As a performing and a writer, teaching is also something I feel very passionate about. I personally feel it continuously reinforces concepts and philosophy, as without this, the intangible and vague nature of music can leave you feeling like a headless chicken. I mostly teach in Trinity College of music in London. Here, as a member of the Bmus jazz faculty, the director of undergraduate studies (Cristopher Caine) adds;-

“Russell is a successful and dynamic teacher who combines teaching through example with personally devised and structured creative techniques. He is an inspiring example to his students, both in terms of saxophone performance and jazz composition and he has developed a strong personal philosophy as a Jazz musician. His professional standards as a performer and teacher are an ideal qualification for Jazz teaching at the highest level.”

Over the years, my passion for teaching on this level has given me the time to establish a more individual approach to Jazz education, in an addition from that of an American system. As well as initializing the history and language, I segregate the elements of music (Melody/Harmony/Rhythm) for the individual to conceptually build strengths on these foundations, integrating the spiritual, psychological and physical realization to the learning process (please see example worksheets below for general interest).

As this is a mere taster of me, I thought you might be interested in hearing the following recording I produced (using public domain samples) to aid scale practice. The voice of the scale Demon is by guitarist Curtis Shaw. Here, I’m presenting a light hearted approach, other than the sometimes overly disciplined (or intimidating) demand that’s imposed when dealing with scale practice. One of the approaches I have to teaching scales and scale practice, is to practice “playing” and not spend your time practicing “practicing”. Of course there must always be an initial process of discovering, exploring and reinforcing scales. But you must always keep being exploratory as you progress. Here, in these Mp3 examples, as a tool to possibly also help identify the nature of chord/scale application, I restrict myself solely to the one defined scale type and explore its sonority, inner melodic, harmonic and rhythmic possibilities. This is something that should be practiced by yourself, always imagining a groove and feel in your mind (inner ear), without the aid of a looped sample or backing track. Hereby you don’t just practice your scales or dexterity, but your sense of time (by all means use a metronome), varied use of articulation, implied integrity to groove, feel and rhythm. So many players can get lost in the abyss of harmony, persistently trying to discover the hip in/out chord/scale applications, that the notion of melody and rhythm can loose its presence. Always consider Melody, Harmony and Rhythm, the elements of music, as one interchangeable triangular foundation. Have a listen to the Mp3 clips and remember, don’t take it too seriously, have fun with the idea! Adopt the method to how it could suite you.

• To further this section and expand some light upon how I teach, here are a few examples of worksheets I give to aid my teaching. I must point out that these worksheets are intended for college students. As they could equally be appreciated on a larger scale by professional musicians too. One of my core intentions is to unbuckle the students minds, from the constraints which an institution or purists of the art could impose. Enjoy the read !

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A Taoist and Zen parallel to the Individual process in Jazz.

You can use words to lie. But in Music, it speaks the truth, when it’s not exaggerated, it speaks the heart. Then it connects. That’s when it’s right.

Joe Zawinul.

A fundamental flaw at the end of an education is to forget to tell the learner to kill their teacher. What? Well, from a Zen Buddhist standpoint, this principle honours Buddha’s example more than any recited prayer. He insisted that people find their own way. Taoism and Zen offer a freedom from blind devotion, warning a student against the dangers of dogma, inviting them to question authority and its conception.

A Taoist saying goes; “You can not become a master of one thing, without knowing that of another”. As in the unity of Yin & Yang, for something or anything to exist, it needs it’s complementary opposite, as within each quality, there exists an element of it’s opposite. Therefore everything is connected. Nothing is pure to it’s extreme, otherwise there would be no momentum as we know it; earth is the reflection of the universal way - Tao.

It is fair to say that we live in an age of Edu-Jazz. Institutions play a large role now in Jazz society and whilst they are essential, in some regard to the survival of the jazz musician and perhaps even to the preservation of the very core of Jazz music, there are also some obvious drawbacks. I am proposing that we eschew the dangers of dogma and the imposition of authority and, instead, use this time to regain perspective and maintain the essence of the music.

Some Institutions are known for producing streams of Jazz musicians/students, who conform blindly to tradition. They find security in mass imitation. The product of this imitation is a “dependant” mind. Where has the sense of independent intrigue gone? Self analysis, which is essential to genuine understanding, is too often sacrificed. Look in the clubs around you and at the person practicing next door to you, witness the assortment of routine performers, lick artists, tricksters, desensitized cyborgs, bullshiters and glorifiers of the past. Surely Jazz isn’t the music of such organised despair? I’m sure Miles, Mingus, Ellington and Coltrane would have loved that! How do you think they viewed convention?

