It has been my contention that the most valuable viewpoints come from those who do. Thus, it’s logical to assume that any saxist who is surviving in this field, and doing it with success, is doing something right. The energies we all put into our craft; The years of apprenticeship and life-struggle, and the never ending open tuition to the school of hard knocks is always balanced by the intense commitment to the horn, and the pure love of playing it.
Not everybody in jazz as in any art form can be a genius' but there are always musicians that have contributed and have made themselves worthy of recognition.This is Georgie Auld. The original KING SUPER 20 ( Along with Chas Ventura) endorser too, by the way..
George Auld was a rising tenor saxophone stylist in the late 1930's. Already in his late teens he was demonstrating his abilities as an original soloist.Playing in Bunny Berigan's band, e.g. "The Prisoner's Song" and many live airchecks with Artie Shaw, e.g. "Everybody's Jumpin'" he managed to sythesize Herschel Evans and "Pres" into a very identifible style. Unfortunately, he is overlooked when listeing to "Pres," "Hawk," Ben Webster, etal. He remains for this listener a mystery.After he left these bands he began sounding like other people, e.g. Ben Webster. Later the cool school West Coast tenor players.The answer to this question I guess will never be known. When many players attempt to find their voice which he apparently did and then to lose site of himself is a strong case of regression of either lost identity or confidence in what he was doing.
To me Auld played an important role in the tenor saxophone history.
Auld coming to prominence in the Swing era, he was one of the very few swing musicians who managed to traverse the ridge that Dizzy Gillespie and the young moderns threw up between swing and be-bop in the middle Forties. While most of the swing musicians gave
up in the face of the new music, Auld not only relished the challenge but
moved swiftly towards the top of the be-bop ladder.
While his later work was
commercial, some of his recordings in
the mid-Forties, notably "Co-Pilot",
which features Dizzy Gillespie on
trumpet, were daring examples of big
band jazz, possessing values which
would escape the notice of the general
listener of the time.
Auld's family left his native Toronto
when he was 10 and moved to New
York in 1929. Studying alto sax,
he won a Rudy Weidoeft
Scholarship in 1931 and studied with
that famous teacher for nine months. In
1936 he was so affected by bearing
Coleman Hawkins's recording of
"Meditation" that he switched to
Hawkins's instrument, the tenor.
George had his own small group that
year at Nick's, one of New York's more
famous jazz nightclubs, and joined
Bunny Berigan's orchestra in 1937.
Auld's early experiences in the big band
world must have been rigorous since, on
leaving the everdrunk Berigan, he joined
the orchestra led by the brilliant clarinetist Artie Shaw
in 1939. No sooner had he settled in than
Shaw decided to give up the band and
that November the 20-year-old Auld
took it over and tried to run it himself,
but without a star name to draw the
customers, the orchestra was soon
forced to disband. After a few months with Jan Savitt's
band, Auld joined Benny Goodman in
November 1940 and during the next
seven months with Benny made his
most famous recordings.
Most importantly, Auld was here
exposed to the work of Goodman's
guitarist Charlie Christian, one of the
young musicians who was probing his
way toward what was, in the hands of
Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and
others, to become be-bop a few years
further on. Christian's use of
augmented and diminished chords was
unique in jazz at that time. Auld was a
receptive listener and Christian's
influence on him was profound.
When Christian died some months
later, Auld left Goodman and joined
Artie Shaw's new band, but he
continued to explore the music that
Charlie and the others had opened up
to him, The unpredictable Shaw
disbanded again in January 1942, and
Auld led a group of his own until he
went into the army in 1943. For some
reason he was discharged, perhaps
because of a chest illness which was to
trouble him for many years, and from
June 1943 he led a quartet at The
Three Deuces in New York until, in
September that year, he formed his big
band.
Auld's band lasted for two years and
was never amongst the best known but
it made many interesting records and
spanned a difficult period in jazz when
the roots of its arrangements were in
swing but its soloists in the be-bop era.
Big bands became uneconomic in the
post-war period, and Auld sensibly
paired his down to a sextet, probably
one of the best of all his bands. It
included the trumpeter Red Rodney,
the baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff,
the pianist George Wallington (later replaced by
Lou Levy), the bassist Curly Russell and
the brilliant drummer/composer Tiny
Kahn.
George's illness caused him to break
up this band and he moved to Arizona
and finally to California for his health.
He reformed, this time with a nine-
piece devoted to the writing and style of
the great composer Tadd Dameron. In
1948 he joined Billy Eckstine's band and
in 1949 spent almost a year on
Broadway acting in the play The Rat
Race. At this time he also ran a club in
New York, the Tin Pan Alley, which
became a center for jam sessions. He
joined Count Basie's Octet briefly and
then formed a fine quintet in New York
in 1951 (with Levy, Russell and Kahn,
plus the young trombone virtuoso Frank
Rosolino). Auld began to shed his be-
bop overtones and returned to his
earlier Coleman Hawkins-influenced
manner. Returning to the West Coast in
1954, he opened another club, The
Melody Room in Hollywood.
Auld drifted into obscurity, but
bounced back when, for no good
reason, he became immensely popular
in Japan. He made more than a dozen
tours there beginning in 1964 and
recorded 16 albums for Japanese
labels.
In 1977 he appeared in the film New
and Liza Minelli. De Niro's role was as
York, New York with Robert De Niro
a saxophone player, and Auld played
the solos on the soundtrack as well as
having an acting part.
