For less than $8, I decided it was worthwhile to try the Bo-Pep Flute Finger Rest, which is designed to help with this problem. It’s a little plastic thing that clips onto the flute’s body, allowing a more open hand position.

It looks like this…

…and clips on like this. No adhesives or tools required. Installs in one second. Having tried it, I have no concerns for the safety of my flute’s finish.

Works like a charm!

It comes with a little fabric bag, presumably for storage. My flute fits just fine in its case with the finger rest installed, but even if it didn’t, it would be no problem to snap it on or off as needed.

The verdict: a cheap, effective, and dead-simple flute customization. It immediately opened up my hand position and helped a lot with the tension. Now back to Taffanel and Gaubert…

Bo-Pep also makes a Finger Saddle (for smaller hands, I think) and a Thumb Guide.

Believe me when I tell you that this is a seriously cool instrument.

Even after hearing and reading a number of rave reviews of the Akai EWI 4000S, I was pleasantly surprised by its playability, responsiveness, and capacity for expression. In my opinion, this is a real instrument, and a viable option for serious music-making.

A few highlights:

• It has a nice heft to it, and feels in my hands like professional-grade gear.
• The breath sensitivity is easily adjustable, and it only took me a moment to get it set up to really suit my preferences.
• It is packed full of all kinds of sensors: the breath sensor (of course) which even responds well to flutter-tonguing and growling, a bite sensor, and various sensors for the thumbs that can control things like portamento and pitch bend. These are all programmable to some extent, so if you’re clever you can remap them to control different things.
• It has an on-board synthesizer, unlike its primary rival, the Yamaha WX5. That means you don’t have to plug it into a sound module (although you can if you like). It also means it’s relatively cheap: the Yamaha currently has a street price of about $750 and requires an $800 sound module. The Akai goes for about $700, and doesn’t need a sound module.
• The on-board synthesizer is actually a synthesizer, not just a collection of canned sounds. That means you can create your own sounds (using a computer and the free Akai software), or buy professionally-developed sound banks. It does come with a selection of pre-programmed sounds, so you can just play it right out of the box if you prefer.
• It has an 8-octave range, which is sort of mindblowing to me as a woodwind player.
• The proprietary EWI fingering system is quite intuitive for a woodwind player, very saxophone-like. But the fingerings are very flexible, with lots of possibilities for alternate or trill fingerings. (There is a very basic fingering chart in the user’s manual, downloadable from Akai, but it does not tell the whole story. Stay tuned for a future article taking a closer look at EWI fingerings.) The EWI also has additional fingering modes, including “saxophone,” “flute,” “oboe,” and an apparently trumpet-valve-like system, which might ease the transition from another instrument but lack the power of the EWI fingering system.
• It has a nice set of on-board effects and other tricks: reverb, delay, chorus, portamento, the ability to play in octaves or another interval of your choice, and the ability to sustain a note while you play a phrase.
• It can be powered by an AC adapter (not included), but seems to run for a good long time on 4 AA batteries.
• It has a 1/8″ headphone jack, a 1/4″ line out jack, and MIDI in and out jacks.

In short, I am very satisfied with my new toy. There are a few things to be aware of, however, if you’re thinking of getting into wind controllers:

• There isn’t any kind of speaker built in, so it doesn’t make any noise unless you plug in some headphones or an amplifier. For casual playing at home, I’ve also had success plugging a nice pair of computer speakers and subwoofer into the headphone jack.
• The most difficult part of the fingering system is the left-thumb octave rollers. These make the huge pitch range possible, but take some getting used to.
• The included sounds are quite playable, but the custom sound bank from Patchman Music really takes the EWI to another level. You haven’t experienced the true potential of the EWI4000S unless you’ve used the Patchman sounds. (From what I understand, the same is true of the Yamaha wind controller.)
• Also on the subject of sounds: the best application of the EWI4000S’s synthesizer is synthy sounds. If you want to convincingly imitate acoustic instruments, you will need to plug the EWI into some kind of sound module. This wasn’t a negative for me, but it’s worth knowing ahead of time.

Here’s a small taste of what the Akai EWI4000S sounds like, using one of the Patchman sounds. I didn’t add anything to the recording after the fact–all the effects, etc. are coming from the 4000S itself.

Play

Featured Book: Improve Your Doubling: Advanced Studies for Doublers

I reviewed the book myself a couple of years back.