If we view how certain Jazz eras emerged and observe how these established themselves as new mediums, it becomes obvious that each particular feel, stems from the freedom of thought of the individual (as opposed to that of the dependant mind). Rather than thinking in terms of precisely what these players did, I think it’s crucial to encourage an understanding of how they did it and to develop an impression of the music that is individual and free from preconceived notions or mindless reconstruction

Instead of just going along with convention, establish a viewpoint and a way of playing that feels most natural to you, whatever that may be. Don’t ascribe to any one style or even to Jazz as a style in itself, in order to be “Jazz”. Be influenced by the universal expression of all arts and beyond. In Taoism, one is encouraged not to adhere to a codified existence, but rather to observe an ever changing organic nature, to live in harmony with the universal way of nature (Tao), which is the reflection of the Universe itself. By simulating prefabrications, you throw a spanner in the works of your natural development and limit your appreciation of what is taking place on a larger scale all around you in the present. To exclusively follow old ways is completely useless to you in order to express yourself as an artist of today. You can’t become someone other than yourself. Rather than revering the way of ancestors, to the point of accepting their conclusions as absolute truths, you must question everything and find out for yourself. Art breathes in a climate of freedom, otherwise there can be no creativity. Direct belief in someone or something does not always liberate you. One direct experience can.

I advocate the elimination of style, in favour of a constant process of personal development and research into what feels right. This is a process aimed at evolving the methods and techniques that best fit ones own needs and natural balance of energy. For this reason an independent awareness of one’s own energy is necessary. If you find something effective along the way or decide something doesn’t work for you, you are free to change the art. After all, it is yours. In the end, style just houses a certain frequency of energy. This energy becomes expression and you guide the intention.

From all consideration, exploration and exclusion of Style --> you achieve your style (no style) --> individualism

Renounce the notion of Jazz. Renounce the notion of style. Look beyond the parameter and from behind the parameter. Consider Jazz as a philosophical principle to apply to music, rather than the music itself. Give way to your simplest nature.Taoism and Zen suggest that too much energy can be wasted in viewing only one aspect of life and in a subject such as jazz, this can result in a lack of diversity. Focusing exclusively on one area can lead to weaknesses in others. If you imagine the business man who can’t play with his kids or the scientist who doesn’t know how to coax a beautiful woman, and apply this metaphor to the obsessive Jazz musician it is easy to see how we could suffer a similar malaise. Music is a holistic experience. Mind, body and spirit need to be engaged to release an art that is truly resonant. It’s funny that Jazz, as open and diverse as its originators viewed it, is commonly practiced as something only to be specialized in, to perhaps seek perfect efficiency in only this activity. The majority of serious Jazz musicians (not all) practice a somewhat bizarre variety of aesthetism, where they allow themselves a diet of little other than Jazz. The avoidance and/or fear of dispersing our energy surely restricts our possibilities rather than increases them. Is this not how experts are born and life ceases? From this, can you see the difference between an expert and a Master? Look at Coltrane – a man who looked to the stars. Surely, to specialize in one subject to such an extreme can only be a spiritual torment for the soul and disease to the personality and character of a human. Also, don’t forget what makes your sound, the body and its accumulation of your experience as a whole.

