Rooster_Ties

OK, this isn't that weird, but I sure wish it was used more in jazz. I love bass clarinet, but often think it's pitched a little lower than I'd like it to be. The standard Bb clarinet is often too high for my tastes. So, then, I give you the beloved (but often forgotten) Alto Clarinet...

And here is a clip (http://www.contrabass.com/sounds/Stardust.mp3) of Randy Emerick on Tubax, playing Stardust (with the Jerry Fischer Orchestra, Hollywood FL, Mike Lewis, Arranger). Enjoy! God damn, that's low!!!!!!

There are some great samples of the Tubax (basically a contrabass saxophone) at this site: http://eppelsheim.com/eppelsheim-blasinstrumente.html Click on "English" from the opening page, then click on "Recordings" on the lower left-hand corner of the main page, and select "Tubax". Three tune samples to pick from, the first one is the best (IMHO), but all three are cool as hell. B) B) B)

The Tubax, which has the same pitch-range as a contrabass sax, but is physically smaller. And here's a real, honest-to-god, Contrabass Sax. God damn, how heavy is it?????? "This saxophone is about 6'9" tall and it weighs about 45 pounds." (source) Probably easier to play the world's smallest saxophone, the Bb 'Soprillo', which I think is one octave higher than a standard Soprano sax.

Sorry, the pictures won't link. This one appears to be a custom "one of a kind" instrument described as... "The Monitor Trumpet is also known as Violists Revenge. Now The Trumpet Player hears exactly what the rest of us hear." Go here to see the Monitor Trumpet

I'm not 100% sure, but I think I saw one of these once. If my memory is right, this is a slide saxophone.

I'm not sure I have any of the types of packaging you're describing (haven't been buying much lately), but I seem to remember that you could press on the center of the 'solid' spindel, and it would release the CD slightly. Is the spindle totally solid?? - or does it have radial gaps in it?? Worth a try...

More images can be found here (link on next line below)... They're kinda big, so I won't clutter the thread with all of them, but there are plenty of close-ups of the keys. http://www.contrabass.com/pages/PC-rothophone.html So, then, what the hell is a Rothophone??? - you might be asking yourself... The answer is below this next picture... Link: Rothphone or Saxorusophone Basically, "rothphones are nothing but sarrusophones built in saxophone form".

i think it was Pfunkjazz - i often wonder what hapenned to him. Yup, me too. IMHO, PFunkJazz added a whole bunch of cool perspective to the BNBB, and if I had any idea what his e-mail address was - I'd get him over here right quick. Anybody know??

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Rooster, I think the picture you are thinking of is in Litweiler's The Harmolodic Life. There is one picture of Ornette playing trumpet with Haden, Blackwell, AND Izenzon, AND Yoko Ono is leaning against the wall, probably wailing. The other that fits your description is of Ornette, Redman, Haden, and Blackwell. It looks like they are taking a break, except for Haden, hand in position. Just found my Litweiler's "Harmolodic Life", and it's definitely NOT the picture with Yoko. I had forgotten all about that picture (the one with Yoko), and although it is interesting, it was the other one (or one very much like it) that is the one I like so much. This (below) is a cropped version, but the shot in the book shows Charlie Haden (and his bass) standing off to the right, just out of the frame. In fact, I just noticed that Ed Blackwell is in the original (uncropped) picture too, sitting at his drum set - just out of frame. Man, cutting this picture just ruined it. Though cut, here it is again... Can somebody with a scanner who also owns Litweiler's "Harmolodic Life" book, please scan the full version of this picture, and post it to this thread?? Thanks!!!! I'd give the page number, but in my hardcover version, the pages with photos are not numbered. It's the picture across from the full-page picture of Ornette and Anthony Braxton playing pool (which is also a cool picture, I might add). The one I'm talking about is just like the picture in this post, only bigger - and with Haden and Blackwell too. I love this picture so much that when Jazziz or Jazz Times (I forget which) did a story several years ago on jazz photography (and they included this picture in the article), that I wrote off to Val Wilmer (in the U.K.) asking if there was any way I could purchase a print of the photograph directly from her. I included a photocopy of it with my letter, so she was sure of which photo I was talking about. Never heard anything back from her, though. This would have been around 1994 or '95 or so. ========== Also, I'm still searching around for the full verison of that Ornette picture, and stumbled on this one (below), another photo by Wilmer. Never heard of this 'Terroade' cat before... Kenneth Terroade in a Flat in Putney, London, July 1971 (photo by Val Wilmer, born 1941)

Glad to hear that everything is OK. We was worried about you!!

Exactly what I was talking about. That night I heard him, he played way, way in his high register, too damn much in my opinion. I think I liked what he was playing, but shit - that's a frequency range I'm not at all used to listening to that damn much. And that's one of the reasons I like Osby's lower-register clarinet work so much. Shit, I think Byron was playing half the night in the altissimo range (meaning those notes where you leave open the hole/note/key normally covered by the index finger of your left hand). ( I used to play clarinet, between the ages of 11 and about 14. Gave it up when I realized my embouchure was all screwed up (I learned the wrong way), and I lost interest. I didn't so much 'tongue' notes, and much as I 'gummed' them - if that's any indication. )

There is a photo (or series of photos) of Ornette in the early 70's (or very late 60's), rehearsing in a "loft"-type space just as a trio (I think), that I simply love. It's back when he had a full beard for a few years there. I think the photographer was Valerie Wilmer, if I remember right. I'm looking for the image on-line now, but can't seem to find it. This one isn't the picture I was thinking of (or at least I don't think it is), but it was taken in the same "loft"-type space as the one that I am thinking of. (The one I'm thinking of shows the band playing, if I remember right.) Also, here are some other pictures of Ornette with a full beard, which I'm just finding just now (looking for the other one) - which I also rather like... I think the picture I'm looking for is in Wilmer's "As Serious As Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz", which I see they have just reissued (again) in paperback, calling it "As Serious As Your Life: John Coltrane and Beyond". (Or at least I presume that this is the same book, retitled.) I'll see if I can find my copy of the book, and confirm it one way or another.

