My upstairs neighbor is a concert violinist, quite an excellent one. His name is Georgy Valtchev and he’s practicing right now in fact. He can also hear my practicing, which was confirmed some years back when he asked if playing Bach on the saxophone was difficult. He seemed surprised but I told him that it was good practice for certain issues on the horn, flexibility between registers being one. I’ve continued to practice Bach since then albeit sporadically and while my aspirations have remained high over the years I’ve often wondered whether any progress was being made at all.
Recent months have been encouraging however. Perhaps it’s attending the weekly early music series taking place in the neighborhood which is rubbing off but one or two of the cello suites may finally be within reach. Lately my practice has been almost exclusively “classical” using my Buescher Aristocrat tenor, a Rascher mouthpiece and Vandoren Blue Box reeds. I’ve also recently discovered that a few of the violin partitas have been arranged for saxophone by Raf Hekkema and along with a number of the flute sonatas they’ve become part of my regular routine. One afternoon my wife came in while I was practicing and said she thought our neighbor and I were playing the same piece. I saw him on the street some days after and he confirmed this, saying “yes, I think it was the D Minor partita”. I refrained from asking for any kind of assessment but along with those weekly concerts, knowing there is an expert pair of ears upstairs probably helps keep me on my toes. In terms of next steps it may be that playing some of these pieces for actual listeners could be the catalyst needed to get them where they need to be.
Speaking of that early music concert series, I’m appreciating that playing Bach well is in fact a high bar to reach for. A case in point was a concert last May by Canadian harpsichordist Geneviève Soly in which she offered a program called Eight Diptychs from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (1772). Her performance was incredibly alive and I was excited to have the opportunity to speak with her afterwords and relate my feeling that she played that music as if she had written it herself. She seemed pleased to hear that and so I followed by asking about her process with respect to phrasing. She explained using the word “agogic” meaning that certain parts of a melodic phrase are heightened such that they are displaced from the strong beats in a measure. It’s related to the idea of a kind of rubato or freedom within a tempo so as to create a sense of movement while emphasizing the natural tensions and resolutions that occur throughout the piece. I appreciate this in much the same way I appreciate swing in jazz. They are quite different and yet based in similar principles. Even so, it’s interesting just how elusive it seems to be for classical musicians to swing and for jazz musicians to play classical with an authentic rhythmic feel.
Since her performance felt so personal it seemed appropriate to ask about interpretation. To my surprise she responded by saying that it was all about analyzing the score in great depth. Bach did not offer many interpretive indications in his manuscripts so one might assume there would be a great deal of latitude in making choices. She asserted that with the exception of some slight tempo differences she did not vary her approach from performance to performance. I was almost skeptical of this and could have asked more questions given the myriad ways that Bach is played but out of respect thought it best to accept what she offered and consider it seriously. My sense is that she was following a rigorous process, finding reasons for her choices and imbuing the music with an undeniable integrity and life force. Certainly there are musicians who will make different choices and there is often argument or criticism involved among those who take these things seriously. It’s all completely fascinating and leads more and more to the idea that ultimately there is little difference between this process and improvising. If you’re going to make a piece of classical music alive you must know it deeply and play it as if you wrote it yourself. It’s much the same effect as when a great improviser creates music on the spot with a sense of inevitability that convinces you that there was no other way it could have gone.
And speaking of improvisation, how might we as improvisors create that kind of inevitability in our playing? Our equivalent to analyzing scores comes by way of solo transcriptions. These are usually rummaged through in search of “licks” but a deeper examination can reveal how phrasing creates and maintains a sense of movement via tension and release. But then what? Unless you’re going to play that transcription verbatim on a gig you’re going to have to come up with your own content and bring it to life, on the spot.
I recently gave a music lesson to a visiting saxophonist from out of town. He had taken a lesson some months prior and I was curious as to what effect that lesson may have had on his playing. He told me that his personal practice was gratifying but when it came to time to play a gig he often found himself uncomfortable, falling into old habits wanting to reach for things that worked even as they elicited a sense of dissatisfaction. “It’s as if I’m doing an impression of myself playing the saxophone” he said.
The lessons I give these days are open-ended all-afternoon affairs. There is plenty of time for discussion but the emphasis is on gaining insight through playing. I might ask a question and tell a student to answer it on their horn, guiding the process and looking for openings based on what I hear. In this way every lesson is different. Over a period of some hours we took a number of approaches dealing with harmony in creating melodic ideas, often going into areas that may have been less comfortable but ultimately yielding greater results.
After a number of gambits at a certain point I found myself saying “play like a vocalist who is trying to sing like a horn player”. Somehow that seemed to click (you never know) working as a natural way to focus on phrasing to create his ideas. The trouble was, not all of those ideas sounded good or convincing to him. He was certainly capable of playing good ideas and yet I pointed out that “when you played something you didn’t like, I actually found it more interesting. It jumped out at me, eliciting the anticipation of what’s next? In other words, you had my attention!”
