Letters from Artists and Fans

I have just listened to your CD and I think you have a really lovely sound. Thank you so much for sending the CD and Songbook. It’s nice to hear music that is not jarring and off-putting. Your CD made me feel very mellow. Your sound is quite beautiful. Oh, I said that. I guess that means I really mean it.

Thank you, again.
My very best to you.
Kim

Moonlight In Vermont

This is a friend and fan who unfortunately passed. She was around some of the great legends in jazz. It is this kind of heartwarming response that makes it all worth it.

Glenn- I’ve got some things that I think you should know. First of all I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and living with some greats of Jazz. Trane was so intense & could play so pretty with his ballads. Dexter was such a groover and played beautiful ballads. I knew him well. I could go on & on–but my point is you are as great a musician as any of them. You play with such passion & sweetness too on your ballads & then you really swing too. You were born with these talents & I’m sure you’ve worked your ass off practicing over the years. Lots of your passion comes from your Italian blood– I’m so serious about that. Plus I don’t know of anyone that plays 3 differant horns – all equally masterful. You are one of a kind.
I hope to God you win the Grammys. With all the talent that’s out now- you stand out as one of the greats. The young musicians try and play LIKE the greats of Jazz. You ARE one of the greats. I’ve never said these words to anyone before. I just wanted you to know how special you are.
You remind me of Philly Joe Jones– he grooved his ass off- but there was a prettiness in his playing. He is my favorite drummer. He use to stay at my house in LA when he was in town for a couple of years. George morrow too.
Anyway Glenn of course you should be on the Grammy Jazz committee, you know and play the real music called Jazz!
I’m so proud to know you.
Your Friend. Century

Century asked me to do this song for her before she wrote that.

Violets For Your Furs

Zvonimir Tosic is a very knowledgable friend and fan Musician and Fine Artist who studied music in Europe. His insights into my playing is both heartwarming and enlightening. I never analyzed my playing being an ear player and I am including my dialogue with Zvonimir in this section he is currently writing my biography a 5 year project.

Dear maestro Zottola,I just watched your video “My approach to playing Jazz by ear”.

I thought of writing this in a youtube comment, but decided to send you an email instead.
If you allow me to say, firstly, the episodes are splendid. Anyone lucky, and smart enough to listen to them, will learn a lot. But more to the point of your uniqueness as a musician. You showed us how Charlie Parker, Stan Getz and Clifford Brown played their solos, and your interpretation of all three. I think yours are *musically* better than any of those three.
You may think I’m exaggerating, but I shall explain why I think I’m not, but indeed, only stating a fact. 
All three musicians you quoted, play their solo parts because that is what they’ve used to play. However, you as a multi-instrumentalist, who played in various roles inside many big orchestras, have A. trained your ears to hear more, B. developed your character to be more cooperative with the rest of the band than any famed soloist, and C. then enriched your imagination to deliver more, especially in terms of — harmony. 
Your interpretations follow the melody roughly, they are sketchier than Parker’s, Stan’s, etc., but are immensely dense and complex in harmonic parts. None of the quoted musicians does that. That unique ability helps your playing to establish links with various parts of the orchestra. While Charlie Parker or Stan Getz would simply “float” on top of “the orchestral cushion”, and deliver melody which they then embellish, you play *both* the melody, and the harmony part, using an incredibly complex chromatic palette, that extends beyond a well embellished melody!  While it is possible for a good saxophonist to emulate Stan Getz playing in a certain music key, you, however, play inside, and also well *outside* the key, as if you were borrowing from parts (and phrases) played by *other instruments* in different tuning, or, filling in parts that other instruments should be playing, but those instruments aren’t really there. But you make them present. And all of that happens in real time. 
When I was analysing your play-along books, I noticed those incredibly complex excursions “outside the music key” of the melody of the piece, to weave a rich tapestry of tonality, using all chromatic notes (all the notes outside the key). I often said to myself, “Oh goodness me, this is so incredibly complex .. there are harmonic parts of other “invisible” instruments in this!” I think I’m correct in stating this. Because what you play is not mere embellishment of melody – you indeed play harmony too. 
Now that is quite something! Skilled guitar players may do that on an acoustic guitar, but on a saxophone? Goodness me! You, by far, are the most accomplished saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist I have ever heard in my life! Anyone who has any wits, should study how you play, which is unique, and more than what famed soloists on saxophones & trumpets delivered in the past. 
Hope you’re well, safe and healthy.
Kind regards,
Zvonimir Tosic

Dear Glenn,
The way you play those chromatic phrases (notes outside the key of the music piece) is revealing. You often play them legato (or connected, in a single breath; tonguing the first note and then merely flowing with other notes). That alone means you are not really working on melody alone (which would require more pronounced structure, more tonguing, or, holding onto the music key, because the music key makes the melody distinguishable and coherent). But you sketch around extra harmonic parts, actually, there are too many notes outside the scope of melody.  

So what are those notes, if not mere embellishment on melody?
If one sticks to jazz alone, one can’t answer this question. Your play-along books reveal the mystery, I think. The transcriptions of your solos are there, but when one looks at all the notes, and how the editors tried hard to figure out (quite literally!) which “chord progressions” you “were using” (by writing down the name of the chord above each measure or structure), the notation they’ve put for those “chords” .. makes no sense. 
They were overthinking it, really overcomplicating. Because you don’t play chord progressions at all. You improvise on harmony, and all the chromatic notes used to play improvisations, in theory only, they may “fit” into some obscure chord(s), but, that was not the point of your playing, and not the reason you played all those extra chromatic notes.
This is where a typical jazz player is facing a blank wall; those chord progressions in your music aren’t really progressions, but they are A. lyrical extensions of the melody, yes, and B. improvisation on extra harmony parts. 
You are in fact a classical player, and not a typical jazz player. Although jazz has become a genre, with certain structure of music, progressions, etc, you play so much extra on top and around it, that enables you to go outside of its confinement. You play chromatically, as if you were playing a few instruments in various tunings. 
For example, you play Bb tenor saxophone, and Eb alto saxophone. When you want to play C note on each, on tenor, C actually sounds like Bb concert, and C on alto sounds like Eb concert. You have a memory of both tunings in your ear, two different pitches, and when you wish to play something on Bb tenor that you remember from your alto playing, you remember the pitch, but you must shift the music key and must play in a different key on tenor, change the key on the fly, and then you return back. 
That was the reason I was confused with your tenor playing, when you interpret some songs not specifically made for tenor; the instrument sounded a lot like alto in those quick chromatic passages. Ordinary tenor players, like Stan Getz, would never play that, but you played it. You extended into the pitches that alto makes more easily, but which in the case of tenor playing, do not constitute melody any more (played by main instrument), but harmony (played by secondary instrument).
I wrote to you some time ago, that you do not sound like a typical jazz player, at all, and I think we know the answer why that is. You played in big orchestras, of 20+ players, surrounded by instruments in various tunings: straight trombones in C, pianos in C, tenor saxophones in Bb, alto saxophones in Eb, clarinets in Bb, trumpers in Bb, perhaps even horns in F, flutes in C, etc. For years you listened to all of that, and you remember the pitches. In a big band, each instrument supports the other, often through harmony, and when you wish to improvise as a soloist, you integrate some of that “support” by adding notes as if coming from a different instrument, but the notes fit well because the emphasis is on melody.
On the other hand, when a typical jazz player improvises like that on the melody, the result is often AWFUL, and cacophonic, because they work on artificial extension of melody, they shift keys to extend the melody alone, and produce awkward sounding nonsense. But you don’t do that.
For example, you do exactly what Beethoven does in his beautiful piano concerto:https://youtu.be/vvI9wG4_JTM?t=2005
If you listen the piano from this moment of the concerto, you will hear that all the extra notes piano is playing are not melodically required, nor are they really the extensions of the melody; the pianist’s left hand and the orchestra (even the violins) both play main melody of the movement, which is simple, but the extra arpeggios and legatos played with the right hand at a fast pace are harmonic extensions around the melody, that make the melody sound even better.  Again, thank you very much for your time, and for bearing my enthusiasm 🙂
Zvonimir 

Dear Glenn,
Sure. Here it is:This is piano concerto, so it is a sort of a dialogue between the piano and the orchestra. The theme (main melody line) is exchanged between the piano and the orchestra; at this particular moment, which is around 32:35min of the concert, the orchestra iterates the melody;
https://youtu.be/vvI9wG4_JTM?t=1955