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Extreme loyalty or adhering to something blindly often creates a “we-against-them” mentality. This causes endless division, a distorted sense of reality and makes seeing the bigger picture impossible. From a historical context one can see how the results of this mentality are a little scary.
Racism, mass enslavement of people, witch hunts, holy wars, political persecutions of ideological dissidents etc. Initially, Jazz is an offspring from this very thing, but it’s something pure that’s come out of it and most of all, something humanly natural. It came from an individual standpoint and the expression of true self identity against suppression. Interestingly, at the origin of all this enactment, very often there is the human desire to belong and be a part of a group and conform to a social climate. The promise of an ordinary identity is one of the main reasons for the popularity of exclusive organisations, i.e. the church mentality. Though, fewer people don’t like to hear these messages of “independence” in many things. It’s easier to turn to the symbolically erected flag that magnetise people to gather, escaping the fear of being alone, by building a common sense of identity.
Facing anything alone in life, with ones insecurities and no one to turn to isn’t what anyone wants really. Having someone to choose for us provides answers, making us feel part of something bigger than just ourselves. It isn’t a coincidence that patriotism (just like any other value emphasising the power of the group over the individual) runs stronger in times of war (though what usually causes the war?). The existence of a common antagonist usually fuels the fire for a groups own sense of identity. By questioning the initial sense of loyalty to a subject is also challenging the sensibility of the human desire to belong. So, why belong to any school of thought, if it has the potential to divide us into opposing factors and prevents us from seeing the truth of different points of view? An over-comforting and reassuring sense of regular identity (within a subject of study, or anything in life), potentially shields us from the intensity of unfiltered experience. You could always attempt to imagine yourself in a different scenario, but to quote the German philosopher Nietzsche; “a mere discipline of thoughts and feeling is barely anything at all, one first has to convince the body”. It shields us from the many dangers and also the sheer ecstasy and beauty of it all, it suppresses individualism. Where’s the Jazz in that? Those who practice precisely following the methods, techniques etc of a genre or set ideals of their teachers, can only hope to come close to their unsurpassed skills.

Taoism raises, that through a prefabricated dogma the broad sense of the term “institution” shapes the quality of our experiences. It can often be seen as if they prescribe us with glasses to view an ideological form of tunnel vision limiting our range of choices. With the fear of bearing the weight to choose their own, many people hide behind the security of an opinion, set of ideals, fads, a group of thought or style which might also provide the answers. This could be a reassuring way to live and especially a quick way to play music, but in the essence of Jazz, did Parker, Ornette, Coltrane, Miles or Ellington succumb to this? Where’s the encouragement gone to continue this route of the music in today’s culture? To quote a Tibetan Monk “Chogyam Trungpa”, the key to warrior-ship…. is not being afraid of yourself.

To conclude, I want to end with a take on Zen Buddhism;

A long time ago there was a Jazz musician who discovered a partial truth in a way to play. During his lifetime the man resisted to organise this way, even though this being a common tendency in mans search for security and certainty in life. One night he had a few too many and after his death, the students of his style and method, turned it into law. Impressive creeds were then invented, solemn reinforcing ceremonies prescribed, rigid patterns formulated until finally, one day, an institution was erected. Glee, as all the children came from around the country, there was Dick, Harry, Jack & Jill who came to play and dance the same walk. What originated as one mans intuition of some sort of personal fluidity was now transformed into solidified fixed knowledge, complete with organised classified responses presented in a logical order, it was beautiful. In doing so, the well-meaning, loyal followers not only made his knowledge a holy shrine, but more so, a tomb in which they buried the founder’s wisdom.

And a perception of Taoism;

One night a student witnessed the hatching of a hundred turtles making their struggle to the Sea from the expansive beach. Some were continuously being washed back by the tide once they made it, some were brushed under the sand while others swam to their destiny. The student couldn’t help but notice one which got stuck among pieces of driftwood, it was about to die so he picked it up and took it to his teacher. They seemed to revive it in a large bowl after some time, but the teacher said he must return it back to the beach now, and not to the sea. Perplexed, the student saw no logic in that, but if the turtle didn’t experience the struggle to the Sea from that same point, it would never know it’s way back to spawn a new beginning.

Using no way as a way-:

Art should serve the individual rather than the individual serving the art. A human life is always more important than an established method, instead, aim to pick and choose from the best of all styles that works for you, no matter what category of music or art or life it’s branched in. There should be a naturally evolving process of research which ceases to become concrete in its finished product. Therefore do not become a “product” to further a development. This would then raise the question of becoming commercially viable to a public. Coltrane, in the height of his popularity, continued his journey at a time when he could have continued to make records of the same genre. He didn’t just adhere to the parameters of Jazz music at that time; he studied African indigenous roots with their descendents into Indian Hindu and Muslim culture, spiritualism in God and the cosmos. As Taoism identifies, for water to maintain pure it must flow and endlessly change shape, or it becomes a swamp. Hereby no fixed formula could encapsulate the flow of existence. To quote Wagner; “All existence is transformation within an ever occurring form”. What worked yesterday, may not work today. Be able to adapt to any music situation instead of following just one fixed method or course, establish one day’s intuition as an irreversible law. To study a subject should not be to re-enact it, because it’s already happened and belongs in the past. How can you base reality (the present) to a thing from the past and invent methods on trying to reach it (when it never even originated from you). There is too much in the present to add to the equation towards your own identity.

