Customer Reviews

Improvising Jazz Sax (Saxophone)

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This is really a good book on jazz improvisation for saxophone. The book starts out with a brief introduction of chords and their chord symbols. All of the scales and patterns described in the book are written out in all of the keys except for the enharmonically spelled keys. A big plus for this book is that there is a section that describes how to play the special effects sound on the saxophone, like microtonics, growls, harmonics, etc. It gives specific fingerings for them. Now, there may be additional fingerings. It's just that I've seen no other sax book describe these. This book clearly illustrates the styles of some of our most famous saxophone players including Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Jr. Walker to name a few. I think this helps in understanding what we are hearing when we hear their music. The author also describes how to perform the chordal and scalar passages and sound musical by using different types of articulations. He also talks about the challenges of practicing and learning improvisation of which I think is important to talk about. Because sometimes as a musicians we need motivation as to why we are practicing everyday when we don't see immediate results. It's reality to understand that it takes months of practicing before one can get a real handle on certain musical expressions.

Each chapter has a new style of improvisation with music pattern. This book is not an end all to improvisation but is certainly a good start for any sax player who wants to improve his or her improvisational skills.