Everything Saxophone Podcast w/ Donna Schwartz

Please check out my interview with saxophonist and educator Donna Schwartz. Donna resides in Los Angeles but grew up in New York. Her Everything Saxophone Podcast features a broad spectrum of illuminating interviews with fascinating saxophonists across the club. I was delighted by our lengthy chat from everything to extending techniques, to playing the soprano saxophone, and the creative process. Please check it out. We're covering a lot of interesting ground.

 

Wait and See: The Art of Patience

Here's a novel thought: Sometimes the answer is that there is NO answer—at least not at that moment. Sometimes the best solution to our musical problems is to WAIT and SEE. This is my view when teaching the daunting task of improvising, and sometimes lessons about life.

One of the biggest mistakes we make trying to help a student work out some improvisational kinks is trying to solve the problem for them right at that moment. This happens frequently. I can introduce students to strategies, but ultimately, they have to solve the problem. Some get it right away. Some take a little longer. Some never get it. As a teacher, that’s their problem, not ours. In some instances, they may discover answers to issues initially not perceived. This is one of the many beauties of traveling a path of discovery. You never know what will turn up.

For those looking to test the improvisational waters, the first thing you should do is play. And after that, play some more. I'm saying this jokingly, but I do feel this is one of the most important steps to take.

Here’s one strategy: Set the alarm for five minutes, and play the first thing that comes to mind. If nothing comes to mind, silence is the best filler. Don’t judge, don’t record, trust your improvisational instincts.

I’d give this a try a few weeks or more. But do it consistently.

The next step: Record yourself. Please do not listen to it until the next day. Do this every time you practice. Again, don’t judge. Just trust your improvisational instincts. Just let it be what it is, because it’s going to change whether you want it to or not. I’d give this a try for a week or two.

Next step: Play with another person. The first two steps teaches you trust your own inner-directed instincts. This teaches you to respond to others. Playing with others is a different beast altogether, but a necessary one. No matter what kind of language you’re learning, the only way to truly master it is to learn to converse with others.

After that: Listen to recordings. Transcribe ideas. Seek advice on the kinds of strategies used by more experienced players. But by all means, keep playing. Keep improvising. These strategies are all unique in their own way, each playing an important role in helping you to master your newly acquired improvisational language.

A Jerry Seinfeld story: During one episode of his show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Seinfeld and his guest started goofing on stand-up comedy classes.

Both felt that these kinds of classes are on the silly side.

I’m paraphrasing here, but Seinfeld said this is how comedy classes should be taught.

“Go home and write jokes.

Try those jokes in front of an audience.

Then go home and write more jokes.

End of class!”

He said what I’ve been saying throughout this piece: sometimes there are no immediate answers or solutions, maybe other than time and patience. 

Here’s what life has taught me: The answers to your questions will come when you’re READY for them, NOT when you ASK for them.

The Reason I Like to Play Experimental Music

(Image by Peter Gannushkin)

Some musicians hold the belief that those who exclusively play experimental music either lack the discipline to fully master their craft or rely on abstract soundscapes to mask their limitations. In other words, they can't "really play." According to this perspective, being able to "really play" is defined by being able to improvise over moderate to advanced harmonic structures in sync with a moderate to advanced rhythmic backdrop—a demanding skill set that I continue to refine in my own practice. 

Even if they don’t say it outright, the implication is clear. I share this, not to stir up controversy, but to set the stage for a broader discussion. Before I explain why I disagree with these assertions and why I personally focus on experimental concepts, let me first introduce an intriguing study that illuminates the nature of creativity: the NASA imagination test.

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Developed by Dr. George Land and Beth Jarman, the test was designed to measure the creative potential of NASA's rocket scientists and engineers, identifying those with the most innovative thinking. The test was highly effective. Curious about its broader implications, Land and Jarman extended the study to children, testing 1,600 kids between the ages of four and five.

The results were astonishing: 98% of the children scored in the genius category for creativity. off their feet. Ninety eight percent of the children scored in the genius category of being able to come up with innovative ideas or solutions to problems. 