Many art forms are based upon Taoism. In fact in the west, it is often mistaken as a religion (which is a complete contradiction), whereas one could actually consider it as an art form and philosophy. One of the last main popular art forms to establish straight from Taoist ideals was “Jeet Kun Do”, the martial art principle established by Bruce Lee, who was also recognised as a great philosopher.
Jeet Kun Do favours formlessness so that it can assume all forms and since Jeet Kun Do has no style, it can fit with all styles. As a result, Jeet Kun Do utilizes all ways and is bound by none, likewise, uses any technique or means which serve its ends.

Bruce Lee

A strict observance to a method or a style in blind devotion lacks any sense of flexibility which is essential to the ability of self evaluation. It inhibits a natural sense of intuition, therefore represses individuality. Favour to follow guidelines but not absolute laws. Find your own methods and enjoy the freedom of changing them at will. Look to all different sources other than one way and recombine them into a new format.

1. Research your own experience
2. Absorb what is useful.
3. Reject what is useless.
4. Add what is specifically your own.

Bruce Lee

A way doesn’t exist for you if you’re asking someone else, it’ll always be their way far from yours. A way can a guide but not a set path.

A contradiction upon itself?
So the principle here is using no set way as a way to creativity, pliability and synthesis. But there can be a considered danger in this method. There is the possibility that any practitioners following this way could end up overwhelmed. As a result of this they wouldn’t be able to use their information at will. As rather than being bound to one system, you could become lost in the innumerable differences/techniques/concepts etc. The whole principle of eliminating the idea of exclusively following style could become the new dogma! You could end up becoming a collector from sources as a result of this. Here the lack of boundaries becomes as paralyzing as a set of rules to abide to. Too many choices can make someone loose the way in choosing what is useful from what is not. You must remember your simplest nature.

The height of creation runs to simplicity

Bruce lee

The practice of Tao consists in daily diminishing.

Lao Tzu

This is also a principle often delivered by Zen. According to this the learning process is a threefold process. When we begin to learn we are ignorant and therefore simple. Once knowledge is acquired, we shed our ignorance becoming more sophisticated and aware of subtle complexities of life. This identifies the “intellectual”, as for most, arriving at this stage ends their journey. Knowledge separates them from the simpletons and therefore they go on to acquire more of it. Here lies the hidden the danger for intellectuals, the Frasier Crane stereotypes, the highbrow’s, the infatuators of variety, those who distinguish themselves from misunderstanding the benefits of their simplest nature for an ego based delusion. The escape from this and final stage, is to abandon all.
You must realise to let go of excess baggage you’ve accumulated to return to simplicity. There is a great difference to this and the simplicity you started with. This is the simplicity of wisdom. In Taoism, the wise are know as “the children who know”. The first stage lacks knowledge, the second stage has acquired it, the third lacks boundaries from it. It goes full cycle and returns to the beginning, but without being weighed down by anything. Yin & Yang imitates this cycle. What started off as Yin with its potential of being Yang, became Yang, which returned to Yin again, now awaiting the next untold mystery of fruition.

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Doing without doing

Explore
Discover
Reinforce
Know
Control

Here are stages in the learning process. Many of us usually forget the final stage. Control. This is why so many instrumentalists hardly become musicians, failing to realize their instrument is only a tool to the art form. Once you’ve acquired say, a new lick, and you’ve gone through the process of reinforcing it over a period of time, you then feel like you know it. What usually happens then is that if the final stage of control is not established, the new lick will be reminiscent of premature ejaculation. Control is about pacing yourself, yielding to prevail. Acknowledging ones limitations and knowing how to use that. It’s not about burning, or superficially relying on technique to impress with a veneer of what you’re all about. It is understanding about time and placement by merging and adapting. Referring back to simplicity. Only then do you carry the weight to say more by saying less. Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, Bill Evens, Stan Getz, 60‘s coltrane.

Yielding to prevail. Simply being just as you are. Doing without trying. The tapestry of processes that Jazz music unearths during it study, in its analysis to become one with the understanding of the self to understand control, can be made more tangible when viewing the nature of Taoism, or other art forms derived from Taoism. It refers back to simplicity and adopting a plain simple attitude. In Taoism, there are two states known as Wu-Hsin (no mindedness) and Wu-Wei (non doing).

