Hi Jazz Cat,
There were some places where I use the A + side Bb key like you said and other places where I used the Bb key/bis key in the front of the Sax, we’re all different so we just have to experiment in this regard to see what works for each one of us. As you know, there’s 4 different fingering positions for Bb–try them all and see which one is best for you. I posted a video of Johnny’s on these Bb fingerings. Try all 4 of them and see if this help. I personally will use all 4 of them, like for an Instrumental that I’m working on right now for “Smooth Operator”. In the solo, it was easier for me to use one of the other “unconvential” Bb fingerings than we would normally not use/not so popular, but it worked great for me in the solo of Smooth Operator. The real trick in the solo of Smooth Operator was going from High F# to Altissimo G and back to high F# again smoothly like you talk about…easier said that done LOL
Yeah, in Pick Up the Pieces there are some tricky spots for sure in this solo, the only remedy is to take it very slowly–as slowly as you need to–once you start feeling comfortable, then you can gradually speed it up. A great thing to help is certainly a metronome–put the metronome on a slower setting and you can gradually speed it up to par as you get better/smoother. I will say that one thing that really helps is to make sure we practice our Chromatic Scales exercises–I do them every time I start a practice session and without doing them I just don’t get a very good practice session in, so it’s a “must do” for me.