– first all the strings- then the woodwinds, including the flute, oboe, etc- then the piano continues using the same melody line, but adds heaps more notes, which is not really the extension of the melody (as they wrongly teach us when it comes to improvisation), but because the orchestra is nearly silent then, the pianist is enriching of the melody with more harmonies (which all sound like extra sparkling notes around the melody), to compensate for the lack of flute, oboe, clarinets, etc. at that very moment.    Because our purpose in improvisation is not to butcher the melody (as people usually do), but to EMPHASIZE the melody by adding harmony lines around it, using chromatic notes (which can be outside the key of the melody), but they sound — harmonious. 
So your approach is classical because you respect the melody, but add extras, which are harmonics. On a piano it is much easier to do because it is a polyphonic instrument (many notes can play at the same time), but with the saxophone, you must (seemingly) interrupt the flow of the melody for a short while, then insert harmonies, then continue with the melody, then interrupt again to add harmonies, and so on. 
Now, your interruption of the melody with harmony is so good and invisible,  that it sounds just like a classical composer would do it because your inserted harmonies are indeed harmonies. What you learned in your youth, is part of you.
Hope this helps,Z

Dear Glenn,
Yes, let me show you your harmonies, and then the utter absurdity of notation using the chords, when dealing with complex (chromatic) playing. 
Your harmonic embellishments Say, your Stan Getz play-along book, song “Girl from Ipanema”; (page 11, measure 47, 48 and 499).The first line is your playing, and the second line below is the basic melody of the song by Jobim.  
In measure 49, while the original uses syllables in words as simple quavers (all the same repeating notes E, then D and F#); you, however, play legato (connected) quarters, and then a rapid succession of sixteenths in full chromatic scale, from E up to high F#. 
So, you see, you anchor yourself in the melodic beginning (note E) and in the melodic end (high F#), same notes that Jobim uses, but in between them, you play seven notes, not just one (Jobim only plays one note). With seven notes you add incredible dynamics in that part, and two out of those seven notes are outside the key of the melody (those two notes are A# and C#) A# and C# are not in the key of G (the music key of Jobim’s melody), but are outside of it, and that is why they are called “chromatic” – you borrowed them from the chromatic scale, and then did not use further. They were required for the harmonic improvisation in that part, so that a little slow and a bit repetitive part of the song sounds more exciting.
Then again, in measure 50, you don’t play simplistic F# then E, but instead you substitute F# with the rapid sixteenth notes F#-G-F#, which to our ears sound like F#, although there is a “quick G” in it. G alone would sound odd if played instead of F#, but wrapped inside two F#, it all sounds so much better. There, again, you extended F# harmonically (by just a semitone to G), and then returned back to F#, just to make it sound more exciting. 
Those are two examples of harmonic embellishments, which is a hallmark of your playing. You do it so well, with taste and dignity, and totally respecting the major principles and main anchor notes of the melody.
The absurdity of chord notations Now, when we have such embellishments of yours, done according to your feelings during your playing, writing chords to “describe” them is like putting the cart before the horse. Say, editors wrote for the measure 50: (D7 b5). That id D7 chord with a flat 5th, which means notes: D, F#, G#, C .. it’s ridiculous, because your G# was so short and pure embellishment. Structurally, it is not important because it is not in the melody!
I have never seen chord notation in classical music. Let’s open any score by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven etc., you won’t find any chord notations there. I only encountered it when I read jazz music sheets and I was puzzled. Then I figured out, that chord notations were used for several reasons: first jazz musicians could not read music notation at all, they all learned to play by ear, and could remember notes in the scales on the piano. Then, when they heard a song, they would write down chord names, one after another, (but not regular music notation for chord structure — only chord names), and that succession of chord names, one by one, would give them “a general idea” of the harmonic and melodic structure of the song. 
That’s the first problem; chords alone do not preserve the originality of the song, but allow endless skewing of it, to the point of no recognition – the melody can be so skewed that nobody knows what was the original! However, proper music notation preserves everything, the rhythm, the tempo, all accents, exact note durations, harmonics, counterpoints etc, and that is why classical music is so beautiful, and performed the same as Bach or Mozart composed it. Because it’s written down exactly. (Of course, there are parts in classical music that can be improvised upon, but composers who wrote exact notation, would also note where improvisation is possible.
Back to your books: writing “chords” on top of full score in proper notation, is nonsensical, because you already improvised!  Chords could be given in advance, if you worked roughly on some new song, and then given a task “work around these progressions, and figure out what kind of melody could be interesting”. That is proper use of chords, especially on a guitar, or on the piano, where a musician can play with chords to construct a new song.
But not a variation on an already existing, well-known song; that makes no sense.
Hope this attempt of mine somewhat answers the question!
Thank you so much for your time and patience!
Zvonimir

Hope this helps!

Dear Glenn,
Yes, Stan Getz does the same, or similar, but he also interferes into the melody, especially when he does concerts and then plays songs that he recorded once for an album that was very popular.What that means, is that players like Getz also intervenes into the structure of the song; when one changes the entire key of the song, well, that is not exactly the same song anymore — it is an experiment based on song. Remember the piano concerto I referenced yesterday? Imagine that concerto played in a different key? It would sound nothing like Beethoven imagined; it is in a certain key because of the exact mood and feeling; change the key, and the feeling is changed, the mood is gone. But a Romanticist composer like Beethoven is concerned about exact and intense feelings, which contain a certain message! So, you see, I personally can tolerate experiments to a certain extent, because experimenting in classical European tradition is allowed A) for the sake of learning, B) composing new songs using some interesting phrases from existing songs, or C) new variations on the song (which then changes the authorship), but not performing the existing songs that became popular and loved because of the exact key, rhythm, and the intent of the author. 
Say this sublime piece, filled with sadness and melancholy (Adagio from Concerto di Aranjuez); change the key from minor to major, and shift it around the circle of fifths, and it becomes pathetic!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbV9t6U2IIg

Dear Glenn,

Yes, that jazz pianist was mostly correct; you already know the melodies of the songs, you heard them performed so you also know how harmony extensions can be done depending on the exact setup of the orchestra. Say, if you play in a quartet, you may need more harmonic additions than in an octet, because other players will fill it up. Playing in larger orchestras can be more rewarding because all people get to play, and one player won’t exhaust himself doing impossible acrobatics to keep the listeners attentive all the time.
Chords are used for constructing the song from scratch; like quick sketching. Once the song is constructed and polished up, chords are not necessary and could be forgotten. They are like scaffolds on the building; once the building is constructed, scaffolds are not necessary to keep it in place because the structure is already there.
The chords, of course, is playing of at least three notes in unison. Piano can do it, guitar can do it too, organ, etc. The saxophone can’t play three notes at once; sax can play them in succession, one after another – but that is NOT music. Because, what do those notes inside one chord mean? By definition that comes from the classical music, each note in a chord represents one human voice timbre; the bass male voice, tenor male voice, alto female voice, soprano female voice etc. Originally, all music was vocal, then instrumental. Now, several chords alone do not tell how melody goes exactly, nor the possible harmony, because chord changes are usually done once or twice per measure, although the measure – in real performance – may have 3, 4, 8, 12, etc. different articulations and changes of one particular human voice, which decides to play a certain melody.
Therefore, the music is far more complex than chords; with chords we only say, “we’ll use four main voices, and the soprano will do melody in one part while alto, tenor and bass do the harmonic support there, but then, we can silence bass and alto, and leave tenor and soprano, etc”. That means, one really must write all exact changes for each voice, each note, duration, each pause, etc. The exact music is then written for each voice. That is how the music is composed usually.
1. choosing the voices (chord structure)2. roughing out (sketching out) major directions, and basics of melody and possible harmony – that is chord progression.3. nuancing each voice, which is melodic and harmonic nuancing
I’m writing all this also to remind myself from time to time. …Thank you very much!
Z 