The jazzreview.com review is by Peter Westbrook. He gives some nice perspective on woodwind doubling:

The practice grew out of the need for players to cover parts on more than one instrument in the big bands of the 1920′s and 30s, and spread to the pits of Broadway shows and the TV staff orchestras at NBC and CBS. Saxophonists were initially expected to double on the clarinet until it was largely replaced by the flute in the 50′s, as it saw more acceptance in jazz. The 60′s brought new colors, adding oboe and bassoon parts for doublers–or triplers–to deal with, until players such as the legendary Romeo Penque appeared on the New York studio scene prepared to play every woodwind instrument known to man, often in quick succession, a situation further complicated by the re-emergence of the clarinet on the 1980′s. I counted over 20 instruments stacked up in front of the five-piece reed section of the Maria Schneider Orchestra at a recent concert.

Mr. Westbrook evaluates the Vadala book as “an indispensable part of every woodwind player’s training,” which I would consider to be somewhat of an exaggeration, though I do think the etudes are interesting and worth a look for an advanced doubler.

I was also intrigued by the mention of “legendary” doubler Romeo Penque, with whom I was not familiar, but whose credentials certainly seem to be in order.

For reasons unknown to me, the post from which I originally quoted has been removed, but there are similar thoughts expressed in a more recent post.

Anyway, I got a kind offer from someone at Légère to send me a few samples.* They asked about my current cane reed preference, and sent three reeds in different strengths close to what I currently use.

Goodies via Canadian mail

As I mentioned in the previous post, I have used Légère reeds (not the Signature Series) on the largest clarinets, but have not, until now, experimented substantially with the smaller Légères.

I am pleased to report that the Signature Series are highly playable reeds. In fact, they respond nearly identically to my current cane reeds of choice (a popular, leading brand).

I mention response first because I think it’s the most important aspect of how a reed plays, but of course the question on everyone’s mind is tone. I have been playing the Signature Series reeds exclusively for the past week, and I find the tone of these reeds to be clear, dark, flexible (but not overly so), and characteristic of good cane reeds.

The reeds are very well-balanced. Since the reeds I received are of different strengths, I don’t think I can comment conclusively on consistency from reed to reed, but they strike me as having identical playing characteristics other than a predictable difference in resistance between the strengths (which isn’t always the case with cane reeds).

With the usual traffic of students and colleagues in and out of my studio, there have been a number of raised eyebrows at the sight of a plastic reed on my clarinet. In casual demonstrations, the consensus is that these sound like the “real” thing.

Here’s my exhaustive list of what I find to be different between the Légères and my cane reeds:

• Inside my head, there seems to be a little more articulation noise with the Légères. However, after recording myself, I’m convinced that it’s not audible to a listener. Still, perhaps it will push me to further refine my tonguing.
• The flat side of the reeds seems slightly more slippery than cane, which means I have to take a little extra care to get them positioned just right on the mouthpiece.
• The plastic, at least in my studio in January, feels just slightly cool against my lip. I find this minor thing to be vaguely pleasant.
• That’s it.

I would tend to choose the Légère over cane reeds in doubling situations and in my teaching studio, where the advantages of stability and non-warpage are clear. I also wouldn’t hesitate to use them for ensemble playing. As I do have a solo recital coming up, I’ve been doing a little soul-searching about whether I will use the Légère in that situation. At this point, I think I can find and adjust a cane reed that will outplay the Légère by a small (very small) margin. But in a pinch I would gratefully fall back on the Légère, and I think no one would be the wiser. I think these are worth keeping on hand for just such an eventuality, even if you’re not convinced that they’re right for normal performance situations.

On the Légère website, you can take the blindfold test with Richard Hawkins playing the Légère against a cane reed. I figured I might as well offer my own blindfold test, so you can gauge whether the difference is audible with a clarinetist rather less accomplished than the esteemed Mr. Hawkins. Can you tell which is the plastic reed?

Sample A:

Play

Sample B:

Play

See the answer

I understand that Légère is in the process of releasing a Signature Series reed for tenor saxophone, which I am anxious to try as well. Since they are releasing a tenor reed and not an alto reed (yet?) I assume that the saxophone Signature Series is geared more toward jazz players.

*In the interest of full disclosure:

I received three reeds from Légère at no cost, but I was not asked to do anything, including writing a review, in return. I am reviewing the reeds in what I believe to be an unbiased manner. (Phew!)

