Dance of Uzume
For Alto Saxophone
Piet Swerts
De Haske, 1223-05-400 DHI, £14.95
Play-Along Saxophone
World Music – Brazil
Jovino Santos Neto
Universal, UE31576b, £9.95
Jazz Sessions – Alto Saxophone
10 jazz standards and original pieces with play-along CD
Alexander L’Estrange, Tom Pilling
Faber Music, ISBN 0-571-52303-X, £7.95
Saxophone Scales and Arpeggios
Grades 1-8 complete
Compiled by Ian Phillips-Kerr
Music Works, MW003 ABRSM 1-8, £7.95
Starter Studies
65 Progressive Studies for Saxophone
Philip Sparke
Anglo Music, AMP 081, £6.45
Progressions
For Alto Saxophone and Piano
Alain Crepin
Scherzando, ISBN 90-431-2173-8, £5.95
Saxophone Basics Repertoire
Solos, studies and duets for individual and group learning.
Andy Hampton
Faber Music, ISBN 0-571-5220-5, NB – NO PRICE
Easy Pieces for Tenor Saxophone and Piano
(arr.) Robin de Smet
Pan Educational Music, ISMN-708003-81-6, £6.95
Latin Originals
Alto Saxophone and Guitar
John Sands and John Zaradin
Hunt Edition, ISMN-708002-87-1, £7.50
Amazing Phrasing
50 ways to improve your improvisational skills – alto sax
Dennis Taylor
Hal Leonard, ISBN 0-634-07436-9, £9.95
Music Medals
Saxophone Ensemble Pieces
ABRSM Publishing
Copper ISBN 1-86096-607-, £3.50
Bronze ISBN 1-86096-608-X, £3.95
Silver ISBN 1-86096-609-8, £4.50
Gold ISBN 1-86096-610-1, £4.95
Platinum ISBN 1-86096-611-X, £5.95
A new composition that adds to the saxophone repertoire is always welcome and with this month’s batch of music to review was a copy of Dance of Uzume for Alto Saxophone and Piano by the Belgian composer; Piet Swerts. This is part of the Nobuya Sugawa collection. This publication is more accurately a piano reduction of the original for Saxophone and Wind Orchestra. It comes with a CD of a performance of the piece by the aforementioned Mr Sugawa on alto accompanied by the Toyko Kosei Wind Orchestra. This is a real show-off virtuoso composition, very accessible to the listener, but pretty hard for both the player (fast runs up to super Bb - Yikes!) and for the accompanist. Advanced players and conservatoire level students need only apply. What about the music – well, it is tuneful in the middle section, very Gershwin-esque towards the end, lots and lots of notes. Does it plumb the depths of emotion – not really but I don’t think that is the point. It is a finale piece for a performer just like Mr Sugawa, a world-renowned virtuoso who does the most amazing job on the CD; he really nails it, good sound, spot-on intonation and effortless technique. The wind orchestra is pretty stunning too.
Universal Edition’s World Music series continues with a collection snappily titled Play-Along Saxophone, World Music, Brazil. In fact the music is great. The tunes are original pieces by Jovino Santos Neto or traditional tunes arranged by him. The backings really stand out, the real-deal regarding Latin rhythms with real players who really groove. The problem I have with the book is a technical one. They are clearly trying to cut corners with the melody lines, transposing them for whatever instrument comes to mind, so in this collection we get alto and tenor but the sample tracks use flutes and clarinets. Fine so far as it goes but published tunes for alto are all really low, one tune hardly goes across the break. Also all the tunes have the key signature of C when they clearly are not. Some poorly paid music setter just pressed “transpose” on whatever program they were using and hoped for the best. I do think Universal Edition could do better. It is a shame because otherwise this is a really good collection.
Jazz Sessions for Alto Sax is a collection of standards and original pieces with a CD backing. It is designed to help pupils preparing for Jazz ABRSM exams and it does a really good job. Each piece is well laid out and can be played with either a written out sample solo to show what can be done or the student can improvise over the given chords using suggested notes. The rhythm section of real live musicians on the CD sounds great and even though there are no suggestions on how to practice with the book, as long as the teacher has enough knowledge it is really useful teaching material. My only suggestion would have been to include a version with the tune and solo played by a saxophonist so the student can hear the nuances and vocalisations an experienced jazz player would use.
Here is another snappy title; Saxophone Scales and Arpeggios. Guess what, all the scale for each AB grade written out. Just another scale book? Actually no, this is a really useful publication. The forward drives home the reasons for scale study and the following pages have excellent helpful fingering suggestions, suggestions for alternative fingerings, and a good clear fingering chart. The scales are written out with exemplary clarity with a metronome marking suggested and the chromatic fingerings indicated. This is an excellent scale book and very good value.
Starter Studies for Saxophone is a collection of 65 progressive studies by the well-known composer Philip Sparke. The longer I looked at this book the more I liked it. The tunes are well crafted, musical and progress very smoothly. The first piece uses the simplest possible single note rhythm and by the end of the book the pupil is attempting music at about grade 3 so there is plenty of material here. It is a useful collection to run along side a tutor. I look forward to seeing the next two more advanced collections in the series.