His link to the Colman Hawkins school of tough tenor
played a vital part in jazz and swing music.
John Altwerger (George Auld) bandleader, saxophone
And clarinet player, born Toronto, 19 May 1919, died
Las Vegas 7 January, 1990.
To me Auld played an important role in the tenor saxophone history.
If you can listen to him at some point in time
I think it would provide a missing link to a style
that is very accesiable and vital to the sax and swing
music.
On a personal note-if anyone has any of his jap. issue
recordings - I am very interested in getting any
kind of copys. Just E mail me.
CLOSE behind the tenor sax playing of Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and
Bud Freeman, came that of George Auld. The result is that their playing will be
remembered when Auld's could be sadly forgotten,
and yet he too was a jazz innovator
through the big bands that he led in the
Forties.And was one serious tenor man......Have a great New Years Day my friends...and see you in 2015 as ever - Tim Price
To arrive at a personal destination you have to invest in yourself. Study, practice and life. Think about this great quote as well ; The characteristics of a good musician can be summarized as follows: 1. A well-trained ear 2. A well-trained intelligence 3. A well-trained heart 4. A well-trained hand. Seems like the most practical, right? Let me go further in the essence of jazz, there must be a constant equilibrium.
As soon as one lags behind or rushes ahead, there is something wrong. Check out the music of the of the 20th century, from twelve tone Schoenbergian music to Broadway; from “Mac the Knife” to operas; from Brecht to Lotte Lenya;Hendrix, Satie, Debussy, Cecil Taylor, composers, arrangers, anyone and anything prolific and interesting to you. By accepting that challenge with an individualistc, interpretive approach,you will broaden and deepened YOUR artistic core as an improvisational musician.
Study, listen well to the association of how rather than what. In other words don’t let a musical idea,vision or concept get borne out of the fingers rather than the music itself, and the try to keep the highest musical value or useful when searching for oneself.Be the best YOU that is available at the moment. After all,our goal is creativity and the use of the imagination.
We are trying to enter the realm of feelings and emotions through music, and to arrive at a point where your fingers go where the ear dictates.Hopefully this blog can instigate the artistic process in an attempt to have a coherent and unified vision of what an art form concerns. Play, study and approach what you do to the maximum. Look for inspiration beyond your own instrument. Check out the trio I speak of as well.
LISTENING IS PRACTICE TOO!!!
Tracking is the ability to listen to yourself.
This is one of the most crucial things in melodic playing. Tracking is the ability to identify your own ideas and build on them. Music is not the combination of as many different ideas as possible in the shortest amount of time, (e.g. playing a lot of notes fast and all over the place) but, the flow and elaboration of a few ideas in a logical and coherent manner. The secret of tracking is to listen to yourself. Again, each idea should have a beginning and an end. Pause and listen to your last idea.
Your next idea should be related to the last. Whether you repeat a rhythm, note, shape, or even stop and begin with a new idea, this will help you to direct your lines and phrases into a specific area. What you will hear coming out of yourself will be your own musical ideas. They are shaped by your feelings and the interactions of the people you are playing with, as well as your technical condition. All this will grow richer as you study more and practice harder and learn the repertoire.
The secret is to create in the now, and not simply play all your memorized licks. The more you practice, the more you will be able to hear, and your abilities as a jazz improviser will grow and expand. Remember, what you hear is more important than what you know.
SUGGESTED LISTENING- CHARLIE PARKER ON DIAL. Volume 8 Recorded: Nov 8, 1947 – Sep 1948 The final volume of the series featured tracks taken primarily from a radio broadcast on November 8, 1947, where Parker played with Barry Ulanov and His All-Star Metronome Jazzmen. The group featured Bauer on guitar, Allen Eager on tenor saxophone,John LaPorta on clarinet, Fats Navarro on trumpet, Tommy Potter on double bass, Buddy Rich on drums, Tristano on piano, and, singing on "Everything I Have Is Yours", Sarah Vaughan.[7] Additional material was taken from a set with Tadd Dameron's Orchestra, featuring performances by Eager and Gray. LISTEN TO JOHN LA PORTA....On clarinet. One of the greatest in jazz clarinet and the teacher at Berklee who took the time to get "tracking" into my mind set as a young player/student. This man, played with Mingus and Bird.
Hope this helps you open some new doorways in your playing.
I suggest if you want some freedom and personal forward motion you try this for a week: turn off the TV and computer games, use the phone and text only when necessary, and spend the rest of the time doing things that make you think, feel, create or anything that shows an active involvement and appreciation of you life. It's way off the hook, people are talking on the phone in restaurants instead of enjoying the meal they just ordered. Musicians and students need to get their life in order. I've thought and researched it- in one year the average person watches about 1200 hours of TV. Think of what could be learned in 1200 hours in one year. One could become competent on their instrument, and lots more. It's very staggering, and a form of freedom I enjoy. For musicians, you also will reach a moment of clarity and understand time needs to be allocated to insure mastery. As you start the process of practicing thoughtfully you will be able to gauge how much time it takes to accomplish your goals.When outside diversions and distractions are removed then you get down to the real nitty gritty of your journey. Thus begins a new world, watch what happens. In a week there are 168 hours. Most people work about 40-50 hours and sleep fifty to sixty hours. That leaves over 50 hours of loose time.
SEE YOU AT NAMM 2015......Let's make 2015 the one...Tim Price