The purpose of this, of course, is to help the students develop good aural concepts of tone, phrasing, expression, vibrato, ensemble, and so forth. To try to learn to play an instrument well without a solid aural concept is like trying to learn a foreign language from a textbook. You might pick up a few things, but you’ll be sunk unless you get to really hear—over and over—how the words and phrases sound.

I’m discovering that it’s a challenge to make the recording selections meet all the criteria I’d like. For example, I would like for each one to:

• Be by a major soloist, preferably living
• Contain very standard literature that my students should know, without too many repeats from previous selections
• Contrast with last semester’s selection (for example, if last semester’s recording was music with piano, I tried to pick a concerto recording this time around)
• If at all possible, contribute to a sense of diversity

The last one has been a challenge. So far my two-semester tally, selecting recordings for four different instruments, is six white men and two white women. I’d like to improve on that in the future, though I do think that, ultimately, what comes through the earphones is more central to this project than the colors or genders represented on the CD covers. I’ve got a few ideas for future selections and welcome additional suggestions.

Here are this semester’s selections:

Oboe: Nancy Ambrose King Plays Oboe Concertos

Repertoire: Concerti by Mozart, Goosens, Vaughan Williams, and Martinů.

Clarinet: Paul Meyer, French Clarinet Art

Repertoire: Sonatas by Saint-Saëns and Poulenc, Chausson Andante et Allegro, Debussy Petite Pièce and Première Rhapsodie, Milhaud Sonatine and Duo Concertant, and Honegger Sonatine.

Bassoon: Dag Jensen, Musique pour Basson er Piano

Repertoire: Tansman Sonatine and Suite, Koechlin Sonate and Trois Pièces, Dutilleux Saraband et Cortège, and various short pieces by Bozza, Bitsch, and Mihalovici.

Saxophone: Claude Delangle, Under the Sign of the Sun

Repertoire: Ibert Concertino da Camera, Tomasi Concerto, Ravel Pavane pour une Infante défunte, Maurice Tableaux de Provence, Schmitt Légende, Milhaud Scaramouche.

Note: This is something I wrote back in the olden days (2003?) and published on another website. I’ve relocated it here with a few minor edits. I still think it’s a pretty decent list, with, admittedly, a few weaknesses (the biggest ones, I think, are a failure to really address the jazz singers, and a certain saxophone-centric bias). In any case, I hope you enjoy it.

Full disclosure: if you buy any of these albums by clicking on the links below, I earn an astonishingly tiny sum of money.

Hello, music fans!

You need this.

I’ve picked out, for your listening pleasure, ten essential jazz albums, as an easy introduction to the wide world of jazz. You’re welcome.

I’ll assume that you already love music. But maybe you’re a lifelong rocker. Or a connossieur of the great classical composers. Or maybe you like both kinds of music: country and western. No matter your taste, the jazz section of the record store can be a little bewildering.

Let’s face it, the jazz world is a members-only club. We jazz fans love to lord our superior musical tastes over the uninitiated masses. You listen to whom? Kenny G?! I think I need to lie down.

Plus, if you’re like me, your budget doesn’t quite allow for the latest comprehensive 40-disc boxed set from Verve or Columbia Records. Same thing goes for rare and valuable vinyl collector’s items.

So, these ten albums have been carefully chosen to do a few things:

• Introduce you to key jazz artists, styles, albums, and songs.
• Keep the cost reasonable. These albums are all readily available and reasonably priced single compact discs (no expensive multidisc sets) or iTunes albums.
• Preserve the dignity of the jazz tradition, by giving you the music in complete album format whenever possible. No samplers or compilations, except in a couple of cases where compilations are the only logical choice.
• And, most importantly, add the pleasure and richness of the jazz world to your life!

Let’s get going! We’ll do this in a sort of rough chronological order.

The Short List

Click away, kids!

• Louis Armstrong: Best of the Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings
• Duke Ellington: Best of the Duke Ellington Centennial Edition
• “The Quintet”: Jazz at Massey Hall
• Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
• Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
• John Coltrane: Giant Steps
• Horace Silver: Song For My Father
• Ornette Coleman: The Shape of Jazz to Come
• Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto, featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim: Getz/Gilberto
• Weather Report: Heavy Weather

Louis Armstrong: Best of the Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings

Columbia/Legacy, originally recorded 1926-1928 in New York City.

Why this album?

