You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Steve Wilson's 7 Selected Saxophonists - #20

Episode Date: September 21, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam are thrilled to welcome special guest, the incredible saxophonist and educator, Steve Wilson to discuss some of his favorite saxophone players. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Ennis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the Yule Hearin Podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. That's right. What do we got coming at us today? We have a very, very, very, very, very special guest, Mr. Steve Wilson. What's going on, Steve?

Hey, great to be here, fellas. Great to have you. Yeah, back in St. Louis. Yeah, that's right. Steve Wilson, saxophone royalty in the house today. We're excited to have you. We just finished up recording your new course, jazz saxophone fundamentals. And look, we put the name out there, so that's it.

If there was any uncertainty before, that's all got to be gone now. That's right. It's in stone now. That's right. But we thought it'd be fun to have you on the You'll Hear podcast and talk about your seven. Like we were telling you, we love to talk about, we're all about the sevens. We're all about the lucky seven. But we ask you for your seven select.

We're going to call them seven selected saxophones because there's a lot of S's in that. Like snaky saxophone and all that. Steve's seven. selected saxophonist. And as we were talking, you said that these are not your favorite or the best or whatever. These are your selected. So I think this is a great list you have. And if you'd like, maybe just go ahead and kick it off with number one.

Yeah, well, there are seven of my favorites for sure. Johnny Hodges, well, I will say unequivocally, is the favorite, my favorite saxophonist. I got hip to Johnny Hodges, my first year in college. and I was very lucky because our director and my mentor, Doug Richards, turned us on to the music of Duke Allington. And we were playing a lot of those charts from like the 1930s at Daybreak Express, the Mooch, East St. Louis Tudeloo, a lot of the oldest stuff, along with an extended piece he had called a Tattoo Bride. Oh, you went to one of those hip schools.

Yeah, it was very hip. It was really hip. And man, that was a just, it changed my life. It changed my saxophone life. Johnny Hodges, to me, is one of the most brilliant saxophonists ever. I mean, we forget how much of a virtuastic player he was before he gave up soprano in the mid-1940s. But, you know, his earliest stuff in the 20s and 30s, man, his stuff was as virtuastic as anybody. And right now, I had the good fortune.

and I'm reading his biography, which hasn't been released yet, but the author called me a few months ago and sent me a manuscript. And so I'm learning, you know, so much we didn't know about Hodges and his whole history. And early on, man, he had it. I mean, he was destined for greatness. So very, and a very interesting character.

But, and just one of the best sounds that ever came out of the Saxophone, period. You know, and you, you know, You can't find a saxophonist that doesn't love Johnny Hodges. Yeah, or musician, I think. Yeah, right. And I've been talking with a few classical saxophonists, and he said, man, Hodges is one of the tops, you know, so.

Nice, wow. Yeah. Well, okay, we started out right here then. Well, I like that we started out kind of hedging, being like, now these aren't his favorite. That's right. Steve goes right in with like, this is actually, oh yeah, this is the cat, he's my cat.

Now, is Hodges, I know we got a bunch more to go to, but I'm just thinking about, I'm really interested to read the biography, I don't mean if you get a chance to slip me an extra. In the underground copy, it's all good. No, but he's, Johnny Hodges is somebody that I've, whenever I've listened to. I don't know a lot about his life, but he has such a personality, well, he has such a great technique and sound that it feels like his personality came out of his horn, and it's almost like you feel like you know him.

And I'm wondering, does his life biography kind of follow the way he sounds? Well, that's interesting, man, because not really, you know. I mean, they called him among his many nicknamed Stoneface, you know, because you never knew what he was thinking. And if you look at videos of him playing, you know, with Duke and playing those beautiful pieces like Isfahan, and you hear, if you were to close your eyes and you hear this beautiful sound coming out, you know, I mean, and then you see the image, and then you see a guy, man, he's basically expressionless, sometimes playing out the side of his mouth, looking around, you know, like almost, disengaged, you're like, what? You know, but, but yeah, I think he was, I don't know, I think he just played,

he wasn't very open to a lot of people. So he kind of played it close to the vest. But he, you know, managed to create this beautiful sound. I mean, and he really had a high, very high standard, you know, that's for sure. So, but interesting character. Yeah. Great, good stuff. I don't feel a lot of players on this list,

had a pretty high standard judging by. I think so. I think so. We're about to go. What's our number two? Yeah, the great Joe Hennerson. Yes. Yeah, and I had the good fortune at playing with Joe a few times.

