My sax players

The sax is really the core instrument of jazz, and when it supplants the clarinet as the reed instrument the music develops in a different way. 

Two giants stand at the head. First, Coleman Hawkins. A deep, throaty sound and endlessly confident arpeggios, locked into the beat. He not only inaugurates the sax, but also can hold his own in the bebop era.  

Secondly, Lester Young, who invents coolness itself. (only a slight exaggeration). His lines float over the beat in an uncanny way.  He also has a way of improvising that is telling a story, as he liked to say, rather than using arpeggios and scales.  Lester paves the way for Bird, the greatest jazz musician of all time.  Bird makes time feel almost infinitely elastic, in the way that Cortázar wrote about in his short novel about him.  

Two swing era alto saxes, Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter, are also favorites of mine. 

Rollins and Coltrane define the post bop sax.  Rollins develops motifs, whereas Coltrane offers sheets of sound, and develops a different kind of rhythmic approach beyond the swung eighth note feel.  

Coltrane and Ornette define avant-garde jazz.  Bird, Coltrane, Ornette, are major jazz composers like Monk or Ellington/Strayhorn.  

Yet there is also a wealth of players in hard bop and cool jazz. Lee Konitz is probably one of the best, but there are many others. Paul Desmond? Mulligan?  

Friday 13

 I was getting obsessed with Monk's tune "Friday the 13th." It has four chords repeated over and over (the Andalusian cadence!) and a melody that consists of motif, repeated 3 times.  After being obsessed for a few day, I turn on the jazz station this morning, and there is French pianist explaining the tune to an audience, and having them whistle the tune. 

Then he starts playing "Ruby, my Dear," a completely different Monk tune with a far more complex harmony and structure. 

His name is Laurent de Wilde. I discover now that he is the author of a book about Monk. He is a pretty bad ass player.  Unfortunately I missed the first part of this show, but now they are having a clip of a Dizzy big band playing in Copenhagen.  

Extreme simplicity and extreme complexity. They aren't even opposites, they are complementary. The same way a Jobim tune can have a super convoluted musical structure and sound like a relaxing pop song at the same time.  

"Desafinado" is one I've also been obsessed with in the past. The title means "Out of tune," and the melody has an odd shape, as though it were out of tune, though it is really not.