How do I learn to play jazz?
I can tell you how I learned. I can also tell you about my own teachers and their teachers. I didn't start playing the saxophone until I was eleven years old. I had actually started with the clarinet and tenor saxophone but gravitated to the alto saxophone.
My grandmother was a professional singer and was hired as a soloist at churches throughout Connecticut where I was born. We always had a piano in the house, I had early lessons but was too young to appreciate them. My uncle played and I would hear him play when he visited. My mother had a cabaret act in the 50's and early 60's and quite a bit of theatrical experience. She had mostly quit that line of work by the time I was a young child; but she would still perform on occasion.
My point is that I had a fairly early exposure to music. I don't think it mattered what kind of music; just that I was developing a sensibility in my head of sound, composition, and how people respond to music.
One of my first teachers was a man named Johnny Hesser. He was primarily an accordionist - but worked as an arranger in various capacities for some musical agencies in New York City. He was mostly retired. He was an 'old school' music teacher who taught all the instruments. He had a band he put together of his students, which included his youngest beginning students and his adults. He wrote all of the music and tailored each part to the ability of each student. I had no idea at the time how unique and special a teacher he was in that regard! I began improvising solos in that band. It was from him I learned a beginner's grasp of music theory - mostly just the major and minor triads. I started applying these chords on the piano, and was playing very simple arrangements of standard tunes like Misty and Saint Louis Blues on the piano by the time I was 12 or 13. My mother had a bunch of fake books and the chords were usually pretty simple. So, in the left hand I played triads, and in the right hand melody. Later, in college I'd start learning about things like chord voicings. Mr. Hesser did give me an early introduction to stride piano - with an oom pah style - root, chord - fifth, chord. But I'm getting off the topic.
By the time I was in junior high school, I was extremely interested in jazz, idolizing a number of the great saxophone players. People like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane were still beyond what I could really understand musically. So my early favorites were saxophonists like Lester Young, Buddy Tate, and Stan Getz's Jobim recordings. I spent a lot of time in the library down the street reading about different musicians, their lives, and whom they played with. I started buying records (vinyl in those days, no CDs!) of various people I had read about - I found the Bird With Strings Charlie Parker recordings and those became an early favorite. As those solos became a part of my musical memory, I began listening to anyone whose records I could get a hold of.
When I was about 12, I started studying with another teacher who specialized in teaching only the woodwinds. He began teaching me scales and exercises. We'd have conversations about saxophonists. I was listening to Sonny Rollins, Bird, Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Jackie McLean as well as some of the pop-jazz type things like Weather Report, Steely Dan and Spyro Gyra.
When I got into high school, I found a small community of musicians to hang out with who went to the same high school. It was very rural. Three towns shared one high school. The kids were all older than I was. We had a jazz band and played stock arrangements... We'd rehearse once a week at one of the guy's houses. The local music scene, and music education scene at the high school were poor. The band director quit the year I got there. The choral director took over for a while. After him, it was mostly a succession of substitutes whose heart wasn't exactly in building a strong music program. In fact, for a time, I actually became the defacto band teacher...
That summer between my freshman and sophomore years in high school I attended the Hartt Summer Youth Music Program - a summer session for high school aged kids to get exposure to a music conservatory setting and study with some university level teachers. I thought I was pretty special at that point and was rather shocked when I placed 14th among 15 saxophone players in auditions. I met a really great saxophonist there named Phil DeLibero who was the saxophone teacher at the university. After my humiliation of being next to last, I began a course of study with Mr. DeLibero. I began practicing two hours a night. Every night. I started getting into meditation; and I would put a stack of vinyl records on the record changer and let them play one after another with the lights out. So in addition to practicing I was also spending a great deal of time listening to some of the masters. I went back to the Hartt summer program the following year and placed FIRST. The conductor of the wind orchestra walked in, took his place on the podium and nearly fell off when he looked over to see who his principal saxophonist was. He remarked 'My, I guess someone did some work this year!'. They had also begun having a jazz band that year and I won the lead alto chair. I also joined an honors yourth wind ensemble around that time and used to travel up to Hartford on Saturday or Sunday mornings to rehearse.
