40 years playing and this is the most interesting and informative tutorial. Pure logic in the dissection of the lines and excellent conclusions on how to employ them. A1
Fantastic lesson, Jamie! Great analysis and strategies, super useful, and your tenor sound is tops. This helps clarify why Rollins is such a monumental creative voice! Well done.
Shucks Wally, thanks old bean! Much appreciated, but when you're presenting Sonny Rollins, it's just a no brainer innit? I love the two Sonny show downs on Sonny Side Up as well - they're both burning, but Rollins has that extra spark of creative genius along with it for my money.
I've been screaming out for lessons like this for years .and here it is .I suggested stuff like this months back ,when you asked ,what do you want ?,previous to the last cause .to be honest with you wasn't to keen on that didn't spread like butter . but this is marmite has a bite to it and a great tang ,I'm also doing the Scott paddock sax School and this guy is the bizzo .to be quite honest I did go off you for a while ,now I'm back on board .bulls eye.🧿👁🐂 .these are my feelings alone .keep up the good work 👍
I've been playing Alto since February and Sonny Rollins has to be my favourite sax player. I love catchy melodic tunes and he played (plays) so many good tunes..'St Thomas', 'Sonnymoon for two' ( which I have learnt to play) and 'without a song'.
Jamie! All your videos are awesome. But this one, man, is EXTREMELY good man! Top of the list, along with the one about altissimo with Dr Anderson PhD. Thanks for unveiling the secrets… listening to the masters is one thing, but getting to understand what they’re doing is such an incredible discovery for people like me, completely amateur player, who won’t ever put a single feet in the conservatoire or music school. But, people like you, who has been there and already spent hours and hours studying and playing, and decided to share their experience and knowledge with the world is such an amazing thing. Much appreciated Jamie! That makes us wait more anxious the release of your new course! Keep it up man!
Beautiful! Such nice melodic lines, and good instruction to go along with it! The end of phrase 6 (implying the resolution without playing it) is awesome. -- Now: 1) learn my chord tones ...
Thanks a lot for another great video! I do live in a house, which I claims was drawn after they built it, and I have often wandered this: Did all these great saxophonists really work out their solos on paper before they played it, og are we just trying to explain what happend after they played it? I am asking because I find it easier to "hear" my tones when hearing a melody than trying to remember what tones belongs to C#ø when i pops up. With sometimes a really disaster.
No way did they work it all out on paper before. Obviously not. And there’s definitely a limit to the value of trying to reverse engineer jazz. However, they all knew exactly what they were doing, as opposed to “hearing it” and not knowing. But they could “hear it” as well as knowing it!!
Another really great lesson. Thank you. I have been working on St Thomas and know the chord tones but having trouble randomizing them to different rhythms. Any tips? Thanks again and hope you enjoy your coffee!!
You named your son, Rollins? :D Excellent lesson. Thank you. It's been a while since I really focussed on the chord tones and scales! The chord tones come OK in the arpeggio order but I need to be able to instantly pull out the intervals.
Hi. These are great lines and you play them really well. But I have to dissagree with you on one point: The use of guide tones. I don´t see one example in phrase one of a third resolving seventh or vice verse. In fact Rollins seems to positively avoid doing this in this phrase! Perhaps that is why it sounds so good!? Perhaps you can mention that the lines change direction on differents beats of the bar, creating phrases of different lenths, groups of 4 notes 5 notes 6 notes etc.
Thank you - this is very interesting and useful regarding the 9ths and 13ths. Sorry if my comment came across as grumpy. Sometimes I get a bee in my bonnet about jazz education as some of the concepts that are commonly taught are quite removed from actual jazz. This was certainly my experience at the RAM in the 90s. I often felt the stuff we were taught was because they are easy to explain in the context of a class or workshop, but not because it really reflects how the music is played. Blues scales and guide tones and the phrygian mode all belong to this category for me. But adding the 9ths and 13ths is a very cool concept regarding guide tones and new to me, so thank you for this- it does help!
Would the chords in the original chart be simple? Like an A7 in bar 4? Then as Sonny starts to shed these changes he realizes there's a cool lick he can make if he adds some extensions, then after he's played, the transcriber says that's now A7 (#11b9#5). Similar to Ragnar's question below: did they chart it after he played it. The reason i ask is that I'm playing a Basie tune called "The Legend" right now in my big band. There's an 8 bar tenor solo (changes only) that contains an E7(#9#5) in bar 6. It's followed immediately by A7b9 then D-6. this would lead me to believe it's just a standard 2-5-1. Is it safe to assume that the rhythm section will NOT be playing all those alterations in bar 6 and that me playing over a straight E7 would work there? I know that a #9 is the same as a b3 so that would effectively turn the E7 into an E-7, which would make more sense harmonically. I guess the bottom line is, if i see chords with extensions in my solo changes, can I ignore the extensions if I feel like it and still be ok? bonus question: why would they write (in two places!!!) E7#9 when everything else points to E-7, which would sound the same but be more readable?
