My nephew is graduating high school later this month and I could use your help in selecting a gift. Sorry, I’m pretty sure there have been similar threads but this one is pretty specific so I thought I’d start my own.
Said kid and I are not close by any means; no animosity or anything, he just grew up on the other side of the country and I really don’t know him. What I do know is that he’s been playing the saxaphone for several years and is planning to continue when he goes to college (his parents are giving him a very expensive baritone sax for graduation).
I’m on a very limited budget so it can’t be too extravagent. I’m thinking around $50ish but could go a little higher if it was really something special. My first thought was a book of some kind, but what? I know nothing about the history of the sax or any of the famous musicians associated with it. I also don’t think he’s overly “bookish” so it would probably need to be something, um, pictorial or anecdotal (?) What I mean is I don’t think he’d enjoy a text on music theory, If you get what I mean.
Anyone have a suggestion, either for a book or something else an aspiring, teenage sax player would like? All suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.
Thanks, kids. Bob, even my bro said “don’t send anything but a card or a poem or whatever” and I get that. I just feel like this is a special event and I want him to know I put *some *thought into it.
Can you find out what brand/strength reeds he prefers? I majored in tenor sax in college, and I would have loved it if someone bought me a bunch of reeds for HS graduation.
I thought of this too! I was trying to remember what accoutrements(five dollar word alert, people!) were required when I played the clarinet and all I could remember were the reeds and the grease you put on the cork(did anyone else just read that as “cock”? I *wrote *it and still had to re-read it three times).
Oh yeah, that’s good. Any estimate on how much these things cost? Maybe I could put together a little care package and include some sheet music of a particular favorite among sax players (?)
I played alto as a kid – the pad saver (never knew what it was called) was a good thing for me. They can’t cost too much – my parents were dirt poor and they came up with the scratch when I got serious. I’d say off the cuff definitely under four sawbucks.
Ditto for reeds – if he has a preference for strength and brand, some of them would be the coolest.
But if he concentrates on bari – get him some Hank Crawford discs and maybe a plastic alto (those are expensive, but you can give him the idea). If you’re going to play, you might as well play like the pros and double.
ETA I would have said the “Omnibook,” which might not be bad, but even though a few generations shedded it, I still can’t recommend it. But I practiced it on piano in the day and it opened my ears a bit.
Well, there are miniaturized altos made of metal and plastic, supposedly meant to be portable, which I’ve seen a number of musicians play with. I rehearsed with one cat who used a small brass (I guess) alto, and Charlie Parker famously used a plastic alto for some great dates. They’re not that cheap, though – a few hundred bucks at least.
As I understand it, the baritone and the alto share the same fingerings and some of the same embouchure for the “extended” tones you might want. So, someone like Hank Crawford doubled on baritone and alto, and so did a lot of other great big band jazz players. A guy like Gerry Mulligan who pretty much specialized in bari was unique, AFAIK – he was so good, and had so many good ideas, that he didn’t need to double like all the others.
Another example of doubling might be flute and tenor sax – think David Newman. Same kind of deal, just different instrumentation.
I’m just going off my head – I haven’t played a reed since I was nine or ten, and only listen to the records for the good parts – the keys and the arrangements.
Ah, thank you for the education. Won’t be able to provide said accessory but perhaps as you suggest it’s something he’s not heard of that I can turn him onto.
My friend Oscar is a professional sax musician, and he’s really fond of plastic reeds of all things. The quality’s not necessarily the greatest, but it’s nice to have an indestructible reed around just in case. Whether your guy would felt his way or not, I don’t know. There’s a lot of reed snobbery in the reeded instruments.
He’s also really big on high quality ligatures and mouth pieces, but I doubt you could afford that.
Exactly is what I was trying for – if he hears Hank Crawford (one of my favorites) blow baritone and alto on the same session, he’d get an idea of a place to go. The Ray Charles Big Band recordings is where you’d find him, with those solo records with Mac Rebennack on piano. The latter case where he blows “Precious Lord” is special – even a $0.99 ITune to him of that track would be a perfect gift.
“Gerry Mulligan” with “Thelonious Monk” (can’t remember the title, so I titleized both their names) would be a good one if he hasn’t heard that, but there’s so much good Gerry Mulligan it’s hard to pick and choose out of memory.
Tower Of Power has a great bari player, too: Doc Kupka. How about an iTunes gift card?
A great accessory for bari sax is a really good neckstrap. They make some that are more like harnesses that use both shoulders rather than hanging it around your neck like a necklace. Those suckers are heavy.
The pad savers used to be called a Shove It when I was in high school. Always loved that.
How about a gift certificate for Musician’s Friend?
Re: doubling- all the good reed players I work with tend to play an awful lot of horns. On guy might play soprano, alto, tenor and bari sax, flute, clarinet and bass clarinet. The really crazy ones also play bassoon, oboe, english horn and the really really crazy ones will have an alto and bass flute.