 

But what followed was even more surprising. When the same children were tested five years later, at age ten, only 30% still scored as creative geniuses—a 68% drop. By age fifteen, the number plummeted to 12%. Among adults over 31, only 2% remained in the genius category.

Does this mean we’re getting less intelligent? Not at all. By conventional standards, a fifteen-year-old knows far more math and language than a five-year-old. But while we grow in skills and knowledge, we lose much of our imagination—a loss often attributed to education systems that prioritize correct answers over creative exploration.

This brings us to two key ways we learn:

• Divergent thinking taps into imagination, allowing us to explore new possibilities and uncharted paths.
• Convergent thinking emphasizes judgment, critique, and arriving at a single correct answer—skills vital for acing exams but often stifling creativity.

So, why do I gravitate toward experimental music?

I’m striving to reconnect with the imaginative genius I likely possessed as a five-year-old, seeking to undo the effects of an educational system that valued correctness over creativity. While I left Berklee with refined skills, I was probably more imaginative in high school—before years of convergent thinking dulled that instinct.

Several years ago, I recall touring the West Coast with drummer Leon Parker and giving a clinic at a college along the way. Leon made it known that he was unimpressed with the older students who performed for us, but when a 12-year-old stepped up, despite his limited skills and knowledge, Leon was captivated. What stood out was the kid's imagination—something missing in the more skilled but rigid older students.

This phenomenon is common. Many music students leave college more skilled but less creative than they were in high school. They’ve been groomed to "play it right," with creativity often taking a backseat to technical proficiency. This is why many young jazz stars play in linear, predictable ways—they’ve been trained to reach a musical destination rather than to explore the journey. Sadly, many don't seem to break out of this, even as they become older and wiser.

When teaching my Music Appreciation class, at LIU-Brooklyn,  I use an improvisation exercise where students collectively create a story on the spot. The rules are simple:

1. Connect each statement to the one before it.
2. Keep it brief.
3. Don’t overthink.

College students, ages 18–21, often struggle with this. They hesitate, saying things like:

• "I don’t know what to say."
• "Nothing’s coming to me."
• "This is too hard."

By contrast, younger children I've tried this with, excel at this activity. They’re spontaneous, silly, and unafraid, focusing on fun and imagination. This aligns perfectly with Land and Jarman’s findings.

Similarly, experimental music appeals to me because it fosters this kind of divergent thinking, keeping my creativity alive and my spirit youthful. I feel as inspired today as I did in junior high—a stark contrast to many of my peers who struggle to keep music fresh after decades of treading the same paths. I guess when you know how a movie is going to end, how many times can you watch it and still get excited.  For me, experimental music isn’t about sounding "correct" but about being free—spreading sonic hope and reminding us that possibilities are endless. It’s like gazing at the sky instead of the ground: one inspires boundlessness, the other containment.

As Picasso famously said, "It took me four years to learn to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." Like Picasso, I’m simply trying to return to that five-year-old version of myself who was bursting with creative genius.

And to further illustrate my point, here's a fun clip from a performance with Brandon Lopez on bass and Nick Neuburg on drums. We're definitely channeling our inner five-year-old!

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Perfect Intonation: Three Approaches to Sound Control

Most of us know that practicing long tones is our path to a great sound and great intonation. And we know how to do them. So, no need to preach to the choir here.  But the question I pose is this: how do we assess them?  

 

I utilize three methods. I’m sure there’s are more, but these work best me.

1. Pitch matching
2. Cents monitoring
3. Parallel intervals

 

Pitch matching:

Pitch matching is taking an external pitch and trying to match or blend with it.

When using this method, having an outside sound source is necessary. I advise using a chromatic tuner, but certainly playing notes on a piano or keyboard instrument will do. Though not the most reliable, even having another person play a note while you try to match it can also be helpful. The effective part of this method is that you have to really hear the note. There’s no subjective rationalization, it’s either in tune or out of tune. To further make this point, I suggest wearing headphones and turning the reference note way up. It’s very humbling! When I first have players do this, they usually take off the headphones after 30 seconds. The truth can sometimes be a hard pill to swallow.

