Eric Alexander

[mrjazzman]

Saw Eric at Yoshi's in Oakland last Saturday with Cedar Walton, great show. He must be my favorite living tenor saxophonist because I have 25 of his approx 28 sessions. He autographed his first session as a leader, "Straight UP" and his latest, "Revival Of The Fittest", very nice fellow. I'm curious to know what you all think of Mr. Alexander and the music he makes. Also, DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN GET "HEAVY HITTERS" AND "EXTRA INNINGS" BY MR. ALEXANDER, two Japanease releases that are out of print and extremely expensive if you can find them..................

[John Tapscott]

I am generally positive on Eric Alexander, but not always. I have perhaps 8 of his CD's plus some sessions on which he's a co-leader or sideman (eg. with Grant Stewart or One For All). Sometimes I really enjoy his playing; other times I can hardly wait 'til his solos are finished. His tone, though technically perfect I suppose, doesn't always get along with my head (as opposed to Grant Stewart, for example, whose tone always seems pleasing to me). Occassionally it seems like Eric's almost playing for playing's sake, if I can put it that way. Also like he's trying to cram everything into one solo and doesn't edit himself all that well - like a writer who just keeps going and going with no paragraph breaks. (Yes, I know 'Trane could be like that - but honestly, though Eric's very good , he's no 'Trane.) Now having said more negative than positive, let me say that there are some Eric CD's that I like very much - like "Dead Center" on High Note, on which the van Gelder studio brought out the warmer side of Eric's sound.

Edited October 21, 2009 by John Tapscott

[jlhoots]

I usually like his playing.

The Venus CDs are nice - both his leader dates & the One For All CDs.

[Peter Friedman]

I like Eric Alexander's playing and have a large collection of CDs with him as leader or sideman. The one criticism

I have of his playing is in line with the comments by John Tapscott. He at times plays too much. I wish he would

play fewer notes in some of his solos. He does what many players do which is double the time in parts of his ballad solos.

In many ways it seems more difficult to play a ballad slowly than to speed up during the solos.

Nonetheless, I do consider Eric Alexander to be among my 10 or 15 favorite living tenor players.

Grant Stewart is also among my favorites and generally prefer his playing over Eric's.

[papsrus]

... The one criticism

I have of his playing is in line with the comments by John Tapscott. He at times plays too much. I wish he would

play fewer notes in some of his solos. ...

I don't believe I've heard the man, but that line above reminds me of that line in 'Amadeus' ... "There's too many notes. Just take out a few notes."

I guess another way of putting it would be to talk about his phrasing?

[tkeith]

I agree with most everything that's been said here. Of the current crop of younger players, I like him probably second best (to Abraham Burton). But at times I find him too clean. Also, I grew up a big George Coleman fan, and EA frequently plays too close to GC for me to appreciate -- I saw the original. That said, for that basically inside style, he's the guy that usually has me waiting to find how who the tenor player is when I hear him. A lot of this generation has that generic, 'recordable' tone -- his tends to be more unique and I find him more musical than a lot of guys who get more press. Much of that seems to stem from their being 'New York' guys while he's a 'Chicago' guy. Too damned bad the REAL music has been coming out of Chicago for the past 25 years.