Saxophone

The most challenging duty for a columnist, blogger, or anyone who writes about popular music is appealing to a demographic of musos and die-hard admirers. It’s one thing to venture off into the skeptical world of music aficionados alone, granted that you’ve taken a class or two on how to speak their technical language, but it's another thing to venture off without being able to communicate why an artist’s musical choices are, in fact, artistic. Take, for example, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A…

In my high school career, I have been terrible with grades in my freshman year. I slowly but surely started to pick them up, but I was not the smartest in school. I was a slow learner, didn’t really catch the material as fast as everybody else. That was a disadvantage for me because I was making up some classes while I had to handle my regular A-G classes. I can honestly say it was probably one of the most difficult times in high school. That was around the time where I wasn’t really interested…

When thinking about all of the people I have met in my years on this earth, there is one that stands out as the person that has affected my life the most and that person is Nazim Rashid. He is a man that I met seeking a saxophone teacher to learn how to play the saxophone as a teenager. What I was seeking was to learn how to play an instrument which I had an interest in for years. What I received from meeting Nazim was a whole lot more than just music lessons. See something else Nazim has…

For this Quarter, I viewed the Deerfield Honors Band Recital on the eleventh of this month. It was a great concert that featured many soloists and groups that played some jazz pieces and marches. I heard a lot of great music and I learned a lot at the recital. The first piece I enjoyed was Fly Me to the Moon. It was performed by Zachary Klein on drums who was accompanied by Alexander Ambrose. It was written by Bart Howard in 1954 but was made famous by Frank Sinatra a decade later. Frank…

The clarinet is a woodwind and is often a first choice for people who eventually want to play saxophone. Speaking of which... Number Five: Saxophone. The saxophone is one of the most versatile instruments. Because there are so many types of all shapes and sizes, it's a great instrument for musicians who really want to customize their musical experience. Number Four: Trumpet.…

recorded in 2014 with his reliable sextet. The band members are maintained here with the exception of pianist Sullivan Fortner, who gave its place to Glenn Zaleski. The remaining artists, all young and powerfully talented, are Alex LoRe on alto saxophone, Matt Davis on guitar, Johannes Felscher on bass, and Jimmy Macbride on drums. Some tunes feature a group of woodwind players that plump for a classical chamber tone rather than a jazz-oriented drive. The admitted influence of classical…

create this top-charting recording. Firstly, Ray Charles recording of I Got a Women music aspects allows different sound for various genres come into play and this allows the music to have the blues/soul structure. In the recording, there are saxophones…

On December 11th, a Sunday night, I went to Les Joulins Jazz Bistro to listen to Bill “Doc” Webster and his band Jazz Nostalgia. Me and my friend were seated at a table for two, fairly close to the stage. The stage was not elevated and the musicians stood close to the tables and interacted with the audience in between songs. It made the overall feeling of the concert very laid back and non formal. The restaurant was not very crowded, but of the people that were there there was a wide mix of…

In modern day, there are all types of music that have stemmed from the very beginning of time and music techniques. Jazz is a genre of music that has changed focus from the strict playing of the music and rhythms to a more free and fun style, giving musicians more freedom to play music how they like and how they choose to when it comes to entertaining audiences. There are two main musicians who are an example of jazz at its finest, and they are Miles Davis and Steve Reich. Miles Davis is an…

majors, music educators, and graduates. I like seeing jazz ensembles that are mixed up with young and old, male and female. The University Jazz Ensemble II is directed by Jerry Tolson. The assistant conductors are Arabo Bey and Jake Daniels. On the saxophones there were Adam McIntyre on alto, Davis Hale on Alto, Jake Daniels on tenor, Nolan Aud on tenor, and Jeff Endly on baritone. Playing trombone was Arabo Bey, Billy Engelman,…