Gear & Promo

It’s been some time since posting about gear or doing much promotion for that matter, so here’s a little of of each…

Somewhere along the line in the received history of saxophonistic wisdom came the idea that one should always play the largest mouthpiece tip opening that can be managed without too much difficulty.  I don’t know who started it but I last heard it from mouthpiece maker Fred Lebayle (who passed last year) when visiting his shop.  Fred was adjusting one of his mouthpieces to my liking and seemed to think I should be playing a number 8.  I talked him down to a 7* and that’s been it for the past ten years or so. For you non-saxophonists, smaller tip openings tend to deliver a more consistent core tone across the range of the horn while larger tip openings tend to be louder and bigger sounding and lend themselves to a greater range of tonal color.  When the saxophone was invented (in the 1840’s) the mouthpiece that was designed for it was perhaps the equivalent of a number 2 or 3.  Over the years this gradually increased due to the musical requirements the instrument was placed in.  By the 1950’s jazz players were typically playing on a number 5 or 6.  Lester Young was playing a number 7 around that time which he considered “very hard on the chops”.  Today, few jazz saxophonists play on anything less than a 7 and some folks have played on pieces as large as a number 10. Wayne Shorter comes to mind.  Don’t ask me how, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to get a sound out of it.

I recently went through a period of three or four months practicing mainly Bach on a small tip mouthpiece of the kind preferred by classical players.  One day I decided to pull out the Lebayle, which sounded like an air-raid siren by comparison.  Keep in mind, this is all relative.  Once acclimated I felt right at home again but it got me to thinking.  The last solo concert I did (using the Lebayle) reminded me that I could easily overpower the room if I wasn’t careful.  That’s a distraction I’d prefer to do without so I decided to explore the possibility of finding something in between.

Fortunately my friend Derrick Michaels (wonderful saxophonist from Baltimore) shares an affinity for vintage saxophones and mentioned that he had a Morgan mouthpiece 6 tip opening, offering to let me try it out.  It’s sold as a classical mouthpiece but it’s actually larger than most any classical saxophonist would use.  I’ve gotten one of my own and have been playing it for the past few weeks.  Pianist Ethan Iverson came by recently to do some playing and it passed its first real test.  I’m looking forward to getting more acquainted with it over time.  

Have a listen to Derrick playing this mouthpiece on his solo recording, “Live at An Die Musik”. 

And then the other thing…

Seems I’ve lasted long enough to become re-issuable.  Some months back I mentioned that this was pending and now it’s official, the first two recordings by “Trio New York” have been remastered and reissued as a double CD set on the ezz-thetics label.  ezz-thetics is a recent venture by record producer Werner Uehinger who established the Hat Hut label fifty years ago this year.  Trio New York took a free approach to the great American songbook featuring organist Gary Versace and drummer Gerald Cleaver.  The original recordings date from 2011 and 2013 respectively and were released on my own label, prime source.  I’m pleased that this music might now have a bit wider reach and invite you to consider adding it to your collection should you not already have the original releases.   I have a limited number of the double CD package which I’m offering for direct mail order in the US.  Have a look under the “merch” tab of the Band Camp page.  If you're outside the US you can find a list of distributors on the Hat Hut website.  Or if you are digitally minded you can get the music from the ezz-thetics Band Camp page.  

The cover of this reissue is a photo taken in Greenwich Village by Luca Buti at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Barrow street.  It’s just a couple of blocks from the former Cornelia Street Cafe and the 55 Bar, places where the band often played.  Still going in the neighborhood are The Village Vanguard, The Blue Note, Smalls, Mezzrow, Arthur’s Tavern, the Cellar Dog, Zinc Bar and The Stone which are all within walking distance.  I’m also reminded that when I arrived in NYC in 1983 there was Sweet Basil about a block away as well as Lush Life where I once heard the great Dexter Gordon.  

All About Jazz has posted their review. 

Looking into the crystal ball…

Wednesday, February 18th, 2026 at The Stone here in NYC…duo with pianist and force of nature Sylvie Courvoisier!  Do stay tuned…

Is it True?

The New York Times ran a couple of articles on music this past week, one offering a poignant expression of our shared humanity, the other raising issues that might challenge notions of exactly what our humanity amounts to.  In an odd way, they seem to be obliquely related.  

