I love Jesse Davis! I listen to tenor saxophone players about 80% of the time but when I want to listen to an alto saxophone player Jesse Davis is usually my first choice.  If you don’t know him check out this video of “The Very Thought of You”…….He has an amazing sound that is huge,fat and soulful.  I love how melodic his improvising is. If you don’t know the jazz language you would do well to transcribe him.  He has the perfect blend of blues with bebop. Feeling with technique.  Enjoy!

The very thought of you – Jesse Davis
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Here is a JodyJazz ESP 7* (.105) tenor saxophone mouthpiece.  These are made by Jody Espina who has a huge variety of mouthpieces that he makes at www.jodyjazz.com.  I borrowed this from a good friend of mine.  These mouthpieces come with what’s called a “spoiler”.  It is a black wedge that you slide into the mouthpiece and it locks into place against the straight sidewalls of the mouthpiece.   Extending from the back of the wedge is a 1 inch long thin metal strip.  From what I’ve read about these “spoilers’, the wedge acts like a temporary baffle that you can put in to brighten the sound and give you extra volume when needed.  The metal strip acts like a secondary reed that vibrates and increases the sound even more. I’m not sure if this last part is true but I do know that it does what it is advertised to do.

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Gary Jones on Sax on the Web posted this up for all to see.  He happily gave me permission to post it up here also.  Gary studied with a graduate student years ago that was  one of Joe Allard’s best students at that time.

Joe Allard (December 31, 1910 – May 3, 1991), a native of Lowell, MA,was a famous saxophone and clarinet  professor at Juilliard, The New England Conservatory and The Manhattan School of Music.  Some of his most famous students were: Michael Brecker, Eddie Daniels, Bob Berg, Dave Liebman, Paul Winter, Steve Grossman, Kenneth Radnofsky, Bill Pierce  and many many others.

I found reading this both fascinating and enlightening.  Many of the tips on reeds I had never heard before. I love how relaxed it all feels when you’re reading it.  The more relaxed and natural everything is the better.  Thanks so much to Gary Jones for writing this out and making it available to the saxophone community!

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It might be as close as your refrigerator! Check out this video.

The next morning, our last day in Disney, I woke up to my kids talking to each other.  I sat up in bed and just looked at them.  There voices sounded normal.  I couldn’t believe it.  Matter of fact, I didn’t believe it. I put on the radio, it sounded normal. I was so excited and happy but I still didn’t say anything to my wife because I was afraid I was mistaken.  What if it was still messed up?  About 15 minutes later I told my wife. I then shared with her the whole story about the prayer I had prayed.  She didn’t seemed impressed.  I was shocked and in awe that God had actually performed a miracle for me and answered my prayer.  She just smiled and said “Of course, he does that all the time”. I just looked at her amazed at her faith.  ”Not like this” I said.  We went home later that day and I was one happy camper.

For the last 5 years things have gone pretty smoothly.  Normal life stuff. Nothing to write a blog about.  I’m happy about that!  I don’t know the why behind all the things in this story and I doubt I ever will but part of me thinks this last story was  so very important to me and my journey.  You see as you could probably tell as I told the story, I was growing increasingly more and more negative.  Many times I doubted if God existed .  Other times I thought “Well if he does exist, he’s kind of a jerk”.  Other times I thought “Well if he does exist, he could care less about me”.   For me this last act was huge.  I know many of you who are reading this might be thinking it was just a coincidence and God had nothing to do with it.  I just happened to pray that prayer the night before my hearing was to return to normal.  Believe me, many times I have even thought that myself.  But I keep coming back to that prayer that I said.  I laid it all out like I never had before.  I told him that if I were to see him work immediately then there would be no question in my mind.  He did exist and he does care about me. He is involved in my life and working and moving.  The next morning, I woke up and was cured.  You might think it was a coincidence but I like to believe it was something else.
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After the events in Part 13, I started feeling like my regular self. Life went on.  We moved a few times and ended up in New Hampshire.  I have two more stories to share with you and then we’ll be done.  Hopefully, there will be no more to tell in Part 16+  although I’m sure more medical travails await me in the future.  Thanks for hanging in there for the whole story.