Bonus question first: E7#9 sounds quite different to E-7 so they’re not really interchangeable despite both having a G. That G# in there on the E7 makes a big difference. Your main question is a really good one. A lot depends on context. If the extension is specified, the rhythm section will probably play it, however, the reality is that if you play different extensions from them the fleeting clash is unlikely to be noticed in context. Some extensions matter more than others though. For example if you play natural 9 on that A7 going to Dm, that’s not gonna sound great, but if you play B natural instead of B# on the E7 it won’t be that noticeable. Transcribing, using your ear and experience are the guiding factors.
I just listened to a 10h European podcast radio show on Sonny Rollins (yes, 10x 1h, covering 1951-2001 !!!). My opinion of Rollins is that it seems very overrated to me. First of all as a player, he does not seem to me better than Johnny Griffin, Stitt, Roland Kirk, Phil Woods, Lateef ... but enjoys a much more important reputation ... and unjustified in my opinion. Ok he plays well, but not better than the musicians I mentioned. In terms of composition, he did not compose anything, everyone knows that St Thomas is a Caribbean folklore already recorded by Randy Weston in 1955 under the title Fire Down There. His other compositions from the 50s ... well, Oleo, Airegin etc ... this can in no way be compared to the compositions of Trane, Bird, Monk or Shorter ... also, his playing and his sound are terribly degraded after 1966 (36 years). It seems that he was traumatized by the arrival of Ornette, Trane, Ayler ... In the 60's he tried to be more free than Ayler, more calypso / blues than Ornette, and more mystical than Trane, but he didn't. did not succeed. Then in the 70s / 80s he tried to be funky, disco ... with really ridiculous and cheesy results ... Did he want to be funkier than James Brown himself? Also, in the radio show they say that he was paid current $ 300,000 for himself to record the Nucleus album (so listen to the result !!!!), and that, for his concerts, his financial claims were unrealistic, only the big festivals could afford it. He played with the Stones but didn't want to go on tour with them because, according to Jagger himself, he wanted too much money! I mean, I'm not making anything up here. In my opinion, he should have remained what he was before, a disciple of Bird at the Tenor, and quit at the age of 40 to leave a quality job, and without trying to follow fashion. Thank you for not insulting me because I have documented myself on Rollins and I like to have constructive discussions without being attacked on my person.
Don’t forget to check out my awesome free Masterclass! www.getyoursaxtogether.com/masterclass
40 years playing and this is the most interesting and informative tutorial. Pure logic in the dissection of the lines and excellent conclusions on how to employ them. A1
Thanks so much man 🙏🏻
Fantastic lesson, Jamie! Great analysis and strategies, super useful, and your tenor sound is tops. This helps clarify why Rollins is such a monumental creative voice! Well done.
Shucks Wally, thanks old bean! Much appreciated, but when you're presenting Sonny Rollins, it's just a no brainer innit? I love the two Sonny show downs on Sonny Side Up as well - they're both burning, but Rollins has that extra spark of creative genius along with it for my money.
Dr Wally is here yeeeeeee
@@abdulhakeemnaallah1779 Jamie is my buddy - I watch all his videos when I can!
@@GetYourSaxTogether Very true! Wait, did you call me an old bean?
@@drwallysax yeh, but it doesn’t mean you’re old. Or a bean.
Such a good lesson Jamie. I have worked on this solo for years, but you draw out the lessons so vividly - with passion. Thank you!
Thanks Kevin. Glad it was helpful!
I've been screaming out for lessons like this for years .and here it is .I suggested stuff like this months back ,when you asked ,what do you want ?,previous to the last cause .to be honest with you wasn't to keen on that didn't spread like butter . but this is marmite has a bite to it and a great tang ,I'm also doing the Scott paddock sax School and this guy is the bizzo .to be quite honest I did go off you for a while ,now I'm back on board .bulls eye.🧿👁🐂 .these are my feelings alone .keep up the good work 👍
Glad you enjoyed it Paul. 👍🏻
Great video again Jamie. Easy to understand and you bring out all the key features with great enthusiasm. Thanks.
Anytime Paul. Thanks!
I've been playing Alto since February and Sonny Rollins has to be my favourite sax player. I love catchy melodic tunes and he played (plays) so many good tunes..'St Thomas', 'Sonnymoon for two' ( which I have learnt to play) and 'without a song'.
