Tag: baritone sax

Thank you to Matthew Stevenson for sending in a new Ronnie Cuber transcription. This one is on Arroz Con Pollo from his album ‘Cubism’.

Have a listen below and then head to the transcriptions page to download a copy!

Low Blow Music is continuing its presentation of concerts featuring and promoting the baritone saxophone. On Saturday December 1st they will present 6 hours of music dedicated to different musical milestones of the great Ronnie Cuber who passed away just over a year ago.

There will be four groups, one with music from Ronnie’s early playing on George Benson’s great albums, a latin jazz band dedicated to Ronnie’s long time association with afro-cuban music, a group featuring music that Ronnie Played in his long association with the Mingus Big Band, and finally a performance featuring music from Ronnie’s Three Baritone Saxophone Band.

The event will be live in Brooklyn at the Ornithology Jazz Club. The event will not be live-streamed but some footage will be captured and shared.

If you want to support Low Blow Music in its production of concerts, and get lots of great lesson content, free album downloads, exclusive historical photos and more – check out the membership options: https://www.lowblowmusic.com/membership

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.

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

The baritone saxophone is not nearly as prevalent as the alto or tenor, so it is inherently somewhat niche. Josh Sinton is a long time practitioner of the baritone and is exploring the edges of what the already somewhat undiscovered baritone saxophone can do. He has two new recordings out and they are worth listening to.

“b.” is a solo baritone saxophone recording. Recording an instrument acoustically while playing solo is incredibly daunting and ambitious. Adding digital effect, pedals, loops etc can really assist the endeavor. But Josh has spent a lot of time developing a repertoire of sounds and approaches to the saxophone such that he can now present an entire album’s length of music and sound with just him and a saxophone in a room. When listening to a solo instrumental recording I like to try to keep in the foreground the physical reality of the music. This is a large brass tube with holes in it, and the variety of sounds that can be produced with it is astonishing and worth listening to.

The other recording, “Adumbrations” is a trio recording with Josh, Jed Wilson, and Tony Falco. While still not striking down the middle of main-stream jazz this recording might be more familiar sounding to some listeners. The interaction between the musicians is really what’s special here. I especially enjoyed hearing Josh play some excellent flute.

I encourage you to expand your palate for baritone and go to Josh’s band camp page and have a listen. You make like it, love it, or just be interested to know what’s possible.

NPR has produced an excellent piece on the father of the jazz baritone saxophone, Harry Carney.

Danny Harrington and Lauren Sevian both contributed some meaningful dialogue, and overall the piece is well worth a listen. Check it out below!

And while we’re on the topic of Harry Carney, check out this interview with him from Crescendo magazine in 1966!

As the curator of JazzBariSax.com I often have the pleasure or sharing music by all of the great baritonists out there. Today, Friday December 24th I am releasing a single and would like to share a bit of my own music with the world. Perhaps you are curious as to what the person who runs this site chooses to pursue artistically.

Here’s a bit about the singe. Follow this link to find it on the streaming platform of your choice or YouTube.

‘Regarding the Moon’ is a new composition by Greek bassist Petros Klampanis, commissioned and performed by Andrew Hadro, baritone saxophonist in New York City. Hadro began working on the concept in the early days of the pandemic as a way to give work to composers during the global  performance outage. It is written for double string quartet (four violin, two viola, two cello), bass, piano, drums and features the baritone saxophone. It utilizes the extreme upper register of the baritone saxophone, a range and timbre rarely used by composers.

 

The title is both a reference to the extreme upper reaches of saxophone range and  a nod to composer Claude Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’. The piece is so technically difficult that Hadro spent months re-learning the altissimo range of the baritone saxophone, while the recording took nearly 18 months to complete on two continents with sessions months apart.  

 

According to Petros, ‘Andrew asked me to write a tune that features the high register of the baritone, a sound which I find especially beautiful and surely not what someone expects to hear from a bari. I tried to integrate the roles of the different ensembles, within the whole group (strings on the one hand and a jazz quartet on the other) and create a musical story that allows the leading instrument to shine but not overshadow the colors of the group.’

 

This piece is the first in a series of compositions commissioned to feature the baritone saxophone with strings as part of Andrew Hadro’s ongoing project, ‘For Us, The Living’. Subsequent works will debut in 2022.

 

‘Regarding the Moon’ will be released on the  ΠΚ Music label on December 24th, 2021. Available wherever music is sold or streamed. To learn more please visit https://andrewhadro.com and https://www.petrosklampanis.com