Category: General

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.

Dr. Evan Smith has provided a new transcription – another hard hitting solo from Leo Parker – on the tune “The Lion’s Roar”. He’s got a nice analysis along with the transcription posted on his site.

Head on over and have a look.

There are two recent transcriptions added to the repository – Bastian Contreras delivered Pepper Adams‘ Falling in Love with Love from a Red Garland album, and an alternate transcription of Cecil Payne‘s solo on ‘Bringing Up Father’ from the album, ‘Patterns in Jazz’ care of Guillaume Orti. Head over to the page to have a look!

We now have over 150 transcriptions, for free, in the repository. And possibly more impressive – there are now over 500,000 downloads!

But possibly most importantly  – as of January 2024, this website has been online for 25 years! Head to the About page to read the history.

Baritonist, Hunter Pullen of Purchase College, has won 3rd prize in the prestigious annual Vandoren Emerging Artist Competition!

This marks the first time a baritone player as taken a prize. Congratulations to Hunter! All fans of the baritone should keep an eye out for this very talented up-and-coming player.

If you’ve checked out the Brands and Horns page here you know there are a lot of options our there to pick from when looking for a horn. Three of the most sought after vintage horns are the Conn 12M, Selmer Mark VI, and Selmer Balanced Action (SBA). Brian Landrus has put together a nice video comparing them – he also includes a Low A in the mix that really demonstrates how the Low A somewhat alters the sound of the whole horn.

The folks at ErgoBrass recently sent me their newest product to check out. Its a support system for baritone (and bass!) saxophone. It is made to replace or even work in tandem with your neck strap or harness. I was really impressed with this product. I reviewed a similar product some time ago called SaxSupport and this is somewhat of a similar idea, but I think better executed and more flexible.

Any baritonist with back or neck problems, or anyone with a bass saxophone could definitely benefit from this product. I have made an in depth video explaining how it works, demonstrating it, and trying it with various instruments (baritone sax, both low A and low Bb, bass sax, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet and more). Check out the video for my full review:

Here’s the video from the company on the product:

If you’re interested you can purchase it directly from their website (sold and shipped from Europe):
https://store.ergobrass.com/product/ergosax-baribass-support/

Ronnie Cuber passed away a year ago. So its a nice little tribute to be able to add a new solo transcription of one of his classic solos over a blues. This one is Benny’s Back from George Benson’s Cookbook album. A great album featuring a young and fiery Ronnie Cuber. To my ear he’s really channeling a lot of Leo Parker here.

Head on over to the Transcriptions page to download and have a play through yourself.