Fun fact...Sonny loosely based 'St Thomas' on an old English folk song that his Mum used to sing to him as a kid..'The Lincolnshire Poacher' !
Awesome - my son is named after him!
;-)
wow ... best jazzvideo so far this year 😎👍
Wow. Thanks so much!!
Wow! Great lesson, as always. I’m starting the homework assignment. I’ll see you in 2024!
lol
Superb stuff. Thank you.
My pleasure!
FANTASTIC lesson Jamie! You keep raising your own bar with your excellent explanations. Looking forward to your new course :)
Thanks so much!
Great solo! Sonny was crazy good. He and Warne Marsh are probably the two greatest players of all time.
Agreed Denis!
Jamie! All your videos are awesome. But this one, man, is EXTREMELY good man! Top of the list, along with the one about altissimo with Dr Anderson PhD. Thanks for unveiling the secrets… listening to the masters is one thing, but getting to understand what they’re doing is such an incredible discovery for people like me, completely amateur player, who won’t ever put a single feet in the conservatoire or music school. But, people like you, who has been there and already spent hours and hours studying and playing, and decided to share their experience and knowledge with the world is such an amazing thing. Much appreciated Jamie! That makes us wait more anxious the release of your new course! Keep it up man!
Thanks Eduardo, really appreciate the comments. Working hard on the course as we speak!
Great solo and explanation Jamie, I’ll practice this solo and do the homework. Vielen Dank and muchas gracias! 👋 🎷
Cheers David
Best video yet since I've been following the channel. Thank you!!!
Wow, thanks!
Your best video so far.
Wow, thanks!
Brilliant!
🙏
What a great video! I didn’t realise you could be so creative just with chord tones. Back to the bridge 😁 I also have a son named after Sonny!
Glad you liked it. Great name!
Hi Jamie really good cerebral lesson. Many thanks. Unless I have missed it, could you put up the chart for the solo. Best Paul
Yeh, actually, there’s no PDF for this one. Screen shot? You’ll learn much more by transcribing it yourself anyway. 😉
Wow . . . this is great stuff and some wonderful demystifying.
Looking forward to your Improv Mastery course in June.
Thanks Brian. Working hard on the course right now - I can't wait to get it out to you guys.
Hello, a very good content as always, Sonny Rollins is the best :) is it possible to have the fingering positions as you use to do ? Thank's
www.getyoursaxtogether.com/fingerchart
Beautiful! Such nice melodic lines, and good instruction to go along with it! The end of phrase 6 (implying the resolution without playing it) is awesome. -- Now: 1) learn my chord tones ...
Thanks Rob, glad you found it helpful.
thanks mate
You’re very welcome ☺️
outstanding thank you!
You're very welcome!
Thanks a lot for another great video! I do live in a house, which I claims was drawn after they built it, and I have often wandered this: Did all these great saxophonists really work out their solos on paper before they played it, og are we just trying to explain what happend after they played it? I am asking because I find it easier to "hear" my tones when hearing a melody than trying to remember what tones belongs to C#ø when i pops up. With sometimes a really disaster.
No way did they work it all out on paper before. Obviously not. And there’s definitely a limit to the value of trying to reverse engineer jazz. However, they all knew exactly what they were doing, as opposed to “hearing it” and not knowing. But they could “hear it” as well as knowing it!!
@@GetYourSaxTogether Thank you, Jamie. That will be my wish for Christmas 🤗
Another really great lesson. Thank you. I have been working on St Thomas and know the chord tones but having trouble randomizing them to different rhythms. Any tips? Thanks again and hope you enjoy your coffee!!
Maybe don’t make it random to start with. Do all off beats, all on beats, triplets, groups of 3, groups of 5 etc. Then you can mix it up.
Great ! 😃😉👌🏻🎷
Many thanks!!
...genial!!...thank you man!!
You're welcome!
🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷Best helper :)
Thanks man.
You named your son, Rollins? :D Excellent lesson. Thank you. It's been a while since I really focussed on the chord tones and scales! The chord tones come OK in the arpeggio order but I need to be able to instantly pull out the intervals.
Very good, very good.🙄Keep plugging away at the chord tones - it'll pay dividends!
11:40 All I want for Christmas is a saxophone lesson by Jaimie
lol
Thanks for this useful video. What is your mouthpiece sir?
th-cam.com/video/ZdK7VdadkkE/w-d-xo.html
@@GetYourSaxTogether 😄😄😄thanks
Hi. These are great lines and you play them really well. But I have to dissagree with you on one point: The use of guide tones. I don´t see one example in phrase one of a third resolving seventh or vice verse. In fact Rollins seems to positively avoid doing this in this phrase! Perhaps that is why it sounds so good!? Perhaps you can mention that the lines change direction on differents beats of the bar, creating phrases of different lenths, groups of 4 notes 5 notes 6 notes etc.