• Louis Armstrong was the vital figure in coalescing the emerging “hot” jazz style (as opposed to the “sweet” style favored by white bands in those segregated days). There is very little in today’s diverse jazz world that can’t be traced directly back to these essential recordings by Armstrong’s Hot Five (a quintet, of course), and the expanded Hot Seven group.
• As I said, I prefer not to use compilations, but an exception is clearly in order here, since these recordings predate the LP record, and would have been released as singles. There are a number of compilations available, but this one is especially solid.

Style:

• Traditional (or “trad”) jazz, hot jazz, or Dixieland.

Important people:

• Louis Armstrong, cornet, leader, composer

What to listen for:

• Collective improvisation, with everyone playing their independent, made-up-on-the-spot parts simultaneously. This is a hallmark of Dixieland jazz. Armstrong’s power as a soloist, however, forces the introduction of a new texture that will quicky become a jazz staple: that of the single soloist, accompanied by bass, drums, and maybe guitar and/or piano.
• Armstrong’s bold, brassy cornet sound. Popular legend says that in those days, before modern recording studios, Armstrong had to play in the next room to avoid overpowering the rest of the band on the recording.

How to sound smart talking about this album:

• Continually point out how Armstrong is way, way ahead of his time.
• For bonus snobbery points, pronounce the “S” in Louis, and correct people who call him Louie. Armstrong became “Louie” in the media, but always prounounced the “S” when referring to himself.

Buy it!

• Get the CD on Amazon.com
• Download it on iTunes

Duke Ellington: Best of the Duke Ellington Centennial Edition

RCA Victor, originally recorded 1927-1973.

Why this album?

• This album will have to represent all of the so-called “big bands” (usually somewhere from fifteen to twenty-five musicians), although the bands of Count Basie or Stan Kenton could also have taken this spot. The Duke wins out because of his timeless repertoire, as well as his unmatched stable of virtuoso musicians (which gradually changed throughout the band’s history).
• Again a compilation–this is the last one, I swear. We have the same problem of some of these recordings predating the LP; also, the band’s longevity makes a compilation a good choice for a big-picture view.

Style:

• Big band

Important people:

• Edward “Duke” Ellington, leader, piano, composer & arranger
• Billy Strayhorn, composer, arranger, Ellington’s right-hand man
• Ben Webster, tenor saxophone
• Johnny Hodges, alto saxophone
• Jimmy Blanton, bass
• Harry Carney, baritone saxophone
• Juan Tizol, valve trombone
• Ray Nance, trumpet, violin

What to listen for:

• The full, rich sound of the big band. The collective improvisation of the Dixieland band has been abandoned in favor of a more organized, orchestrated sound, with the musicians reading their parts from sheet music.
• Individual personalities. Ellington and collaborator Billy Strayhorn write music with individual musicians in mind, highlighting each band member’s characteristic and idiosyncratic style.
• Antiphonal writing, in which a soloist or group is contrasted against another soloist or group in a conversation, an exchange, or even a battle.

How to sound smart talking about this album:

• Admit that you admire the new directions that the band explored post-1950, but you really prefer the more raw sound of the Blanton-Webster years (about 1940-1942, when bassist Jimmy Blanton and saxophonist Ben Webster made essential contributions to the band’s sound).

Buy it!

• Get the CD on Amazon.com
• Download it on iTunes

“The Quintet”: Jazz at Massey Hall

Debut, recorded 1953 in Toronto, Canada.

Why this album?

• “Bebop,” the fast-paced, virtuosic, harmonically inventive music generally associated with New York City and the mid-1940′s, makes arguably its definitive statement in this recording in Toronto in the 1950′s. The founding fathers of bebop are at the top of their game here, playing their most characteristic repertoire with wild abandon.
• The so-called “Quintet” isn’t a formal group, just an auspicious meeting of the minds. By 1953, however, most of these musicians had played with each of the others many times. The important thing is that we get each of these five incredible and important musicians all together on one disc.

Style:

• Bebop, or just “bop”

Important people: everyone on the album.

• Charlie Parker, alto saxophone
• Dizzy Gillespie, trumpet, composer
• Bud Powell), piano
• Charles Mingus, bass
• Max Roach, drums

What to listen for:

• The breakneck tempos and virtuosic improvised solos.
• The small-group dynamic. Economic pressures and the quest for something new had broken up many of the big bands by the late 1940′s. Bebop musicians, freed from the heavily-orchestrated big bands, love to feed from each other’s energy, “quote” each other’s melodic lines, and interject humor and invention into each solo.
• Complex rhythms, melodies, and harmony. Bebop is the thinking man’s jazz. This isn’t music for dancing or for socializing; it’s music for smiling knowingly while nursing a highball.

