Never Play a Boring Solo Again Using This Sonny Rollins Trick

[@TaboraMusic]

On point! I’ve noticed this with Chet Baker as well.

[@Illneverremember1]

Aside from your striking insight and clarity of your teaching style, the segments where you act out your point are absolute gold. Some of the most creative instructional videos I've seen.

[@joshwakeham]

Thanks, it's great to hear you enjoy the teaching, and the entertainment factor! IT really means a lot!

[@Illneverremember1]

@@joshwakeham It's true. I was checking out some other vids by other teachers that were related to some of your topics. So far, you rule. Many of them don't explain enough, or seem to make it overly convoluted. And it gets boring either way. Your vids are always fun to watch, and you present the material with exceptional clarity . I learn something valuable every single time.

[@derekakien7379]

Sonny is so fluent his solos really flow. He makes it sound so easy 👿.

[@francistaylor5097]

Thanks yet again for a great improv lesson. I've come to deeply respect your ability to communicate what can be a very demanding and daunting artform with both clarity and no screaming altissimo.

[@joshwakeham]

Thanks, Francis, that really means a lot!

[@0reason2exist]

Your contents are alwany readily useful but not superficial. Thanks!

[@joshwakeham]

Thank you so much!

[@djmileski]

Yes! More Sonny Rollins commentary please.

[@joshwakeham]

No problem - I'll do some more in future for sure!

[@BusyLizzy575]

great lessons Josh, thanks, i like the silly, its fun.

[@joshwakeham]

Thanks Christopher!

[@rickjensen2717]

Great advice! Use space, silence and always keep it melodic. If you can't repeat a line, it has no substance.

[@joshwakeham]

Exactly! If every line has substance, you've got a killer solo on your hands!

[@leonardbaumgart4651]

Hey josh, great video, thanks for the tips! I was wondering the name of the tune on which you based your examples at 2:50 :)

[@AndreaRinciari]

S’Wonderful

[@joshwakeham]

The tune is S'wonderful

[@AndreaRinciari]

No, your mouthpiece is S’Wonderful

[@joshwakeham]

@@AndreaRinciari your face is swonderful

[@blueginger8570]

Great stuff !!

[@MrRandyFlaggTDM]

Congratulations you made some educational youtube content that isn't total garbage with a veneer of good editing. Pretty impressive lol

[@felixol]

😂🤣😂

[@dooday1]

Had already figured that out that I needed to play melody patterns and reapeat and developp them throughout my impro with a recurring rythm too. tho i'm still unsure how to find those rythmic and melodic signatures that will stick to the listeners minds. Using the chords as a base for the melody but for the rythm...

[@joshwakeham]

Ah now that is the tricky part! Syncopation and repetition are two things that help with that

[@aljerones99]

If I were to disagree with a single thing you said, my argument would be as noisy and energetic as the void and emptiness of outer space! Well said and well played, Josh!

[@joshwakeham]

Thank you, great to hear you dug the video!

[@stewartwforbes]

Sonny is Sonny. End of. No trick. No flummery. . . .

[@dennis524]

Great video. Not to sound pedantic but would you share your mouthpiece/reed setup and what tenor you're playing? Thanks.

[@joshwakeham]

Thanks for watching! I play on a Joe Lovano Borgani tenor, with an Otto Link EB Connoisseur mouthpiece, and D'addario Jazz Select unfiled reeds.

[@jonahcabral9693]

He’s quoting Melodies!!!! 😂😂

[@Kirktracy]

The plug was good, Josh,

[@AndreaRinciari]

Very good I’d say!

[@davidscott1052]

My own personal opinion ,(for what its worth ),about soloing is that all the best solos are done by people who are just natural musicians...they just instinctively know when to play busy or when to lay off or when to play outside or when to play the really consonant "sweet" notes ...you can play to people examples of solos by the jazz greats and explain what they are doing...and some guys may understand it and be better players...but to the natural guys..not necessary....they've already got it....its just a gift 🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂

[@davidbej3960]

IDK David... I think the masters chiseled it out of stone via hard work and great ears. It didn't just happen. I agree some is organic but the great ones did a lot of work

[@Learning2Sax]

Can you make a video how to play like that non melodic fast thing? I only know how to play melodically, don't know any of that bebop language.

