Horn of Plenty: New music for Jazz Saxophone

Abstract

This research essay with exercises and etudes was designed to facilitate and improve my jazz saxophone performance. Several areas have been examined and appraised. These include tone production and development, overtones, altissimo, and multiphonics, as well as other expressive elements and extended techniques that may be used to advance musicianship by creating melodic phrases, modal and chromatic motifs, and note patterns. Through an examination of existing material, in particular from recorded performances by master jazz saxophone musicians from 1950 to the present, several etudes have been created, workshopped, annotated, developed and presented in an effort to encourage creative practice, such as improvising from aural rather than written music. It was my hope to further develop the New Zealand jazz tradition. Some of this material is new and outside the scope of basic saxophone pedagogy, but has been designed to broaden and strengthen standard playing techniques. Examples of inspired jazz and contemporary music found in recordings of top jazz stylists, and in the playing of leading soloists, provided a starting point for these etudes. Other input came from fields ouside the jazz tradition, such as world music, western classical and popular music, and contemporary art music. One aim of this research was to understand the relationship between technical facility and creative performance. How does practice best lead to confident inspiration on the bandstand? This research essay is a resource for saxophone players to explore and critique their own performances, and to produce new, exciting, expressive music. I have used much of this material in composing and performing a body of material for a studio recording and a major recital under the working title of Sketches of Aotearoa.