How to sound smart talking about this album:

• Think up a fictional song title, and pretend to hear Charlie Parker or Dizzy Gillespie quoting from it. “Was that a little bit of ‘Purple Moon?’ I could have sworn it was the triplet lick from the second bar of the bridge.” Bebop fans will immediately agree with you. Others will give you blank stares. From now on you may treat all of them as hopeless squares.
• Remember, Gillespie was bebop’s most public figure, and popular with the media and the public, but jazz fans usually regard Parker as the more important musical figure.

Buy it!

• Get the CD on Amazon.com
• Download it on iTunes

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

Capitol, recorded 1949-1950 in New York City.

Why this album?

• By 1949, Miles Davis had studied at the feet of the bebop giants, absorbed their style, and was ready to try a new direction. This album is, in fact, widely considered to represent the birth of the “cool” school, a mellower, gentler, more orchestrated sound to contrast with the fire and fury of bebop.

Style:

• Cool jazz, or “Cool School”

Important people:

• Miles Davis, leader, composer, trumpet
• Gil Evans, composer
• Lee Konitz, alto saxophone
• Gerry Mulligan, baritone saxophone

What to listen for:

• Heavy influence of classical music: focus on melody and counterpoint, elegance and balance of form, even use of orchestral instruments like the French horn and the tuba (virtually unused in jazz since the Dixieland days).
• The refined but carefully un-virtuosic solos from Davis and saxophonists Konitz and Mulligan.

How to sound smart talking about this album:

• Don’t be afraid to use the word “nonet” to decribe Davis’s 9-piece band. (Pronounce it like “no net.”)

Buy it!

• Get the CD on Amazon.com
• Download it on iTunes

Miles Davis: Kind of Blue

Columbia, recorded 1959 in New York City.

Why this album?

• Miles Davis makes the list twice in a row because of two honest-to-goodness jazz revolutions. In fact, he will continue to reinvent himself and the music throughout his career.
• This album heralds the arrival of modal jazz, a style that pushes its musicians to invent and innovate within a limited harmonic framework.

Style:

• Modal jazz

Important people:

• Miles Davis, leader, composer, trumpet
• Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, alto saxophone
• John Coltrane, tenor saxophone
• Bill Evans, piano

What to listen for:

• A sense of stasis created by the use of “modal” harmony, a technique in which the musicians limit themselves to a certain collection of notes.
• Davis’s use of “space” (silence) in his solos. Davis was known to have encouraged saxophonist Coltrane–notorious for his rapid and extended volleys of notes–to use more space in his solos, too.

How to sound smart talking about this album:

• Smirk at Cannonball Adderley’s solos, and remark on his inability to resist throwing in a bebop lick here and there.

Buy it!

• Get the CD on Amazon.com
• Download it on iTunes

John Coltrane: Giant Steps

Atlantic, recorded 1959 in New York City.

Why this album?

• Coltrane’s analytical mind and obsessive practice routine led him to a new sound, heard in this watershed recording. His compositions here are methodical explorations of a new harmonic direction. The complexities of Coltrane’s harmonic ideas stand in stark contrast to the much simpler palette of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue album, on which Coltrane appeared in the very same year. Coltrane’s album would prove to be as influential and important as Davis’s.

Style:

• Post-bop or hard bop

Important people:

• John Coltrane, leader, composer, tenor saxophone

What to listen for:

• Angular, even jarring harmonic progressions; the building blocks of bebop arranged into a new and surprising structure.
• Coltrane’s stark, metallic tone, very different from the full, round, smoky sound associated with the tenor saxophone in previous decades.
• Coltrane’s phenomenal technical ability on the saxophone. His long, cascading volleys of rapid notes became known as “sheets of sound.”

How to sound smart talking about this album:

• Confess that you cried the first time you heard Coltrane play “Naima.”
• Refer to bassist Paul Chambers as “P.C.,” as Coltrane did when he named one of the tunes on this album “Mr. P.C.”

Buy it!

• Get the CD on Amazon.com
• Download it on iTunes

Horace Silver: Song For My Father

Blue Note, recorded 1963 in Englewood, New Jersey.

Why this album?

