Hi from New Zealand

[Steve Gibb]

Hi everyone, Steve from the South Island of New Zealand here. Im a late starter, having started 6 years ago at the age of 51. Quickly became obsessed and was practising 3 to 4 hours a day, but needed to cause I knew NOTHING!! and needed to get the very basics down. Older coots can do it, but we just take a lot longer, the old brain v motor skills aint as quik as they once were.

Just love the blues and swing. Can now read fairly well and have no probs with all the major and Dorian and natural minor scales. I love to improvise, but cant do it outside the Blues and minor pentatonics….. absolutely not a hope of threading a solo through multiple chord changes. So there in lies the problem I have. I am comfortable with the scales but cant seem to do anything much with them.
I have always been a big big Lester Young fan. Love his big ol swinging unstressed sound. Also love the Blues rock sound, Bobby Keys etc and some of the classic 70s rock solos like on FM and Billy Joel and Van Morrison songs

As a driver of long distance trucks I listen to a lot of Sax music and was really trying to find something that spoke to me that i would inspire me to get those scales smokin instead of the rather limp apologies I manage with them now. I dialled up Blues/rock saxophone on the internet and up came Johnny, who i confess I had never heard of. Wow 'Beat it Baby' nearly had me crash the truck I was so excited (takes quite a bit these days) Ive been trying to copy the solo but ….. well oh dear, was starting to think I had wasted 6 years ….. then I discovered this site ….. thanks Johnny, youve made an older guy real happy. this is what I been looking for and once more I can understand it. I think a lot of Sax site are just too daunting. People love to show off by showing off their knowledge of complicated jargon.

I started with a Yamaha 52 but after a couple of years decided to treat myself to a 2003 Selmer series 111 which the contemporary classic player I bought it off had personally selected from the paris factory. Its way more than Ill ever need or will be able to justify, but hey I love it, and its cheaper and more satisfying for me than pursuing young women, (might be different if I could catch one) I have a Vandoren T20 mouthpiece and use Jazz Select mediums on it.
Anyway enough, enough ramblings …. thanks Johnny for a great site …… love your music, have two of your albums so far, the others will come soon. And hey, if you wanna make an old V8 lout, fast going thin on top real happy …. any chance of that solo from 'Beat it Baby' put into written form?

[john]

Thanks Steve and welcome! As for the solo, just check out the blues lessons that are up so far and it'll start making sense at some point. What kind of stuff are you working on now?

Johnny

[Steve Gibb]

Thanks for replying Johnny. Im working on improvisation at present. I feel I have laid a good base of ground work but still needed the key.

I have shelves of 'how to improvise books' each promising to slip me the answer but it has been like being stuck outside a ten cent sweet shop with only 9 cents. All those books have frankly freaked me out with their way of promising the simple but delivering the complicated so one becomes overloaded and shuts down on the subject. Ive been simply running the blues and pentatonics over the changes and it has become very unsatisfying.

Your simple lessons, taking the subject and breaking it down to the basics is fantastic…..you have a talent for teaching as well as playing and that is very often not the case. After only a week Im already making progress. The problem with a lot of Jazz teachers is that while their talent is unquestioned, they dont seem to be able to remember back to when they were starting. I used to teach people how to fly helicopters so I know a bit about taking the complex and breaking it down into manageable bits.

Very happy I found this site ….

[Alan Sizer]

G'day Steve,

Agree re Johnny's site & lessons. Really good!

Love your humour, too. Long distance truckie on the eastern side of the ditch? LOL

Cheers

Al

('the ditch' is the Tasman Sea, between Oz & NZ for you non-ANZACs)

[Steve Gibb]

Well Alan, of course while 5 and a half hours each way may not seem much on your side of the ditch, one imagines that the ever present danger of banging into a large mountain is not one you are afflicted with on the western side. I am however planning a trip there to drive trucks and experience REAL long distance …… Thank heavens for GPS eh? at least there wont be mountains to bang into, although the 'roos may need to be worried.

[Alan Sizer]

Why not come over? Half of NZ lives here already!

Coming from Adelaide, I agree about the mountains. Vics & NSWelshmen might disagree, though. GPS? Nah. Roads are too sparse to be bothered:-)

[Alan Sizer]

Of course if you ever pass through Adelaide, drop us a line. Bring you horn & we can have a jam.

[Author]

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