by Curator, Andrew Hadro
JazzBariSax.com (est. 1999) is a website devoted to publishing information related to the baritone sax. The site is regularly updated with relevant news about the baritone, but most of its content is contained within the articles and biographical pages of the curated list of baritone players, both past and present. In addition to the curated video collection of the best and most relevant YouTube videos, the site also houses a transcription repository where anyone around the world can download transcriptions of jazz baritone solos for their own personal study. These transcriptions have been sent in over the years by players all over as contributions to this community. We have over 125 transcriptions with well over 300,000 downloads!
Where I grew up, I was very fortunate to have schools with great music programs, great teachers, and some really excellent local musicians. While they were helpful and knowledgeable about the saxophone and jazz, none of them were truly specialists or experts in the baritone saxophone. I continue to operate this site both to serve to promote the instrument as well as provide information specific to the instrument to people who may not otherwise have in-depth access.
Many of the articles within were written by me, though I am constantly seeking out content, opinions, and relevant things to publish from other baritone saxophonists, both to grow the wealth of knowledge contained here, but also to diversify it. Every time I am traveling and meet a new baritone player I often tell them about the site, and it always brings me joy to be able to share this with them or to find out that they have been visiting for years.
History of JazzBariSax.com
According the venerable Way Back Machine, also known as the internet archive, the earliest incarnation of this site was captured on January 29th, 1999. A man named Jeff Neavor had created the website simply titled ‘The Jazz Bari Homepage’, hosted on Geocities, which no longer exists, but was one of the earlier DIY website hosting platforms. When the site started, there were individual pages for just 14 baritonists. We now have pages for over 90. The original slogan was “Chaloff to Mulligan…And All Points Between“. Which always struck me as odd, because while Mulligan and Chaloff were certainly different they’re definitely not the farthest points apart on the baritone spectrum, either stylistically or chronologically.
For fun you can check out what the site looked like when it started:
https://web.archive.org/web/19990129031403/http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Delta/8586/
I don’t remember the exact details but I believe sometime in 2007 Jeff had posted a message that he was looking for someone to take over the site. I was nearly finishing college and had picked up some rudimentary web design skills in school and in a new job. Since I had been visiting this site for years already I jumped at the chance, contacted Jeff and got to work building a new home for the site. I purchased the current domain name and set up the new site, launching in October of 2007.
And here is what it looked like in 2009 years ago after I took it over and established it at the current domain, jazzbarisax.com:
https://web.archive.org/web/20091019002804/https://www.jazzbarisax.com/
I will endeavor to devote as much time as I can to the site, and please, if you have anything to share please send it my way. I always enjoy hearing from fellow baritonists. I hope you are as big of a fan of the King of All Instruments as I am.
Andrew Hadro, May 2020
Curator of JazzBariSax.com since 2007
Andrew Hadro curates all of the content on the website. Much of it is sent in from the Baritone community. This site is supported by Google Ads and Amazon associate links. When you buy through links on this site, it may earn an affiliate commission. As an Amazon Associate this site earns from qualifying purchases. These fees go towards hosting/domain fees for the website with the remainder being provided by Hadro. The hope is that affiliate links will soon provide enough fees to cover all hosting costs and Ads can be removed from the website. Update: 9/22/2020 Google Ads have been removed. Enjoy the site Ad-Free.
Too Cool ! I will definitely support this site by visiting and shopping with the affiliates here !