The Vibrato Plastic Saxophone

There's been some buzz (no pun intended) about a new plastic saxophone from the Vibrato Co., Ltd. The company is based in Thailand (here's the company website); the saxophone is distributed in the USA by Vibratosax USA (here's the American website).

I haven't played one yet.

Here's a video (thanks, Carlos!) with Jim Cheek doing a side-by-side comparison with a Yanigasawa A901. Jim sounds terrific on both horns, but you can hear the difference. The Yanigasawa has a crisper attack, and a richer sound, with more highs in the spectrum.

I listened to some of the video clips on the company website when my wife was in the next room. Her comment was that when played by a really good player, this horn is like a $10 bottle of Vino Nobile from Trader Joe's. I'll interpret: Not bad, especially considering the price, but it will never be a $50 bottle.

Here's a video interview with Piyapat Thanyakij, president of Vibrato Sax, at the NAMM show. There's a nice demo at the end of the clip by saxophonist Reggie Padilla, brother of the interviewer. Reggie's a great player. My friend Ken in Hawaii actually hipped me to him some while ago, when Ken's son was taking lessons with Reggie. Reggie makes the horn sound very good, but there's still a relative flatness to the tone.

Judging from the video clips on the company website, the mouthpiece makes a large difference in the tone (of course).

But really, why shouldn't someone be able to make a decent plastic sax, theoretically, anyway? We've had plastic clarinets for a long time, and they can be quite good, depending on the manufacturer. And of course, there was the Grafton plastic sax, in the 1950s. Charlie Parker played one at the legendary Massey Hall concert in 1953, and sounded just like he did on any other alto (allowing, that is, for the very low-fidelity recording techniques of the period).

Vibratosax makes several alto models, differing mainly in the composition of the polycarbonate. You can read more about this on the company website. Only altos so far.

Here's a "Repairman's Overview." Matt Stohrer lists some possible issues with the design and materials:

It sounds to me as though all-metal keywork might have been a better idea. In general, I'd worry about long-term durability.

Piyapat Thanyakij's talking point about the "waterproof" qualities of this horn reminds me of this classic video from Hermeto Pascoal. If you are looking to recreate this performance, a waterproof sax might be perfect for you:

I'm looking forward to checking out one of these horns. I'm sure it won't be long until a student walks in with a Vibratosax alto.

If you are an "early adopter" sort of person and just have to check out this horn, you can click here to buy one.

B2B Update 9/15/13

Mestre Acordeon and Mestra Suelly's B2B group is two weeks into their 1-year bike trip from Berkeley to Brazil; they should be somewhere around Santa Barbara right now.

The send-off party in Berkeley on Sept. 1 was a kick (no pun intended). I had the rare pleasure of playing tenor sax in the context of 20 or so capoeiristas playing berimbaus, pandeiros, and agogos, singing capoeira songs, while watching students and mestres playing capoeira in front of the stage. The energy was amazing. It was an honor and a privilege.

The B2B group will arrive in Los Angeles this week, and there are some events scheduled:

The best way to check their progress seems to be through their Facebook page.

Review: Hal Leonard "Real Book" Vol. 5

So let's think back...why was the old Real Book so successful? I mean the original bootleg one, produced by two Berklee students in 1975. Here's why: because it was so much better than the shoddy fakebooks we had before that. We liked the old RB because:

• It included mostly great tunes that were a core part of the standard jazz repertoire, with very few "filler" tunes; 
• It had mostly (not entirely) correct, jazz-friendly chord changes; 
• It had nice calligraphy that you could read in dim club light;
• Although it was a money-making effort, the old RB was produced with respect for the musicians who would be using it. 
• The kids who produced it pretty much knew how to produce a practical yet accurate chart.

What did we not like about the old RB? The inaccuracies, in a few cases egregious, and the fact that it was a pirate product, that did not respect copyright (at least that's how I felt, although many musicians couldn't care less about copyright).