 

Cents monitoring:

 

Cents monitoring is using the light or needle on the metronome to see whether you're flat or sharp.

This method is all visual. Again, you’re taking your cue from the needle or the light. You’re either to the left of the center (flat), to the right (sharp), or dead center (in tune). Another visual component to this is that when the pitch is flat or sharp a red light appears. It's green when the note is in tune. This method is great because your eyes can see what your ears sometimes can’t hear. Which is ok, too. As long as you can hear where the issues are.

 

Parallel intervals:

 

Parallel interval practicing is when you match up intervals against each other in different keys.

I find this approach to be the least accurate but the most helpful. Sometimes it’s not so much about being in tune with the tuner but being able to play in tune with the person or persons you’re playing with. So practicing intervals does this. 

 

 

 

If you're not clear on what this, this is what I mean:

 

Take the upper register for example. Play a series of perfect fourth intervals. A to D; Bb to Eb; B to E;  C to F, etc. This method is less about matching A - 440 and more about matching the person or sound source you're playing with.

 

 I’ll post some exercises later, but this should get you started in thinking about long tones in different ways. Or at least having different ways to approach them.

 

 

 

Until next time...

Want to be a better free player? Practice jazz

Being someone who plays mostly experimental and free jazz gigs these days, one of the things that I’m discovering during this COVID-19 period is the importance of working on my jazz skills. Yes, that four-letter-word! Time permitting, this is something I typically work on even when not in lockdown. Folks often look at me side-eyed when I tell them that what I work on most is playing over standards and honing jazz my vocabulary. It’s true. I can only spend but so much time attaching things to my instrument. I still have to address the fundamentals.

 Even though I self-identify as an artist or even an experimentalist, the root of it all is jazz. 

 Here are the three category of things I like to practice:

1. LICKS/PATTERNS: many shun this sort of thing, but practicing these types of ideas in different keys at different tempos is an excellent form of study.

A few benefits:

• instrumental control
• command of musical vocabulary
• aural skill development
• rhythmic clarity

2. PLAYING STANDARDS: working your way through a set of chord changes with a rhythm section providing some steady swing underneath you is a great way to improve your harmonic understanding, rhythmic sharpness, and melodic clarity. Not to mention the added benefit of learning how to swing. With all of the backing tracks available on YouTube, it’s a fun way to spend a lot of time with your instrument, while continuing to hone your ability to interact with other players in real-time. 

3. ETUDES: shedding etudes is a great form of objective practice. You can hone specifics like different fingerings, intonation, and overall instrument dexterity. The great thing about etudes is that you can isolate specific parts of a piece and still reap tremendous benefits. 

These things aid into doing one thing: enabling your ideas to flow freely and effortlessly--especially during these times when playing with others is limited.  You must see these things as a means to becoming a better improviser, not necessarily as a means to becoming a great jazz musician. However, if you can both...Hooray!

Will The New World Order Be Scarier Than The Old?

                                 

As much as the Democratic Party and those on the left may hate Trump, they actually owe him a great thanks. Why? He did something not done since the 1960s: he united the Democratic Party, all of the radicals on the left, and many of the RINO's on the right. He gave them an unwavering and clear sense of purpose: to make him a one-termer by any means necessary. And given the situation, you would not think that he had a shot in hell of winning. In fact, it's nothing short of a miracle that he did as well as he did. We heard for months about the "blue wave" that would leave Trump with dismal numbers on election night. This was hardly the case. I would say it was more like a blue drizzle that covered the Democratic ground in the eleventh hour. And according to the Trump campaign, there was a blue wave, but it came in around 4:00 AM after we all went to sleep.  

If Trump only ran against Joe Biden, I suspect he could have pulled it off without a hitch, definitely without the help of the state and federal courts. But unfortunately for him, he was running against five much more worthy opponents.

1. The Big Tech industry: Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter; etc
2. The mainstream media; MSNBC, CNN, and FOX News, near the end;
3. The entertainment industry;
4. The elite intellectual class of colleges and universities;
5. And the most challenging of them all, COVID-19!

To run against one of these entities is suicidal, to go up against all five is catastrophic.

