Although folks like Joe Henderson feel that the best way to learn the language of jazz is to learn a solo by ear and memorize it, there’s definitely a place for reading transcribed solos, and possibly committing them to memory off the manuscript. Some of us might be as ambitious enough to transpose transcribed solos into [read more…]
Any devoted jazz saxophone player with an internet connection knows Charles McNeal’s love letter to jazz history, CharlesMcNeal.com. As a Facebook friend of Charles myself, there are periods where he cranks out, literally, a transcription each day. As an equal opportunity transcriber, he’s taken down hundreds of solos from all ends of the jazz legend [read more…]
A Labor of Love I remember being in sixth grade and asking my sax teacher the inevitable question: “Who’s the best saxophone player in the world?” Of course, there can never be a definitive answer to a question like that, but my teacher didn’t miss a beat when he replied, “Michael Brecker.” And he wasn’t [read more…]