Tenor month continues with more Lenny Pickett!
This is probably one of my favorite Tower of Power songs of all time. It’s also one of my favorite LP solos. Doctorfunk used to perform this one, but it’s in a bad range for our singer. I definitely miss playing it.
This solo really moves. It’s amazing to me that he was able to pull off some of these lines at that speed. I broke the solo down and practiced it at 50% speed for about an hour before speeding up. At 50%, it feels do-able, and then you listen to it at full speed and your
head just spins.
Take a minute to appreciate the arc that he creates in just 16 bars. The first five bars are pretty laid back – funky and in the pocket. building to a mean growl, and then closing the phrase in the six bar with a faster run. Then he puts the pedal to the metal for the next six bars closing with a crazy altissimo run. He winds it down for two bars, and then caps it off with double-time bebop runs over the changes for the last two bars.
There are a lot of signature licks here: Lots of repeated notes alternating against false fingerings, with quick pops up the octave and right back down. Once again, there are some killer altissimo licks. All the way up to high E, but this time at breakneck speed!
It kills me that he was only 20 when he recorded this.
Lenny Pickett - Only So Much Oil In the Ground
- Artist: Lenny Pickett
- Album: Tower of Power – Urban Renewal (1975)
- Track: Only So Much Oil In The Ground
- Instrument: Tenor Sax
Enjoy!
@SDartSax
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