Around that time, one of the substitutes from the foreign languages department heard me playing the piano during lunch period. There was a decent piano in the auditorium, which was almost always empty. He told me he played piano and that he got together weekly with a guitar player and drummer once a week to play. So I started playing with those guys once a week... I was 15 and they'd pick me up and drive me to whomever's house we were going to be playing at and then drive me home. We didn't have a regular bass player - except sometimes Tony Scherr would come by with his homemade electric bass. He was 16, and lived nearby in Branford, CT. He went on to North Texas State and became a really fantastic musician who now works with people like Bill Frisell, Norah Jones as well as his own bands. We just played tunes out of a fake book - badly - and took endless long and trippy solos. There was a strange combination of influences in that band - The Grateful Dead, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, and whatever I brought to the mix. It was a very free, unrestricted and fun environment for a young player like myself to begin experimenting in.
There was also a famous jazz club in Hartford at that time called The 880 club - and on Sunday nights they had a jam session. I was driving myself up there on Sunday nights as soon as I turned 16. 16 and hanging out in a smokey jazz club... and getting up for school the next morning... I learned a lot from those times. I got my young butt kicked by any number of musicians up there! People like Don DiPalma and Larry DiNatalie were mentors to quite a few musicians in the Hartford area.
A drummer friend of mine told me that he was going to a concert in Hartford of Jackie McLean's students at the Hartt School of Music. I went to the concert. I was in awe of the students I saw. I wrote Mr. McLean a letter and he invited me to come up to the school and meet him. Then he invited me to stop by his home for a lesson. That began my six year term of study under Jackie McLean. I've written about some of my personal memories of Jackie McLean here. He was a very special man.
Jackie McLean began showing me basic theory from the jazz perspective and had me learn all my major, minor, and diminished scales inside and out. He also showed me how to start transcribing the solos of people like Dexter Gordon, Charlie Parker and Lester Young. I took that a step further with a half speed tape recorder and learned many classic jazz solos.
Jackie McLean grew up in New York City and was surrounded by the greatest innovators of modern jazz throughout his childhood. One of his very first teachers was the legendary pianist Bud Powell. His career would begin with subbing gigs for Charlie Parker himself and joining Miles Davis' band. He later played with Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, and Charles Mingus among others. For me, having such a direct link to these masters through him was invaluable. He told me he learned to play by recording live radio broadcasts of Charlie Parker and learning his phrasing and solos note for note. Jackie has one of the most unique sounds and vocabulary of any jazz saxophonist. So for those people who claim that transcription and mimicking in the early stages of jazz development is not essential and only leads to cloning; I say that's nonsense.
Learning to play jazz is the same as learning any language. Even the best players started out by appreciating and assimilating the musical language of their predecessors in one way or another. Charlie Parker learned all of Lester Young's recorded material. Art Tatum was a disciple of Fats Waller. Fats Waller was a disciple of James P. Johnson. Coltrane sounded a lot like Dexter Gordon on his most rare earliest recordings. Sonny Rollins was an intense fan of Coleman Hawkins. I began combining elements from various saxophone players into my own conception. Around that time, I think I actually started to sound a little bit like I knew what I was doing. This is how you learn the language. Eventually, you put it together in your own way. Or, perhaps you come up something entirely new! But, I'm a firm believer in knowing where the music comes from first.
So to try and sum up, I think early exposure develops an ear and a conception in one's mind. The value of a strong public school music department is so important. Unfortunately we didn't have one. Fortunatley I was able to make up for some of that by participating in some programs and activities on my own. Have a drive to do it. For many years, music was EVERYTHING for me, it defined me, it was my social life, my education, my relaxation, my partner, my mentor, my joy and tears - make it part of who you are. Learn as much about your instrument as possible. Reading is essential - especially if you plan on earning a living in music, but music itself is about the EARS, not the eyes. Most instruction today is about reading, this is a 'C' and this is how you play it, with the middle finger on your left hand. This type of instruction is ok. But its got to go along with some type of ear training. Pick things out that you hear on the radio. Play that silly Clorox jingle... Whatever... Just use your ears and start connecting your ears to the instrument in addition to your eyes!
Below is a list of recordings I've selected for you. It is tremendously difficult to capture the vastness of an artist like Monk or Coltrane in one or two CDs, but these selections represent the music that has played the biggest part in my own development as a jazz musician. Please take a look and perhaps order some music. You will not go wrong with any of these albums. They are classics.