• The designation “hard bop” applies to much of the diverse bebop-influenced music of the 1960′s (including John Coltrane’s 1959 Giant Steps). But Song For My Father exemplifies the sound that is most often associated with that term: it’s bebop mixed with a strong element of gospel and the blues.

Style:

• Hard bop

Important people:

• Horace Silver, leader, piano, composer
• Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone
• Rudy Van Gelder, recording engineer

What to listen for:

• Less flashy than bebop, but more soulful and gritty. The beboppers were all about clever, fluent melodic lines. The hard-boppers could do that, too–and then moan and wail with the best of the bluesmen.
• The marvelous soundscape created by legendary recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder, whose Englewood home recording studio was as important to the Blue Note sound as Joe Henderson’s tenor saxophone.

How to sound smart talking about this album:

• If anyone comments that the title track’s groove reminds them of Steely Dan’s “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” you may give them the look of death. If they in any way imply that “Rikki” is a better song, you are permitted to slap them.

Buy it!

• Get the CD on Amazon.com
• Download it on iTunes

Ornette Coleman: The Shape of Jazz to Come

Atlantic, recorded 1959 in Los Angeles.

Why this album?

• Ornette Coleman was a major figure in the avant garde and “free jazz” movements. While the album’s title proved to be less than one hundred percent prophetic, the free-er approach of Coleman and a few others did at least become a part of the vocabulary of jazz to come.

Style:

• Avant garde jazz

Important people:

• Ornette Coleman, leader, composer, alto saxophone

What to listen for:

• If you have a trained musical ear, you may be bothered at first by the, shall we say, flexible approach to both pitch and rhythm. If you don’t have a trained ear (yet?), you will still probably recognize that there are some strange things afoot here. Relax, people! This music is about coloring outside the lines. Catch hold of the expressive and emotional content, and enjoy the ride.
• Coleman often cited his own theory of “harmolodics” as justification for the unconventional aspects of his music, but has never really given a satisfactory explanation of just what “harmolodics” means. Don’t let that bother you. Just listen.
• There’s no instrument playing chords here; usually a jazz group will have a piano and/or guitar to fill that role. Instead, Coleman’s quartet uses bass and drums to create a sort of pulsating background texture, which leaves the saxophone and cornet free to experiment in the foreground.

How to sound smart talking about this album:

• Point out to anyone who will listen that Coleman is playing an unusual plastic saxophone on this recording.
• If anyone complains that the musicians seem out of tune, treat them with pity–this music is way over their poor little heads.

Buy it!

• Get the CD on Amazon.com
• Download it on iTunes

Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto, featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim: Getz/Gilberto

Verve, recorded 1963 in New York City.

Why this album?

• Since the early days of jazz, jazz musicians have been enthralled by the nuanced rhythms of Brazil and the Caribbean. This fascination came to a head–and created a brief mainstream pop sensation–with the bossa nova, a cosmopolitan blend of the Brazilian samba, French impressionist composition, and American jazz’s cool school. This album is the jazz bossa nova sound at its best.

Style:

• Bossa nova, or, to be less specific, “Latin”

Important people:

• Stan Getz, tenor saxophone
• Antonio Carlos Jobim, composer, piano
• Joao Gilberto, guitar, vocal
• Astrud Gilberto, vocal. Mrs. Gilberto, a housewife, was at the recording session to translate, and was apparently invited on the spur of the moment to sing on the record.

What to listen for:

• Do you get the urge to dance–very slowly–when you listen to the bossa nova? That’s because its characteristic groove is a half-speed version of the samba, a fast-paced Brazilian dance.
• Getz’s playing is unmistakably jazz, while the Brazilian musicians’ contribution is decidedly bossa. This collaboration is not so much a blending of styles as it is a surprisingly effective contrast.

How to sound smart talking about this album:

• Act like you are barely tolerating Astrud Gilberto’s singing. Speak the name of Antonio Carlos Jobim in hushed, reverent tones.
• By the way, the J’s and G in “Jobim” and “Joao Gilberto” sound like the S in “fusion.” The G in “Getz” doesn’t.

Buy it!

• Get the CD on Amazon.com
• Download it on iTunes

Weather Report: Heavy Weather

Columbia, recorded 1977 in Hollywood.

Why this album?

• The fusion of jazz with rock would prove to be one of the most exciting and dynamic combinations in the history of either music. The band Weather Report did it with very listenable and memorable results.

