Earl Bostic "Night Train" on Alto Sax, listen to his Glissandos!

[Michael]

Hey guys,
I can’t help but LOVE to hear Earl Bostic play “Night Train” on the Alto Sax. Not only was his tone on the Alto mind-blowing, but what catches my attention too is his Glissandos. When he comes down chromatically, you can hear him hitting not just 95% of the notes but every single one of them and very distinctly–and he does it each and every time he plays a glissando–mind boggling! I also found a pretty cool website dedicated exclusively to Earl Bostic http://www.earlbostic.com lots of great info. on it. If we wanted to talk about some of the greatest Alto Sax players of all-time, I think his name definately deserves to be put into the conversation.

[Michael]

When listening to Earl Bostic play “Night Train”, I can’t help but LOVE to hear not only his tone on the Alto but also his Glissandos. When he comes down chromatically, it didn’t seem like it was enough for him to hit 95% percent of the notes…he hits 100% of them; each and every time he does a glissando. And he hits them very distinctly too–mind blowing to say the least! I also found a pretty cool website dedicated to Earl Bostic with some great info/facts at earlbostic.com When people talk about some of the greatest Alto Sax players of all time, you simply have to put his name in that conversation. I’ve never heard of any other Alto Sax player with a tone like he had.

[john]

if that ain’t enough to encourage anyone to practice glissandos I don’t know what us!
he was the only altoist who played that raunchy tone too and didn’t care about making it sound sweet like everybody else.
He had more of a typical rock sound that was usually heard by tenor players.

[Tim56]

Mike: Great rendition! I’m just not fast enough to make it happen. I am amazed at how close to the Forest rendition he is. Tim

[Michael]

If you go to the bottom of the home page on the website I found/shared at earlbostic.com, you’ll find some stories/testimonies from players that knew him and played with him. His piano player, Joe Knight, is quoted by saying that he had more than 150 tunes in his book and how he was really big on sight reading (when learning those new tunes). Joe then says that if you couldn’t read them the first time around then, quote, “you we’re out of a job”…..(holy cow!) Lou Donaldson is quoted by saying the Earl Bostic was, “the greatest saxophone player he ever knew”. Now, I read something really odd/rumor on the homepage that said Earl Bostic actually used a TENOR reed on his Alto Sax?!? Maybe it’s true and maybe it’s not–don’t know how he would have pulled that one off–but I personally think that his tone was SO, SO GOOD that maybe there were others who simply accused him of using a Tenor reed?
Here’s my personal favorite of Earl Bostic “Flamingo”…come to think of it Johnny, it would be AWESOME on Tenor at some point in time to do a sax cover of his. I can’t believe how his ALTO playing sounds so similar to your TENOR playing…..that’s ludicrous!

[Author]

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