Wu-Hsin - no mindedness, is not about shutting out all thoughts and emotions nor is it simply calmness and a quietness of the mind. However the essence of quietude and calmness is necessary, the non grasping of any thoughts constitutes the main principle of “no-mind”. You allow the mind to think what it likes without interference by the separate thinker or “ego” within yourself. So long as it thinks what it wants, there is absolutely no effort in letting it go. The disappearance of the effort to let go, is exactly the disappearance of the separate thinker (or ego). There’s nothing to try to do, as what ever comes up from moment to moment is simply accepted, including that of non-acceptance. It’s not being without emotion or feeling, but being one who’s feeling isn’t clingy or blocked. It’s like when we use the eyes to rest upon various objects but make no special effort to take anything in. To quote a Taoist scholar Chuang-Tzu; Like a baby looking at things all day without winking, as its eyes aren’t focused on any particular thing. It goes without knowing where it’s going and stops without knowing what it’s doing. It merges it’s self with it’s surroundings and moves along with it. These are the principles of mental hygiene.

I guess this is kind of similar to the momentary concentration of when you watch football. You don’t just watch the guy with the ball, you have the awareness of the whole pitch. Similarly, in playing/practicing Jazz, using what you know, you’re not just concentrated by dwelling on any one particular thing. The mind is present everywhere because its nowhere attached to anything. This is control. However, even when it is occupied with one thing for a duration, you don’t cling to it ! Your flow of thought is like water into a cup, which is always ready to pour out again. Hereby the mind with an inexhaustible power because its free, can be open to everything, because the mind is empty. Remember this isn’t about force, but through yielding to force - control. When playing in a group, you promote a spontaneous development and you don’t venture to interfere with your own action. You loose yourself by giving up all subjective feeling and individuality, becoming one with the aesthetic sound. In the mind, the group have become mutually cooperative instead of exclusive. When your private ego and conscious effort yields to a power not your own, you then achieve a wisdom of supreme action, “non action”, Wu-Wei.

Wu, means not or non. Wei, means action, doing, busyness, straining or striving. This process doesn’t mean “to be lazy” or doing anything half-heartedly, but means to leave the mind alone, trusting it to work by itself. The governing force is the mind and not the senses. Here action is performed without self-assertion, letting the mind remain spontaneous and un-grasped. As soon as you stop to think, you mess up the flow of playing, therefore also the interactive nature the music will have progressed in. Every action, therefore has to be done unintentionally without ever trying, simply balancing yourself harmoniously with the music.

So why is Wu-wei a the process in becoming a better Jazz musician. The principle of Wu-wei is entirely that of an action of creative intuition proceeded by Wu-Hsin (no-mindedness). This in turn opens the well-springs within a musician. Whilst during the action of assertion, it’s a mans common tendency to preconceive and be rational, therefore you’ll fail to reach the secluded places of creativity. The action of assertion is viewed from the externals of intellect, while the action of “non-assertion” is activated by the inner light with Wu-Hsin. The former action is limited and finite by responding to knowledge, the latter free and limitless, so, it’ll groove.

Doing without having done
(conclusion on WuWei)

The inner self is the true self, the primal state. The more you delve into a subject you wish to succeed in, there will be a point along the path where you’ll be addressing self cultivation. The study becomes you and the and the subject it’s medium. In its process to mastery, a Jazz musician (or anyone on this path) eventually becomes completely self sufficient. The thing he has to learn is not to become dependent upon the external rating by others for his happiness. Like a true master would (of any nature), he hold himself in reserve, is quite and unassuming, without the least desire to show off. A true artist, if he’s really good, isn’t proud at all, this upsets the clarity. Pride is a sense of worth which derives from something that is not organically part of oneself. Pride emphasizes the importance of the superiority of ones status in the eyes of others, a delusion. Fear will become evident in the insecurity of pride because when someone aims at being highly esteemed, having achieved such status, they’re automatically involved in the fear of losing his status. Then, protection of ones status appears to be the most important need, this in turn creating anxiety. The core of pride is self rejection. One is proud when he identifies himself with an imaginary self.

To quote the original Taoist scholar/poet Lao-Tze from the Tao te Ching.

Those who know do not speak
Those who speak do not know
Stop your senses, Let sharp things be blunted,
Tangles resolved, The light tempered
And turmoil subdued;
For this is mystic unity in which the wise man is moved
Neither by affection
Nor yet by division
Or profit or loss
Or honour or shame
Accordingly, by all the world,
He is held highest.