Dear Glenn,

yes, you are correct. When jazz players play with strings, it is the strings and the orchestra that tame and define the structure of the song, making a nice arrangement for all instruments. Then a jazz soloist comes to play on top of all that. A very large orchestra can’t play by ear, and players can’t read everybody’s body language: improvisation is impossible with symphonic and larger bands. Everything they do must be well rehearsed. 
With Charlie Parker, strings and the orchestra thus prepared, lead the melody part, softly, spreading a broad cushion for a soloist to improvise.
It is not much different at all from, for example, clarinet concertos, violin concertos, trumpet or similar concertos. People don’t know this, they don’t teach them this in schools, but the soloists who perform in front of the orchestra, do not always follow sheet music. They too improvise (on harmony, but not on melody), add ornamentations, subtract them, etc. The composers of such work would leave in, deliberately, places within the composition where the soloists are given freedom.
Harmonic improvisation and ornamentation around the melody started to be vogue in Baroque music, and is preserved ever since. There are very fine tutorials on ornamentations, and some composers, like Georg P. Telemann (one of the most famous composers of all times), himself wrote tutorials on how to improvise and ornament playing. He constructed exercises with increasing amounts of complexity, and when and in what context to choose certain solutions (to add variety to repeating phrases, to end certain phrases, etc). Improvisations also varied from place to place (Italian, German, French, etc.). 
Roughly speaking, there are two types of improvisations or ornamentations: 1. passaggi and 2. graces.1. Passaggi means adding extra (chromatic) notes to the established melody to increase its dynamics. Something like a set of very quick seven of 1/16 notes in bars 47-49 of your Girl from Ipanema (we discussed this earlier). 2. Graces are adding ornamentation to the existing notes; for example, in your Girl From Ipanema, an example of grace is that F#; Jobim wrote it, and you played it as a quick legato F#-G-F#.
All of these can be rhythmic, when the notes are specially emphasized, say, for dance.
There are some nice books out there on ornamentation and improvisation on the music of Baroque, and onwards. Some of them:
— Ornamentation in Baroque and Post-Baroque Music: With Special Emphasis on J.S. Bach
https://www.amazon.com/Ornamentation-Baroque-Post-Baroque-Music-Emphasis/dp/0691027072/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Ornamentation+of+Baroque+telemann&qid=1600419259&s=books&sr=1-1-fkmr0

– The Ornamentation of Baroque Music: A Guide for Independent Embellishinghttps://www.amazon.com/Ornamentation-Baroque-Music-Manfredo-Zimmermann/dp/3739231971/ref=pd_lpo_14_t_2/140-8733774-9723455?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=3739231971&pd_rd_r=7bdc84e0-3372-4ab9-9fbc-77ac93184fbb&pd_rd_w=AVRum&pd_rd_wg=DSFAc&pf_rd_p=7b36d496-f366-4631-94d3-61b87b52511b&pf_rd_r=3NBH0EAR97MQZBN9C4ZN&psc=1&refRID=3NBH0EAR97MQZBN9C4ZN

Kind regards,Zvonimir

No ornamentation is just ornamentation; it is improvisation, because it is contextual and can differ each time. Because they are mostly harmonic additions, they are indeed new lines added to the song.
Depending on the type of orchestra, number of players, the repertoire etc. improvisation is decided upon. The difference I see in your playing is that you totally follow the classical approach to improvisation, which emphasises new harmonic lines. Early jazz players did the same, or similar, because they got songs written by many composers who immigrated from Europe to the USA. They were hanging out together, giving instructions, writing songs for living.While some other players improvised by carving into the melody, and rhythm, and mood, and recomposing it (say, Coltrane) which is a tricky job that often yields disaster.
But .. many people thought that is the purpose of ‘jazzing” — abstract expressionism.
Zvonimir

On 18 Sep 2020, at 21:04, Glenn Zottola <glennzottola@gmail.com> wrote:

I looked at the forward of the books you mention wonderful. Yes i love ornamentation and “embellishments” as i call it and the original instructions from my dad on how to play jazz “just embellish the melody like Louie” is the basis of all my playing until you introduced your analysis. How does ornamentation of embellishment relate to your description of my playing using the Beethoven piano concerto as an example or is that something different than just ornamentation and embellishment ?

I love Barry Harris great player and very knowledgeable ! He did a master class on “Giant Steps” which was amazing. He said he doesn’t like the song (the holy grail of modern jazz) and demonstrated how he would approach it melodically. 

On Sep 18, 2020, at 7:29 AM, Zvonimir Tosic <zvonimir.tosic@gmail.com> wrote:Dear Glenn,
Thank you for telling me such valuable stories. Indeed, the life of music often springs from such inspirations and sheets found somewhere.I myself have copied heaps of sheets, including an operetta for parts for Bb instruments, etc.
I listened to Barry Harris, the jazz pianist, who says that what we know about many jazz standards, may not be quite true. In other words, that they were not written by people whom we attribute their origin. He tells that from the structure of songs, and from his own experience from working in the field, he suspects many songs to have originated from teachers of music from Europe, who migrated to the USA, especially in between two wars. Those were decades when it was nearly impossible to compose in Europe, or have any cultural life there. But it thrived in the USA.
Teachers would compose songs quite according to long-established rules, and then would write down heping notes to the American musicians how to perform them, and then the jazz players would do that, and improvise. In return, they’d get some pennies for food, clothing, etc. I can imagine that ‘Pennies from Heaven’ is not given such a name for nothing!
Zvonimir

On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 at 21:12, Glenn Zottola <glennzottola@gmail.com> wrote:
wow i guess all that early exposure to classical music with my dad seeped in. I know Gil Evans who my dad knew very well as they were both arrangers on the Claude Thornhill band  used to have Miles Davis , Gerry Mulligan and others over his apartment after their gigs on 52nd street and play classical music for them. Charlie Parker carried around the scores to The Rite Of Spring and Petrouska. Speaking of that when my dad was studied arranging his professor received the score to Petrouska that was smuggled in from Russia. My dad was what they call an “autographer” meaning his handwriting was perfect all the bar lines perfectly straight etc. He was given the assignment to copy all the parts from the score by his professor and after 3 tries he got a pass and those parts were sent to make plates for printing the music !!

On Sep 18, 2020, at 7:04 AM, Zvonimir Tosic <zvonimir.tosic@gmail.com> wrote:Yes, it does qualify.What wanted to state all along, is that your  improvised music draws back from an old tradition, from best composers and players world has seen. You are in that same tradition. 

Thank you.Zvonimir

Dear GlennPlease see attached an excerpt from the partitura (music sheets) by G. Telemann, one of the most prolific composers ever. Written way back in 1728, it is one of the guides for performers how to interpret the melody, see the possibilities, and lift it all up to a higher aesthetic and virtuosic expression.
I have emphasised in yellow all lines with Telemann’s own interpretation of the basic melody that runs above.  Same as with transcriptions of your solos on top of Jobim’s basic melody, this one too is full of improvisations. This piece, for example, is in Bb-Major, but if you look at improvisations line, notes used there come from the entire chromatic scale.  The book I took the excerpt from, with Telemann’s own guides to improvisation (as he notes, “The way I would play it”) is here:
https://www.henle.de/en/detail/?Title=Methodische+Sonaten+für+Flöte+oder+Violine+und+Continuo%2C+Band+I_1266

He wrote this guide for flute, or violin, on top of lines for bass continuo (which is baroque rhythm + basic harmonic arrangement section).
Kind regards, 
Zvonimir

On 18 Sep 2020, at 20:51, Glenn Zottola <glennzottola@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you but does this kind of traditional jazz playing I did in this period of my life when I worked with Benny Goodman and Bob Wilber and other swing artists qualify for what you are describing so beautifully as my “classical approach” using harmony and melody and embellishments ?

Dear Glenn,
When I go online, and see millions of views and thousands of blind/repetitive accolades about totally boring performances by famed saxophonists (who are not great musicians at all), .. and then see just a dozen of views on your stellar playing .. I am saddened.   But then, I say to myself, it is better to be appreciated by a handful of wise men, than by the thousands of ignorant and tonally deaf. Thank you for all your efforts, and all time given to future generations, and especially for your play-along books!  

Kind regards,
Zvonimir Tosic

This response from Zvonimir truly rewarding was based on my recording “try a little the tenderness” with strings which is on this website in another section. I asked him if this kind of playing fell into the earlier category of his analysis on my improvisation regarding classical approach etc.

