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Really big blues

Great stuff!

I'm wondering if you could actually use that beast in a loud blues bar type setting? How would you mic it? Would the sound be able to "cut" enough?

R.
 
Randy, you must have cast iron lungs! Luv the sound clips and the video. Wish others shared the vision as much as you do. Thanks for keeping music alive!
 
It does appear that you get a fuller sound outta that thing than the Tubax, Groove. Very nice vibrato, too.

Everyone: remember to be really nice to Groove: hes 108. At least, according to his Myspace page :).
 
One question. When you pass on, will you use the case to bury yourself ?:emoji_relaxed:

Nice job! This is a man that has made a huge committment to sax playing.
Financially, and physically !
 
pete said:
Everyone: remember to be really nice to Groove: hes 108. At least, according to his Myspace page :).
Click to expand...

"One question. When you pass on, will you use the case to bury yourself ? "

If you don't enter a birthday on Myspace, they provide one for you. I only FEEL 108, but I ain't dead yet.
 
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Heh, nice job there Randy. Especially given your "advanced" age that Pete so nicely pointed out to all of us. How did you ever find a way to hide that oxygen mask while playing? ;-)
 
Very cool. At points you sound like Major Holley taking a solo.

The more I listen, the more it seems to me that it would be really hard to "do" blues on that big boy in a large bar band situation. The tone is just too spread: I'm not sure there'd be a way to capture and amplify it enough.

Needless to say, walking the bar would not be an option!

Rory
 
It's in Eb, one full octave lower than a low A baritone.

I once recorded a bass fiddle duet by double tracking my Conn bass saxophone. During some of the legato passages, it did indeed sound like a bowed double bass duet. Scientists have found that if the beginning and the end of a note are eliminated, humans have difficulty determining what instrument played the note, especially with instruments in the high or low extremes of hearing.
 
It's interesting actually Randy, because I find that I can distinguish fairly well still the notes on your contra, on the lower end, as compared to Jay's Bb Tubax. The Bb Tubax goes so low, that for me at least, the notes rumble together so that the distinction between them is virtually gone.

I recently (Nov '07) had my hearing tested at the most state-of-the-art unit at Vancouver General Hospital. It turns out my hearing is perfect, so I know that the "problem" with me hearing the different notes of the Bb Tubax, is not with my ears.

It raises a rather interesting question: How low is too low?

What I really liked about your blues solo was that it was not your "typical" bass solo that tends to put me to sleep. It sounded more like a solo that one would hear on a higher pitched instrument, just played lower. Very :cool:
 
Helen said:
It raises a rather interesting question: How low is too low?
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That's an entirely different question, which is actually in at least three parts:

* How low is musically usable?
* How low can a human hear?
* How low can a human hear and be able to define what he hears as a note?

In my opinion, the real question to answer is "musically usable" and I don't really know the answer to that. I could say, easily, "The lowest note on a piano keyboard" -- but the Bosendorfer has an extension.
 
Helen said:
What I really liked about your blues solo was that it was not your "typical" bass solo that tends to put me to sleep. It sounded more like a solo that one would hear on a higher pitched instrument, just played lower. Very :cool:
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Thanks, Helen. That's a really nice compliment. Whenever I play a melodic line I want to make it as "pretty" as possible. That cuts me out of a lot of modern music but I don't think modern music and melodic beauty are mutually exclusive. Also, the big saxes can be used as the bass in music of all kinds.

I have found, however, that when I play bass or contrabass saxophone, I have to change my style. Basically, I'm a bebopper/R&B player. R&B is no problem on low instruments because it sticks close to the notes in the chord, despite the "blue" notes. The last note in my MYSPACE contrabass solo is the flatted seventh, played very low. We have become so accustomed to flat 7, flat 3 (raised 9) and other blue notes in popular music that when they are played down low, no one objects. But play other altered scale notes in the bass (like beboppers), and people freak out.

So when I play bass or contrabass saxophone, I play an older style, like Coleman Hawkins and other swing era saxophonists, leaving out the "wild" notes.

What does all this musical terminology mean? Absolutely nothing. Play what sounds good to you. I'll bet you've played enough notes to choose what sounds good.
 
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I know exactly what you mean Randy. I too change my style when playing bass. My style of playing in improv tends to lean towards the melodic. One part of it is expectation (what the audience expects to hear from a particular piece of music given its style), another is simple ergonomics (long bass rods & springs will simply not have the same response as soprano rods & springs for example), and the third part is the voicing of the horn itself.

For me, my approach to all the saxes I play (sop thru bass) is very different. I see each as a unique instrument, and play each slightly differently. For example I generally use different riffs, licks, etc on each. This allows me to sound like a tenor player, bari player, etc. , rather than a tenor player playing baritone, and so on. When I play bass, I see it as a completely unique voice with really no contemporaries. Because there are no reference points out there for the audience (since very few listeners are familiar with any bass sax players, and those that are, know them from a different era, and totally different style, so it really isn't a reference point anyway) I can pretty much do what I want and almost get away with it. ;-) And since I don't play bebop, I don't run into the "You're playing what on bass?" thing. I'm a blues, R&B, rock, & lounge jazz type player (the last one reluctantly), so on those occasions when I do hit bad notes, I usually joke and say "I'm playing outside then changes", and that shuts everybody up.

PS: I loved your rendition of Donna Lee on your Eppi bass. I would love to see you play it on a vintage bass though as well. It would be interesting to see how an accomplished bebopper can play a piece like that on an old, ergonomically-challenged bass compared/contrasted to the new state of the art model.
 
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Actually, I have played Donna Lee a lot on my old Conn stencil bass, and I still have no problem using that horn on Donna Lee. I got so used to using side C on bass sax that I still tend to use it, even on the Eppelsheim, out of habit.

I remember meeting up with Jaco Pastorius in a Ft. Lauderdale jazz club and playing Donna Lee together. I wish I had a tape. Jaco loved bass sax and was so enthusiastic that he planned to take me (on baritone and bass saxes) on a European tour shortly after the Japanese big band tour where I played baritone only. Financial problems ended that idea and then the other problems just got worse.
 
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