So how does the new Hal Leonard "Real Book" Vol. 5 compare? I'm sorry to say, not very well. Why not?

• Many of the tunes can only be described as "filler";
• The changes are often not presented in a jazz-friendly way;
• There is an unacceptably high percentage of errors, most of them preventable, if the company had cared enough to edit the book properly;
• It's a money-making effort all right, but without sufficient respect for the musicians who will be using it;
• And the "World's Largest Print Music Company" in many cases did not seem to know how to produce a practical yet accurate chart.

Positive features: A readable font that mimics the calligraphy in the old RB; and copyright is respected.

Please see my review of Hal Leonard RB Vol. 4 - critical, but polite, I think. Many of the observations about that volume hold true for this one as well.

For this review, I am feeling less generous. This big company should know better.

Except for the respect of copyright and the nice font, this book is a throwback to the bad old days of fakebooks that were full of filler, full of errors, and that required informed interpretation to be useful to the average jazz musician. I don't want to spend too much time on specific cases, but here is a representative example:

The chart for "Anything Goes," like many charts in this book, uses changes that seem to have been copied straight from the original sheet music. In most old sheet music, chord symbols were an afterthought, added to a composed piano part. Changes are often harmonically superfluous; or in the absence of the piano arrangement, need to be carefully voiced to make sense. In the old days, we developed the skill of knowing how to handle these sorts of charts - when to ignore changes, or when and how to rearrange them in a more practical way. Musicians who are accustomed to "modern" lead sheets often don't know how to do this reworking, or have no patience for it. The better, more jazz-oriented charts of the last 40 years (e.g. the old RB, or charts in Aebersold playalongs) took care of the simplification process, taking the burden off the end user. (See this post for comments on how to create a good chart.)

The "Tune-Dex" fakebook of 1949, one of the very first fakebooks, consisted of lead sheets that just copied the chord symbols from the original sheet music, as was apparently done in this Hal Leonard chart for "Anything Goes." As a matter of fact, this HL chart is almost exactly like the Tune-Dex chart of 1949 for "Anything Goes," in the details of its awkward chord placement.

In fairness, a number of the charts are better conceived.

Next, a word about the tune choice in this volume. Out of 400 tunes, I'd say about 80 might be useful. By what stretch of the imagination should a "Real Book" (i.e., a purportedly practical, jazz-oriented fakebook) include:

"Aquarius" (yes, that one)
"The Beat Goes On"
"Billie Jean"
"Dragnet"
"Smooth Operator"
"Somethin' Stupid"
"What's New Pussycat?"

As with HL RB Vol. 4, there are also some extreme retro "trad" tunes like "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles," some moderately interesting second-tier bebop, and some forgettable fusion tunes.

Hal Leonard has attached the name "Real Book" to about as many products as it could (Bluegrass, Christmas, Dixieland, Rock, Blues, Worship). In this usage, "Real Book" just means "fakebook," nothing more. The term formerly referred to a product that was by and for jazz musicians, produced with a healthy respect for the people who would be using it. Now it's just a term that is being mined to confer some credibility.

BTW, "Star Eyes" is just about always played in Eb, not F. Don't use this chart.

Apparently, HL's "Real Vocal Book" has editorial problems also. Check out this Amazon page, and scroll down to read the customer review from "PianoJazzMan," including HL's reply.

I guess I won't be publishing anything through Hal Leonard any time soon. But darn it, we should be honest.

Joao Bosco, Chaplin, and Puccini

The other day, Patricia was listening to Puccini's "Tosca," and noticed how much this piece ("Ah, quegli occhi!") sounded like Charlie Chaplin's "Smile." Check it out for yourself. Here's Placido Domingo singing Puccini, and Nat King Cole singing Chaplin:

Here's an interesting excerpt from a Chaplin biography quoting David Raksin about working on music with Chaplin, referencing Puccini.

There's that old saying: "If you're going to steal, steal from the best."