Dear Glenn 
Goodness me, this is breathtakingly beautiful ! I must listen to it a dozen more times, to get my head around details… 
Thank you for proving my initial impression when I first heard your saxophone playing; you are a genius. 
Thank you maestro.
Zvonimir

Dear Glenn, Of course, it’s the same approach. Let’s say, that is your philosophy regardless of content, but your delivery may depend on your intent and demand of the audience.
In this beautiful track, you opted for a slow release of emotions, which fits the atmosphere of slow dance / nightclub two step dance for example. So your tones are extended and beautiful, and when needed, you add harmonies as occasional smiles (faster passages) in the conversation on the dance floor.
So in this approach, I would say that your playing is both singing and playing; it is as if you sing first with a human voice on the saxophone, then play an instrument after it to give it some rest; then the voice comes in again, and so on. Ben Webster often opts for more singing quality, that is, if the song is not singable, he is not interested in playing it; he is not at all interested in showing skills that people can’t dance to and immerse all their body and soul. Because he often played slow ballads in quartets or quintets, then other instruments would take a different voice and he’d hand it over, waiting for his turn. It is beautiful, classically American, ballad playing.  
And of course, slow ballads aren’t ‘Queen of the Night’ jumpy operatic themes full of harmonics that only a handful of people may sing, if at all. So even when you speed up a little, you leave an open end to it, those notes often merely begin and then disappear .. we have to guess them, rather than listen to them as if demanded by force on our ears.
That quality of such harmonisation is exceedingly difficult. Players like Brecker can’t do it (of course, he is a different genre, but even then). Coltrane can’t do it. Dexter can’t do it in a million years. Parker can, but he plays songs one can’t dance to. Getz can do it, but not with such effortless ease; he still works in clearly defined, more extended sections; faster – slower – faster. Lester Young can do it, but he does not emphasise those expanding and contracting emotions as well as you, but that may be because of the wholly different times and demands of the audience; 1940s and 50s were quite different times; the impact of WW2 was damaging, and those musicians had to heal people’s spirit with a good dose of positive sing and dance.
Ta, Z

Dear Glenn,
Well, yes and no. You do not merely ornament.This is a complex subject, which I explore in my reviews of your albums with books. 

Any ornamentation is hardly possible without some, at least intuitive drive to compose harmonic lines. So good ornamentation belongs to — composition. 
That is why when people mention jazz improvisation, as if it is something ‘new’ or amazing, I refer back to 250-300 years ago, and ask if anyone is familiar with baroque real-time improvisation, which is also real-time composition. Many have never heard of that. There is no real difference in what good jazz musicians do, and what good baroque (and classical) performers did.  
Or to put it in another context; many people know how to speak well. Many know to put down a few words on paper, or write a diary. But some people dare to write a short story, some even go to write novels. 
Music is the same; most people know how to whistle melodies, some know how to extend whistling and play an instrument. But some know how to use events from their own lives and make into new stories (compositional improvisation). And some dare to write a new operatic opus (novels).
The analogy goes forward; some musicians play scales and chords and think they improvise; it is the same as writers who use cliche lines in dialogues, cliché and predictable lines in descriptions, which is nothing original – but just a beginner’s stuff.
With really good improvisational composition there are no exacting rules, and this is where you excel, and puts you several cuts above skilled jazz musicians, at the level of Getz, Parker, etc. I completely stand by those thoughts. 
However, because you roughly follow some anchor points in the melody, which was written by Gershwin for example, you do not rely on anchors of your own, brand-new composition. You ‘re-interpret’ Gershwin using the new harmonic material. What composers like Beethoven etc. did, was writing down some brand new melodic lines, on which they could apply their great skills as improvisational composers on top of it.
Here is a bit of an exaggerated example of Beethoven’s improvisational compositional skills, which was a sport in his days. (this completely debunks stupid theories that classical musicians can’t improvise in real-time, a theory taught even in some shools and elsewhere which I hate). Please note that another character here, Steibelt, was not that bad as portrayed in this short movie; far from it, he was an excellent pianist, but the example here was exaggerated to show Beethoven’s virtuosity in developing new and unusual material on top of existing tunes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT8cBX893ic
I say unusual because they both play on a concert key instrument (piano); but Beethoven would dare going in unexpected directions. When you play Bb tenor, and Eb alto, you already are mingling in unusual keys when playing on top of seemingly the same tune. This is why I urge that you continue to play both tenor and alto, even one on top of another, because it is (very roughly) similar to playing low register with the left, and upper register with the right hand on the piano. However, on the piano you mingle through one key at the time, whilst playing on two saxophones, you can play in two keys at the same time.
I hope my explanation is not over the top, so please forgive me.
Ta, Zvonimir    

Several years later 2023 :

I also wanted to go through the emails we exchanged all these years, and summarise — better to say, expand on — my love and admiration for your music. You are a one-of-a-kind musician. I feel privileged to have known you, and your musicianship, and to be acquainted with your talent. The reason why you are so excellent is your musical imagination and absolute lack of effort when you perform. Whatever you think of, your mind follows and the instrument listens and produces with clarity, nuance, and incomparable feeling. 
I think you were lucky, for working with a wide variety of artists and being able to absorb many genres, subgenres, and styles and not only one as most players do. While some famous players dominated in one style that brought them fame (and then they were celebrated by those who wanted to be as famous as they were), you – on the other hand – played brilliantly in many styles, and have acquired more gold and jewels than them. 
If we observe how jazz was developing, from 1. Classical > 2. to swing > 3. to bebop, you are able to incorporate in the last many elements of the former, because they indeed are there … but not many players understand it, or hear it. But you do. 
Many who don’t understand how some phrases came in, or why are played in bebop, simply call it “chromatic passages”. (You will hear the same expression when some virtuoso guitarists play long solos in progressive rock music). But that is an excuse only – those people don’t really hear echoes of past music styles in a new style that developed from them, so they are confused. When they need to play, they follow “the formula” of the style, but which soon created repetitive, predictable and boring music.
You have the ability to avoid all that, and you are able to breathe in an air of freshness even in something considered “a standard”.
Your phrasing is so bloody good and refreshing that I like your rendition of Charlie Parker way better than the original. 
As a sort of musician myself, who loves the art of music, I tend to respect the art of music, and I don’t really care WHO is playing … I listen to the QUALITY of music and musicianship, and I’m always drawn to your performances.

More later,
kind regards, Zvonimir & family.

Dear Glenn,

I will surely write more about all the details that fascinate me as well.

TALENTS AND SETTLERS
I never take arts, especially music, for granted. When I hear something extraordinary, I try to get closer to it and understand it better. I have learned that in pursuit of knowledge in any field, but especially in arts and music because they seem to be so elusive, I cannot rely on “common wisdom”, or even worse, on common taste. 

Much we read about music playing is not quite correct because it’s written by people who profited from the show biz side of music (or arts). In any genre, there are a few pioneers who define the landscape, and then come in “settlers”, who populate that landscape with their enterprises.  

While the pioneers usually have an excellent talent, the settlers have a very limited scope of understanding what they do music-wise; they are there to make money. But when asked, they “supposedly” talk about music, and give formulaic answers that make no deeper musical sense. That formulaic gobbledygook became “music theory” taught in colleges. 

INCREDIBLE SKILL
In terms of your improvisations, there are many variables that make you distinct from other players. When you read the notation of your solos, which you improvised on the spot, it’s difficult for you to analyse yourself. So it is best to do it via some analogy. I’ll provide you with my thoughts when I was studying your solos.

Firstly, I saw what is the basic melody line written by the original composer. It’s always simple, anyone can whistle it.

Your solos are quite the opposite: incredibly complex but sound so beautiful. If I want to play one of them – for someone like me who hasn’t touched an instrument for decades – I know I can’t do it. But, I study the general motion of your progressions; if you played three bars of 1/32 notes, I isolate key ones among them, and then play them only as 1/16 notes, while trying to understand why you played other notes next to it. Then I see the pattern: you played them because it is *melodically correct*. You have the skill to add as many extra notes as necessary towards the general motion of the melody, and you do it very often. The composer already made sure that the harmonic part fits the melodic motion (progression), so you don’t seek ideas in “harmonies” alone, as many others do. Why do they do that? Because they learned music the wrong way. They play as percussionists do, not as vocals would do. That is where the art of saxophone playing goes downhill.

A COMPOSER AMONG DRAUGHTSMEN

And that was the hint for me to understand the complexity of your talent: you are quite an original composer yourself. Most other players are players only, they can “improvise around chords”. That means as fully fledged musicians they are hopelessly boring, but .. you are a composer. You have original ideas, and it seems you never run out of them. 

But you do it all correctly. One of the reasons you can compose on the go is that your skill on the instrument is incredible. That lack of effort determines and increases the complexity of what you play. Your skill is so advanced, that I don’t know of any other saxophone player who can play so smoothly, elegantly and accurately, and sound so correct and melodic at the same time. There are no wrong notes there. Why? Because you silently took your liberty and “recomposed” parts of the melody to sound — better.

Your toolkit: slurs, accents, legatos etc. are — impeccable. I have listened to a ton of saxophone players. I did listen a lot to Charlie Parker too, who had very advanced skills. As much as everyone admires his skill, for example, your playing is — technically speaking — even better than his. Your fingers are quicker, your phrasing is smoother. And, unlike Charlie Parker, you never repeat yourself. You don’t stare at the blank spot in the middle of a song and begin repeating some phrase with minimal changes; that doesn’t happen to you. 