A light bulb blinked on in his expression. We then spoke about content, the idea, what it is and how it functions. By allowing our idiosyncrasies and even our mistakes into the mix content becomes less a matter of fixed recitation and more a matter of dynamic unfolding.
A great classical musician also understands this dynamic unfolding. They have to apply it to a score whereas we have to create our content and deliver it on the spot. It’s wonderful when a classical musician creates a sense of improvisation out of a score. Equally, as an improvisor I’m always striving to play something that sounds like it has a compositional integrity. Towards that end I sometimes wonder if improvisation itself is “enough”. It’s been years since I’ve composed anything and while I’ve not closed the door on that there is something I’m after with just the horn and this moment. I think that 2025 may offer opportunities to pursue some further solo concerts and see what develops.
Speaking of 2025, the new year is now upon us and there is no avoiding the palpable degree of uncertainty around the increasingly volatile aspects of social and political life requiring our attention, expression and action. The music and arts scene has traditionally played its role offering comfort and disruption as is needed. In a way we seem to have an advantage in that the processes imbedded our very work offer insight into how we might act in the world, and yet I still wonder, is that enough? Perhaps a better question might be, how thoroughly we can apply these lessons? Or perhaps, how wisely?
The degree of openness to “what’s next” required to play music generates an energy that is extraordinarily powerful. This power need not be associated with force or violence (consider the power of gentleness for example) and can take any form. Music renders it all simply as energy and as musicians we call on the full range of these energies, channeling them all towards positive action, healing action if you will. In our lives the entirety of these same energies run through the whole world and through each one of us, taking all kinds of forms in action and with serious consequences. These energies can harm or heal, in an instant.
As artists, ironically it can become easy to separate ourselves from the rest of the world based on our very ideals and aspirations especially when they take the form of ideologies and politics. We may rightly feel that humanitarian issues should not be political yet we make it so by virtue of creating conflict out of that very sense of separateness. Even positive energy can bring harm when it comes in the form of self righteousness, even when the cause is worthy. But at the same time, knowing that it’s all “just energy” means that the potential to do harm is also the potential to refrain from doing harm, to do good. We are the ones who qualify that energy as good or bad and therefore we are ones who can transform it through creativity and renewal.
That may be a lot to take in so as in music it’s probably a good idea to try and simplify that action. Breath in, breath out…what’s next?
There have been a number of passings in our community of late and while I often take note on the blog I sometimes find myself hesitating, not wanting things to feel too heavy. But if I take what I’ve written seriously, this too is part of our constant unfolding and I remind myself that in life, death, sickness and health, we are whole. As a friend recently reminded me, when one is ill, another takes care. In zen it’s often said, “not two”. In this spirit I want to acknowledge a few friends and musical colleagues who have passed in recent months.
Trumpeter Herb Robertson and I played frequently over the years in a number of bands. Standing next to him night after night I was often struck by the fact that I could always find it in myself to loosen up even more. Herb knew the study and discipline of music but he was in no way inhibited by convention. We would sometimes think of Herb as a kind of shaman, having this direct connection, right though whatever he was feeling at the moment. It was often startling as he channeled all the energy that pulsed through him. In spite of the shock of his sudden departure all I can really think about was how much love he had in him and how it came out in his music. I’m thankful to have known him.
A couple of years back another friend and musical colleague, trumpeter Tom Williams passed. Tom and I met in college, in our hometown of Baltimore. He sounded fully formed (jaw-droppingly so) the first day he arrived, just swinging hard and nailing the changes. We played fairly often in Baltimore at that time, including a steady gig with drummer Harold White doing arrangements from his former employer Horace Silver. Tom recorded for the Criss Cross label in the nineties and performed with Jimmy Heath and Gary Bartz among other greats all the while being an inspiration to those in the community in which he lived and played. We didn’t see each other so often after I left Baltimore but he remains an inspiration to this day.
Tom tells a great story about meeting Freddie Hubbard, it’s still posted…
One of things that surprised me when I first arrived in NYC, in 1983, was a sense of camaraderie among those of us who were new to town. Somehow I expected a pretty cutthroat scene given some of the things I’d heard but I remember very well to this day many of the folks who I met and hung out with at jam sessions, listening to music and trading gigs with each other. That created a real bond and even as we each found our own musical paths, branching out and forging new musical relationships I appreciate those formative years and experiences. One of the first people I met was baritone saxophonist Claire Daly.
Claire passed a few months ago and even as we hadn’t seen each other in years it hit me pretty deeply given that she was such a stalwart part of the NYC scene, genuinely dedicated to the music and someone who everyone felt positively towards. Claire was also the first person to turn me on to George Garzone and The Fringe. My friend, drummer John Arnold, referred to her as “the real deal”.