If I had one recommendation for Don Byron, it would be for him to take up the alto clarinet. Last year I heard Byron's "6 MUSICIANS" group, and I thought his sound would have cut through the group much better if he had played an 'Eb' alto clarinet all night, instead of his standard 'Bb' clarinet. (At first I thought a bass clarinet would be been better, but really - it would have been a little too low to cut through. The whole band was way over-amplified in a theater that only holds about 800 - with perfect acoustics for other unamplified groups, like string quartets, solo piano, and such.) But amplification problems aside, I think hearing Byron on alto (clarinet) would give him an even more distinctive sound, and it would be pitched a little closer to the saxophone range that I like better than the standard 'Bb', which is a little to close to the soprano sax range for my taste. ( Similarly, I love Greg Osby's playing on clarinet (standard 'Bb' model), and he (Osby) really seems to favor the lower register of the clarinet - so I’d love to hear Osby on alto clarinet sometime too - playing it's lower register. Joe Lovano is the only guy I know who plays the alto clarinet on any kind of regular basis. I wish more people would take up the alto, as you can probably tell from this post. )

Almost didn't recognize you, Use3D, with your new Avatar. I used to love your old one - thought it went really well with your "fist of doom" theme. B)

Does he take any solos on flute?? I know, nobody will probably remember this off the top of their head. I don't have any of the Alice Coltrane albums with Joe, but I think I have all of the Herbie discs with Joe. I'll try to check myself in the next few days, if I get the chance. Just checked AMG (on a hunch), and Joe plays Flute and Soprano on his own "Muliple" - but my hunch is that he doesn't solo on flute, though I suspect he does probably solo on soprano. (Another one for me to dig out and check sometime this week.)

Just find a post by AB (or look for him in the list of users), and when you bring up his profile (at least on the AAJ board) - it'll list his last post date and time. I just went by that, assuming it was accurate. In any case, I just e-mailed AfricaBrass (via the "e-mail user" buttons on this board, and also the AAJ board - in case he registered with different e-mail addresses on each board. Not likely, I know, but it doesn't hurt to double-up.) I don't think I have his e-mail address anywhere. He and I used to trade PM's mostly.

Damn, I'm gone from the board (and home) for two weeks, and AfricaBrass gets lost while I'm gone?? Just checked AAJ, and his last post there was 05-20-2003 03:04 PM, so that was a couple weeks earlier than his last post here. Anybody got his e-mail address --- can you e-mail him and see what's up???

While I'm at it, did Joe Henderson ever record on flute?? I seem to vaguely remember that he did once (or twice at most), but can't remember when --- probably something from his Milestone years, or maybe as a sideman on one of Herbie's things?? around 1969 or 70?? If he did ever play flute (and I want to say it was alto flute, for some reason), I also even more vaguely remember that he didn't solo ever on flute (at least not on record), but only played parts from written-out charts. Anybody remember Joe on flute ever???

Didn't he also play soprano on maybe one tune in Round Midnight (the movie)?? I seem to have some vague memory of this, but haven't seen the film in years...

Over the weekend I was listening to my cousin's CD of Terence Blanchard's Romantic Defiance from 1994, and I kept trying to guess who the tenor player was, only to find that it was of all people --- Kenny Garrett!! --- who I'm not sure I'd ever heard play anything other than alto (or occasionally soprano, if I remember right). Or maybe Garrett played tenor with Miles sometimes??? - I can't remember. In any case... And that got me thinking about Ornette on Tenor, and (although I can't remember the name of the album), those recordings of Bird with Miles, with Bird on tenor (I just read about them in John Szwed 's new biography of Miles (So What: The Life of Miles Davis), which I found over the weekend too). So then, here's a thread devoted to suggesting recordings of devoted alto players playing tenor (but only on rare occasion), or devoted tenor players playing alto (but only on rare occasion). I'm NOT talking about people who switched around a bunch, like Sonny Stitt, but rather guys who played their main axe (alto or tenor) 95% of the time or more. Did Joe Henderson ever record on alto??? (Or soprano?? - for that matter) I think Trane recorded on alto a couple times, if I'm not mistaken. How about Hank Mobley on alto?? (or soprano??) Wayne Shorter on alto?? Sam Rivers on alto?? Billy Harper on alto?? Gary Thomas on alto?? Jackie McLean on tenor?? Greg Osby on Tenor?? Steve Coleman on tenor?? ( And for the sake of argument, let's assume that recording on soprano only counts if a guy only recorded on it a very few times. Like if Joe Henderson recorded on soprano, that would count (since I don't think he ever did). But Osby has recorded on soprano a fair bit, so that doesn't count. ) What other "non-main-axe" sax recordings can you recommend?? Especially those where the guy plays a whole album on his non-mail-axe (like "Ornette on Tenor").

I appreciate and respect your opinion Michael (on this subject, and of course, many others!!) -- but please (and I do mean please) -- please don't stop posting here because of Aric. Certainly he can be ignored by all those who choose to ignore him (presumably a group that would include yourself). Thank you for explaining the situation with Aric's past trading history, which is entirely appropriate. Never the less, I'll confess that I've kinda missed Aric's rantings since he was last banned on the BNBB. He does have a certain charm, and often can liven the place up a bit. ( Aric's better than Musicboy, in my book. )