The first is titled “What I Learned From Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, a Sublime Voice”, written by vocalist Benjamin Appl as a reflection on the relationship with his mentor on the centennial of his birth.  Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (who passed away in 2012) is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century’s greatest singers.  I’d aways found his voice possessed of a natural warmth and clarity that was captivating.  Towards the end of the article Benjamin Appl shares this moment with the reader:

What moved me most was his emotional state in the final weeks of his life. He had devoted himself to music, to art, with almost complete surrender — relentlessly, unflinchingly and at great personal cost. He spoke openly about not having been the ideal father or friend. That honesty still echoes in me today. 

Our last meeting, just weeks before his death in 2012, was cloaked in a quiet stillness. As I entered his home near Munich, a space he had largely designed and furnished himself, bearing his unmistakable touch, I sensed the atmosphere had shifted. We worked on Schubert’s “Harfner Songs” — music about solitude, transience and death. He often wept, asking the great questions of life, wondering whether his career had meant anything, or if he was already forgotten. Then suddenly, through tears, he fixed his gaze on me and said with a trembling voice: “Forgive me, I always tried to sing these songs truthfully, but I never succeeded.”

It was a devastating moment. I knew it would be our last. A few weeks later, he passed away — quietly, peacefully, as if one of his songs had simply faded into silence.

I hesitate in writing anything at all about something this personal but it raises real questions to which any artist can relate.  Let’s allow it to sink in a bit while considering the implications raised in the second article which is an obituary of David Cope.  Unfamiliar to me until now, David Cope was considered the “Godfather of A.I. Music” given his work in the 1980’s using algorithmic composition in the development of computer programming generating music in the style of various classical composers.  While this is in no way my domain the issues his work raised at the time (and now) challenge our notions around the very human process of music making.  In the article, Douglas Hofstadtler (who was involved with David Cope in an early experiment involving a program called “Experiments in Musical Intelligence”) is quoted as saying:

"EMI forces us to look at great works of art and wonder where they came from and how deep they really are," he told The Times afterward. If it were possible to reduce music to little more than various combinations of riffs, he added, then "it would mean that, to my absolute devastation, music is much less than I ever thought it was."

Towards the end of the piece we read:

Over the course of his career, Mr. Cope aroused the ire of so many other composers that he developed a sort of immunity to it, and even reveled in the discomfort his computer-generated music caused. “I want the negative reaction,” he said in “Opus Cope,” a 2021 documentary about his life’s work. “I feed off it.”

In a 2015 article published by the Computer History Museum, he was questioned about whether machines have the capacity to be creative, and he was adamant in his response: “Yes, yes, a million times yes.”

He added: “Creativity is simple; consciousness, intelligence — those are hard.”

To be honest, I’m really not that interested in discussions about A.I.  I understand its implications but there’s something off about the “for and against” analysis.  Also, the idea of A.I. as a creative tool is not that compelling even though I’m reminded of those years working with Andrea Parkins who used her computer sampling program in a kind of “chance operations” manner.  She spoke of it as a Rube Goldberg approach in which there was a “slippage” (her word) with respect to a sound and any sense of meaning it might convey.  It was often unpredictable in ways that were sometimes vexing and I loved it.  While I’m not against the principle of using technology in creative ways I’ll admit that I do have a negative reaction embedded somewhere in all of this so out of respect for Mr. Cope’s challenge let’s see where this leads.  

There seems to be a threat involved but what is it?  

Is it personal, a threat to my own intellectual and emotional territory?  Or is it more general, a threat to the music, culture and traditions that make us who we are?  I will say that I agree with David Cope’s statement that creativity is simple although I doubt we’d have shared the same reasoning as to why.  Simple processes, set in motion, unleash tremendous complexity in interaction with everything they touch, everything there is, process simply being a form of motion.  The idea that consciousness and intelligence are separate issues, apart from creativity, is an assumption I’m not ready to make.  Where would the dividing lines be drawn?  Speaking of dividing lines, is your consciousness different than that which you are conscious of?  Is it different than anything you may think of as not having consciousness?  

At this point we should pause.  Consciousness, creativity and intelligence may have no borders but human beings take the form of human beings and machines take the form of machines.  Seeing process being mimicked by a machine does not mean that intelligence exists in a conscious or creative form within it even if the calculations involved exceed human capacity.  We may think we are speaking about something called A.I. yet it is our own minds, our own thinking, that is at issue.  As cosmic as some of this may sound, common sense works well in this domain.  

