Hey my name is Hayden, i'm in high school and i just recently moved up to the 1st jazz band. I'm on track to be lead alto next year, but my tone is still leaning towards the classical sound; it's clear and focused and doesn't really sound appropriate leading a jazz group. I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to develop it quicker?
I want to end up with something kind of like the lead alto in this song we're playing right now, but maybe with a little more edge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ix3ktrwNo
My setup is:
YAS-62
Selmer Concept Mouthpiece
Vandoren Red java 3 Reed
If anyone could recommend any books, gear, or people to listen to it would be much appreciated.
For lead alto in a high school jazz band, I have some recommendations.
1) I think your existing equipment ought to be fine. At this stage, developing tone, air stream management, and a lead alto concept are way more important than chasing "tone in a box" as someone else put it.
2) Concept. Personally I recommend extensive listening to the Basie band with Marshall Royal on lead, and the Ellington band. The other suggestions I have seen so far are either more advanced beyond the basic "what the heck should I be doing as a lead player" or aren't even really related to the role of lead alto in a big band (Louis Jordan? Really? I love Louis Jordan with an undying affection, but his recordings are not where I would send a novice seeking a model for lead alto in a big band, certainly not in preference to Marshall Royal or Johnny Hodges!) The lead alto needs to "float" above the section blend. You don't have to play super loud, nor have an unattractive grass-cutter sound, to be clearly heard. Basically the big band sax section (when playing sectional passages) can be thought of as "suspended" between the two pillars of the lead alto and the baritone. Those two voices should be clearly heard and the others are a smooth blend. This is different than what you have been doing in concert band where you get yelled at if you stick out and fail to blend adequately.
The other half of concept is "leading". You need to be the one that sets phrasing, articulations, etc. for the section. Basically, in band tutti sections you take your lead from the lead trumpet, and the sax section takes its lead from you. (Thus, you need to be heard, not just a member of the blend.) If saxes are not playing the same passage as the trumpets, then you are the sole lead. You must play each note and phrase with confidence. It is FAR FAR FAR more important to get the rhythm right than the notes (again, concert band stuff doesn't HAVE any rhythm, not to a jazz player). And if you play it rhythmically inaccurate, but you do so with confidence and assertiveness and you still always hit the "one" where it needs to be, that is better than a wimpy uncertain posture that's theoretically accurate to the dots on the page.
The third half of "concept" is what we might be able to call "conventional jazz violations of music notation". These are things like swung vs. straight eighths (hint: the relative values of the first and second notes in swung eighths are not constant, not from tune to tune, often not even from minute to minute within a given chart); duration of notes tied across the barline; the meanings of the various kinds of accents; etc., etc., etc. Even in concert band repertoire, the dots on the page are not the music, they're a code that allows you to play the music. In jazz charts it's even more so. You need to listen, listen, listen. Many music teachers have some kind of complex about allowing students to hear a piece before they play it. Even in classical music, this is dead wrong in my opinion, but in jazz it is deadly. How the heck are you supposed to know how these things are supposed to sound that can't be written down, unless you know how they're supposed to sound?
I strongly urge you to seek out recordings of as many of the charts in your book as possible. You need to find professional recordings, not other high school bands playing the same chart. Even if it's not the exact arrangement, you will do way better to listen to the Basie, Herman, Jones/Lewis, Miller, etc., etc., etc. band playing it than the Eastern Westminster Junior High School Band Christmas concert of 2015.
For someone just starting out to play lead alto in a big band, I would completely fill your ears with the Basie band and the Ellington band, till you are sick of the very words "basie" or "ellington". There are hundreds of others, but if you want to jumpstart your lead alto concept, I think these two bands make every tune a symposium on leading the saxophone section.
3) Tone. I recommend serious tone building exercises (I have written extensively in this forum about this, you can search for those; other people have written their exercises also and they are also excellent), and in my opinion you should spend as much time as possible doing these outdoors where there are no hard surfaces to bounce the sound back at you. This will do more than anything to build a big round projecting sound that is not annoying.