And here's the Wikipedia entry for "Smile," with lots of interesting info. For example, although the melody is from the music to Chaplin's movie "Modern Times" (1936), Nat Cole was the first to record "Smile" as a song (1954). There's nothing in this article as yet about "Ah, quegli occhi!"

But now check out this one - Joao Bosco's "O Bebado e o Equilibrista" ("The Drunk and the Tightrope Walker"). It's a tribute to Chaplin, and a poetic commentary on the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil at the time it was written. Bosco uses "Smile" as the intro to "O Bebado," then reworks it into a great samba (I also pick up a bit of "La Vie en Rose" and "Aquarela do Brasil" in there):

Berkeley to Brazil by Bicycle

My old friend Bira Almeida (Mestre Acordeon) will be biking 14,000 miles, from Berkeley to Brazil, in a multi-faceted cultural/musical project that will ultimately benefit at-risk kids in Brazil.

Bira's trip will take about a year. I'll post updates and/or links about his ride from time to time.

Please check out the project website (click on the flag icon for language). If you would like to contribute, here is a link to a "crowdfunding" campaign that will be active for the next 4 days.

Below is an excerpt from the project website with some background information about Bira and the "B2B" project:

Mestre Acordeon (Ubirajara Almeida) born in Salvador, Bahia Brazil, is considered a living legend in the Afro-Brazilian martial art known as Capoeira. He is one of the oldest living graduated students from the school of legendary Mestre Bimba (1899-1974), who is actively teaching, training, studying and promoting Capoeira.

A visionary, musician, researcher, author and producer, Mestre Acordeon has played a significant role in the evolution of Capoeira in the last 50 years. Acordeon opened his first school in 1962, created the Grupo Folclórico da Bahia in 1964; taught Capoeira in São Paulo during 1968/69; and inspired an entire generation of capoeiristas, establishing himself as one of the most influential capoeiristas in Brazil.

In the late seventies, with 22 years of active experience, Mestre Acordeon brought Capoeira to the international stage, and is credited as being one of the pioneers to have introduced Capoeira to the United States. Recently he celebrated 35 years of teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area. His organization, the Capoeira Arts Foundation functions as an umbrella for the schools affiliated with the United Capoeira Association, and it is the base for all of the projects related to Mestre Acordeon.

Mestre Acordeon will commemorate his 70th birthday by riding his bicycle on a 14,000-mile journey from Berkeley to the source of his eternal inspiration: his hometown of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. This epic and historic journey, called Project B2B-Joga Capoeira (Berkeley to Bahia), will start September 1st and take about a year to complete. It will allow Acordeon to immerse himself in local cultures: customs, traditions, values, music and dance. He will study the social significance of Capoeira in these diverse communities. The project will encompass populations in 11 countries (including Brazil) and more than 32 cities. This story will be told by a Capoeira icon who has lived for his art for over half a century.

Material collected during the B2B trip will be documented into four distinct cultural products:

• "Las Americas Cantan la Capoeira", a collaborative CD of world music, using Capoeira songs recorded during the course of the trip with participation of capoeiristas who are musically creative and open to using their own cultural influences in this work.


• "Flat Tires and One Berimbau", a documentary film that will fuse historical footage, anecdotes of Mestre Acordeon's Capoeira practice, and stories of Brazilians and non-Brazilians, as they find solace in the art form regardless of their heritage.


• "B2B Joga Capoeira" a television and/or web series with programs that touch upon Capoeira and its expansion in the Americas. People, culture, music, and language of each region traveled will be highlighted.


• "Lyrics of the Capoeira Path". Acordeon will use the lyrics of his recorded songs to expound on the path he has taken in capoeira. He will share reflections acquired over 55 years of active participation in his art form.

