# Great Sax Solos



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)




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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Lennie Niehaus with Stan Kenton playing Cherokee, the same changes as Ko-Ko uses but without the melody. Mel Lewis on drums. (I liked this solo so much that I transcribed it using a tape recorder at 1/2 speed, and it wasn't easy. I've probably heard this more than 150 times.) In a Bill Holman arrangement such as this, there's no place to hide. Niehaus later went on to do the film score to the Bridges of Madison County with Clint Eastwood.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Another famous Coltrane solo worth transcribing, as his sound and technique had grown by leaps and bounds. Lee Morgan was only 19 at the time, and I was lucky enough to hear him with Joe Henderson years ago at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach on the West Coast.






About two years later after woodshedding hours a day - another landmark in the jazz history of the sax.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

In pop/rock, it does not come much better than this:


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

The great blazingly fast British tenorman. Loved Tubby's playing.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

I loved the Michael Brecker video. I'm familiar with some of the old saxophone greats like Coltrane, Parker, Getz, etc. Who are some others from more recent years (active in the 1990's or later) that are worth hearing?


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

bharbeke said:


> I loved the Michael Brecker video. I'm familiar with some of the old saxophone greats like Coltrane, Parker, Getz, etc. Who are some others from more recent years (active in the 1990's or later) that are worth hearing?


David Sanborn Tim Eyermann
Jay Beckenstein


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Larkenfield said:


> The great blazingly fast British tenorman. Loved Tubby's playing.


I just discovered him last week. I'm surprised I had never heard of him.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Phil Woods always blew me away. This is one of my favorites of his.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Here's Benny Carter, Phil Woods, Coleman Hawkins, and Charlie Rouse on Honeysuckle Rose. Phil Woods is an animal on this one; on the bridge he even plays a tone row. And Benny Carter makes his saxophone sound like it's dancing.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I never get tired of this one from Ben Webster. He doesn't do a lot technically here, but everything is in the right place at the right time. Every time I hear it, I feel like I'm getting a full body massage.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Larkenfield said:


> Lennie Niehaus with Stan Kenton playing Cherokee, the same changes as Ko-Ko uses but without the melody.


His playing is so clean; almost every note is articulated in some way.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Joe Farrell jumps in at 4:24 and tears this up, especially when the band drops out at 5:21. I have this one transcribed, and at one time I had a lot of it memorized.






BTW, Larkenfield, do you play saxophone?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)




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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)




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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

ldiat said:


> David Sanborn Tim Eyermann
> Jay Beckenstein


Also Gerald Albright.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

norman bates said:


>


In college, we had Art Pepper as a guest soloist. It was right when he was beginning his comeback, and I think he was on methadone. He looked awful; he was pale, and his liver was distended and stuck out through his shirt. But boy, could he play. In rehearsal, our director had him play a piece which was usually my solo. I never was able to get a copy of the recording; the director took it and squirreled it away.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

norman bates said:


>


Interesting playing, at least to my ears (and I'm sure not to everyone's taste). I hadn't heard of Von Freeman; his use of overtones reminds me of Pharaoh Sanders and his sound and wavering timbre, of Albert Ayler (who advocated "sounds, not notes, and feelings, not phrases").

I think the video should come with a warning that there are a few naughty bits on display.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

bharbeke said:


> I loved the Michael Brecker video. I'm familiar with some of the old saxophone greats like Coltrane, Parker, Getz, etc. Who are some others from more recent years (active in the 1990's or later) that are worth hearing?


Kenny Garrett albums Black Hope, African Exchange Student, Songbook 
Tommy Smith's tenor playing on Arild Andersen's Mira CD.
John Surman's playing on Miroslav Vitous's Journey's End.
Michael Blake, one of my favorite tenor saxophonists. He's the opposite of the forceful, jocular Michael Brecker. I recommend Elevated, Blake Tartar, and Drift.

I don't gravitate to many of the younger players because I can't detect a personal sound. But many jazz fans like Chris Potter, Donny McCaslin, David Binney, among others.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> Interesting playing, at least to my ears (and I'm sure not to everyone's taste). I hadn't heard of Von Freeman; his use of overtones reminds me of Pharaoh Sanders and his sound and wavering timbre, of Albert Ayler (who advocated "sounds, not notes, and feelings, not phrases").


You're spot on, but Von Freeman was much older than them, actually he was 73 when he played this. He's of the generation of Charlie Parker, and while he's not well known as Parker or Sonny Rollins (there's a simple reason for this: he didn't like to travel) he's considered one of the great legends in jazz. 
He's always been known for his deliberate use of "out of tune" pitch, and in that sense his style has been always considered ahead of his time, predating the avantgarde of the sixties (by the way I'm huge fan of Ayler in particular). He does not play always so out in any case, his playing usually is more bluesy (well, actually Footprints too is a blues but it's a Wayne Shorter blues, so it's different).
There's another version of Footprints played by him on youtube, and it's a actual footage. The video quality is terrible, but it's an interesting video. You see this old elegant man in place that looks like a hotel and one expects to hear some smooth jazz, and instead the music is I don't know, something between late Coltrane or Ayler playing this advanced tune... quite surreal.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> In college, we had Art Pepper as a guest soloist. It was right when he was beginning his comeback, and I think he was on methadone. He looked awful; he was pale, and his liver was distended and stuck out through his shirt. But boy, could he play. In rehearsal, our director had him play a piece which was usually my solo. I never was able to get a copy of the recording; the director took it and squirreled it away.


