Canataloup Island – 2 altos

[Jazz Cat]

watch starting 5:00

[Michael]

Very cool Jeff, thanks for sharing 🙂 This has got to me one of the most popular songs by Herbie Hancock of all time, it’s actually on my to-do list after I do my presentation of Moondance with my Instructor. I’ll be uploading Moondance for Johnny to look at/give pointers before my assigned date–doesn’t hurt to use all the help we can get LOL It’s getting close to being done. The man I’m working with felt I had a good hold of the Blues Scales, so he’s has me focusing on different kinds of Improvising. I wasn’t asked to make a carbon copy of the original Moondance, but it’s to help me apply the things I’ve been working on–but I still decided to “steal” a few licks/riffs from the Sax solo LOL My Sax cover will be pretty unique because it will contain chunks of the main melody, parts of the original solo mixed with my own licks/riffs, and the rest is totally Improvised–it’s a really great feeling to be able to express ourselves 🙂 Did you mention you were planning on doing Moondance too? Man, that would be COOL to see you play it too, get some Inspiration by watching you 🙂 I love how you use the Green Screen technology in your uploads…mine just arrived this week and I’ll be using it too. I had tried using it before and all was good, but we had problems with the lighting in the room. Seems to be resolved now. Very cool Jeff, thanks for sharing 🙂

[Kevin]

You posted a topic regarding “over-doing” embellishments, and in that regard my take on the above performance is- Yeah blown away at Darius’s “skill’s”, but he “over-cooked” it. Rocco’s improv was more true to the melody “motif” of the song, though he colored a bit outside the lines too. If you take out the section from 3:30 to 7:00 for me it would have had enough content, groove, inspiration to have me applauding for more. Just an opinion from one that like’s to hear the melody of the song and not a bunch of acrobatics that could be played pretty much over any song since the recognition has been lost…

[Michael]

Those are great points Kevin–I had watched the first 3 minutes of the video and hadn’t had time to watch the rest of it until now–you are absolutely correct. The best approach to improvising is usually to take a simple, rhythmic approach. We can usually say more when we play less. I think there’s a big difference between Improvising that has soul to it v.s. something that sounds ‘intellectual’.

[Jazz Cat]

good points Michael & Kevin…

I like Darius’ movement, he shows enthusiasm & good playing

there’s a ‘library’ of embellishments to learn, great riffs, trills, etc, by just watching other players

though it would be fun to do moondance, it’s copyright-restricted on youtube so unfortunately I’ll pass
(it’s one of my favorite songs, great to sing in karaoke too btw)

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[Mark Kiziuk]

Sounded very nice!
Mark

[Author]

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