Reducing music to information, and by extension assuming this information takes on a life of its own, seems an excellent example of how the technological enterprise of our time is predicated on a false assumption.  Assuming that our humanity and our lives (mine, yours, everyone’s) is any less profound by virtue of the machinery we create is an unfortunate misunderstanding, to put it mildly.  The threat we feel is actually the threat of our ignorance and delusion, about ourselves and each other.  When we offload our humanity to a machine it’s like pouring gasoline on those fires.  Thing is, there is nothing outside of us that can help us, but fortunately our ignorance and delusion are fundamentally human and can be embraced, with compassion.

Getting back to that first article…

Regret and a sense of failure are also human qualities.  They too can be fully embraced with compassion.  I have no doubt in the sincerity of what Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau confided to his student, it is to be honored unquestionably.  We may not be able to say for sure whether it was an expression of failure but I’m not sure that’s the real issue, his sincerity unlocks something much larger.  In “giving it our all” we include everything, the parts we esteem and the parts we’d prefer to reject.  I can think of no artist, no matter how highly their work may be regarded, as being immune from some degree of self doubt, knowing that as much as they loved their work, what they strived for their whole life was always just out of reach.  Certainly there were moments of transcendence, but they too slip from our grasp.  There is no way of knowing, no way of measuring a life’s work in the grand scheme of things.  

This is by no means a statement of futility, quite the contrary.  A large part of making music is not knowing.  This is what makes it real, what makes it true and what makes it creative.  

Pearl at 100

My wife and I met in 1987 here in New York City, at Carnegie Hall to be exact.  She worked in the subscription ticket office and I worked part time as a temp.  My excuse in starting a conversation with her centered around a friend who wanted tickets to see a famous pianist.  My friend wanted to be sure he could get a seat that allowed him to see the pianist’s hands.  Afterwards on our first date, and to our mutual surprise, we discovered that we both grew up in Baltimore.  Much to my own surprise I also discovered that her mother took her to hear Rahsaan Roland Kirk at the Left Bank Jazz Society when she was a young teenager.  I never got to hear Rahsaan Roland Kirk live and was envious but also impressed which pretty much sealed the deal as far as I was concerned.  As things became more serious it came time to meet her mother.  I was doing a gig in Washington DC at Blues Alley and her mother attended, by herself and stayed the whole time.  We spoke, it seemed fine, but I couldn’t get a clear “read” on how she felt about her daughter dating a saxophone player.  A few days after returning home my wife received a letter from her mother and she let me read it.  To my surprise it was essentially a review of the gig, very well thought out and very well written.  OK, so I didn’t see that coming.  

Over the years, Pearl (that’s her name) attended pretty much every concert that I did in Baltimore not to mention those of a number of my colleagues.  In her retirement (from Johns Hopkins as a statistician) Pearl became an active supporter of various cultural and arts organizations.  She maintained an active lifestyle her whole life, read profusely, maintained friendships, never watched television and played in an amateur recorder ensemble.  This month she turned one hundred.  Now residing in an assisted living center she is enjoying her life with a whole new group of folks, albeit with a different rhythm and dynamic than in the past.  We went to visit her to celebrate this milestone and while parts of her memory are fading she seemed happy and conversant.  While I couldn’t say for sure if she remembered me it was somehow OK.  She is living more in the moment than anyone I’ve ever met, inspiring yet somewhat unsettling at first.  My own anxiety was more the issue, she seems not to be suffering at all.  She could express her pleasure or displeasure honestly and freely, there was no residual.  It probably helps that the staff were relaxed and attentive.  They seem genuinely fond of the folks they are taking care of.  

