New Mulligan Transcription – Stand Still

October 22, 2020 General, News, Transcriptions No Comments

Thank you to Jon De Lucia! We now have another Gerry Mulligan solo transcription in the repository. The song is titled “Stand Still” and the solo comes from the 1957 album co-led by Mulligan and Paul Desmond called Blues In Time. Its a nice short and playable solo, from a very nice album.

Head on over to the Transcriptions page to grab a copy.

As an added bonus you can hear Jon play the transcription and watch it in real time:

Two New Carney Transcriptions!

October 14, 2020 General, News, Transcriptions No Comments

Anything related to Harry Carney is always welcome, so we’re very glad to announce that two new Carney transcriptions have been added to our repository. Thank you very much to Ben Huff!

The first is Agra, a classic Carney feature from Duke Ellington’s Far East Suite. And the second is from a somewhat lesser known, but still delightful album where the Ellington band played their own arrangements of music from Disney’s film, ‘Mary Poppins’. The Carney feature is on “Stay Awake”.

Head over to the transcriptions page and download them for yourself.

Instagram video feature roundup 10/4/2020

October 4, 2020 News No Comments

We’ve recently started our instagram page!

If you’ve seen a video clip there and you want to see the full video we’ve embedded the full videos below. enjoy!


Lauren Sevian


Gerry Mulligan with Jobim


Sahib Shihab with Quincy Jones’ group


Ronnie Cuber with Lionel Hampton


Cecil Payne and Sahib Shihab with Dizzy Gillespie


Howard Johnson, Cecil Payne, Nick Brignola and Ronnie Cuber


Gary Smulyan with woody Herman


Alex Hamlin – baritone slap tongue solo

Danny Ray Thompson passed earlier this year

October 1, 2020 General, News No Comments

Regretfully I was not aware until now that Danny Ray Thompson passed away earlier this year. He was a very longtime member of the Sun Ra Arkestra and passed away in March of 2020. He was a part of the Arkestra for over 50 years. That even beats out Harry Carney’s over 40-year tenure with Ellington. I have to assume that’s the longest standing baritone player in a single ensemble. 

Both JazzTimes and the NY Times have nice articles on him, I’d encourage you to read them.

JazzBariSax is Google Ad-Free

September 22, 2020 General, News No Comments

As of today, September 22nd, 2020 JazzBariSax.com will no longer serve Google Advertisements. The only revenue stream will be via affiliate links from products purchased through links users opt to click on at this site. All remaining hosting, domain, and bandwidth fees will be paid for by myself.

Nobody likes ads, and we certainly don’t need to have more of them from Google.

Enjoy the site, ad-free.

Andrew Hadro
Curator, JazzBariSax.com

Catch Frank Basile on a live stream Friday!

September 16, 2020 General, Gigs, News, Videos No Comments

There aren’t too many opportunities to hear music that is being performed live these days. Fortunately for baritonists everywhere Frank Basile will be performing at Small Club in NYC this Friday September 18th and it will be live streamed. We recently wrote about the album that Frank co-led with Sam Dillon and this will serve as the album release celebration. We highly recommend the album, and of course definitely recommend checking out the stream!

Its 4:45pm-6:30pm Eastern Standard, and you’ll need to sign up for an account but its otherwise free at http://smallslive.com

New website for Conn fans!

August 23, 2020 General, News No Comments

C.G. Conn made saxophones for many decades. Some of their best horns were produced in the late ’20’s and 30’s, decades before Selmer made a decent horn. And the characteristics of the Conn seem to really fit well with many baritonists. Players like Gerry Mulligan, Harry Carney, Ronnie Ross and many others used Conn’s as well as many modern day players. Perhaps its the style of projection, and large sound that Conn’s can produce. Regardless a lot of you out there love Conn’s as do I.

Well for us fans of the Conn, there is a new website and Instagram profile to enjoy. Its called “Connsortia” and has some great content. It has many photos of different engravings used on Conn saxophones, some of them stock, some of them incredible custom engravings of beautiful nature scenes or portraits. There are dozens of comparison photos of the famous “naked lady” or “lady face” engraving – I had no idea there was so much variety! There is a also a great deal of information about the master engravers. The site has other oddities like Billy True’s patented contraption to play 3 saxophones at once.

There are other sites out there too if you’d like to go down this rabbit hole (I do!), to learn about the history and see photos such as:
http://momie.org/cgconnartistengravedportraitinstruments.html
https://bassic-sax.info/pix/index.php?/category/369
http://saxpics.com/?v=man&manID=3

The Connsortia site is a sub-site of Getasax.com which is a reputable site that deals largely in vintage horns. Enjoy!

Frank Basile’s new release, out today

August 7, 2020 Album Review, General, News, Reviews No Comments

I have often stated my admiration for Frank Basile, for his playing, as well as his knowledge of the history and tradition of Jazz. He is my first choice when I am looking for advice or information about the history of the baritone saxophone. But he is not just a trove of knowledge, his playing is fantastic and he has fully absorbed a huge trove of jazz language and tradition. One of the last concerts I saw before the current pandemic forced closings was a group he co-led with Gary Smulyan – it was great. When I found out that Frank had a recording in the works with tenor saxophonist, Sam Dillon I knew it would be excellent. I’ve been fortunate enough to hear Sam play for years and even sit in some big band sections with him. In a world full of tenor saxophonists, he is a monster that stands out.

So today, August 7th, 2020 Frank and Sam have released their album “Two Part Solution” on the Cellar Live label. I just got done ordering my copy and can’t wait for it to arrive. I’ve already heard most of the album and it is indeed great. The playing, the recording (recorded at the legendary Rudy Van Gelder’s in Englewood Cliffs, NJ), the arrangements, everything is good. The songs include some original compositions by both Frank and Sam. Though Jazz fans will also enjoy their take on the classic “Two Bass Hit”

I would really recommend getting a copy of this album, you can do so directly at Frank’s website (the best way to support artists!):
https://www.frankbasilemusic.com/product-page/two-part-solution-cd

New album from Kevin Goss!

July 31, 2020 News No Comments

Baritonist Kevin Goss has a new album out. It features some great and varied baritone playing with mostly original compositions that pay homage to some of the baritone greats. Kevin is a very able saxophonist and one of several baritonists in Canada doing fine things.

To me his sound has a mix of Pepper Adams, with some Joe Temperley vibrato, but  a melodic intuition that is maybe more reminiscent of Mulligan. Overall its definitely worth a listen. So head on over to his bandcamp page to listen or pick up a copy:

https://kevingoss.bandcamp.com/releases