Book Review – A Complete Approach to Sound for the Modern Saxophonist by Ben Britton

Ben Britton is a wonderful saxophonist who I met online a year or so ago. I listened to some of his sound samples and reached out to him because I loved what I heard. He’s a jazz musician, an educator, a blogger, and now an author. With this book, Ben is bringing many years of personal experience… Continue reading Book Review – A Complete Approach to Sound for the Modern Saxophonist by Ben Britton

Pete Thomas PPT Metal Tenor Mouthpiece Review

Pretty!

I recently had the chance to try one of these mouthpieces thanks to a pass-around that Pete put together through Sax on the Web Forum. I had practically forgotten that I was supposed to be in it until I started seeing posts from Pete on the forum and I thought I was going to see… Continue reading Pete Thomas PPT Metal Tenor Mouthpiece Review

Always Leaves Me With a Huge Smile

Poster For This Year's Concert

Every year for the last ten years I have been lucky enough to be a part of a big band Christmas concert to benefit Toys for Tots.  The band is called the Ken Ebo Big Bop Band and is lead by an incredible musician who both plays trombone and sings.  It features some of the… Continue reading Always Leaves Me With a Huge Smile

News and Reviews in Progress

A couple of things to catch up on: I’m not quite ready to do a full review on my new Cannonball Big Bell Stone Series tenor but early reports are really good.  I would never want to do a full review without first playing it on the gig since for me nothing I do in… Continue reading News and Reviews in Progress

Review – Haynes Saxophone Manual

The Haynes Saxophone Manual

This is a book I had heard about for quite a while but had never taken the time to purchase even though I was very interested in getting it.  A couple months ago while researching for my recent horn purchase I stumbled across Stephen Howard’s website because he had some excellent reviews about some of… Continue reading Review – Haynes Saxophone Manual

More From Emma White and Artscape 2012

While they were filming the documentary-style video I posted earlier, they ended up capturing a ton of raw footage.  Today Emma posted a full version of Aretha’s Baby I Love You from that footage so I thought I would share. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-Aq7Rn5g_E I like how the horns for this song are just minimalist, well-placed hits and some… Continue reading More From Emma White and Artscape 2012

The Crack the Sky CD Is Out!

EDIT: the YouTube videos got pulled so I will upload some audio snippets soon. It actually came out a couple of weeks ago but with all my recent travel I just wasn’t able to post about it.  The new CD is called Ostrich.  My regular horn section, the Retox Horns, recorded three songs for the… Continue reading The Crack the Sky CD Is Out!