As it happened, I had my saxophone with me.  Michelle (my wife) suggested I might be prepared to play something if circumstances allowed.  I know Pearl enjoyed classical music and so I prepared a few short things to have on hand just in case.  In spite of the fact that this was not going to be a formal performance I practiced seriously given that I still have some uncertainty over my ability to perform classical repertoire in a public setting.  This would serve as a trial run but if it didn’t happen that’d be fine too.  After we arrived Michelle spoke to the fellow running things (his name was Claude) and asked if it would be all right if I played.  He said he’d have to think about it.  I took that as a no-go and dropped some of the angst I was carrying while still trying to process the whole experience emotionally.  Some folks spoke, some didn’t.  I understood what some were talking about, others not so much.  One woman, very nice, apologized for not recognizing me.  We’d never met before but she was so sincere that we wound up having a short conversation.  I sat back down, slightly bewildered, and suddenly here comes Claude, asking me point blank, “do you know ‘Tea for Two’?”  He’s looking right at me and I’m drawing a blank, just the first phrase is running through my head like a dog chasing it’s own tail.  “Maybe, why?” I asked.  “Because I’m going to tap dance and that’s what you’re going to play”, leaving no wiggle room in his declaration.  

Fortunately we had about an hour before “showtime” in the lunch room during which I tried to figure out the tune.  Turned out there was a piano on hand with which to aid in refreshing my memory.  Michelle’s sister offered to help, dialing up a version of the song on her phone and playing it for Pearl, letting her know what was in store.  Turns out it was a version by Ella Fitzgerald with the Count Basie band.  Super swinging.  Pearl listened intently with her eyes closed, bobbing her head on every beat, occasionally letting out a “yea” or “all right” and giving Basie a “not too bad!” after his piano flourish.  I’d never seen her in this uninhibited mode before, quite a contrast to the Scandinavian reserve that I was more accustomed to.  Then, as if nothing had happened, she returned to her meal before asking to be taken outside for some fresh air where she dozed for a bit.  I continued practicing in my head since I wasn’t sure what games my mind might play under the circumstances.

Back in the lunch room Claude was putting on his taps.  No one seemed to sense anything was about to take place until Claude got up and made an announcement, the recognition of which was subtle at best.  You just didn’t know for sure what folks were taking in or not, but something was happening.  I asked Claude for a tempo, he counted it off and we went.  He claimed to have been self taught but he was quite good.  The staff perked up even as they continued their tasks.  We went for a couple of choruses and I was able to elaborate on the tune a bit before giving Claude an outro which he elegantly punctuated.  And we’re done.  Big silence.  This too was somehow OK, more than OK, really…  

Upon leaving I gave Pearl a peck on the cheek and she smiled.  ”See you tomorrow” she said brightly…

Incantation / Elaboration (part two)

I’d never seen people walk out in the middle of an early music concert before…

It was not by any means having to do with the quality of the performance, which was exemplary.  It was instead a testament to the power of music written centuries ago.  

This post might be considered a followup to the previous post from a couple of weeks ago in which I wrote about a listening experience of music from before the time of Bach, and how it left me intrigued if not confused.  At the same time, I felt an affinity towards that music as an improvisor that took time to identify and articulate.  This past week I heard one of the most striking examples of this phenomenon yet, upping the ante in this process of experiencing musical connections across time.  Connections that are very much alive in this crazy period we are living through now.  Somehow it gives me hope.

The venue was the same, the Gotham Early Music Scene’s weekly midtown concerts series here in NYC.  I had written about the blend of voices in the Theotokos ensemble given that I was perfectly situated near the front of the audience.  In this case the ALBA Consort was presented and for whatever reason I decided to listen from a different sonic vantage point, from the side and rather far from the musicians.  Given the amount of reverberation in the church some of the detail was obscured but with a little extra concentration I was still able to hear quite clearly.  The first composition, by Guillaume de Machaut, was slow and spare beginning with psaltery and oud (a middle eastern string instrument) joined by a vocal duo (female and male) creating a spacious almost other-worldly sound out of minimal elements. 

As the second piece began I found myself straining a bit to lean in and discern exactly what was going on.  The vocalists were singing in an unusually low register and the reverberation was making it challenging to zero in on exactly what pitches they were aiming for.  The oud seemed to be playing a completely independent part lending a disjunct quality to the proceedings even as the percussionist maintained a steady pulse.  On the one hand I loved it and at the same time I couldn’t help wonder if they might have gotten lost and were hanging on for dear life.  At this point the couple sitting behind me starting murmuring, I wasn’t sure what about but I could make out the words “is this kind of weird?”  Well, I guess it was which made me all the more interested.  About a dozen folks felt differently though and after the piece ended they and the couple behind me filed out.  This I something I’d only ever experienced at a contemporary music concert.  Or perhaps that time at a Cecil Taylor concert years ago when a full third of the audience left not even midway through a free outdoor performance of his band (featuring the great saxophonist Jimmy Lyons) in Chicago.  Anyway, the rest of the concert was varied and involved music from Spain and Armenia as well as from Balkan, Greek and Moroccan Sephardic traditions leaving me feeling much better than when I'd walked in.  