I'd be curious to hear you playing now!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Eric Dolphy is one of my favorite players. He may be, as they say, "out there," but in this one he takes the song sung by Abbey Lincoln (very short, about one minute long) and wrings out of it all of its pent-up frustration and anger.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

norman bates said:


> . You see this old elegant man in place that looks like a hotel and one expects to hear some smooth jazz, and instead the music is I don't know, something between late Coltrane or Ayler playing this advanced tune... quite surreal.


I appreciate musicians who don't stagnate but keep pushing themselves. It's hard to believe sounds like that came out of someone from the Bebop era.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

norman bates said:


> I'd be curious to hear you playing now!


If this link works, here's a short solo by me on soprano sax. You'll notice the doff of the cap to John Coltrane at the beginning.


__
https://soundcloud.com/user-464302611%2Fsoprano-sax-solomp3


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## KJ von NNJ (Oct 13, 2017)

I can think of several impressive sax solos by Clarence Clemons. The greatest being Jungleland. Clemons would have had no problem admitting that he was not on the level of many of the greats mentioned so far, but he did have a wonderful gift for making a solo memorable.
The Born to Run solo is fantastic. His playing also served the songs very well. They were better with his contribution. I can't imagine Springsteen and The E Street Band songs without Clarence. They just would not be as good without the "Big Man".


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Pick any Pink Floyd song with a sax solo in it!


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

Reba McEntire - Walk On

Both the studio and live versions of the sax solo are great. I linked to the live version because it's just a tad more epic in its production.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

I'll go for Napoleon Murphy Brock as he had some pretty tough music to perform, this is a recent tube his mid seventies stuff would be the ones to go for.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Deacon Blues is one of my favorite Steely Dan tunes, and Pete Christlieb's sax solo is great.

Sax solo starts around 4:04





Saxophonist Pete Christlieb Discusses His 'Deacon Blues' Solo on Steely Dan's 'Aja' Album


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Larkenfield said:


>


I love almost all of Parker's solos, and as for Ko-Ko/Cherokee, I like Warming Up A Riff very much. (I think this was recorded during rehearsal, warming up.) Relaxed, and creative. Gillespie was playing piano.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

It might not go down as a classic but I like Andy Mackay's wig-out with guitarist Mick Ralphs towards the end of Mott The Hoople's _All the Way from Memphis_.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

*Joe Henderson*... had a certain earthy gruffness and virility of sound like Sonny Rollins but was highly influenced by Coltrane's ideas as well. He could make the difficult leap from the bottom to the top of his horn in an instant-one of the most distinctive and recognizable sounds on tenor, and I was lucky enough to hear him live with Lee Morgan when he just tore up the Lighthouse in Redondo Beach, CA, years ago.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Manxfeeder said:


> Eric Dolphy is one of my favorite players. He may be, as they say, "out there," but in this one he takes the song sung by Abbey Lincoln (very short, about one minute long) and wrings out of it all of its pent-up frustration and anger.


Thanks for putting this up. I thought I had most of the great Max Roach albums. Clearly not, but that's now remedied!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Manxfeeder said:


> Eric Dolphy is one of my favorite players. He may be, as they say, "out there," but in this one he takes the song sung by Abbey Lincoln (very short, about one minute long) and wrings out of it all of its pent-up frustration and anger.


I've just finished listening to this and I don't know how I missed this when I was buying Impulse imports from Dobell's record shop in London in the '60's. Fantastic stuff.


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

For the brave among you , try any of John Coltrane's solos on _Live in Seattle_. In particular, the brief tenor solo that opens _Out of This World_ and the lengthier soprano solo that follows the piano solo in the same song really live up to the song's title. I think that it's around this point in his musical evolution that he began to transcend jazz and move into some new, original form of modern music. Of course, that trend became more and more pronounced during the last two years of his life.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Bluecrab said:


> For the brave among you , try any of John Coltrane's solos on _Live in Seattle_. In particular, the brief tenor solo that opens _Out of This World_ and the lengthier soprano solo that follows the piano solo in the same song really live up to the song's title. I think that it's around this point in his musical evolution that he began to transcend jazz and move into some new, original form of modern music. Of course, that trend became more and more pronounced during the last two years of his life.