About Capoeira

For those unfamiliar, Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian art form that involves movement, music, and elements of practical philosophy. A Capoeira player experiences the essence of the art in a physical game called "jogo de Capoeira" (game of Capoeira) or simply "jogo." During this ritualized combat, two capoeiristas (players of Capoeira) exchange movements of attack and defense in a constant flow while observing rituals and proper aesthetics. During the jogo, the capoeiristas explore their strengths and weaknesses, fears and fatigue in a sometimes frustrating, but nevertheless enjoyable, challenging, and constant process of personal expression, self-reflection, and growth.

"E.S.P." (Wayne Shorter)

In this post I'll take a look at "E.S.P.", one of Wayne Shorter's classic 1960s tunes. I'll assume that you have a lead sheet to refer to - you can find it in the old Real Book "5th edition," the Hal Leonard Real Book "6th Edition," or the Sher New Real Book vol. 1. There is a chord chart at the end of this post (chords mostly as in the New Real Book).

The melody begins with 3 notes (C, G, D) moving down and up by fourths. This non-triadic shape produces a sort of floating feeling, and does not, in itself, clearly define a tonic. In bars 7-11 new notes are added, setting up a D minor pentatonic tonality; bar 12 adds a Bb, suggesting D natural minor; bars 13-16 add the note B, suggesting D dorian. The second ending adds the note Eb, a suggestion of sub V. To my ear, both the first and second endings of the melody finish in D minor.

With chords added, we hear this piece as being in F major, but I think the F-major-ness is induced by the creative harmonic backing for a basically D-minor melody. Note that the melodic range is from low D to high D, except for one Eb high point near the end. The melody is harmonized in ways that set up other tonal centers, causing the D-minor-ish melody notes to come across often as extensions (color tones), often as members of non-D minor tonalities.

A note about terminology: Measures 1-2 and 5-6 are harmonized with E7alt, or E7(#5, #9), depending which lead sheet you are looking at. The Sher New Real Book and old RB both show E7alt; the booklet that comes with the Jamey Aebersold play-a-long and the Hal Leonard RB both show E7(#5,#9). The Hal Leonard book The New Best of Wayne Shorter shows E7#9 for the head (oddly, the chords printed over the solo section consistently show E7b5 for these bars; I suspect that this may be a mistake). To many musicians, E7#9 would imply a supporting #5 in the voicing.

As I understand it, both Aebersold and Sher had access to Shorter's original chart. I'd guess that the chart originally called for E7(#5,#9), and that Sher made a decision to express this chord as "alt." The term "alt" usually means (#5, #9), but implies that the chord might also be expressed in other ways that involve a b5, #5, b9, and/or #9. The term "alt" also implies that one would play an "altered" scale over it (AKA diminished whole tone, or superlocrian). I think that the "alt" approach might take us to a somewhat different place than the composer intended.

In this interview, Herbie Hancock recalls that Wayne's score for "Nefertiti" showed chord voicings, but no chord symbols. It's not clear from the interview whether this was Wayne's usual way of writing scores in the 1960s, or if it was only done that way for "Nefertiti." On the other hand, the frontispiece for the Shorter biography Footprints is a lead sheet in Wayne's writing for the tune "Footprints," with just melody, bass line, and chord symbols, no voicings. This "Footprints" chart shows two of the chords in the turnaround as "B+9+5" and "A+5+9+11" - no use of "alt." (No "7" in these symbols either, BTW. I don't know if this was intentional.)

With Shorter's harmony added under the melody, the generally "D minor" melody notes take on different resonances and different functions. In mm 1-2 and 5-6, played over E7(#5, #9), the C and G come across as #5 and #9. In mm 3-4 the G and D, played over Fmaj7, come across as 9 and 13. In bars 7-8 (played over Ebmaj7#11), the A and F become #11 and 9. In bar 10 (over Ebmaj7#11) the A becomes #11. In the first bar of the second ending, the melody note G (over Db7#11) sounds as a #11.