I wouldn't say that I got to know him. I don't know how many people really got to know Joe. He's another one. Yeah, they didn't call him the Phantom for nothing. But my first encounter with Joe happened actually before I moved to New York. and a local drummer in Virginia by name of Jay Senate I used to bring in a lot of guest artists he would put a band together and bring a guest artist

and would have me on the gig sometimes and Joe was one of those artists so that was the first time I crossed past with him then not long after I moved to New York I was on Kevin Hayes' first record date and he had Joe and I were the horn players and got to

again didn't get to know him but got to hang and talking a bit. And then a couple years after that, I was on a record with Rini Rosnes. She did a record for Blue Note, and again, Joe and I were on that date. And we actually ended up playing,

I think, a live date at the Blue Note during the record release. And then I got to play on his big band record that he did for Verve. That's a great record. It is a great record. And what a lot of people don't know about that is Joe and Kenny Dorm had

had a rehearsal band in the 60s, a rehearsal big band that Joe wrote a lot of the charts for as well as Kenny, and that band never got recorded. So a lot of the charts that were done on this record, I mean, were not done from their writing, but actually Slide Hampton wrote some stuff, and I think Mike Moss and a couple of Bob Belden. Okay.

I think there was one or two charts from Joe or Kenny that was on the record. I can't remember which tune. But it's a great, great recording, man. Yeah. And it gives you another side of Joe's music, you know. Yeah. And also, well, just so you know,

our you'll hear it audience is actually super hip in advance, so they probably do know about the Joe Henderson, K. Dorn. Yeah, yeah, okay. Any other podcasts? Probably not. But I'll just put it out there. Right, right. All right.

All right. All right. Well, Sunny Rollins. Ooh. And coming strong. Yes. Yeah. When do we get to the scrubs?

Yeah, right. Ain't no scrubs on this list. No, Sunny to me, Sonny, along with Lewis Armstrong, in my estimation, were the two greatest pure improvisers we've ever had in his music. And what I mean by that

is that, particularly in the case of Sonny Rollins, is that you cannot pare down any of what Sonny played to a Sonny Rollins lick to me there's no such thing as a Sonny Rollins lit. There is a Sonny Rollins sound. There's a Sonny Rollins approach. You know Sunny when you hear him. You can dial up one of a thousand quotes that he always played.

But unlike, say, Charlie Parker that developed a given language and other players that kind of did that, Sonny was just always so in the moment, in the second of what was happening, is so spontaneous. You never knew what he's going to do. And he was so rhythmic and he had a lot of humor in his playing. Just, I mean, and like Armstrong, you know, they had such an amazing sense of time and time feel. All this stuff we talk about these days about playing over the bar line. Lewis Armstrong was doing that in the 1920s.

And the Sonny Rollins, you know, what he did was rhythm and in harmony and taking it out. And of course, when he was doing his ornette influence period, you know, when he had the band with Don Cherry, and Billy Higgins. I mean, man, he covered so much ground musically. But you can never put him in a box and say, oh yeah, this is Sonny Rollins lick. You know, one of his 100 licks. No, there was no such thing. But yet you know it when you hear it. So I just think his importance can't be overstated. Absolutely. That's great. Good. All right. Number four. Well, the great Phil Woods

and another gentleman that I admired for many years before I got to meet him and play with him a couple of times. Of course, like many of us of our age, I got hit the Phil Woods through the Billy Joel song, you know, just the way you are.

And I think I was in high school when that song came out and I went, man, who was that saxophone player? And my high school band director said, oh, you don't know Phil Woods? Let me tell you about Phil Woods. And he turned me on to live at the show. boat and I said, Jesus Christ, this guy is unbelievable. And I was really into a Phil Woodsting for a while, about a couple of his records.