Live in Seattle is fabulous stuff. He was pretty much on point with Live in Japan too. If I have one complaint it's that Impulse seem to have McCoy Tyner balanced far too low in the mixes. A remastering of all of Coltrane's Impulse recordings wouldn't go amiss but probably not in my lifetime!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Bluecrab said:


> For the brave among you , try any of John Coltrane's solos on _Live in Seattle_. In particular, the brief tenor solo that opens _Out of This World_ and the lengthier soprano solo that follows the piano solo in the same song really live up to the song's title. I think that it's around this point in his musical evolution that he began to transcend jazz and move into some new, original form of modern music. Of course, that trend became more and more pronounced during the last two years of his life.


I wasn't aware of the Live in Seattle recording. Thanks for the heads-up.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

Bluecrab said:


> For the brave among you , try any of John Coltrane's solos on _Live in Seattle_. In particular, the brief tenor solo that opens _Out of This World_ and the lengthier soprano solo that follows the piano solo in the same song really live up to the song's title. I think that it's around this point in his musical evolution that he began to transcend jazz and move into some new, original form of modern music. Of course, that trend became more and more pronounced during the last two years of his life.


Pharoah Sanders is on that record, If I remember right

Pharoah used to hang out at Lott Emporium in Houston when I was growing up. He knew one of my friends and I got to hang out a little. Pharoah liked to shoot pool and we'd pile into his old Lincoln Town Car and go to an all night pool hall he knew. One of the things that made me want to be a professional musician was hanging out with guys like Pharoah when I was a teenager.

Pharoah was an awesome guy and had absolute steel chops. You should hear him overblow a tenor when you're about 6 feet away


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Manxfeeder said:


> I wasn't aware of the Live in Seattle recording. Thanks for the heads-up.


There is also a companion cd called The Unissued Seattle Recording. This is great but probably would appeal more to the hardcore Coltrane fan.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> I wasn't aware of the Live in Seattle recording. Thanks for the heads-up.


I've had it on vinyl since I was a kid. it was a double record

it was released sometime in the early 70s I guess, judging from the style of the cover, so it definitely got released after Coltrane died


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

Barbebleu said:


> Live in Seattle is fabulous stuff. He was pretty much on point with Live in Japan too. If I have one complaint it's that Impulse seem to have McCoy Tyner balanced far too low in the mixes. A remastering of all of Coltrane's Impulse recordings wouldn't go amiss but probably not in my lifetime!


I got to meet McCoy in Ft Worth. He has one of the softest handshakes. He must have crushed someone's hand before, because he has big, thick, hands and from watching him play, he's definitely very strong

But I asked him what it was like to play with Trane. Its a question he must get asked a lot, but he is very gracious and clearly understands why someone would ask him about that, so he took a second and contemplated his answer, then looked up and said simply, "it was like Heaven"

But McCoy Tyner is a great piano player and an even better person. He really is one of the most gracious and humble guys when you get a chance to talk with him


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

Nate Miller said:


> Pharoah Sanders is on that record, If I remember right


Yes, he is. And Donald Garrett on bass clarinet.



Nate Miller said:


> Pharoah used to hang out at Lott Emporium in Houston when I was growing up. He knew one of my friends and I got to hang out a little. Pharoah liked to shoot pool and we'd pile into his old Lincoln Town Car and go to an all night pool hall he knew. One of the things that made me want to be a professional musician was hanging out with guys like Pharoah when I was a teenager.
> 
> Pharoah was an awesome guy and had absolute steel chops. You should hear him overblow a tenor when you're about 6 feet away


Great story... thanks for that.

There has long been speculation that the whole band was doing acid the night of that gig. There's an article somewhere on the internet (can't find it at the moment) by a current or former professor of music at Rutgers who says that it's true (he knew Coltrane). Whether it's true or not, that is some of the most remarkable music you're ever likely to hear.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Nate Miller said:


> I've had it on vinyl since I was a kid. it was a double record
> 
> it was released sometime in the early 70s I guess, judging from the style of the cover, so it definitely got released after Coltrane died


Me too. Living in Scotland I had to send away to Dobell's in London for a copy. I love my Impulse gatefolds. Although I've replaced all my Coltrane and other jazz vinyl with the digital equivalent I still have all my vinyl copies. My wife thinks I'm bonkers but I've told her that when I go she can either donate it all to a library or melt it down into a giant vinyl coffin for me.:lol: My sons have been told that the Impulse and Atlantic import stuff may have some value so eBay may have a sudden influx of sixties and seventies jazz albums sometime in the, hopefully distant, future!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Nate Miller said:


> Pharoah was an awesome guy and had absolute steel chops. You should hear him overblow a tenor when you're about 6 feet away


Wow, that's a great story. I always loved the sound he got out of his horn. I think he was my gateway into the "outside" players. I've never liked Coltrane's sound - it's too dry - but Pharoah's sound was so luxuriant, at least on records, that it didn't matter what he was doing; it just sounded good to me.


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## Rach Man (Aug 2, 2016)

How about Eddie Harris "tearing it up" with Les McCann and his band In _Compared To What_. 
Also, check out Bennie Bailey (trumpet) watching and admiring the sax solo toward the end of the song. This is a great tune!


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