Progressions for Alto Saxophone and Piano by Belgian composer Alain Crepin is published in Switzerland. This is a short single movement piece about grade 5 or 6 standard. It has a rubato opening and ending with a lively middle section. It is well constructed, tonal with a pleasing melodic line and develops well. I can hear it fitting nicely into a concert programme or as a festival piece. Although there is a good biography of Monsieur Crepin I would have liked to know more about the piece itself and maybe about his other published works with perhaps a website link. Really the publisher does nothing to help what is a nice piece stand out in what is a very competitive market.
And so to another book from the prolific Andy Hampton who seems to have the bit between his teeth regarding writing for the saxophone. Saxophone Basics Repertoire is a collection of solos, studies and duets to be used as support material along side a tutor book (does he have his own in mind?). It is divided into seven units each covering a different saxophonic or musical skill; phrasing, playing Bb, low notes, high notes, chromaticism, syncopation, swing, and who to hang out with to get more gigs (OK not the last one). This is a well-constructed book, lots of good suggestions about fingerings and excellent practice techniques. I highly recommend this book, just watch out for the wrongly transposed piano part for “Peter Gunn”.
Pan Educational (Spartan Press) have sent out the tenor version of their Easy Pieces arranged by Robin De Smet. This is the same collection I reviewed last time for Alto, and my feelings about the collection remain the same. Eleven perfectly nice tunes, from Amazing Grace to pieces by Corelli, C. Franck, and Tchaikovsky, all clearly marked up, and well arranged, do have their place in getting saxophone players to play more "classical" sounding pieces. But as I said last time why not give some added value, some insight into the pieces, performance tips, something about the composer to get the apathetic pupil interested. Yet again it all comes over as rather dull especially compounded by poor cover design (better in blue but still with the awful amateurish sketch of a sax player).
Latin Originals for Alto Saxophone and Guitar is published by Hunt Edition (Spartan Press) – uh-oh. This is a collection of eight original pieces half of which have been written by flautist John Sands and half by guitarist John Zaradin. Technically the material is about grade four with some sections heading towards a rhythmically challenging grade 5. The melodies are nice enough but I got rather irritated by the way it is all put together. In my opinion starting a collection in rather off putting keys in the first two pieces (firstly Bmaj and secondly Emaj modulating to F#maj) is not such a good idea. There is no indication as to the mood of each piece, only metronome markings, and in one the alto part had a different metronome marking to the piano. Throughout there are either no dynamic markings or just a plain old mf for a piece, no crescendos, no diminuendos, nothing. In the more punchy numbers do the composers really mean everything is just slurred or tongued, no staccato, no accents? One piece is in 4/4 but the metronome marking is minim = 104, the next is in cut-common with a metronome marking crotchet = 120. I could go on but I think you get the idea. Come on Spartan Press, lift your game; you are not doing your composers any favours.
Hal Leonard Corp is one of the larger USA publishers who focus mainly on jazz based material. One of their latest offerings is Amazing Phrasing for Alto Sax by Dennis Taylor. It looks really good, glossy, seemingly well laid out and comes with a play-along CD, but as I worked through it in more detail I began to have my doubts. It is mainly a jazz pattern book, i.e. full of short four to eight note quaver motifs using modes over single chords (dominant, minor, major seventh etc) and chord progressions. The patterns progress steadily in difficulty from simple scalic material to something resembling a melody. Finally by page sixty-three we reach “creating melodies” – actually talking about improvisation; the author seems to feel you must understand polychords, and whole-tone patterns before you can actually improvise. There are a few good ideas lurking in here, what it needs is a good jazz teacher to guide the student backwards and forwards through the book finding a logical path of study, but a good jazz teacher would probably recommend a completely different book!
Finally to the books of ensemble pieces for the ABRSM
Music Medals. If you haven’t already heard about this new
music exam format then I am sure you soon will. The very informative video
presentation on CD that came with the music brought me up to speed and
very impressive it is too, a lot of time and money has clearly been spent
and ABRSM must be hoping they have a winner on their hands.
This is such a big venture that there is not space in this review to go into
the whole exam structure and the grading system. I would recommend you visit
their website – www.musicmedals.org for
further information.
These books are a superb resource even if the teacher does not want to get involved in the exam proper. They are mostly special commissions or new arrangements by composers with familiar names to the saxophone teacher; Karen Street, James Rae, Alan Bullard and Jeffery Wilson to name but a few. The music covers a wide range of styles from jazz, baroque, classical to more contemporary sounds and are divided into five levels, one book per level; Copper is the lowest, progressing through Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Each book has duets, trios and quartets for a combination of Bb and Eb instruments. Some quartets are for the same saxophone voice, some are for three Eb and one Bb, and some of the duets are for alto and tenor. All the pieces I played through were great. They are well constructed with strong melodies, clear articulation and dynamics. I can see myself using this material over and over again and at between £3.95 and £4.95 for around twenty pieces this is fantastic value.
