nice ballad with a short soprano solo in the middle.

http://www.raaga.com/player4/?id=207392&mode=100&rand=0.4338272410921462

More Rhythm training

Recently i have been back working on ear training with software such as GNU Solfege, in particular memorising and recognising rhythmic patterns. Looking on the web for more things to work on, i found this great site called worldjazz.ce that has pages of rhythm training exercises with mp3 files attached. Just click on the exercise you want to work on and play along till you feel comfortable. Great stuff!

http://www.worldjazz.ch/rhythm_training.htm

If you havn't already got it do download GNU solfege too. Its a wonderful tool for improving your ear.

www.solfege.org/

jazzandsaxmonthly.com

I came across this by accident. Its a website for saxophone lessons and techniques by Evan Tate. Ive seen some of his videos before on youtube and have found them very good. You can try the video lessons for free for 7 days, after which you have to pay. Evan offers monthly lessons on subjects such as improvisation, intonation, altissimo, of at least 30 minutes in length with PDF exercises. He also offers the option to contact him via email or SKYPE for any further questions.

http://jazzandsaxmonthly.com/

Like Sonny: The Story of Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane

Here is one of my favourite Podcasts from Bret Primack's you tube videos. It features Sonny Rollins talking about John Coltrane. Fascinating stuff. You can also follow jazz video guy on Twitter for blog updates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KckpQYnrozQ

Jazz Video Guy

If you haven't already seen his video podcasts do check out Bret Pimack - Jazz video guy - on you tube and his own site http://www.jazzvideoguy.tv/

There are many very interesting videos on famous jazz personalities with commentary by Bret himself. A wonderful resource.

Sale at Mouthpiece Cafe

This looks like a nice site and they have a sale for the whole of July.

http://www.mouthpiececafe.com/

Bill Evans

Truely inspirational stuff - a must view

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QdM0oxWOZw&feature=related

Nigerian Marketplace

I seem to be posting alot about piano instruction videos but here is a good one of Oscar Petersons great piece Nigerian Marketplace. I have to play this in a gig this month so have found this very useful particularly regarding voiceings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4IPA3a8iDw

Indian music and Jazz

Here is an interesting article on Indian music in jazz I found on the Congo square website - home of the Kolkata Jazz Festival.

http://www.congosquarejazz.com/Indian_Music___Jazz.pdf

Giant Steps Rhythmic Flexibility

As soon as I saw this link on David Valdez's Blog I knew this was something I wanted to practice. Here are a set of rhythmic exercises using different groupings of 8th notes (3's, 5's,6's and 7's) on the chords of giant steps.


http://casavaldez.posterous.com/giant-steps-rhythmic-flexibility-exercises

Professional Saxophone Musician / Player Set-Ups

Thanks to the people that informed me that this link was no longer working. It was a popular post and it needed to be updated. The Theo Wanne site doesn't seem to have that list any more but here are some other links to have a look at. In fact since I wrote this post there is more to be read on this subject. The Nicolas Trefeil page is even listed by chronoligical order! Very nice.

http://mysite.du.edu/~abouton/mpce.html


http://mysite.du.edu/~abouton/mpce.html


https://cafesaxophone.com/threads/what-the-pros-use.4004/


On his excellent site on just about everything to do with mouthpieces Theo Wanne has published a list of professional sax players setups. Ive seen some others on the web in the last few years but this seems to be the most extensive and up to date list:

http://www.theowanne.com/mouthpieces101/playerSetUps.php?pid=5

www.jazz.com

It's great when you find something new to read on the net and www.jazz.com really has plenty to offer. With hundreds of articles, interviews, reviews, blogs posts and a forum this really is a great resource for jazz lovers.

Stevie Wonder Tribute

A small clip I found from the tribute show we did in chennai from Rediff.com

http://ishare.rediff.com/video/entertainment/a-tribute-to-stevie-wonder/640242


Actually there are lots more on the same site... just seen that!

http://ishare.rediff.com/video/entertainment/a-tribute-to-stevie-wonder/640245