Style:

• Fusion

Important people:

• Josef Zawinul, keyboards, composer
• Jaco Pastorius, electric bass, composer
• Wayne Shorter, soprano and tenor saxophones, composer

What to listen for:

• The prominence of electronic instruments, such as electric pianos, keyboard-based synthesizers, and electric bass guitar, which were rapidly proving themselves as very useful jazz instruments.
• The stunning technique of Jaco Pastorius on the electric bass, which suddenly became a virtuoso instrument.

How to sound smart talking about this album:

• Immediately and contemptuously dismiss any comparisons between Weather Report’s original “Birdland” and the Manhattan Transfer’s vocal cover version.

Buy it!

• Get the CD on Amazon.com
• Download it on iTunes

Your to-do list

1. Buy all of these albums, and play them in your personal compact disc player or pod-type device.
2. Write something awesome in the comments.
3. Tell your friends.
4. Embark with ears wide open on a lifetime journey through the wonders of jazz music, or whatever.
5. You should probably get started.

The purpose of this, of course, is to help the students develop good aural concepts of tone, phrasing, expression, vibrato, ensemble, and so forth. To try to learn to play an instrument well without a solid aural concept is like trying to learn a foreign language from a textbook. You might pick up a few things, but you’ll be sunk unless you get to really hear–over and over–how the words and phrases sound.

Here are the recordings I’ve selected for this semester. They are recordings of some of the most admired and relatively current performers (all are actively performing except for the late, great Mr. Mack), performing core solo literature. There’s no flute recording because I’m only teaching reeds, but maybe something like this would have been a good choice.

Oboe: John Mack, Oboe

Repertoire: Schumann Three Romances, Saint-Saëns Sonata, Hindemith Sonata, Poulenc Sonata, short pieces by Murgier, Berghmans, Planel, and Barraud.

Clarinet: Sabine Meyer, Mozart/Debussy/Takemitsu

Repertoire: Mozart Concerto (played on basset clarinet), Debussy Première Rapsodie, Takemitsu Fantasma/Cantos.

Bassoon: Klaus Thunemann, Hummel/Weber

Repertoire: Weber Concerto, Weber Andante e Rondo Ungarese, Hummel Concerto.

Saxophone: Eugene Rousseau, Saxophone Masterpieces

Repertoire: Creston Sonata, Muczynski Sonata, Heiden Sonata, Kabelác Suita, Heiden Fantasia Concertante.

Excerpt from Fisher Tull, Sarabande and Gigue

I heard some very fine playing during the auditions, but many of the students were fooled by the “senza vib.,” with some going so far as to use fairly extreme vibrato at the beginning of the note.

As my blog readers already know, of course, senza vibrato means without vibrato.

I think it’s a fairly common mistake for musicians at, say, an undergraduate collegiate level to either ignore or guess at the foreign words in a musical score. But the consequences can be, well, comical.

As musicians we all have to be little bit multilingual. I recommend this inexpensive, portable, and excellent source to my students and to all of you:

One of my fine colleagues offered some similar advice on her flute studio blog.

Most of the major L. A. woodwind doublers get at least a mention here, but check the menu for specific instruments, as well as individual pages for especially notable players.

I recently got my own copy of The Woodwind Anthology, a massive two-volume collection of articles from The Instrumentalist and Flute Talk magazines. I’ve used this anthology from various university libraries throughout my  long college education, and found it to be a go-to source for pedagogy classes and comprehensive exam preparation.

Inexplicably, Instrumentalist is selling these right now for $37 for the set. Check it out here. The shockingly low price makes me wonder if this has gone out of print. If you’re interested, I suggest ordering soon.

There are articles here from 1946 to 1998. There must be at least a thousand. The list of authors reads like a who’s-who of woodwind playing over the last sixty years. 1985 pages in all–nearly six bookshelf inches. I kid you not.

Volume 1 includes flute articles and other articles of general woodwind interest; Volume 2 covers the reed instruments. There is enough information here to keep a woodwind player seriously busy for a long time. This is also a priceless resource for woodwind teachers–there are few topics that you couldn’t find in here for lesson or masterclass material, course readings, or general inspiration. The articles are arranged chronologically in each volume, with exhaustive indices by instrument and topic and by author.

• Want information on clarinet mouthpieces and reeds? 29 articles listed.
• Bassoon teaching techniques? 15 articles.
• Saxophone origins and development? 22 articles.
• Interviews with major flutists? 56 articles.
• General woodwind care and repair? 27 articles.
• I think you get the picture.

Highly recommended, especially for educators and students.