He often uses the upper guide tone lines. As well as 3rds and 7ths there’s another guide tone set of 5ths(13ths) going to 9ths. Hope that helps. 👍🏻
Thank you - this is very interesting and useful regarding the 9ths and 13ths. Sorry if my comment came across as grumpy. Sometimes I get a bee in my bonnet about jazz education as some of the concepts that are commonly taught are quite removed from actual jazz. This was certainly my experience at the RAM in the 90s. I often felt the stuff we were taught was because they are easy to explain in the context of a class or workshop, but not because it really reflects how the music is played. Blues scales and guide tones and the phrygian mode all belong to this category for me. But adding the 9ths and 13ths is a very cool concept regarding guide tones and new to me, so thank you for this- it does help!
@@jamesscannell893 actually - looks like we were in jazz education at the same time and your name rings a bell. Do we/did we know each other?
Would the chords in the original chart be simple? Like an A7 in bar 4? Then as Sonny starts to shed these changes he realizes there's a cool lick he can make if he adds some extensions, then after he's played, the transcriber says that's now A7 (#11b9#5). Similar to Ragnar's question below: did they chart it after he played it.
The reason i ask is that I'm playing a Basie tune called "The Legend" right now in my big band. There's an 8 bar tenor solo (changes only) that contains an E7(#9#5) in bar 6. It's followed immediately by A7b9 then D-6. this would lead me to believe it's just a standard 2-5-1. Is it safe to assume that the rhythm section will NOT be playing all those alterations in bar 6 and that me playing over a straight E7 would work there? I know that a #9 is the same as a b3 so that would effectively turn the E7 into an E-7, which would make more sense harmonically.
I guess the bottom line is, if i see chords with extensions in my solo changes, can I ignore the extensions if I feel like it and still be ok?
bonus question: why would they write (in two places!!!) E7#9 when everything else points to E-7, which would sound the same but be more readable?
Yes, you can play ‘simple’ dominant 7, even when the alterations are shown. It’s the harmonic movement (target chord tones) that matter.
Bonus question first: E7#9 sounds quite different to E-7 so they’re not really interchangeable despite both having a G. That G# in there on the E7 makes a big difference.
Your main question is a really good one. A lot depends on context. If the extension is specified, the rhythm section will probably play it, however, the reality is that if you play different extensions from them the fleeting clash is unlikely to be noticed in context. Some extensions matter more than others though. For example if you play natural 9 on that A7 going to Dm, that’s not gonna sound great, but if you play B natural instead of B# on the E7 it won’t be that noticeable. Transcribing, using your ear and experience are the guiding factors.
I just listened to a 10h European podcast radio show on Sonny Rollins (yes, 10x 1h, covering 1951-2001 !!!). My opinion of Rollins is that it seems very overrated to me. First of all as a player, he does not seem to me better than Johnny Griffin, Stitt, Roland Kirk, Phil Woods, Lateef ... but enjoys a much more important reputation ... and unjustified in my opinion. Ok he plays well, but not better than the musicians I mentioned. In terms of composition, he did not compose anything, everyone knows that St Thomas is a Caribbean folklore already recorded by Randy Weston in 1955 under the title Fire Down There. His other compositions from the 50s ... well, Oleo, Airegin etc ... this can in no way be compared to the compositions of Trane, Bird, Monk or Shorter ... also, his playing and his sound are terribly degraded after 1966 (36 years). It seems that he was traumatized by the arrival of Ornette, Trane, Ayler ... In the 60's he tried to be more free than Ayler, more calypso / blues than Ornette, and more mystical than Trane, but he didn't. did not succeed. Then in the 70s / 80s he tried to be funky, disco ... with really ridiculous and cheesy results ... Did he want to be funkier than James Brown himself? Also, in the radio show they say that he was paid current $ 300,000 for himself to record the Nucleus album (so listen to the result !!!!), and that, for his concerts, his financial claims were unrealistic, only the big festivals could afford it. He played with the Stones but didn't want to go on tour with them because, according to Jagger himself, he wanted too much money! I mean, I'm not making anything up here. In my opinion, he should have remained what he was before, a disciple of Bird at the Tenor, and quit at the age of 40 to leave a quality job, and without trying to follow fashion.
Thank you for not insulting me because I have documented myself on Rollins and I like to have constructive discussions without being attacked on my person.
To each, his or her own.