Category: General

Before I trash this poll I would like to congratulate Michael Dease for the stunning work and respect he’s put into the baritone saxophone recently.

Ok. Now I should probably just say I’m grateful to be included, yadda yadda and move on but I respect the instrument and its dedicated players too much to let this slide. I don’t know whether to cast blame at DownBeat Magazine or whatever critics pretend to be experts in our field.

I’m glad Josh Lee is in the poll. He’s great. So great they listed him twice apparently. So should his ‘score’ () be 62 instead?

Paul Nedzela is there too! Great. Maybe we can spell his name correctly though.

And I won’t name names but some one listed here (who in my opinion is one of the greatest saxophonists of their age group) does not play baritone and never has. I confirmed this with them.

I know polls and rankings in subjective art forms will always exist no matter how dumb of an exercise it is. I’m fine with that. I won’t fault anyone for their taste. But factual inaccuracies and blunt mistakes are disrespectful.

-Andrew

PS if you’re looking for the non ‘rising star’ poll here it is. I have less issues, though I would note that I love Colin Stetson and think he’s one of the most important bass saxophonists ever. He also regularly plays alto and some tenor, but as far as I know he has not played baritone saxophone in over 25 years.

A very big thank you to Matthew Karnstedt for sending in 3 new transcriptions, with quite a spread stylistically too.

There’s a new Cecily Payne transcription on “Do Nothin’ Til You Hear From Me”, a Gerry Mulligan solo on the classic “I Got Rhythm” and a new Leo Parker solo on “Blue Sails” !

That makes it about 164 transcriptions hosted here and we’re approaching 800,000 downloads! Perhaps by this site’s 30th anniversary (2029!) we can cross the 1,000,000 mark.

Please head over to the transcription repository and give these new solos a download if you want to play through them, and again thank you to Matthew and all of the other busy transcribers for sharing their work for the rest of us.

The most common question I get is about flying with a baritone.. the next most common and also somewhat related question is a recommendation for a case. I finally have a case that is readily available that I feel good recommending, and also have some specific advice on how to make it better. I made a quite long video comparing 4 different baritone saxophone cases, since there was a rare occasion where I had 4 different cases in my apartment at the same time. Check out the video below – I cover the Protec Micro Zip (spoiler alert, this is my recommendation), the new Marco Magi case, and two Mike Manning Custom cases. I’ve also updated the ‘Cases for baritone saxophone‘ page here with updated prices, information, and some new additions.

I don’t always post when there’s a new transcription now that we have over 150, but there have been a few recent entries I want to highlight.

First a neat (and fast!) Bruce Johnstone solo from a Maynard Ferguson album on the song “Superbone Meets the Badman”. Thanks to Mattew Stevenson for this one.

There’s also a new Ronnie Cuber transcription on his tune, Passion Fruit. Giovanni Contri provided this one.

And lastly, and maybe most interestingly we have our first Bob Gordon solos care of Zachary Spondike! Bob Gordon is a very under-represented baritonist with an unfortunately short career but could play the hell out of the baritone. He died awfully young in a car accident, but the recordings we have are excellent. These two transcriptions – one on “Have You Met Miss Jones” and one on “Dot’s Groovy” both come from an album with Jack Montrose. You can read what Jack wrote about Bob Gordon on his page here.

Head to the Transcriptions Repository to grab these new solos, and enjoy them.

I am very sorry to report Claire Daly, a friend and wonderful baritonist has passed. Claire was the most New York of New Yorkers, and had the warmest baritone sound. May we all be as hip (and kind) as Claire some day.

Thank for all the longtones Claire.
-Andrew

Read Claire’s Obituary in the New York Times.

Traveling with a baritone saxophone is becoming impossible. Also, since music stores are closing left and right the ability to try out a baritone before purchasing is quickly disappearing. That being said, there are many baritone saxophones out there – and many of them are sitting idle.

So I’d like to create a network of baritones so that musicians can find a horn either in their area or where they need to travel to that they can access. I’m not trying to create a system of borrowing, baritones are expensive so I think rental and payment might need to be involved. That being said should you have a baritone on offer it would be between you and the borrower to figure it out.

Do you have a baritone you can rent out? Fill out this form and JazzBariSax.com will have a public listing of horns available for people to reach out to.

https://forms.gle/g9L3cit2giPcYLKv5

JazzBariSax.com and myself (Andrew Hadro) will have no responsibility for the rental – payments, agreements, damages, insurance etc. I highty recommend you have a well written, signed agreement in place before renting any equipment. It should cover any possibility of damage or any other contingency clearly and explicitly – but I am not a lawyer so you will need to do your own homework to make sure you are covered.

A new exciting album drops tomorrow, Friday June 7th. Two of my favorite baritonists will be releasing their album finally. I’ve seen the group play live a couple times and its tremendous. Gary Smulyan, and Frank Basile are both solidly in the Pepper Adams school of baritone playing, but each have their own take on it.

This group they have together is somewhat a throwback to the notable groups that had two tenor saxophones as the front men (Think Sonny Stitt & Gene Ammons, or Johnny Griffin & Lockjaw Davis etc)

I’ve pre-ordered my copy, if you’d like to grab yours the link is here.