The next LowBlow Music event: 6 baritonists under 30!

The next Low Blow Music event is coming up!

Saturday May 20th at Ornithology Jazz Club in Brooklyn, NYC.
Low blowing starts at 6:30pm.

There are so many great young baritone saxophonists, we are pleased to present just a handful of them here. 6 baritonists under 30! It’s going to be a great night.

6:30-7:15 Ben Caranicas & Hunter Pullen
7:45-8:30 Saul Dautch
9-9:45 Courtney Wright
10:15-11 Joey Rosin
11:30-12:15 Bryan Cowan

Gary Smulyan releases new album

Gary Smulyan has continued his recent streak of releasing albums with interesting and niche concepts. His most recent release “Tadd’s All Folks” contains all Tadd Dameron compositions. Interpreted by vocalist Anais Reno, and supported by Gary’s excellent blowing and a great band (Pete Malinverni – piano, David Wong – bass, and Matt Wilson – drums).

While this album is very straight ahead, Gary has still managed to avoid over saturating the recording world with more common standards. A lot of the songs here are very unfamiliar, continuing his trend of bringing to light lesser known compositions. His last few albums featured a lot of obscure contra-facts over more common chord changes.

The playing and recording quality are very well done here, if you’re a fan of Gary’s playing (who isn’t?) you should have a listen.

New Leo Parker Transcription! and Leo related news..

Thanks to Aidan Sears we have our first new transcription addition in a while! Aidan sent in a chorus of blues from Leo Parker on the riff blues, “Leo Leaps In”, a short but incredibly joyous solo from a great album, “Back to Back Baritones”. Head over to the transcription repository to get a copy.

I’m sure you all have heard about the passing of the great Ronnie Cuber. Ronnie once told me in a lesson that he couldn’t listen to Leo Parker anymore because he would copy it so much! Incidentally the great baritonists, Jason Marshall and Frank Basile will be playing two nights this weekend to celebrate Ronnie Cuber at Cafe Bohemia in NYC – Friday and Saturday I believe. Both Jason and Frank are huge fans of Leo Parker and Frank has done quite a bit of work documenting all Leo Parker recordings.

In other Leo news, Leo P (not to be confused with the aforementioned Leo Parker) has won the 87th annual DownBeat Magazine Readers’ poll. I’m sure this will grind some people’s gears as Leo P doesn’t play strictly jazz and attracts a young following as much from his outfits, hair , and dancing as he does for his playing. I personally find his music a bit monotonous, but I am thrilled that a lot of young people find interest in acoustic music and instruments through him. Leo P is a fine baritonist and actually should get credit for incorporating some extended techniques into his playing in a very approachable way. Also we can hope that anyone that gets interested in the baritone through him will also branch out to other realms of the baritone and further inspiration found therein. So congratulations to Leo P, anyone hearing him for the first time should also definitely check out his main inspiration, the late great, Ronnie Cuber.

BIG news for the baritone – Low Blow Music launches!

This is the biggest news I’ve been able to write about I think since launching this site 15 years ago.

Some time last year Gary Smulyan called me to propose a crazy idea to promote the baritone saxophone. Though we have planned and scrapped those plans a few times we are finally at the point where we can announce a new organization devoted to the baritone saxophone. Low Blow Music was formed by Gary Smulyan in conjunction with the council of baritonists – Frank Basile, Claire Daly, Andrew Hadro (myself), Brian Landrus and Jason Marshall – with the purpose of promoting the baritone saxophone.

We’re hoping to make this a world-wide phenomenon, and to kick things off we are celebrating Pepper Adams’ birthday on October 8th, 2022 with a BARITONE MARATHON. 12 hours of baritone and a jam session to boot. In addition to performances from groups led by Gary as well as each of the council of baritonists, we have additional performances from Lauren Sevian, Dave Schumacher, Roger Rosenberg and Carl Maraghi! The day will start at 12pm with Gary Smulyan and end at 12:30pm with an open Jam Session! Click here to see the full line up and schedule.

But perhaps the even more exciting news is that we have launched LowBlowMusic.com – this is a site that offers exclusive baritone content for a very affordable yearly membership of $25. Membership will get you all of the following:

-Access to the live stream of the October 8th event!
-Council of baritonists videos – conversation and mini lessons from Gary Smulyan, Claire Daly, Andrew Hadro, Jason Marshall, and Brian Landrus!
-Rare photos from Gary Smulyan’s career and travels
-Free download of the album “Marcescence” from Andrew Hadro
-Custom altissimo fingering chart from Andrew Hadro
-Rare photos from Claire Daly’s career and travels!
-Free download of the album “Mirage” from Brian Landrus
-Access to unreleased live Frank Basile performance in France
And more to come soon.

You can also support this organization by joining as a Gold Member or becoming a Sponsor of one of the live sets!

I hope to see you at the Ornithology Jazz Club in person, and look forward to sharing all of the forthcoming baritone goodness with you.

Andrew Hadro