The chord progression directs the melody into different key centers:

mm 1-4:  The E7(#5, #9) is a substitute dominant (not a tritone sub, though) preparing the Fmaj7 in mm 3-4. You could look at it as a sort of inverted C7#5; it functions the same way, as a V seeking resolution; resolution is to Fmaj7. F major is the tune's overall key.

mm 4-8:  the E7(#5, #9) is repeated, but this time resolves into a new tonal center, Ebmaj7#11 (Eb lydian), in tritone-sub fashion. 

mm 9-12: The Ebmaj7#11 drops again (in tritone-sub fashion) to D7, then moves chromatically up until it reaches Fmaj7, then drops to Ebmaj7, to set up the Dm7 that follows. 

mm 13-16 (first ending):  The Ebmaj7 resolves back down to Dm7; this sounds like a D minor key center to me. G7 could be a dorian IV chord. However, it is also true that the entire first ending is a standard way to cadence in F major (VI, V of V, II, sub V). 

mm 31-34 (second ending):  Db7#11 is sub V of V in F, Gm7 is II. In Bar 31, Gb7 is sub V, with Dbm7 inserted in front of it, to set up a short II V in Cb. Nothing unusual here, really.

How to solo over this? Of course, that is entirely up to you.

Wayne's solo from Miles Davis' album E.S.P. (transcribed in "The New Best of Wayne Shorter") is fairly chord-oriented, using a number of 4-eighth-note "digital" patterns (e.g., 1235). Miles, in his solo, seems to be acknowledging the chords and structure, but playing more chromatically. I don't hear chord scales.

You might try D minor pentatonic (= F major pentatonic) over the whole tune. Use your ear, and it will work.

An intervallic/motivic approach could be appropriate, and a good excuse to use some "fourths" ideas.

If you relate to the "chord-scale" approach, most of the tune can be boiled down to one or another type of F scale:

mm 1-2: F melodic minor (E alt)
mm 3-4: F major
mm 5-6: F melodic minor (E alt)
mm 7-8: F mixolydian (Eb lydian)
m 9: F dorian b2 (D alt) (consistent with the D7#9 shown in some charts)
m 10: F mixolydian (Eb lydian)
m 11: F melodic minor (E alt)
m 12: F major to F mixolydian (Eb lydian)
first ending:
m 13: F lydian (D dorian)
m 14: F lydian (G mixolydian)
m 15: F major (G dorian)
m 16: F phrygian (Gb lydian)
second ending:
m. 29: F locrian #2 (Db lydian dominant) or F whole tone
m 30: F major (G dorian)
m 31: F# mixolydian (B major)
m 32: F major

This last approach seems excessively fussy to me, but it's one way to use a chord-scale approach.

Or, similarly, you might just think in F major, with notes added or altered here and there, as dictated by the chords.

Beyond all that, though, I feel that this tune has a rather "out" character, that will justify pretty much any direction that your solo might take. Here's an excerpt from a Wayne interview with Eric Nemeyer in January 2000, regarding the song "Dolores," another Shorter tune recorded by Miles' band in the '60s (I used this quote in a previous post):

Wayne: "...we were actually tampering with something called DNA in music in a song. So you just do the DNA and not the whole song. You do the characteristics. You say, "Okay, I will do the ear of the face, I will do the left side of the face. You do the right side of the face..."
EN: "You are looking at maintaining the flavor and character of the tune without necessarily being bound by the harmonic structure that was underlying the melody?"
Wayne: "Yeah. Because...in those days we were talking about getting rid of the bar lines."
EN: "Yeah. and was Herbie Hancock's accompanying - do you know if he was looking at it the same way? Or was it just meant for the whole thing to be loose and 'let's use our ears and see what goes'?"
Wayne: "Yeah, that's all..."

Some links:

A transcription of Wayne's solo on the Miles E.S.P. album (notated with some awkward accidentals). The transcription in The New Best of Wayne Shorter is mostly cleaner reading, but is transposed for Bb instruments.

The E.S.P. track from the Miles album, with Shorter's aforementioned solo.

Here's the chord chart: