Month: September 2016

Tenor month continues with more Lenny Pickett…

Another classic solo from an early Tower of Power album. Soul Vaccination is one of their signature tunes, and this is a great solo. It’s actually fairly easy to play up until the last two bars if you can slow things down and break down measures 7-10.

I still struggle to figure out what Lenny is doing with the false fingerings over middle E. In bar 7, he’s clearly going down to D#, but I don’t think that’s what he’s doing in bars 8 and 10. I’m using a combination of D#, alternate # (with the low C key added), and dropping the octave key. But I’m not exactly achieving the same effect that he is.

Lenny pulls off the last two bars super cleanly. I cracked the high G a bit but I was happy that I could get up there at all! He does a bit of a shake on it, which I think is just done with the embouchure (like vibrato).

Note: The pitch on the recording that I have was off by at least 50 cents. I compensated for it in my app so it would be correct. I tried adjusting my horn to play where it was, but it throws the horn out of balance too much when I push it too far. The video I posted uses the original (unaltered) track, so I post-processed my performance to match it. Don’t be surprised if you have a hard time matching your pitch to the original track!

I’ll keep digging through my L.P. solos to see if there are any more that I can work up. I definitely have a bunch that are just beyond me right now (Knock Yourself Out, Squib Cakes, Ebony Jam, etc.), but we’ll see if I’m braver by the end of the month…

• Artist: Lenny Pickett
• Album: Tower of Power – Tower of Power (1973)
• Track: Soul Vaccination
• Instrument: Tenor Sax

Enjoy!

@SDartSax

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.

• Artist: Lenny Pickett
• Album: Tower of Power – Urban Renewal (1975)
• Track: Only So Much Oil In The Ground
• Instrument: Tenor Sax

Enjoy!

@SDartSax

As I mentioned, it’s Tenor month! So I thought I’d get things kicked off with a bang and start with a Lenny Pickett solo. It’s only one page, but he packs a lot in there…

Lenny Pickett is well-known for a few things. He burst on to the scene while still in his teens as the tenor soloist for Tower of Power, where he made his mark with his virtuostic use of ‘extended’ techniques like altissimo and circular breathing.

He left TOP in the 80’s and eventually landed on Saturday Night Live where he’s been sax soloist (and eventually, musical director) ever since. You can hear his amazing playing over the opening and closing credits.

Fortunately, he collaborated with TOP on this album, which  has some great soloing on it. Both of the solos open with a straight tone that then adds a flutter tongue effect (where you roll your tongue while playing).

In the fourth bar of the second solo he uses an alternate fingering for middle E (in the staff). This is a signature move for him, and I’m just guessing that he’s closing the low C key to achieve this effect. If anyone knows of a better alternate fingering, I’d love to try it!

There are several spots where he quickly alternates between low B and altissimo B – a three octave spread!

Then there are the altissimo runs. Starting cold from altissimo E and walking down – three different times in the same track, and slightly different each time. This is a real challenge for me to pull off at all, but he makes it sound completely effortless and musical at the same time.

• Artist: Lenny Pickett
• Album: Tower of Power – T. O. P. (1993)
• Track: Come On With It
• Instrument: Tenor Sax

Enjoy!

@SDartSax