So, Wu-wei is the art of artlessness and the principle of no principle (this is how it‘s often referred as). When you start playing Jazz, as a beginner, you know nothing about techniques or theory and much less of the concern for yourself. When you play with others, you just goes along with the flow in a carefree nature to simply experience, as this is all you can do. However, the moment serious study commences, you’re taught techniques and theories to the application of getting around the music and the instrument itself. Here, the mind begins to stop at various junctures. When ever you’ll attempt certain licks or concepts, you feel unusually weighed down. You’ve lost your original primal essence of freedom and innocence. But as months and years go by, as your practice acquires fuller maturity, your attitude and approach to managing application to the music and instrument, moves toward no-mindedness, which resembles the state of mind you had at the very beginning when you knew nothing. The beginning and end in turn become neighbors. It’s like starting at the bottom register of a piano and ascending to the highest range, until the when the highest note is reached, it’s automatically found to be located next to the lowest note again. ?!?!??!?!?
In Taoist analogies, its said that the wise are the children who know. At the highest stage, the wise reverts into a kind of simpleton who knows nothing again. The intellectual capacity and vision is lost and a state of no-mindedness prevails. When this is attained, the body works by itself without interference of the mind. The technical skill is so automatic its completely separate from conscious efforts.

Explore
Discover
Reinforce
Know
Control
Forget

Rank and arrogance add up to ruin
The ten thousand things come into being
And I have watched them return
No matter how luxuriantly they flourish
Each must go back to the root from which they came
This returning to the root is called quietness;
It is the fulfillment of ones destiny.

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Acknowledging the dynamics of your Energy

You-
Know your energy and the expression of it in music and during play. Realise it can always be expressed more than in just one channelled way. A good story will always be designed to take you on an emotional journey, unearthing a variety of emotions for you, ranging from adrenaline based to their opposites. Your playing should orchestrate these in balance. The persisting monotony of one expressed energy level only sustains interest for so long. If you were to imagine a pie chart, how would this be divided in percentages, defining your contrasting frequencies of expressive energy?
This whole concept then explains more reason for the notion behind articulation. Somehow, a commonly recognised sound of an instrument becomes redundant, when the expression of true energy is voiced through it. In this instance, now consider the tenor saxophone in Jazz, its diversity for the many sounds and timbres it’s translated (Ben Webster, Jan Garbarek, Paul Gonzales). If you take a classical singer, they spend years being able to unify themselves holistically in order to allow their body to be their voice, to colour the story in each song with the sonority of emotional expressiveness. Emotion is the generalised term, but the diverse possible ways to express it and feed it, stems from the initial energy behind it with its intention.
Each expressive colour of energy, gives rise to a particular manner of playing and coinciding style. Usually if the energy is lacking from the performer, its easier to scrutinise the style. If the energy is there from the start to finish in its possible undulating narration, acknowledgement of style will usually become oblique to the direct spark you make with audience. Therefore style itself translates and connects to a social energy already present, reflecting and/or manipulating a general energy of a group of people. If we as Jazz musicians, acknowledging the diverse and infinite stylistic acceptance of the art form, study these frequencies of energy, it will allow our level of play to shine with more depth in every way, i.e. adaptability, expressive range, more rhythmic/melodic/harmonic diversity, subtlety and contrast etc.
Eventually through this study and perhaps acknowledged manner to also transcribe, it’ll bring us closer to a sense of unique individualism, in a place where thought no longer reigns and energy naturally flows. But remember, no YI no Chi, the seed of energy is intention.
Thought stagnates energy.
Don’t think!
Feel.
Your instrument-
But having said all that, I have seen instruments, by themselves, before they’ve even been played, that also process a spirit and even an aura about them. I’ve even known instruments to be much more alive than many people. The instrument is the physical extension of the character. Every instrument has an energy that is different from one and other. It’s something you feel as soon as you touch or hold the instrument. Different types of instruments evoke different types of our energy (i.e. the difference between a soprano/alto/tenor). Each one processes its own sense of power; in the whole wide world no two saxophones are alike. For this reason, a very strong bond connects you to your horn, or horns. They become inseparable to you, almost as is they share the same force, as one. The more time you spend with your horn, whether you customise it (i.e. mouthpiece), or tweak it and look after its maintenance, for all the hours you pour into it, more and more it embodies an energy unknown to mass produced objects.
As we know, the study of music goes well beyond the study of an instrument. Learning how to use an instrument as if it were an extension of our organic impermanent self, acting almost as a medium, teaches a musician a deeper perception beyond the subject we identify as music. This may be seen as mythological or esoteric, straying from just boping out on a head. But if we disperse our energy, instead of just specialising within a confined parameter of the subject, we can hope to discover the difference in that of a master to an expert. Gaining the connection to that everything is everything. Music being just one of many coloured paths all leading to the same peak.
Finally realise this. Worshiping an object, than the person blowing it, is the begging of fetishism. Remember the film Dumbo? the power to fly didn’t come from a feather – it comes from within. It’s not the instrument, instrument label, or any instrumental hip-ness that makes the sound. I was recently sold a very old Conn alto for a mere £100. Sure, I’ve definitely played better. The guy who sold it was laughing and said to me I should be blowing a Selmer. I took it home and befriended it for two months and then returned to play it in front of him. I watched his jaw drop. He, then with a bruised ego, took it off me and blew it, and literally made it sound like an old con. Was Dumbo into fetishism? ……(sorry).
The instrument is the symbolism of the spirit of the musician’s entity.
Know its energy as you know your energies, realising you can be expressed in more than one channelled way.
Feel.