Between 2002-2005 life went on.  Brenda and I had another child, Melissa and we were enjoying life up in NH. I had built up my private teaching to about 60-70 students a week and was playing in a great band every weekend. Things were going pretty good but there was one thing that was plaguing me and that was those damn headaches.  If you remember back to earlier in the story I told you about my headaches after the brain tumor surgery. They would come about once a week and totally wipe me out.  Nothing would get rid of them that I had tried.  All I could do was take Tylenol PM, fall asleep and 6 hours later they were usually gone.

Well during 2002-2005 the headaches increased.  They  happened more often and they became even more painful.  I am not exaggerating when I say that in 2003-2005 I think I had a headache about 98% of the time.  Sometimes it would only be slight but many other times I would be gripping my head and unable to handle it.  I remember countless times that I took my girls to the park.  They would be playing on the slides and swings and yelling for me to come join them and I would just be sitting on the bench holding my head.  As the headaches got worse so did my personality.  I  always tried to be nice and loving but I remember so many times where I would just snap and yell at the girls. Not because of anything they did but just because of the pain I was feeling.

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Hello again.  No I didn’t die.  I’m sorry for the delay with this chapter but every once in awhile I have a problem with tendonitis in my arms and have to take a break from typing for them to get better.  I feel better now.  OK,  where was I…………..

I woke up the next morning and was surprised to find that I was still alive.  Not only was I alive but I actually felt better!  I think it was because I had finally slept that night.  For the next couple of days the doctors kept and eye on me to see how far the allergic reaction would progress but it looked like it had stopped and that I might be OK.  They released me a few days later and I went home.  I still had this feeling like something was around the corner and I wasn’t out of the woods yet.   When you have been through so many health issues you start to get a bit paranoid that every little bump,pain or weird thing is another deadly illness.  I drove my wife crazy with all of my concerns and questions during this time.

A couple of weeks later, I noticed that there were what seemed like large bumps in my neck that I had never noticed before. Another question to bother my wife with……. My wife took a look and she said that my lymph nodes were really swollen and enlarged.  We called my doctor and of course she gave me the advice she always did back then………”Go to the Mass General Emergency room”.  My doctors would always give me the line “Considering your medical history you should go to the emergency room………better to be safe than sorry.”

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This bootleg recording is of Chris Potter teaching at a clinic. It’s been floating around the internet for a number of years now and is an amazing example of what Chris Potter can do with a jazz standard like “All the Things You Are”. He’s playing it solo! Just him and his tenor sax.

Now, if you are a follower of jazz and all things saxophone you are probably quite impressed if not in shock by this solo. But I have another item that will impress and shock you also. Ben Doherty has transcribed this whole solo! Every note. This is an amazing task. I know because I had the ambition to do this myself at one time. I transcribed about 4 choruses of the solo before I gave up. I thought “This is impossible and will take way too much time”. Well, shortly after this Ben came out with his transcription and I was one happy camper. I couldn’t believe that he had done this. Here’s the link to download the transcription.

You will notice that there is a donation link. You can download the solo without donating but I encourage any of you who are grateful to donate to Ben. Even if you can only donate a few bucks, I think it is important to acknowledge the work he has done here. Who knows maybe if we appreciate him enough he’ll transcribe another Chris Potter “monster solo” for us!  Thanks again Ben!

Here is an incredible Florida Link  saxophone mouthpiece that was refaced by Erik Greiffenhagen from a 6 to a 7* (.105).  I bought this mouthpiece from Les Arbuckle about 6 weeks ago and have been playing it ever since.  Les came on SOTW (Sax on the Web) and said he had a link for sale that was one of the best he had ever played.  Now I hear that quite often from people selling mouthpieces but I had never heard that from Les before so it caught my attention.  I knew he had been around probably hundreds of links and if he thought this one was great then it must be.

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In this poll I am playing 8 measures of “In a Sentimental Mood” on 3 different Ponzol mouthpieces. I’m trying to play the melody in a similar way for each clip.  See if you can hear a difference between the clips.  If you can, vote for the one that you like the best!

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