 

As you can see, Biden is far down the list. This might also explain his anemic campaigning efforts. There was no need to break a sweat; he had a left-wing ideological super pack doing the fighting for him. Never before in the history of politics has a presidential candidate been able to campaign non-aggressively, exist in a media-protected cocoon, and still win with the most votes ever. I personally find this to be astounding. Keep in mind he received more votes than Ronald Reagan, who received over  97% of the entire Electoral College; and Barack Obama, who was a political rockstar of the likes we've never seen. 

But before we let any conspiracy theories run wild, when you look at what this election was really about, the numbers seem more palatable. This election wasn't about this candidate against that candidate, it was about a growing movement in America and a resistance to that movement. As far as the left was concerned, they did not need a candidate to lead them, but one who would not get in their way. I think this is what's so difficult for Donald Trump to wrap his mind around. He can't fathom how an uncharismatic, low-energy, boiler-plate template of a candidate could beat him. The reality as that Biden did not beat him, all of the entities I just named did. And some make the argument that Trump beat himself. 

Some elections are complicated like this, where it's not always candidate versus candidate. In 2008, Barack Obama may have been running against John McCain, but McCain was running against Obama, the Irag war, and George W. Bush's failed economy. Hardly a fair fight.

 

  

And this leads to my next point: before we all jump for joy for overthrowing a racist/xenophobe/misogynist/serial liar/fill in the blank, we have to do two things: 1) wait for the Trump campaign to finish contesting the outcome, which is within their legal right, 2) we have to make sure we have not built a monster we can't control. As they say: "We have to make sure the solution is not worst than the problem." 

This is the issue when we create a super monster, literally and figuratively, to defeat what we perceive as a current threat: when the match is over, we end up with a fighting machine with no foe to receive its wrath. Not to worry though. This monster will find a new one. And this is what scares. As time has proven, in this animus game of political chess, black America is always the pawn. 

 

We know what fascism looks like on the right, but what does it look like on the left? My fear is that we'll soon see. Some argue that this fascist monster has already shed its red hide for a blue one.

My question is this? What happens when the opposition becomes more subtle and ideological and less in your face and brawny, like Trump? Then we're looking at a different kind of fight. One where we won't realize we're losing until it's too late. 

 

 If all of these entities are working together, how much freedom will we really have?

• Where will Facebook draw the line?  
• Where will Google draw the line?
• Where will Twitter draw the line? 
• Where will mainstream media draw the line?

If FOX News can turn on Trump, what's to stop MSNBC and CNN from turning on those whom we hold dear? Unfortunately, these organizations are no longer legitimate news networks, they've digressed into political propaganda machines--on the right and the left.

Here's where we need to be careful: the folks doing the censoring and deciding what's best for us, no longer look like Strom Thurman. In fact, they're scarier and more deceptive because they get to hide behind the left-wing ideology. They wear jeans and T-shirts. They like the same movies and books and us. They know the perfect thing to say to make us feel guilty. They know exactly how to scare us. They understand how to make us put to rest any oppositional thoughts. Even though they're multi-billionaires, they get to dismiss the white middle class as privileged and out of touch. It's a convenient shield. Big Tech billionaires get to hide behind the guise of being Stanford and Harvard intellectuals. They are part of our intellectual elite. They are prized. To me, they are the scariest and most potent strain of white supremacy. When you match them with the propaganda-for-hire mainstream media, it's an ideological force with which we can not compete. We've been duped into thinking that The Proud Boys poses the real threat to our democracy. Politicians have been running the same con on black America for decades. I can see it a mile away.

Over the past four years, while we sat back and watch this consortium strengthen its political-ideological chain, we failed to notice that we might be throwing our future First Amendment Rights out of the window. No one noticed and, quite frankly, no one cared, since this machine had but one objective: GET TRUMP OUT OF OFFICE. 

Mission Accomplished. Well...we'll see.

