Night Train

[Thomas Fletcher]

Just downloaded Night Train,sounding great! I’m just unsure about the what to play in the 12-bar solo.

[Kevin]

Thomas, this may not be a worthwhile comment for you, but in the Members Sax Video’s #3 toward the end of that Blog (Jan 5th), I uploaded Night Train and improved a very simple, easy melody line that’s close to a Ken Curtis’s solo on a YouTube pc of his.
I just learned it by ear at that time, though I did notate it and sent a copy to Michael. Not sure if I or he would still have that, but it is simple and short enough to pick up by ear after a few passes.
So there’s something that may be helpful…

[Michael]

Yes, I remember that video Kevin and it’s on my “liked” videos on youtube 🙂 Your Improvisation was very simple and as Johnny has told me a couple of months back, we can say more when we play less and your Video of Night Train was a good example of what Johnny pointed out to me to do for my next Improvised video, which will be coming soon. Could you re-post that video here again to look at? Do you plan on doing any more Tenor Videos? I love to hear you play, very beautiful tone you have!

[Thomas Fletcher]

Just listened to your video Kevin, that’s sounds great, you have a really good ear!

[Kevin]

Thomas, Michael, hope you both get to upload Night Train sometime. It is a really cool/fun song to play and learn.
Michael, don’t want my negativity to keep being part of my responses, but my practice time is so few and far between I only grab my Alto since I favor the MP/Reed I use for it. My Tenor MP selection was a work in progress that never got very far. It was simply a student David Hite $24 MP, that got me started on my Tenor, but I never got that “inspiration” that I had found a good combination that worked well for me. So my Tenor is tarnishing in it’s case waiting for me to find/make time to get back to routine to practicing, and looking for a good MP/Reed combo that I will be happy with.
And to make my matters worse I had a work accident that severely cut my left palm, and I am currently left with only partial feeling in my left 2 middle fingers, so not sure how my playing will be affected by that. I tried to practice a little last weekend and it went better than I thought, but got some rehab to get back to some normalcy, and hope I’ll be able to “feel” the keys again in the not so distant future.
So everyone that is doing well with enjoying/making time for developing your sax skills, be thankful for your time, resources, and health to be able to enjoy this while you can. It may not always be so…

[Michael]

I’m so sorry to hear about that Kevin…I remember around 6 months ago you had an accident that resulted in a collapsed lung? How are you doing from that accident?
I’ve actually learned all of Night Train with my own IMprovised solo using the Blues scales and just haven’t gotten around to uploading it yet…yes it is a very fun song 🙂 I’ve been having great success with the Claude Lakey MP for Tenor, they’re available on Amazon for a very good price. It’s not quite as bright sounding or edgy as say a Guardala or Berg Larsen, but it’s got a very big, open, warm tone. It took me a little bit to get used to it (as that goes with any MP) but it’s been great. I’ve been recently playing a lot more with the Claude Lakey on Alto sax too….fantastic MP and I find myself starting to become partial to it LOL For both Alto and Tenor, whether it’s high-screaming notes, Rock/Blues or quite, soothing subtones, doesn’t seem to matter; this MP is clicking with me. It’s much more efficient to have that 1 MP that we can use for a wide array of playing v.s. falling into that trap of thinking we need lots of different MPs to use for different kinds of music.
Nothing wrong with just grabbing the Alto…some of my very favorite music is on the Alto over Tenor. Actually, when I first ordered my Trevor James Saxophones, the Tenor wasn’t even in the plans at all; my first pick was the Alto. Some locals think that it was a ‘waste of $’ buying a high-caliber Alto….nothing could be further from the truth. I wonder what a player like Earl Bostic would have said to that kind of thinking? Remember the following article that Johnny posted in the blog sometime ago? https://howtoplaysaxophone.org/alto-sax-sheet-music
I LOVE the alto sax and I have some things of Johnny’s done and will upload them ASAP…we’re in the middle of a move right now. I recently did a fun get-together with our member Tim and showed him on my webcam all of the boxes are surrounding us right now LOL We didn’t have too much time to meet on Skype because my family van had broken down that took me 2 days to fix LOL but it was fun meeting Tim on Skype.

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