Why is that? No matter how great he was, Mr Parker was still a player of his genre, and regardless of what he contributed to that genre, he did struggle to find fresh new phrases and ideas. Maybe it was the outlook, or circumstances. I think he recognised that, although others did not understand him. I heard him wanting to go study more, go to Europe, study classical music, etc. But he never had the chance. On the other hand, even if you did not know that information, you did expose yourself to a lot more than Charlie did, and many other players, and have used that to polish up yourself on so many levels and details. Being a touring musician who works in different bands has its benefits, and some benefits are not immediately recognisable. 

Now, if Charlie had struggled, then, pray tell, how much struggle those who worked less than him, and who have less talent than him? 

I think an honest musician must recognise that; for the sake of art itself. We all have a different capacity in what we do and we can choose two paths: \

A. either to work on our deficiencies, or 

B. overemphasize our strengths.

As I mentioned in my previous email, the art of playing the saxophone as an accompaniment to the mellow voice of a singer, that art is long gone. There are no recent references to such skills, nor recorded new vocabularies. It’s gone.

The slurs you use, which are sometimes long, you use better than any other saxophonist. Charlie Parker was also famous for using them, but in a different context of harder bop, so his slurs are different, more “edgy”, and more “consonant” because he did not need to play gently, no need for him to accompany vocals. 

Your slurs are more elegant and softer than his because it is a different narrative vehicle, so to speak. which you had to create in saxophone playing when you stand next to a vocalist who sings with a gentle, sumptuous voice. Indeed, what else could you do?

You can’t play saxophone then as other chord choppers would play. They play against electric guitars, pianos and drums. Theirs is a completely different context, but more common than your context. Which the critic, and most of the saxophone players in general, do not understand. In your context, they would be lost.

SKILLS UNAVAILABLE TODAY
That is why they are not aware of the need for such a playing style, honing a different types of skills. Your slurs, which are impeccably elegant and without weird cacophonies, don’t miss any notes. Although it all sounds smooth, you are not playing “syllables” only,  without consonants. You imitate human voice or informal and witty conversation. 

But even in case your slurs are analysed, as I have, structurally, that comment that you play “without consonants”, that remark is stupid. Technically speaking, that would mean you are playing only some notes, not all. It would mean you avoid chromatic notes and play only chords-progression notes. 

But that is exactly the opposite of what is going on: the chord choppers, who play like typewriters, THEY play chord notes (syllables), and not consonants. Because they falsely think they must know what piano is gonna play, they have no time nor real musical talent to say where to add suitable chromatic passing notes (consonants). But you don’t care what the piano will do, because you improvise around MELODY, not the pianic harmony. You play all the syllables (chord notes) and consonants (chromatic notes) with such skill that it escapes people’s attention.

But because critics and modern players have no recent references to such a style, they easily misjudge yours.

YOUR CLASSICAL STYLE
The saxophone is a chameleon-like instrument. It’s called a woodwind instrument because of the reed it uses, but in truth it sits in between woodwinds and brass. You, as an accomplished trumpet player, are used to playing elegant slurs that a trumpet can do remarkably well. 

Listen to the music of the 17th or 18th centuries, for example, and the trumpet plays endless slurs, mixed with more rhythmical attacks, and it all sounds beautiful. When you come to play a saxophone, you have the skill and knowledge to play all the same notes you would otherwise play on a trumpet, and you play them on a saxophone. That is where your CLASSICAL heritage, inherited from your trumpet playing, kicks in. 

Not only Classical music, but Romantic music too. Say, Chopin, or Schuman, Schubert, etc. That music would be impossible without the most amazing soft slurs. Piano is a percussive instrument, those hammer strokes are difficult to soften and control, but the Romanticists – who love to contrast passages of harder strokes with passages with ultra-soft slurred strokes – make it sounds orchestral, and sumptuous.

YOUR OWN VERSION OF ROMANTIC BOP
And that is the closest reference to your style. Slurs are also used by early jazz saxophone players, like Lester Young, but his slurs are not too complicated. But he did not need any others. Bop, on the other hand, lost a lot, and had hard times with slurs. Music without the softness of slurs sounds too neurotic, and that is what, I believe, had annoyed you in other people’s playing. But you were able to integrate them in YOUR OWN version of bop, which then sound like nothing else.

Sincerely, Zvonimir

From Zvonimir – Oct 21st 2023

As I mentioned in my previous email, the art of playing the saxophone as an accompaniment to the mellow voice of a singer, that art is long gone. There are no recent references to such skills, nor recorded new vocabularies. It’s gone.

The slurs you use, which are sometimes long, you use better than any other saxophonist. Charlie Parker was also famous for using them, but in a different context of harder bop, so his slurs are different, more “edgy”, and more “consonant” because he did not need to play gently, no need for him to accompany vocals. 

Your slurs are more elegant and softer than his because it is a different narrative vehicle, so to speak. which you had to create in saxophone playing when you stand next to a vocalist who sings with a gentle, sumptuous voice. Indeed, what else could you do?

You can’t play saxophone then as other chord choppers would play. They play against electric guitars, pianos and drums. Theirs is a completely different context, but more common than your context. Which the critic, and most of the saxophone players in general, do not understand. In your context, they would be lost.

SKILLS UNAVAILABLE TODAY
That is why they are not aware of the need for such a playing style, honing a different types of skills. Your slurs, which are impeccably elegant and without weird cacophonies, don’t miss any notes. Although it all sounds smooth, you are not playing “syllables” only,  without consonants. You imitate human voice or informal and witty conversation. 

But even in case your slurs are analysed, as I have, structurally, that comment that you play “without consonants”, that remark is stupid. Technically speaking, that would mean you are playing only some notes, not all. It would mean you avoid chromatic notes and play only chords-progression notes. 

But that is exactly the opposite of what is going on: the chord choppers, who play like typewriters, THEY play chord notes (syllables), and not consonants. Because they falsely think they must know what piano is gonna play, they have no time nor real musical talent to say where to add suitable chromatic passing notes (consonants). But you don’t care what the piano will do, because you improvise around MELODY, not the pianic harmony. You play all the syllables (chord notes) and consonants (chromatic notes) with such skill that it escapes people’s attention.

But because critics and modern players have no recent references to such a style, they easily misjudge yours.

YOUR CLASSICAL STYLE
The saxophone is a chameleon-like instrument. It’s called a woodwind instrument because of the reed it uses, but in truth it sits in between woodwinds and brass. You, as an accomplished trumpet player, are used to playing elegant slurs that a trumpet can do remarkably well. 

Listen to the music of the 17th or 18th centuries, for example, and the trumpet plays endless slurs, mixed with more rhythmical attacks, and it all sounds beautiful. When you come to play a saxophone, you have the skill and knowledge to play all the same notes you would otherwise play on a trumpet, and you play them on a saxophone. That is where your CLASSICAL heritage, inherited from your trumpet playing, kicks in. 

Not only Classical music, but Romantic music too. Say, Chopin, or Schuman, Schubert, etc. That music would be impossible without the most amazing soft slurs. Piano is a percussive instrument, those hammer strokes are difficult to soften and control, but the Romanticists – who love to contrast passages of harder strokes with passages with ultra-soft slurred strokes – make it sounds orchestral, and sumptuous.

YOUR OWN VERSION OF ROMANTIC BOP
And that is the closest reference to your style. Slurs are also used by early jazz saxophone players, like Lester Young, but his slurs are not too complicated. But he did not need any others. Bop, on the other hand, lost a lot, and had hard times with slurs. Music without the softness of slurs sounds too neurotic, and that is what, I believe, had annoyed you in other people’s playing. But you were able to integrate them in YOUR OWN version of bop, which then sound like nothing else.

Sincerely, Zvonimir

Dear Glenn,

Good taste is exemplified when a composer or a player deliberately cuts down on unnecessary ideas and fluff in order to respect other people’s time and their good taste too.

For example, in your work, you had to be aware of downtime cost, which the studio hated. Therefore your mind was working hard on how to anticipate problems, overcome problems and deliver only the best of the best. Even if it took just a few hours of preparation, or even less than that. You were pressured to deliver great music which would lift up people’s hearts, excite the producers, make the director happy, and make your band and a vocalist happy too. That is very hard work that requires immense talent, patience, nerves of steel and incredible (self)editing skills! And those are all classical traits. 