And then ultimately I got to play with him a few years ago. And I tell this quick anecdote. A few years ago, I was playing the 92Y series with Bill Shalap in New York, which he does every summer. And he put one of the saxophone bands together with Phil and myself. and Jimmy Green and Harry Allen and Jimmy Heath. I mean, boy, what a band. And we were playing some of the Benny Carter charge. Yeah, but who was on piano?

But you guys went there, man, so don't count. But I remember, now, Phil, you know, keeping my feel at Infozema at this time. And so he had to walk around an oxygen tank. And here's this 75-year-old cat, you know, with an oxygen tank. And he's playing lead out to him. and man, his sound was still huge. He always had a huge sound.

But even with this emphysema, his sound, man, I couldn't even hear myself playing beside him. It was Jesus. And I remember we were playing one of those charts, and I went out of stage, and my back locked up. I'm like, oh, my God, you know. My back locked up, man. And so at the end of the night, I went to get in a taxi.

I couldn't even get in the taxi because my back had just like, you know, someone twisted a towel. And someone had to help me in a taxi and I got home and I'm saying What in the world happen? What's it going? And then I knew and then I figured it out. On one of those tunes I was exerting myself so hard to try to hear myself playing with because Phil was playing beside me

that my back went in the crazy spasms. Fortunately my acupuncture was lived across the street from me so the next day he hooked me up. And I said, man, Phil Woods did this to me, man. What a right of passage. He's like, I've seen this before. or Phil Woods effect. Yeah, yeah, right, right.

And then I got to tell him that about a year later, he said, yeah, that's right, kid. You got to come with sound, kid. Yeah, baby, got to come with that sound. Yeah, baby. But he was great, man. He was, you know, Phil, Phil didn't, he didn't suffer any fools,

but he was always very kind of supporter to me. And I really appreciate that because he was, to me, a craftsman's craftsman. All of those records he did as lead alto player, you know, with sessions with Oliver Nelson. and all the studio stuff and then being one of the just one of the greatest saxophone players ever.

Great. Yeah. All right, well, we're moving on now. What are we at? Number five? Yeah. We're moving to this list. Yeah.

Nicely. Julian Cannonball Adelaide. Nice. Well, he was one of my early inspirations. I got to see him live when I was very young before I started playing saxophone. My father bought the country preacher record. Yeah.

And, man, I used to play that record to death. Yeah, yeah. You know, and still do. And then when I saw him live, man, he just had such an aura about him, you know, the sound that came out and the energy. And I just said, yeah, man, I want to do that, you know, seeing him live. And, of course, you know, now, and then learning about his legacy and learning about his whole history and how important it was. And then checking out the recordings of Miles and his own quintets. I mean, you know, we all love Cannonball.

Yeah. Now, that's interesting so far. We can just take a quick breather because we're between five and six. This is like the fifth inning stretch. Right, right. But you're, let's see, you're kind of pretty closely straddling between altos and tenors. And I'm just wondering, is there any, I mean, of course, you're known as an alto saxophonist and soprano, but can play all the saxophonists.

But do you look at, you know, I mean, I think especially about like Cannonball and Johnny Hodges, just kind of the prototypical alto saxophonists. Right, right. Do you look, I mean, in putting together a list like this, is it just all saxophoned or do you think about them as tenor players or alto players? No, it's just who they are. I mean, it's funny you should mention that

because I originally wanted to be a tenor player. For a long time, I wanted to be a tenor saxophone player. And it really wasn't until, I think, my sophomore junior year in college, when I got to be lead alto, in the big band that I really commit to being an alto player. What you got that lead alto money. I don't want to play those middle voices.

Well, you know, my first year in school, I was an obo major. And then I got in the big band by playing baritone because, you know, I was a low guy in the totem pole and the saxophone section was killing. And I was just a new kid on the block. But I wanted to be in that band to play with these guys. New kid on the block? You want to be in that band? It's a great band, man.

I want their money. Did they have a Barry player? Yeah, right. Yeah. But, you know, up until that point, I really played more with the tenor concept up until that point. And until I got to, was forced to really deal with the alto sound by being lead alto. I was more of a tenor head, but I never owned a tenor saxophone. I was borrowed one.

