Sonny Stitt: Lover Man…super alto solo

[Jazz Cat]

one of my top picks for a nice alto solo, of 100s I’ve seen:

amazing speed… Stitt had a soft bebop tone

[Michael]

Thanks for sharing this one Ken—this is a good example of how great the Alto Saxophone is and there’s loads and loads of music that I prefer to play on the Alto over the Tenor for sure. I had to click “like” on my youtube channel for this one.
Hey Ken, speaking of the Alto Saxophone, have you seen this article that Johnny posted in his blog sometime ago? Check it out when you get a chance, good stuff in there for sure. Here’s the link: https://howtoplaysaxophone.org/alto-sax-sheet-music After I fix the thing with my Tuner and re-upload my Blues Brothers Instrumental, then I have a good number of Alto Saxophone uploads coming on Johnny’s blog. Although I do have a Trevor James Alto and Tenor, the Alto was actually my first choice and a new Tenor wasn’t in the plans…my wife helped me pull that one off.

[Kevin]

Good choice! If he got paid by the note, he made a mint on that one!
Did you notice how much of the mouthpiece he took in! Thought he was rubbing his lower lip on the lig a few times.
Would be awesome to hear and play that many notes in an improv…

[Jazz Cat]

good points…I’ve played alto /yas62 for 35+ years, only recently took up tenor (a Man’s horn, lol) last year or so…both are great…I like how Johnny switches up in Careless Whisper etc, smart approach for horn that best fits the phrase

really hope to learn growling on tenor; once I have that + altissimo down I’ll be a happy camper…

never too old to learn,

ken

btw Johnny’s altissimo course is excellent, glad I got it, lots of useful tips; hope he makes a ‘Great Growling Sax” course soon…having watched his and other yt vids on ‘hum into it and blow’, still can’t do it… JF your altissimo course has lots of great exercises to prep embouchure in lower octaves (brilliant approach); it would be great to have indepth growling training, it would be a bestseller. (survey your customers, ‘how many of you would buy a how to growl course? to check…just an idea)

[Michael]

Very nice points Ken and Kevin…and you’re absolutely right, you’re never too old to start learning to play Saxophone. I work in the medical field, and it is proven that playing a musical instrument will make you smarter—there’s so many studies that prove this beyond the shadow of any doubt. In terms of Johnny’s Altissimo course, I’ve completed the whole thing and I’m happily playing in the Altissimo range freely-at will. All I can tell you is make sure when you come across something that’s difficult to just keep at it because the reward for your hard work is HUGE…when I nailed my audition a few weeks back playing in the Altissimo range, right in front of the people’s face up close-and-personal, in front of the judges table…you should have seen the look on their face, I’ll never forget it 🙂 When we start on any course of Johnny’s, the human tendency can be to think “it’s not working, I can’t do this, I’ll never get there”, etc. and then people move on to something else without even giving the course a real chance/finishing what they started. I remember Johnny commenting along the lines of for the person who follows everything exactly as he lays out, he knows they’ll get the results they want, but he can’t guarantee results because he has no control over whose going to fall through with the entire course and who won’t follow through. I’ve noticed how beautiful of a tone both you and Kevin have, and you’ll notice how Johnny’s Altissimo course makes it even better…but just remember like my last upload showed; none of it is any good without a good tuner! It’s arriving today here at my house; I’ve been relying on A440 hz videos and guess that hasn’t been working too well. I played with the guys locally Tuesday night and showed them the video and yes, I was out of tune as it appears the MP was pushed too far in. But on Tuesday night everyone said I was fine, we get together again tonight. It’s one of those things that I just can’t overlook…imagine that happening while playing live….OUCH that would hurt!

[Anonymous]

hey – ken, if humming doesn’t work, can you gargle with water?
Then try garling on the sax without water? Growling is something if you try to overdo it when starting out is elusive, try various relaxed levels of humming first without a mouthpiece, then with the mouthpiece.

[Jazz Cat]

good tip, thx James, I’ll try it. part of it is the whole idea of doing multiple stuff that doesn’t come naturally, at once…for decades I focus on embouchure/tone production/note sequence…now adding something weird like humming/growling/flutter tongue/gargling while playing, is a barrier. maybe just practicing w/mp/neck alone first, is a first step, so not distracted w/hands on keys

[Anonymous]

Ken – if you are going to use the mouthpiece on its own, i would only use it for practicing a steady pitch (ie count to 4) it takes more embouchure control to hold a steady pitch for the count of 4 on a mouthpiece than it does on the sax! You know the saying “look after the pennies(on mouthpieces), and the pounds(on saxs) will take care of themselves”

if you wan’t to practice all the weird effects (fluttering, growling, staccato, double tongue, tripple tongue etc..) then you can do all that on a mouthpiece attached to the neck (no need for a sax). Its worth using a tuner at the same time for all of these, to keep embouchure in pitch as things like fluttering will go way off pitch very quickly.

When i warmup with the mouthpiece just attached to the neck, i practice – single tonguing, double tonguing, tripple tonguing, growling, fluttering using tip of tongue, fluttering using back of tongue, meow (note bending), flicking the tongue up & down on the tip of the mouthpiece, the sound of a pidgeon wings as it flutters through the air. In fact if you listen to the sounds of birds in flight, you can identify the bird by its flapping noise! Its amazing how an owl can fly without making any recordable noise!

[Tim56]

My turn: Great player for sure!!! Kevin, your right on the MP. I have never seen anyone have that much in his mouth? That said, I’m not a real Jazz fan. I have some of Sonnys music from Curtis Swift. One piece, Summertime. I got it and played it with my first teacher. We got 2/3RDS through it, both stopped at the same time, looked at each other and said, wheres the Summertime? Improv all over the place. I guess I’m too simple? Got to have a melody going on. You can do improv and still know what your playing. I think? Just saying. Tim

[William Cingolani]

Hi Tim
I’m a melody man. Been working and still working on a melody and an improv, sort of, but the melody rings out.When I get the whole thing finished I’ll post it.

[Author]

Posts