Style, the tradition and the contemporary

There is no “one way” to achieving a set goal in the study of Jazz music. Having the goal set, or even the goal itself can perhaps be the wrong thing to do. As many would impose their beliefs upon you, of how a path should be taken, you have to always know this; a way can be a guide, but not a fixed path, names can be given, but not permanent labels.

Organised cleeks of momentary superficial trend, or institutes, tend to produce patterned prisoners of a systematized concept, and the instructors are often fixed in a routine. Of course what is worse is that by imposing the members to fit a lifeless preformed way, their natural growth is blocked. Adhering to a tradition can promote a numb habit forming mind. By following a style, you are merely a product. It’s not healthy to restrict yourself to one approach as there are so many to taste. We are always in a perpetually evolving learning process, whereas a set method/system or style is a concluded, crystallized and established entity. You can’t do this, because you’re always growing, older. The idea is not to use a way as a way, as therein lies limitation. When there is a parameter, it traps, then rots, and becomes lifeless. A specific system can fix the mind in a pattern, no matter however exacting. To an extent, even a well disciplined mind is not a free mind, as a fixed pattern is incapable of adaptability. Paradoxically, pliability and adaptability are the key systems, only because of their impermanence (the essence of all existence). Any style, system or technique, however worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it. Styles conclude. Humans continue. Man created method, a system to assist a means of the individuals aim in personal discovery, through a chosen medium that simply caught on to become a style. Style or method didn’t create man, so don’t strain yourself into twisting into someone’s preconceived pattern, although appropriate for him, may not necessarily be for you. Freedom of expression occurs when one is beyond system, true and honest observation begins when one is devoid of set patterns. But to realise and feel this, you must know what they are.

Only then do you realise what is.

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Groove & Feel interpretation for interaction and enhancing a personalized style.

Just as you have Chord/Scale relationship, where there are a multitude of scales to apply over a given chord type, you can use the same principle rhythmically. Here though we’re dealing with groove and feel, or if you like, “Groove/Feel relationship”. The basic principle is applied for soloing in this context to inspire a new melodic contour, rhythmic/polyrhythmic drive, interaction with the rhythm section, the exploration of varied time values and space. This approach would also move you away from moments of monotony within the context of the moment.

Here is the basic concept:-

Imagined superimposed feels from soloist
12/8, Swing, Rock, Samba,
Bossa, Straight 8’s/16’s, Shuffle

12/8 = Could inspire triplet
Swing = Could inspire Bop rhythms, swung quaver etc.
Latin = Various articulation in order to incorporate and clarify the feel, use of cross rhythms, clave patterns etc
Rock = Blues, pentatonic style technique, appropriate phrasing,
Straight 8ths = ECM/Folk inflections, straight quavers, space, range, etc

When practicing this, try to notice the differences in feels, regarding the Quarter note, Half note and Whole note time feels. This is very important and will get away from the standard quarter note feel. Eventually aim to mix and match them randomly at will. This can then also progress into superimposing static time signatures, creating hemiola’s, i.e. ¾ over 4/4. A really good way to get used to feel change is by practicing bass lines to progression, instead of launching straight into soloing.

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