Upon returning home I began researching that second piece of music and quickly found that its idiosyncratic sound and structure have been of note for quite some time.  The title is “Fumeux fume” written by someone under the name Solage from the fourteenth century and is included in the Chantilly Codex, an important manuscript of medieval music.  It is a three-voice rondeaux in the tradition of the French “art subtilior” (more subtle art), a kind of avant garde of it’s time characterized by a high degree of complexity often utilizing what look like the kinds of graphic scores one might encounter in the twentieth century avant garde.   Perhaps because it appealed to a smaller group of aficionados or that it was more difficult to perform or that it was more challenging for audiences the style fell out of favor.  And yet seven hundred years later some folks are still moved towards the exits.  That’s really awesome when you think about it.  

The concert was recorded and while I tend to resist disseminating on-line listening I want to at least provide something by which you may also become intrigued enough to venture out into the unexpected, in person.  Here is the link to the ALBA Consort’s performance, cued up to “Fumeux fume”.  Once you’ve heard it I invite you to compare it with a recording in which all three parts are sung (as opposed to assigning one of them to the oud) which I suspect may have been truer to the original intent by the TENET Vocal Artists.  Additionally here is yet another vocal version, this one is somewhat clearer (less smokey?) by the ensemble Alla Francesca.  Upon multiple listenings I’ve acclimated to this piece and am deeply moved by it.  In fact, I went so far as to find a version of the composition in modern notation and recorded myself overdubbing all three parts just so I could know the music from the inside.  

Also of interest are the words to this composition.  I have no idea the meaning, perhaps it is metaphorical.  I've also encountered an alternate translation that uses smoke to describe brooding and vexatious states of mind.  

Fumeux fume par fumée, The smoker smokes through smoke, 

Fumeuse speculacion. A smoky speculation.

Qu’antre fummet sa pensée, While others smoke in thought,

Fumeux fume par fumée. The smoker smokes through smoke, 

Quar fumer molt li agree’ Because smoke pleases him greatly

Tant qu’il ait son entencion’. As he meditates.

Fumeux fume par fumée, The smoker smokes through smoke, 

Fumeuse speculacion. A smoky speculation.

My otherwise superficial rendering of the performance and music should in no way be seen as critical.  Confusion is not a bad thing and it often motivates an investigation paying off with more grist for the mill for the process of improvisation.  As always I extend my great thanks to the folks behind this ongoing series.  Attending these concerts each week has become my therapy.

Also on my mind…

...has been the recent passing of pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn.  A wonderful artist beloved by the community, I was fortunate to have worked with her a number of times and recorded with her and bassist Michael Formanek on a recording titled “Mirage”.

I can’t help but appreciate the vocal quality of her sound and I might assert that it does not require much in the way of imagination to hear a connection to the “distant” sounds of Solage.  Perhaps a good example might be Susan’s performance of “O. Sacrum Convivum”, a choral piece by composer Olivier Messiaen whose music, while perennially modern, evokes the spaciousness and mystery of early music.   

PS...I'm adding this a couple of days after having posted the above given that in my continuing exploration of music involving chant and polyphony the following has come across the radar...

Easter Liturgy in 1673 - Old Slavonic Polyphony | Chronos Ensemble

It strikes me as yet another approach in this rich tradition and quite a bracing one at that.  Here is an except from the description provided by the artists:

The Old-Russian liturgical polyphony, as well as the folk music, did not follow the Western system of consonance and dissonance that gave birth to European harmony and tonality. The Russian polyphony was based on the diatonic modal system of the Znamenny chant. This system gave no preference to «consonances» over «dissonances», considering both equally pure and natural. The thirds are not characteristic of this chant, the fourths and seconds occurring much more naturally in the tetrachord-based system.This may partially explain why this typically early-Russian type of polyphony is so valued in the aesthetic system of contemporary classical music.