[78-L] Tenor Sax Styles.

[Julian Vein]

Dan Van Landingham wrote:
  I taught myself to play tenor sax back in late 1969 as a junior in 
high school.I used Hawkins
  as my role model as well as listening to the likes of Don Byas,Webster as
  well as a few now forgotten players such as Dick Wilson of Andy Kirk's 
band and Bob
  Carroll who played tenor for Don Redman in the thirties.One tenor 
player I can't really
  classify was Chu Berry,whose tone struck me as being somewhere between 
Hawkins
  and Lester Young whose tone I could never duplicate even though I 
tried to do so.I still
  prefer Hawkins and his school over the some of the later tenorists I 
also heard from the
  late thirties.I heard Georgie Auld by way of a handful of Bunny 
Berigan recordings but he
  was never a favourite of mine.Charlie Barnet I got a kick out of but I 
admired his arrangers
  even more so.Whatever respect Flip Phillips had was lost after that 
infamous solo he took
  on "Perdido" with the JATP in the late forties.The sound Hawkins had 
by 1950 left me so-
  mewhat befuddled:was he losing his lung power by then or was he just 
changing his tone
  to accomodate the newer jazz fans?I cite his recordings from 1950 on 
Roost as examples.
=======================
Dick Wilson, I thought, was a rather ordinary, staid player. Bob Carroll 
played in a slightly "swashbuckling" way with Redman, as I recall. 
Berry's uptempo and blues playing were usually excellent (his work with 
Calloway and ballads rather less so). Another swashbuckler was Jack 
McVea with JATP, who outclassed Illinois Jacquet, where they played 
together. McVea's playing was more exciting and more musical.

Georgie Auld, Charlie Barnet and Wayne Johnson (with Bob Wills) played 
in a rather old fashioned rootie-tootie way, which I have an affection for.

Flip Phillips's best work was mainly before he joined Woody Herman (with 
Norvo on V-Disc). After that he became an "animal cunning" playing and 
clinging too closely to the beat. A couple of other sessions where he 
did play well was with the Teddy Wilson Quintet and the Norvo band, at 
the Town Hall Concert, June 9, 1945. Also a session under Buddy Rich's 
leadership (Verve 1957).

Never thought too much about Hawk's tone in later years, more interested 
in his ability to compile long, structured solos. Listen to his Prestige 
sessions, if you think he'd lost his lung power! True, his early 50s' 
stuff was rather listless.

      Julian Vein


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