Friends always lent me one, and I played gigs on it. I always played with that concept. I was transcribing tenor players, you know. But it really wasn't until I pointed I really felt like, oh, okay, well, I'm going to commit to the alto. Right, right. Yeah. Well, that brings us to number six, to your number six of Steve's selected saxophone masters. And this is a great place from what you're talking about because you talk about different saxophones, different ways of playing the instrument original approaches.

Yeah. Well, Rassan Roll and Kirk is a true original in every sense of the word. Yeah. And another guy that I got to see live when I was very young. It might have been on the same weekend in the South Carolina. involved, the jazz festival in my own town. But what's up, Hampton Roes? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.

Tidewater, tie water, what's up? Right, that's right. And seeing him live, man, just blew my mind. Because, I mean, as you can see in the video, seeing Rassan is an experience. It's not just about the music. I mean, the energy and what he brings to the whole presence of being on the stage and the energy of the music. And even early on, and listened to his music,

this guy was an amazing historian because, you know, he was all about the history of black music. And he did everything from, you know, music of the day, you know, playing songs like Burke Bacharrett and Dionne Warwick and Motown to playing Fats Waller and talking about Paul Robeson, you know, and of course he could, on a dime, he could play like, you know, Ben Weller

to Coleman Hawkins, and then he could play as out, and avant-garde as any of those cats. But he was a force, man. He was a force, just a force of music. Beyond category, we'll never see the likes of Rassan again. Not ever. I mean, I think, you know, from a non-saxophonist perspective, I mean, all these players are amazing, but I think Rassan,

like I think about just the power and confidence as a saxophone, is him kind of eclipsing almost any, this person. any of these people just like the mastery and the power of what he can say with the instrument oh it's completely and he could play with any of them he could play with any of them in any style or anything and it was all within his wheelhouse and yet the whole world was sound to him the whole world was music i've gotten to know his widow dorothyon very well we've become very good friends over the years and she's man she's another force let me tell you she's just retired from wbgio she's 80 uh what 85 or something like that.

And she is a pistol, man. She's still got Vim and Vigur, and she's out there doing it, hanging. Nice. And so, yeah, he's just really, to me, the epitome of a true original. You know, there was no template for him. And he's just a true original, man.

There's something really inspiring in that freedom, right? You know, we tend to put ourselves in whatever box we want to consider ourselves, but there's room to think outside of those. That's right. And he had no fear. No feel whatsoever. Put on some sunglasses, put a couple horns in your mouth.

Go to town, man. If you're hearing it, you'll hear it. That's right. I think we got one more left on the list. Yeah. I'm getting sad. I miss Steve already. We're coming up on number seven.

Yeah. Well, the great Jerry Dodgeon, and Jerry has become one of my mentors and one of my musical godfathers over the years. I had a great fortune of starting to sub in American Jazz. Orchestra around 1989 and Jerry was the lead alto and it was a repertory band that was led by the great John Lewis course I think Gary Giddens was one of its managers or artistic directors and it would you know play you know music of the 30s 40s 50s 60s and Jerry Dodgian was the one of the

kindest people you know and of course I knew of his work with that Jones and Mel Lewis and I've I've learned more about playing lead alto from him than anyone. Just playing beside him was an education because Jerry didn't play loud, but he played a sound that was very present, and he made you listen, but he was very easy to play. And he was so professional, man, but also didn't take himself too seriously. You know, he just made it so easy for you to work with him,

and he was very supportive, and ended up being on gigs where I was I was playing lead and he was playing second, even though I said, Jerry, please. And he said, no, no, no, you play lead, go ahead. And I thought, what am I doing? Yeah, wait, so let me get this straight. Jerry mentored you. He helped you. He led you with his beautiful son.

And then you stole his gig and relegated him to get to second outdoor. Steve Wilson's in the house. Losonian. Oh, man. What up, Jerry? Well, no, Jerry is, he's not playing anymore now, but everyone loves him and respects him because of what he's brought to the music. And again, in a Lusper's career, he and Phil played together a lot, of course, through very,

very close friends. Did all that work with Oliver Nelson. And a quick Jerry Dodger's story, I was subbing in the Vanguard band one night. This was back in the 90s. And Mel, when Mel was still playing drums, and Mel called two of the hundred-old. hardest charts in the book back-to-back. Cherry Juice, which is like one of theast charts. It's a C minor blues, but it's so fast and so hard. And another one called Soft Lights and Sweet Music, where the whole line is built on its 12-tone row, and the band is Tudy. So there's, in unison,

