The Aebersold jam was a fixture for me and my saxophone-playing buddies in high school. But I didn’t realize the depth of what I learned from it until last week, when one of my oldest friends visited me and we jammed to some Abes. Something we’d not done in over 15 years.
Juan Rollan and I met on the first day at a performing arts high school in Florida. We met on the school bus and later saw each other in jazz band. We both had played saxophone for a couple years but were brand new to jazz. In order to make up for lost time (cuz we were getting schooled daily by our new friend Joe) we spent many, many weekends playing along to Aebersolds. For hours. So. Many. Hours.
Somewhere there’s an old cassette tape of us playing along to the Bird Aebersold…in a studio. Yes, our parents bought some studio time so we could cut a record. With a play-along cd as our backing band. Unfortunately fortunately none of us can find it anymore.
This recording was an accidental byproduct of our little play-along jam session. The mic was still on and I started playing the theme from Mo’ Better Blues as a joke…but then we started riffing. This is the result and it really felt like a conversation. Something about the fact we’re not both on tenor (even though Juan is also a tenor player) made the interaction particularly interesting.
It’s 18-minutes of musical dialogue. I don’t expect many to have the interest/patience to hear it all. But for the one who’s supposed to get something out of hearing this, well, this is for you.
I hope you enjoy it. We certainly did.
PS – If you’re struggling with your improvising, feeling like you know all the scales and chords but can’t make sense out of it, find a peer to jam to Aebersolds with. It’s SO helpful. Here are a few reasons why:
- You are performing now, not just practicing
- You’re sharpening your listening skills
- You’re aiming, with each chorus, to improve and impress (yourself and your friend)
- You’re learning/copying their vocabulary
- You’re more likely to shape lines and phrases and less likely to run all over the horn with no agenda
- You can practice stretching yourself and feel safe doing so (this is where the friendship/trust part comes in)
- It’s way more fun than just doing this alone.
Besides my own shedding, this is probably the single biggest factor that shaped me as an improviser.
Something to think about.
PPS – I’ll be posting some video of our Aebersold jam sesh inside the lesson site soon.
Fantastic! Thanks for sharing, Bob.
Dude, this was so much fun! We’ll have to do it again soon!
Always a pleasure to hear you, Juan! Killin’…as usual!
Can’t hear it… :,(
Really? Hmm. It’s just a soundcloud file.
Can’t hear the backing track. Mind you I am listening on a tablet which has restrictions on what programmes I can access. When my laptop is repaired I will try on that.
More importantly I really like the style -I call it ‘swinging funk’ for the first half, then it goes into the style of those teaching duets.
Great stuff. I play with a local jazzer every week at my house using the technical duets and the Aeb/Hal Leonard books to put it into practice. He recommended your site (out the hundreds on Youtube) two weeks ago so I am just getting into it.
Thanks again, looking forward to the lessons /advice.
PS. Bob. I rehearse every week with a new swing big band (pretty rare these days) and the singer (some of us are old guys) just bought a sax off a local repairer as he thought he should learn an instrument. Do you have any really basic lessons/tip for absolute beginners?
Longtones, longtones and more longtones. Also, metronome, metronome, metronome. Get comfortable with sound throughout horn enough experiment with reed strength/mouthpiece opening that will be suitable for awhile.
Thanks, Derek. If you can hear the saxophones then you’re hearing everything. There was/is no backing track. (We’re wearing headphones in the photo but this one was 100% a cappella.) I like your “swinging funk” genre. I think that’s the best description!
Hey there. I really got a kick out of this. I absolutely LOVE the soprano playing. Love the tone, love the licks. Hate to be that guy but I’d love to know what the setup is. And influences! Wow. This is a lot of fun to listen to. Thanks for sharing.
Juan was playing my soprano — with my setup — and had never played it before that day. Yamaha YAS 62 (?), hard rubber Otto Link #8, Rico Reserve 3 (or 3.5) reeds.
Well – listened to the whole eighteen minutes. Just fab.