[@joshwakeham]

I'll add that to the list!

[@obadee2000]

Hi, please. I like your sound (tone) on this Clip. Please describe your equipment- Sax and mouthpiece??

[@joshwakeham]

Hi, I use a Joe Lovano Borgani sax and an Otto Link EB Connoisseur mouthpiece, but really 99% of the tone comes from the player, not the gear, so find some musicians you like and try to emulate that yourself before buying expensive equipment

[@BrendaBoykin-qz5dj]

RIFFS!!!

[@Bart91127]

In Spanish we have a saying for what you just have done...the closest equivalent would be that you just... "discovered lukewarm water or the garlic soup"

[@joshwakeham]

That doesn't sound like a good thing 😅

[@Bart91127]

Not necessarily bad either as you managed to get your point through in a beautiful display of high quality English...as a fellow country man of yours put it... "That is l think is not too bad".

[@davidrichards1302]

I think the key to great soloing is having a clue. Players that have a clue and really fun to listen to. Players that don't have a clue... well... it's all about that clue. The whole point of practicing is to try to get a clue. And it really just takes a small clue to be good. If fact, many times you can even get away with half a clue. But, having any sort of clue sets you apart from players without a clue. So, my advice is simple: Get a clue.

[@ili626]

2:17 😂

[@JanGustafsson-m1o]

Isn’t Rollins ”stealing” Dizzy’s solo and then ending his first line with Dizzy’s startphrase? I have always felt that Dizzy is just about to play the first solo but then gets silenced by Sonny. It’s very funny to end that phrase with Dizzy’s A - Bb. But maybe I’m overanalyzing…

[@joshwakeham]

Interesting idea! I've never heard it like that - to me Dizzy's extra bit at the end of the head sounds more like a 'filler' than the start of a solo.

[@shinyaxolotl]

Great plug that wasn't too shameless.

[@AndreaRinciari]

I agree 😂

[@clarinetpete9661]

Sorry, but your non-melodic line was just as captivating as the other. You got that good Getz sound. At this point you can play anything and it sounds good!

[@joshwakeham]

Well that's very kind of you!!

[@djmileski]

He does sound good either way but if you put both those solos together (one after the other in one section) all of a sudden we have variation and it’s better then either one by them self

[@Bart91127]

I totally suscribe it.

[@ChipTheMusicMan]

Dude...Sonny is good.

[@joshwakeham]

100%!

[@saxman7131]

Space

[@raefblack7906]

listeners fatigue 😊

[@rinahall]