See similar examples:

 
ACTS
Lengthy music pieces of the classical period were often split into acts. Why was that necessary? Firstly, it is difficult to keep attention for so long, but the logistics required it; there was no electricity back then, so the music act had to be long enough to tell all necessary musical ideas, but short enough to allow the operators to light up the new candles, because candles were used to lit up the orchestra and the theatre.

DECREES
Then in Austria, I was reading, there was even a decree issued by the emperor, to keep the public art and music acts short enough, not to encourage the escalation of bad taste. At the time, music began to be a very lucrative business, many inexperienced musicians wanted to prove themselves by writing overly long and repetitive work, thinking that “stretching” the work would help them hide immaturity and lack of good talent and taste.

Thus good musicians would rather choose the opposite path; better to cut the work more severely, learn good self-editing skills and keep only the best ideas, which in turn keeps the audience hungry for more.

NOT ENOUGH MUSICIANS 
And there was another issue: although the manufacture of instruments was state-sponsored, to encourage the widespread acceptance of music arts among the population, there were not many readily available musicians if every single composer wanted to indulge way too much. Thus everyone was competing to deliver the best possible result and hire the most accomplished players, and that is one of the reasons why classical music is often so bloody good and timeless.

WHO IS CLAPPING FOR WHAT?
Then there was another phenomenon noted during that time; many would come and listen to the performances of music acts, but maybe 80% of the audience did not know how to appreciate the work fully. They came just for fun. When some educated guests and musicians in the audience would start clapping, that crowd would begin clapping even louder and “demanding more”. Which, again, is based not on understanding of music, but on lack of understanding. Composers were warned about that, and urged not to compose their work with too many intentional breaks, in order to “demand more unnecessary clapping”. 

Fast forward to the 20th/21st century, and we see that only a few musicians in each field follow even some of the rules that classical composers had followed. Under the false premises of “Western freedoms” as opposed to “Eastern oppressions”, modern western musicians opted for “more freedom” but it was only a bad excuse and a very deadly trap, that quickly fools the artists into overestimating the reach of their own skills and talent. Add to this the clapping of the 80% of those who have no idea what they are clapping to, and it ruins the prospects of entire genres, which then quickly disappear into irrelevance.   

Music is a strange phenomenon of human life, involving more than what meets the eye.

Sincerely, Zvonimir

Zvonimir On 7 steps to heaven 10.26.23

Dear Glenn,

Please, send me more tracks like these, where you explore various genres!

I compared your version with one by Miles Davis, and I like your playing better than his.

Now, please, don’t assume I’m trying to flatter you; each time I praise your music, I always want to explain why I think that. I purport my delight with evidence. Your ability to reinterpret and add new ideas is simply superb, and rare even amongst the most talked about popular musicians.

Being too popular does not equate with being really good or gifted. Often, a really great talent passes almost unnoticed, and it is an envy of those who are popular. 

What you do is mesmerising. Your touch makes even wild and unfinished compositions of Miles Davis refreshingly new, and finally complete.

A lot of jazz from that era is experimental, like rock and hard rock was experimental in that same period. What musicians played then, were open-end experiments, but the audience falsely believes that it is finished work, only because “it is recorded.”

Not at all. Again, I do believe this ability of yours to recognise a good idea, and then work it out, is coming from your classical background and classical taste. The classical background and classical music is not about pretty music, or grandiose music, or some genius singular talent, or some experiments that nobody has done before. iIt is rather about a type of the discipline of the mind, and an excellent taste, to immediately discard a sub-par idea, a sub-par performance, and uplift it with something that can resist the effect of time. 

Sincerely, Zvonimir

Dear Glenn,

There is more to it that you have, but maybe not paying enough attention to it because it is natural to you.

Your technique, the skill in instrument playing, nuancing, ability to produce any type of sound, any stretch, any subtlety .. all of that is extraordinary. 

And yet most musicians that play these long improvisations based on modal music, or ethnographic music, are not quite technically proficient. 

Now, when you played even that short song in this style, you sounded remarkable, so you bring in to the table not available in those genres, and you immediately draw attention.

Not only technically better than those guys, I know you will dismiss me and think I’m joking when I say your trumpet playing is better than even Miles Davis’, and that you are more technically proficient than him; he would not have the stamina to play in the capacity and variety that you do.

I’m not flattering you. I’m only stating a fact.

And that extraordinary skill of yours adds something to the music that is not mere note playing.

Sincerely, Zvonimir

October 29 ,2023

Dear Glenn

This was the subject I thought a lot about since I first discovered your books and music.

Playing “chordal changes” with chordal notes or some patterns was a boring concept that was used by beginners, and yet it was used a lot by most players in jazz.
That is why most players in jazz were boring to me, and the genre was dry. When that is done in a superfast manner and across various abstract scales, everything becomes unlistenable.

But when I heard you, I stopped. I could not believe, “This man is different.” How? What is his approach, and how did he learn it? You were playing different notes altogether, you did not repeat nonsense but were developing new melody content. And then your technique was head and shoulders above others.

That was completely out of the ordinary. Such playing and phrasing do not come from mere “changes”. Of course, the shorter types of songs from the American songbook follow certain designs or structures, but your playing on top of that basic structure was something else. The structure itself is irrelevant because you can play on top of anything! I knew that immediately, and with each new month, I was confirming with all the styles and situations I discovered you were playing in.

After Stan Getz, you were the first American player that did not bore me to death, either by 1) abstract experiments that lead to nowhere, or 2) by repetition of the same, using beginner’s patterns and the “typewriter approach” in tone generation.

That is why you were an enigma to me, and I have concluded you are the missing link, who proves the connection between classical and jazz, but nobody else was noticing that.

Sincerely, Zvonimir

Dear Glenn,

That is what I was telling myself, and to you.

Because you had to work on many ends, as a leader of the band, you ask for a little help, and then by using the motif given by the pianist, you expand on it. 

Somebody else would \ask the pianist to write it all, and then they would ask the pianist what the progression is, etc. 

To me, that means most people in music don’t really understand music at all.  

Everything must be served to them, everything on a plate. They even memorise the bloody patterns, scales, parts of scales, arpeggios, etc. because they have no clue how to play without heavy memorisation. And nearly all of them can’t produce a nice tone on the instrument. With a nice tone, even those boring patterns would sound nice, but nah, they can’t even play nicely. They play like robots.

Others, who want to teach that stuff, they repeat same mistakes: they believe, and they then make students believe, music is exacting chemistry, where in situation A, you add to the mixture “2 of these scales” and “3 of those patterns”, and in situation B you add “4 of these substitutions” and “2 of those.”

Because I wanted to get to the bottom of the problem of contemporary music education in America, I watched way too many of such explanations, which repeat everywhere. I was exhausted. At one moment, one guy, who was a bit more honest than the others, gave up for a while, and said, “And what Paul Desomnd plays here .. I don’t really know …”

Paul Desmond was a highly accomplished composer of his own, and his was a rare talent. 

That was the “aha!” moment for me, the puzzle had started to assemble in my brain, and then I realised: 

– that you are in a similar artistic situation as Paul Desmond,

– why is everyone else in jazz these days playing the same stuff (they can only memorise, and repeat the same patterns), 

– why they can’t really understand performances of best players of melody (it’s all about innate talent, which is rare),

– why the genre is shrinking (because the untalented have occupied everything and are suffocating audience with uninspired garbage),

– why is sometimes difficult for the very talented players to explain their playing (because they play, and don’t have time for the analysis, They could try to attempt to patent their approach, but they can’t patent it, because it is highly original content that can’t be repeated nor put into a cookie-cutter form)

And so on.

Sincerely, Zvonimir

Dear Glenn

TELEMANN

Here (attached) is a page from the book, (not by Handel, I was too tired to think) but by Telemann. He wrote sonatas for practice for woodwinds. 

Each second line is the basic melody line, with all key notes. (He could as well write the “chord” name at the top of each bar, but that was not the practice back then.)

The first line, above it, is a “decorated line”, with material that is shown as a type of very virtuosic improvisation on the melody below.

It is reminiscent of your books too, where the original song line by the composer is written below your improvised lines (your lines are transcribed at the top.)

YOUR VOCABULARY

And you may as well notice the visual resemblance to your vocabulary from the Minus One books: please, open your book, and compare each first line to these first lines from Telemann, 

— lots of legatos, slurs, phrases with 1/16 notes, 1/32 notes, ornamentation, grace notes, chromatic passages, playful stylistic figured like “cascading up”, “cascading down”, so on and so forth.  

