Category Archives: Saxophone

Altissimo Fingerings for Tenor Saxophone

By Kevin Danenberg | Published: September 27, 2011
I’ve been interested in the altissimo register since high school when I first heard Tower of Power recordings featuring Lenny Pickett. There are so many sources of information out there for people who want to learn to play altissimo (see below for a few useful links). In this post, I want to share the set [...]
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The Blues Nice and Slow

By Kevin Danenberg | Published: January 12, 2011
Here’s an outtake from a very cool soundtrack project I’m working on. Sounds nice with a lush 60’s-style reverb on it. Untitled Slow Blues  More on the project later, but at the moment I’m sworn to secrecy. I’m not sworn to not create a buzz, though!
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B Minor Rhythmic Tenor Drone

By Kevin Danenberg | Published: November 23, 2010
Here’s a little audio sketch I threw together today. Just experimenting with using processed sax key popping as a rhythm track. By running it through a gate and an amp simulator, it sort of suggests both tambura and tabla. Improvised over it in B minor. Simple recording rig: Electro-Voice RE20, E-mu 0404 USB, [...]
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Flame-O-Phone Video

By Kevin Danenberg | Published: February 20, 2010
My friend Stefan rigged an old bari sax to shoot five feet of propane-fueled flame from the bell! This video of a test run is making it’s rounds on the internet: You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video Check out Stefan’s account at Introducing: The Flame-O-Phone!.
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Macarena Sax Jam

By Kevin Danenberg | Published: November 2, 2009
This is a fun clip of an impromptu jam that broke out after our gig last Friday. The whole gig was a bit like this, featuring live musicians jamming with a DJ. Half the band has put its instruments away by the time we did this, though, and the DJ is holding the [...]
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Michael Brecker Transcriptions Galore

By Kevin Danenberg | Published: October 22, 2009
Jaleel Shaw just posted a link on the Facebook to Michael Brecker playing Oleo, and that led to the mother lode of Michael Brecker transcriptions: http://www.michaelbreckerliverecordings.com/transcriptions.html Check out the whole site, maintained by saxophonist Louis Gerrits, obviously fanatic enough to build this wonderful catalogue. I miss Michael Brecker. It’s not right that he’s gone.
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Tenor Trials

By Kevin Danenberg | Published: December 8, 2008
I went down to Rayburn’s to try out some tenors yesterday.  Just to get a feel for how modern horns play.  Someday, I’d like to have a legitimate front line tenor to complement my Mark VI.  Mainly, something easy to replace if something happens to it, but also to reduce the wear and tear on [...]
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How to Fix a Compressed Neck Cork

By Kevin Danenberg | Published: November 8, 2007
WARNING:Be sure to tape up the lacquered part of your neck near the cork with a good insulator! Otherwise, the steam could crack and peel your lacquer. I learned that the hard way with my Yanagisawa S991. Thanks to Pete Thomas’s Saxophone Repairs page, I learned how to fix something that’s peeved me for [...]
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My New Bronze Lawton

By Kevin Danenberg | Published: September 17, 2007
I bought a Lawton 7 Star mouthpiece for tenor saxophone a few months ago on eBay. It’s a special model in bronze with a long window, low baffle, and larger throat. I’ve been playing one of those lost wax replica brass Florida Links with excellent results. However, I wanted to find something [...]
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