Many probably don't remember this, but in 2000, Ralph Nader predicted that someone like Trump was needed to galvanize the party. But he probably never anticipated anything of this magnitude or that it would take so long. During the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, Nader dismissed them both as being "institutions dominated by corporate interests?" It turns out that he was correct. We really saw this in 2016 when a slew of Republicans began throwing their support behind Hillary. My first thought: Nader called it! He referred to Bush and Gore as "Tweedledee and Tweedledum." He also said, "I'd rather have a provocateur than an anesthetizer in the White House." Provocateur is what we got. And galvanization is what we got.

 

 

In the meantime, as the mainstream media works to find a new ratings cash cow to prop up its dying industry, and as Big Tech fine-tunes its definition of "hate," "explicit," or "inflammatory," we'll have to wait with bated breath to see who the new fall guy will be. Who knows? Maybe they'll run the this-is-all-Trumps-fault narrative for four years. The most frightening part of a Biden presidency is how silent I feel we'll become as a nation. For better or worst, under Trump, the public was not afraid to voice their opinions. Under Biden, it could get more complicated. To actually criticize Biden could be an admittance that Trump was actually correct about some things and that all of his policies were not bad. Are we ready to go back to an out of control immigration situation? Are we ready to return to the Bush days of living in fear over terrorist threats? Are we ready to be tied up in senseless wars overseas? I'm not sure the country is ready for this type of reflection and honesty. The easiest thing to do is to be silent and keep saying to ourselves, "At least he's not Trump." 

Meanwhile, we have an ideological consortium that's in tip-top shape and ready go. Let's just hope the next person, idea, movement, style of music, is not something or someone WE cherish. After all, this new elite class has already decided that THEY know what's best for us.

The Bad Plus plays Ornette Coleman: Featuring Tim Berne, Ron Miles, and Sam Newsome

On Saturday, October 18, 2014, I had the pleasure of performing with The Bad Plus as a part of a project commissioned by Duke Performances appropriately titled The Bad Plus plays “Science Fiction.”

 

In addition to the TBP members of Ethan Iverson, on piano; Reid Anderson, on bass; and Dave King on drums, additions to the group included Ron Miles on trumpet, Tim Berne on alto saxophone, with me holding down the soprano chair.

 

The performance took place at the Baldwin Auditorium which sounded and looked great. Long story short, the group was a hit which led to scattered dates in the US, and a couple trips to Europe.

 

A little about the music: Science Fiction was first released in 1972 on Columbia Records and featured many of Ornette’s core members and a few newbies:

• Ornette Coleman, alto saxophone, trumpet, violin
• Don Cherry, pocket trumpet 
• Bobby Bradford, trumpet
• Carmine Fornarotto, trumpet
• Gerard Schwarz, trumpet
• Dewey Redman, tenor saxophone, musette
• Charlie Haden - bass
• Billy Higgins, drums
• Ed Blackwell, drums
• David Henderson, recitation 
• Asha Puthli, vocals
  

I would not say that this was classic Ornette, it more of a breakthrough. In fact, Steve Huey in the AllMusic Review had this to say.

"Science Fiction was his creative rebirth, a stunningly inventive and appropriately alien-sounding blast of manic energy... Science Fiction is a meeting ground between Coleman's past and future; it combines the fire and edge of his Atlantic years with strong hints of the electrified, globally conscious experiments that were soon to come. And, it's overflowing with brilliance.” 

The original set unfolded like this:

 

1.     "What Reason Could I Give?" 

2.     "Civilization Day" 

3.     "Street Woman" 

4.     "Science Fiction" 

5.     "Rock the Clock" 

6.     "All My Life" -

7.     "Law Years" 

8.     "The Jungle Is a Skyscraper" 

 

Here's a short sample:

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The modified version performed by The Bad Plus went more like this:

1.     "What Reason Could I Give?" 

2.     "Rock the Clock" 

3.     "The Jungle Is a Skyscraper" 

4.     "Science Fiction" 

5.     "All My Life"

6.     “Broken Shadows”

7.     “Happy House”

 

The following performance was recorded on September 12, 2015, at the Jazz à la Villette in Paris, France as a part of a multi-day music festival. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to record this band in the studio, but I’m glad our performance was at least documented in some capacity. It was fun playing and fun hanging. It will definitely go down as one of my more memorable musical experiences.