All of that is very advanced classical-inspired improvisations and stylistic language. There is a lot of advanced grammar there. Advanced grammar makes one very fluent in the genre.

OTHERS

Now, as a contrast, when I see transcriptions of “improvisations” by some other players (also attached as a picture), they are nothing like yours. They are just a bunch of 1/8 notes, a lot of chord notes, some nonsense chromatic notes, not even a single legato, just boring staccatos, played with all the same diction. To me, it’s so horrible to listen to, so painfully boring, monotonous, and this is how too many players “improvise jazz”. And their deaf audience praises them. But, in fact, they are stuck at the level of basic literacy.

This comment is on my recording of “Maria” from West Side Story first take.

Dear Glenn,

You played this first time seeing the sheet music of the piece.

That is what I’m talking about; in the first take, you delivered a better and more soulful version of the song than the original which was rehearsed a hundred times and still sounded predictably simplistic.

It’s surreal what you can do,and people don’t even know such musical talent, with such unique skills,  exists!

When they listen, people usually don’t know what they hear. Those lucky enough to hear your version of a song, begin to slowly realise that something is going on, but can’t put it into words.

Yours, Z 

Hi Glenn,

Improvisation is part of playing known music, it can be learnt in some ways, but good improvisation is not improvisation per se.

Good improvisation may take into the next step – re-arrangement and re-composition.

You are an arranger and a composer with very sophisticated ideas.

For example, when songs from musicals, or film songs were made into jazz pieces, whoever “jazzed up” the song first, created some sort of a blueprint that was copied over again by other jazz musicians.

Many jazz players refer to that jazz piece and improvise on that, not quite examining the original song and begin improvising from scratch. 

When you play a piece, you sound like no other jazzman. You too often recreate a much better version, that it could replace the original. 

So it sounds like an all new song, which can’t be adapted easily by just any jazz player using any sort of improvisation.

Because you did not merely improvised: you recomposed it in such a way, that if anyone “improvises on it”, won’t do a good job; it can only sound worse. 

Therefore your playing should be studied. ¥our playing, although rooted in jazz, is original in many ways..  

. 

May 26th 2024

Dear Glenn,

You know, your enthusiasm always fascinates me. 

But it explains to me why you are such a musical prodigy, and why your music has such qualities that no American jazz player could approach in the last 50 years.

Although you could teach Miles Davis a few things, you are enthused by your attempt to deliver another beautiful album as a reflection on his work.

And then the same goes for your other albums. In every single way, you better even the best performances of great players from the past, and create beautiful albums, but that passes unnoticed by the majority of the audience.

Unfortunately for you, there will be nobody capable of making a tribute album to your music. But you, and nobody else, can make a tribute album to the best of the best … Please, please, never forget that.

That is a paradox, that alone reveals so much, that the blind audience cannot even fathom.

Cheers, Z

Dear Glenn,

yes, of course, you could transfer your approach from trumpet.

But in general, I hear that your approach is inclusive, and perfecting. You don’t cross out what’s been yesterday, to run for something that is fad today.

Because some people we call musicians, that is their excuse to be in the limelight and do business. They have ears for something else.

Otherwise, they would listen carefully to how they perform, and try to fix obvious mistakes. But they don’t.

Thus all the experiences you had, playing at home, playing in small groups, then in a big band, then at stage, listening to various musicians and being a witness to the changes in music genres, and so forth .. well, you never crossed out anything that happened before.

To me it was obvious when I listened to one track of yours, perhaps the hardest bop you ever played. But even in that one, you composed so many elegant music paragraphs I never ever heard before in such flawlessness of execution and charm at the same time. If hard bop was a rough piece of steel, many used it as it is, clumsily and as a weapon. But you dared to temper it and smoothen out, to be used as a precision tool. It is a pity that more people don’t have a chance to hear that and learn.

That was, I think, fascinating when some players like Count Basie stopped to talk to you for a moment. I think they were confused at least a little, and I would say charmed at the same time. It was uncommon to hear such an inclusive, and original approach.

May 28th 2024

Dear Glenn,

yes, of course, you could transfer your approach from trumpet.

But in general, I hear that your approach is inclusive, and perfecting. You don’t cross out what’s been yesterday, to run for something that is fad today.

Because some people we call musicians, that is their excuse to be in the limelight and do business. They have ears for something else.

Otherwise, they would listen carefully to how they perform, and try to fix obvious mistakes. But they don’t.

Thus all the experiences you had, playing at home, playing in small groups, then in a big band, then at stage, listening to various musicians and being a witness to the changes in music genres, and so forth .. well, you never crossed out anything that happened before.

To me it was obvious when I listened to one track of yours, perhaps the hardest bop you ever played. But even in that one, you composed so many elegant music paragraphs I never ever heard before in such flawlessness of execution and charm at the same time. If hard bop was a rough piece of steel, many used it as it is, clumsily and as a weapon. But you dared to temper it and smoothen out, to be used as a precision tool. It is a pity that more people don’t have a chance to hear that and learn.

That was, I think, fascinating when some players like Count Basie stopped to talk to you for a moment. I think they were confused at least a little, and I would say charmed at the same time. It was uncommon to hear such an inclusive, and original approach.

Best, Z

May 29th 2024

Best, Z

Dear Glenn

You play alto saxophone like nobody else.

It may be an influence coming from your trumpet playing, or your exposure to the big band type of playing, or from a variety of reasons.

I’m trying to analyse this carefully, for me it is important to understand connections and inspirations.

What I tend to think is that you explore each instrument you’re playing, up and down, left and right, and assess its ability to transfer your emotional states and ideas. That is where you push instruments to act as a sort of stylus, or a fountain pen, to transcribe in the best possible way, your music ideas.

And you are well aware how different each instrument is, and yet, how you can adapt each one to transcribe the same emotional state.

I think that most Es instruments (that is, Eb instruments) tend to have a lyrical, melancholic and plaintive quality to their basic tone. Be it alto saxophone or alto clarinet, for in Eb, those instruments by their construction and by the basic tone quality, lean towards that. Normally played scales on those instruments, or a very simple phrase, have all those melancholic, plaintive, lyrical qualities. 

Which is, if you think for a moment about it, is at odds with the usual application of that instrument. Alto sax was used, and it is still used for very fast, exuberant playing, with a lot of force, speed and attack, often with distorted tone to give it “edge”. In many applications, alto is just “a screamer”. 

But you, somehow, although you can play it fast, and although you can push it to play loud enough, you somehow retain that intrinsic quality of its sound, and you always come back to it, use it to round up your phrasing. 

Another way to put it, you play alto with more respect towards the core values of that instrument. You never forget those values of the tone quality and timbre of the alto, and that’s why, under your hands, that instrument produces music many have never heard before. Because no one else cares about those things.

Best, Z

May 29th 2024

Dear Glenn

It was thanks to you and your playing of some Bop repertoire, that I finally began to open up to it.

Before that, I did try many times, maybe like Benny Goodman tried, but could not find anything satisfying in it.

Just too chaotic, inarticulate, frenzied, exhibitionist, as crazy as times it emerged from. 

In many regards it’s an equivalent of abstract expressionism, they both emerged at the scene at the same time.

But the way you do it, it has sense, it has structure, it has consistent beauty beyond what others have done.

Other could have a line or two, or three worth remembering, or what could be remembered at all, but you somehow show to the kids how things are done. 

If I may say it in this way: sometimes children begin imitating sounds and words they hear on the TV, and they think they speak foreign language as they listen to it on the TV. But what children pronounce, only reminds in some sounds and inflections what the TV says; but otherwise, children speak utter nonsense, only imitating inflections to “sound like something foreign”.

Many people played Jazz, especially Bop, like that – like children. But, at least in my mind, you show the kids how things are done, and what real grammar is, what real pronunciation is, what real words are, what real sentences are, and how to add meaning in them. 

Best, Z

May 29th 2024

In addition,

What I’m thinking is that some genres, say like Bop, did not live long enough to establish a proper narrative style, so to speak.

This means that for some time, what’s been played, were meely sketches, or ideas, more similar to words and simple sentences broken up in syllables, and then pronounced like syllables.

Now, when someone today goes back and wants to repeat that, he will think that pronouncing words and simple sentences should be done through reciting short syllables, and no other way. This also applied to many musicians from that era, who were keen just to quickly learn something and they learned only the beginning of grammar.

But, of course, the genre only becomes a fully functional literary form, so to speak, when it’s fully articulated. Unfortunately, Bop didn’t have much time for that.

