jacklwalker said
I'll chime in here...if you don't "have" to play them all, play whatever you like... If you're trying to get gigs, I would say play as many as you can. If you're not, stick to what speaks to you.
  

I guess we more or less all agree. If your goal is to get gigs, you should play everything you can. If not, play what feels good. Part of my original point was that most of those we consider the GOATS played only one horn. I guess that although they were pros, they were not exactly trying to "get gigs"

Rob Z said
After seeing some snippets of avant-garde improvisation, I figured it would be neat to learn to play subharmonics. Here are my first experiments:

I'm singing the perfect 5th above the note I'm playing on the horn. This creates the acoustical illusion of the horn note but an octave below. It turns out the singing has to be quieter than I initially expected! I will keep playing with this, I wonder what it would sound like on soprano (soprano with a tenor "extra basement"?) or on bari (bari with a MASSIVE extra low end? it probably takes so much air). Will report on it!
  

Crazy, never heard about it. I knew these interference type sounds while singing, because I can’t match the perfect intervals. But, that the fifth creates the impression of a deeper tone is very interesting. I never realized it before. 
tried it and it seems to work for me too on alto. Will cheek on Bari too. 

I'm singing the perfect 5th above the note I'm playing on the horn. This creates the acoustical illusion of the horn note but an octave below. It turns out the singing has to be quieter than I initially expected! I will keep playing with this, I wonder what it would sound like on soprano (soprano with a tenor "extra basement"?) or on bari (bari with a MASSIVE extra low end? it probably takes so much air). Will report on it!

My name is Jared, I am a professional saxophonist and music educator living in Melbourne Australia. I have been playing the saxophone for 18 years and completed my Bachelor of Music in Jazz Performance at Monash University back in 2019. I released an album with a quintet of mine called BEKTET back in 2023, playing modern jazz composition thats I wrote myself. I'll attach a link below if anyone is keen to check it out...

I finished my Master's in Teaching a couple of years ago and have been working primarily as a classroom music teacher as well as still teaching instrumental music privately on both piano and saxophone. I already have a solid grasp of a lot of things on the horn, but still feel like there are a lot of holes in my playing, and have been really struggling to get a consistent practice routine going since working full-time. Some things I would really love to get better at are memorising jazz standard chord progressions, developing more vocabulary (rhythmic and melodic), and finding more structure and ideas for jazz composition. My favourite tenor saxophone players at the moment are Immanuel Wilkins, Walter Smith III, Ben Wendel, Seamus Blake, Melissa Aldana, John Coltrane, Joe Henderson and Sonny Rollins. Keen to get working!

My name is Bob from the Houston area, and I'm excited about re-entering (is that a word?) the studio! Previously, I guess life got in the way of taking the necessary time to improve my sax playing, but now that I'm retired (from a day job anyway), I'm stoked to soak up all of Bob's amazing lessons!

I'm staying really busy in the Houston area music scene with a couple of bands. Don't laugh, but one of my more successful bands plays "yacht rock" music (think late 70's early 80's soft rock basically). The sax music I play in these songs is really pretty challenging (for me anyway) as a lot of sax solos from the studio recordings of these songs were played by Dave Sanborn and other legendary sax players. I attended Bob's saxophone retreat a few years back and it was such an inspiring, incredible experience! I ran across a video of our groups performance at the end of camp recently that I thought I had lost, so that was really cool to see that again and relive the moments.

I play tenor, alto and soprano saxophones and I am currently listening to Stan Getz, Kirk Whalum and Michael Lington. Looking forward to learning from all ya'll (we say this word a lot in Texas) !

Something that stood out to me while I was trying to emulate Hank's tone, vibrato, and feel is how deep in the pocket he is! So even, and that's what makes it swing so hard.

I'm Robb. I live in South Jordan (just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah). Main instrument is the alto, but I also love playing my tenor and soprano. About 4 months ago, I remembered how much I loved playing. I'm in my 50s and I haven't really played seriously since college. I've been working really hard these last few months trying to get my chops back and just play. I love playing. I really only play for me (and my wife and my dog) but it "fills my cup". Work is so stressful. And life is kinda hard sometimes. But playing my sax? It's just great and fills me up. I love it.

I've been watching loads of YouTube videos, transcribing solos, I'm even taking actual in-person lessons which has been fantastic. Anyway, I found Bob while watching youtube and my teacher (David Halliday - teaches at the University of Utah) actually mentioned him.

I'm listening to it all. Anything I an get my hands on. I'm listening to classics and trying to catch up on the up-and-comers too.

In the last four months I've transcribed Phil Woods (How's Your Mama from the Live at the Showboat album), Cannonball (Work Song) and now I'm working on St. Thomas as sort of a tribute to Sonny. 

I guess that's it. Happy shedding everyone!

My goals right now are to get my skills and repertoire up enough to be able to join some small ensemble. I'm currently working on memorizing some standards, learning to improvise over them, and keep the form reliably when playing with others.

Lately I've been going through Sonny Rollins' catalog, and prior to that I was on a Hank Mobley kick after transcribing his solo on If I Should Lose You from Soul Station.

Looking forward to learning with all of you!

embouchure is tricky, though, I often find myself slipping to the lower octave accidentally. @Bob and others whose main is tenor, is this something you had to struggle with too?

I chose a part of the solo for this challenge. It's amazing how Hank Mobley works with melodic motifs and shifts them by a certain interval. There would be a lot of work on this, maybe I'll come back to it in the future.

Here's my take:

Thanks for the challenge!

Marty

Sam_D said
Continuing on from the last challenge, I’m working with the metronome on 2&4 and not tapping my foot! Feeling some steady improvement in my feel. This tune has really challenged my altissimo, and I’m especially noticing my tendency to rush the arpeggios on the Cm. But that’s why we record right!? Now that I feel confidentially at 80% I’m looking forward to picking out some good nuggets.

  

Just absolutely beautiful! Blessings