A poet of the music, Paul Desmond was both self-deprecating and deeply insightful. This medley of quotes might tickle and provoke us… “I tried practicing for a few weeks and ended up playing too fast… I have won several prizes as the world’s slowest alto player, as well as a special award in 1961 forContinue reading “Paul Desmond, a master mind and wit: some thoughts for a New Year”
Tag Archives: improvisation
The Improvisational Brain – new article
Musicians and students are prone to a bit ranting as to whether or not the analogy with language acquisition is appropriate.
Swinging in 7 is hard – Ronan’s point.
There’s a lot of hot air and conflicting opinion amongst jazz musicians and within the music colleges regarding playing and improvising in odd metres. At last there are some wise and measured thoughts in Ronan Guilfoyle’s excellent blog. Check out his recent post “Whatever Happened to Odd Metre Swing?“
A healthly dose of dissonance – Garzone hits London
At long last, George Garzone has recently performed and led various masterclasses in London. Its great to hear the American masters of line, and in particular guys like Garzone and Liebman who challenge our tolerance of dissonance. Of course we have our own harmonic Merlins (check out Jean Toussaint’s harmonic concept, Julian Siegel, Phil Robson,Continue reading “A healthly dose of dissonance – Garzone hits London”
New transcription page added
Click here for new transcriptions: To start, Paul Desmond and Herbie Hancock, 2 exquisite improvisations on “Samba With Some Bar-B-Q”, modelling so many desirable qualities, in particular – space, development and variation.
Simon Purcell 