so there's nowhere to hide, man. And he called those two tunes back-to-back. And I'll never forget this, man. I was just struggling to get through it. And by the end, and it was, it of the set. And at the end of the set, when the rest of the band had left the stage, I was just sitting there just stunned, just completely stunned, because I was just like, oh my God, what just happened? And Jerry Dodg, who was in the audience, Jerry came up, and he said, yeah, I know that feeling. It's like one of those moments when you go, gee, how did that look? Not how did that sound? How did that look?

So I never forgot. I never forgot that. That's good. Yeah. But he's such a beautiful man, a beautiful soul. I love him to death. And as I tell him, I take him with me everywhere I go. Wow.

Yeah, he's really been such an inspiration. Well, that's great. That's a fantastic list and a fantastic place to finish things off. Steve, thanks so much for being here. We are so much looking forward to Fundamentals of Jazz Saxophone, your new course. Put a little plug in here. It's being released today. It's being released today.

Right, it's like we are in the future, Steve. This is future Steve, right? Yeah, we've already transcribed. We've transcribed that. Yeah. This is why I usually put, talk about all the things that it's going to, that's going to have that's going to cause you work.

No, no, don't do that. No, but there's every single note. Every single symbol is transcribed. You know what a lot of Steve's notes are transcribed. And Steve in his, inminatable, what is that word? inimitable. I don't know what you're trying to say. I don't know what you're trying to say.

I'm like, very, high class and high level. His style of playing and it's very and teaching and teaching yeah I mean it's super tactical but in such a loving way and I think everyone's going to really enjoy it's because you just lay it out. Yeah. Thank you. And and and I think you know having had the pleasure to hang with you and to play with you over the years and to be you know around your illumination of jazz knowledge I think that this is a great representative and I'm so glad to to help you kind of share this with the world. And it really is not just for saxophone players. I would say anybody who is, I mean, you do so much great stuff about, you know, phrasing and interpreting melody.

And, yeah, you get into some great saxophone stuff. But I think it's just a wonderful series of some great performances with, you know, wonderful rhythm section, kind of seeing you in action, and then breaking down precisely what you do from, you know, leaders saxophonist standpoint. A lot of fun stuff. Well, thank you guys for having me to be a part of this amazing thing that you're doing. doing, man. This is really going to set a new template, and I'm just really honored to be a part of it. I'm happy to share the information that's been shared with me over the years, but many great mentors and players and friends and colleagues. And just looking forward to your success, man. So thanks so much. Likewise. Likewise. Yeah, and I mean, you know, we've, we've, this, the saxophone,

this has been a glaring omission for us. And I'm so glad, like, we were just waiting for you, basically. And so it's a great place to start. with the saxophone probably the most important jazz instruments so the circle's complete now so thank you well i mean piano well yeah of course we know it this is actually a piano podcast we covered that so yeah no this it's been really really fun you might that's rain you're hearing it is raining it's raining right now that's a little bonus for the you'll hear or did Ian did you turn on a fan no but so normally we talk about what we can give it a quick when we we're we're kind of we're always looking for ratings and reviews you know because

Because we don't get paid for this, so they pay us with their ratings and reviews. So we're asking for like five stars, but we're pushing it. Six stars? That's not possible. Man, I think it's seven. See, seven. Seven, seven. That's right.

Steve Wilson's mouth. That's right. Seven stars. Leave us a rating review. We love you guys. Selected seven. That's right. Yeah, and you can also go to you'll hear it.com if you want to leave us a question or

comment or give us a lesson suggestion. We're always open to that, as you know. Election suggestion? What did you call it? It's been a long day, man. But jaw's time Not jaw TMJ

But you could You could ask this question You could just say hello We have an audio A way to do that By audio way to do that Sorry That always strips you up

That's okay I've had a lot of coffee too You could write your question And are we still doing our special here No We're gonna start a new special soon Keep listening We got a new one coming

Okay Yeah because we're launching Today Steve Wilson Fundamentals of Jazz Act So you heard it here for us You'll hear it. All right. Love it.