I just listened to a 10h French podcast radio show on Sonny Rollins (yes, 10x 1h, covering 1951-2001!!!). A torture, but I'm like that, I dive into an artist and I listen to everything, or almost. To have my own opinion. My opinion of Rollins is that he seems very overrated to me. As a player/improviser First of all as a player/improviser, he does not seem to me better than Johnny Griffin, Sonny Stitt, Roland Kirk, Phil Woods, Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Hank Mobley... but enjoys a much greater notoriety... and unjustified in my opinion. Ok he plays well, but not better in my opinion than the musicians above. Listen to Eternal Triangle which puts Rollins and Stitt together. Here they are VERY evenly matched technique wise but it is Rollins who is the more famous today. There is a lot of study done on Rollins' solos and they are generally accepted to be examples of strong overall thematic construction and development. This somewhat implies that others just play randomly. I'm not entirely convinced by that argument. If you like it, its a strength, if you think its an excuse for repetition, you'd think not. As a composer At the level of the composition, he did not compose anything, everyone knows that his hit ''St Thomas'' is a Caribbean folklore already recorded by Randy Weston in 1955 under the title ''Fire Down There''. St Thomas is an example of cultural transference. It is infact originally The Lincolnshire Poacher. An old english folk tune. It was taken to the Carribean presumably on the slave ships but possibly even earlier by the pirate ships (appropriate given its title). It gets transmuted into a Carribean Folk tune and then Rollins recalls it from his childhood being sung by his mother and renames it after the Island. I had assumed St Thomas was what his mother called it, but the Ted Heath Band, a British Big Band of the 1950s had a big(ish) hit with 'The Lincolnshire Poacher' done presumably as a 'ripost' to St Thomas. His ''Tenor Madness'' is a composition by Kenny Clarke published in 1947 under the title ''Rue Chaptal''. His other compositions from the 50s... well, Oleo, Airegin etc... it can in no way be compared to the compositions of Trane, Bird, Monk or Shorter... One thing that always struck me that I've heard no one else mention is that the Alfie theme is merely a reworking of the intro to 'Singing In The Rain!' Sound and artistic vision I find this a curious aspect. Early on, in the 50s his sound was distinct enough but it became more distinctive later. It is an odd sound for tenor but its one I hear more and more players now using. I'm not quite sure how its done or if there is a physiological reason for it. I have found it to be an aquired taste. Moreover, his playing and his sound are terribly degraded after 1966 (36 years). Something happened on that bridge, he lost his mind. He seems to have been traumatized by the arrival of Ornette, Trane, Ayler... In the 60s he tried to be freer than Ayler, more calypso/blues than Ornette, and more mystical than Trane, but without succeeding because so superficial... Then in the 70s/80s he tried his hand at funk, disco... with really ridiculous and corny results... Did he want to be funkier than James Brown himself? More disco than Chic and Nile Rodgers? On ''SAIS'' from the ''Horn Culture'' album, one example among many, just picking up a random piece between 1966 and 2001....It's a shame. He plays out of tune, out of rhythm, with an absolutely disgusting sound. It is a lack of respect towards himself, the other musicians and the listener. No normally constituted musician would have agreed to let this recording be released. The problem with Rollins is that EVERYTHING IS LIKE THIS after 1966. He even said himself that he was high on marijuana when he recorded his solo album ''Soloscope'' at the Museum of Modern Art. from NYC...Also listen to the result, it's ridiculous and disrespectful towards the listeners... Ego and money Also, on the radio show, they say he was paid today's $300,000 for himself to record the Nucleus album (listen to the result!!!!), and that for his concerts, his Financial claims were unrealistic, only big festivals could afford it. He played with the Stones but didn't want to tour with them because, according to Mike Jagger himself, he wanted too much money! I am not making anything up here. In a blindfold test published in downbeat in 2006, he doesn't recognize ANY saxophonist, even taking James Carter for Don Byas! Totally mind-blowing and revealing! Conclusion In conclusion Sonny Rollins is for me the archetype of a narcissistic complacency encouraged by the fans and the milieu which has placed him on a throne since 1956 and his (very average) album ''saxophone colossus''. You have to be quite arrogant to glorify yourself as a ''saxophone colossus'' at 26 years old when BIRD had just died the previous year.

[@joshwakeham]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, there are some parts I agree with, and some I definitely disagree with, but that's the joy of this art form - we can like different musicians from each other, and we don't have to like everything every respected musician released! In case you want my thoughts, here they are: As a composer, yes he wrote some good standards that have stood the test of time, but I don't think anyone has ever tried to suggest that he was as important a composer as Wayne Shorter and the other musicians you listed. Sonny Rollins has been very open about the fact that St Thomas is just a folk melody. As an improviser, his use of melodic development is unmatched, as far as I'm aware. Of course, it may not be a device that you like, but I think your suggestion that not people think that musicians that aren't using melodic development are playing randomly is incorrect. No one is suggesting that Mobley, Griffin, Stitt, etc play just random notes at all, just that they don't use melodic hooks and motifs as much, and when they do they do not develop them as much. Stitt repeats whole phrases verbatim in his Eternal Triangle solo numerous times. They are great phrases, for sure, but they are repeated exactly. Rollins, on the other hand develops his melodic motifs when he returns to them, so there is far less exact repetition. Again, whether you like that or not is completely up to you.

[@stephenmatcham]

The real lesson is that there's more to jazz than bebop! Try listening to Lester Young.

[@joshwakeham]

Lester is one of my favourites!

[@AndreaRinciari]

😂

[@phpfunkdotcom]

I thought you were gonna talk about Sonny's fantastic motivic development on "The Bridge" album. That is the shiznit.

[@joshwakeham]

That stuff is absolute gold. Hoping to talk about it in a future video!