…one more thing
Pursuant to the last post, and the “do as I do, not as I say” one here is a final thought. I used material by Sonny Rollins, Bud Powell, and Freddie Hubbard in those two posts. I also used the Oxford comma in my lists, but that is beside the point. What I would like to mention is, if it’s not obvious, is that you have to work with the material that really gets your blood pumping. I always had pretty wide ranging tastes in saxophone players: I enjoyed listening to everyone from Stan Getz to Albert Ayler to the guy from Supertramp (John Helliwell). There is probably more Getz in my playing than Ayler or Helliwell but I learned something from all of them.
Depending on what kind of music you like you will gravitate towards certain players and maybe use some of ideas in my last two posts to build up your vocabulary in the style of music you are most interested in. Everyone is a product of the people who came before them, I was listening to Shotgun by Jr. Walker yesterday and was struck for the first time by the fact that David Sanborn must have, at some point, internalized that tune; or, he listened to whoever Jr. Walker listened to. Anyway, off to my gig right now, but I’ll be back.
ps – I always wondered if Steve Jobs transcribed the “one more thing” lick from Peter Falk?