It takes an effort of someone who can come back to the repertoire, and then connect the dots for others, and say: what are the words, what are the sentences, and tell them that pronouncing sentences as syllables is not required, but it can be done more fluently, if one reads the word in one go, and elegantly connects it with another word, maybe dropping a letter here and there from exact spelling in order to sound smoother, and then create easy flow for the entire sentence. 

Which then will sound somewhat different – perfected, cohesive, meaningful, more fluent. Not confusing. After all, music is communication.

That, my dear Glenn, is where your influence is. You, looking back at Bop, you are able to finish it up, touch it up, because it was never really finished.

Perhaps this may sound too pretentious of me, but I think I’m only articulating what I hear, and for what I know that it takes time to perfect.

You do it, albeit not consciously recognising it. You play and pay tributes, but you are in fact wrapping things up, adding touches that some genres never received because they hadn’t had enough time to be perfected. 

Best, Z

p.s. as a result of sending Zvonimir tracks from the TV show.

Dear Glenn

That was the crown jewel of your career.

Whichever track or record from that show I saw, it was remarkable. Jaw-dropping experience.

It is in that show that you showcase your composing and arranging genius; you were Duke Ellington of sorts, and Federico Moreno Torroba (classical composer), in one person. The arranger, conductor, theatrical impresario, band leader, doing it all without any preparation that, say, Duke would require. And recording – practically speaking — at least half an album every day! Each performance was a top notch music experience, done without rehearsals and at the highest level of musicianship. 

No individual jazz player, and no jazz band in history, absolutely none, could ever claim such a thing. 

I mean, yes, you play jazz, but no, you play something else too. That show launched you towards the moon, you leaving the earth and the jazz world, as we knew it, well behind. We love jazz, but jazz itself is young, and has no enough fuel in its tanks to deliver such a thrust. That proves that your second–stage rocket is classical inspiration, and the third-stage rocket is your own particular style, which is a blend of both. 

No one can play so authentically in so many styles and subgenres, and because you defy category or style, others fail to comprehend it.

And as such, they remain trapped well below the orbit, and then fall back somewhere.

Sincerely, Z

June 27th 2024

Dear Glenn,

What makes it even more fascinating, is that not only you are playing on the go, but rearranging on the go too; because you may say “we are going to play this”, but then, you also adjust the mood, the tempo, and styling of the song.

It was not a predefined concert, where players play as they rehearsed for months; it was an impromptu performance, where everything is adjusted in real time.

That is very hard even for very experienced jazz players. Because, I think, one thing was missing from jazz for. long while now; when jazz stopped to be danceable music, which means, when it stopped being music that connects to the audience in real time, the players lost the feedback loop and instant communication / readout of the audience.

That is where the communication was lost, and with it, the genre becomes increasingly more isolated and direlevant. 

The communication is firstly done via the melody. Melody sends human sentiments first. Let’s put it simply: even elephants can devise some sort of rhythm, by stomping, but ONLY humans can devise some nice melody. The melody is intrisically human concept, no other creature in nature can devise a music melody. Parrots may copy human voice and create some short harmony, but not original melody. 

When the melodic wire is broken, by breaking the melody with nonsensical improvisations unrelated to melody, everything that remains are echoes, and broken up human communication, like radio static that interrupts signal. The audience tries to guess what the guy with an instrument wants “to say” and the audience is relieved that, after a few minutes of “static noise”, there is finally reconnection with “some sort of melody again”. 

“I called you on the phone, but your cat answered. So I was waiting for several minutes listening to the cat meowing randomly and playing with the phone, for you to pick up the phone and answer my call. Thank you so much for answering after all!”.

It’s kind of funny, but that is what happens most of the time in music these days! 

That stops to be music, but becomes aural torture, miscommunication, completely different desires in the audience and in the band on stage. The audience cannot wait for some bits of melody to come again after a while, and they feel appreciated again!  

Dear Glenn, your playing approach is an antidote to all that nonsense!

July 4th 2004

Sincerely, Z

Dear Glenn,

I hope you liked Simphonia Concertante for violin and viola.

That conversation between two instruments, once you hear it as an conversation, it is impossible to “un-hear” it anymore.

When you listen to the piece several times, it becomes more obvious how Mozart was using music to illustrate human speech, from hush-hush conversation to laughter then giggle, (ha ha ha haa), both with violin (younger voice) and viola (older voice).

To further illustrate how the vocalist, or singer approach, worked in Classical music, here is one video (runs for 30 min, but those are 30 mins best spent ever!).

Pianist and instructor Ben Laude plays with opera singer Chelsea Guo, to find, inside one piano sonata by Mozart, where are the clear vocalist parts, where are pianistic parts, etc. and how Mozart used them, especially vocalist parts, with what language (!!) was he inspired, then hidden them away in plain sight!

This kind of music education is only possible with Classical music, and that is why I always say, if Jazz wishes to survive, it must come back home to its Classical music mother.

Sincerely, Z

On Fri, 5 Jul 2024 at 00:12, zottola glenn <glennzottola@icloud.com> wrote:

Amazing I have always resisting anything to do with thinkingness but with your writing I find it easy to incorporate that and it increases my understanding of what I am doing. Do you feel this subect of vocal applies to classical music like a symphony where there is no vocal intended by the composer to my knowledge only instrumental ? I will listen below.

On Jul 4, 2024, at 9:04 AM, Zvonimir Tosic <zvonimir.tosic@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Glenn,

It depends on the piece. 

In classical music, the composers often composed the piece with the idea “that the singers are singing it”, and then, in their minds, replacing singers with particular instruments, and then writing the correct score, exact notation for that particular instrument to sound like they intended.

If the conductor does not transfer that message to the orchestra, that they should pay attention to the score and read it correctly to match the intent of the composer, there will be problems.

But in Classical, there is at least some understanding of that principle, which is applied to the score.

Therefore we today must never ignore the score of past composers, because they contain a myriad of human emotions and expressions written in them. And then from such scores we understand how it’s possible to compose very complex pieces that sound inspiring, or, like, having a large chorus singing.

But the Classical, for some types of music, also combines both, vocalist approach and the instrumentalist approach. 

It is audible and visible in some scores; some parts can’t be sung by a human voice, they are too complex and specifically made for the piano or violin etc.

But some parts are very vocalist-like, singer-like, and the composer wanted the instrument “toned down”, be less mechanical and more “flesh and blood”, to express human emotion and human voice more convincingly.

Here is a very nice example of a conversation piece in Classical music, Symphonia Concertante by Mozart, for violin and viola.

If you listen to this piece for several minutes and don’t hear a symphony, but you hear it as a conversation between two ladies in Vienna, one younger (violin) and one older (viola), who chat to each other, talk about events in the city, some quirky subjects, gossip their friends, and then they giggle, walk down the streets, etc. it all becomes a different understanding! Then we know how music expresses the human condition and how great composers were able to do it with such charm! 

Cheers, Z

On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 at 22:37, glenn zottola <glennzottola@icloud.com> wrote:

July 27th

Dear Glenn,

That song is beyond brilliant.

Every phrase in it is so perfect and so inimitable, that after one listening, I tried to remember is there anybody I ever heard today, tha played even remotely similar.

And I can’t recall. Yesterday I mentioned how we recognise one’s voice only by how the voice sings intelligible melodies and intelligible speech.

Nobody in the saxophone world of soloists, who play on their own, can sing on the instrument intelligibly. They all sing gibberish. So when you play the tenor like that, you are the only one left in the world who can.

It is impossible to misattribute your playing to anyone else!

I remember, you said, you never sought after some “signature sound”; but now, with the will of providence itself, thanks to your unique talent and love for music, you are the only one left who can say that has intelligible sound.

Everybody else has noise. Your music is the signature in itself, because no one else is making any!

Yours truly, Z

May 31st

Dear Glenn

Of course, this is brilliant and both satisfying and educational to listen to.Whenever I listen your track, I always compare it to tracks I already heard from you, and with tracks I listened by other players.The best way to talk about you is to juxtapose your playing with playing of others. During the last 6 months, for this project, I have been additionally running thousands of jazz tracks with both tenor and alto saxophone in them, by dozens upon dozens of jazz players.Half the time, I reminded myself again and again why, in my decision to begin studying the saxophone again after 35 years of pause, I reminded myself why I didn’t want to bother with jazz players at all ! Then Then were albums I would interrupt after a song or two because I could not tolerate the incompetent level of playing. There were songs I would stop, and ask, “this sounds awful, who is playing this?”, and then I looked at the song and album and artist info. I would often stop 1) at often repeated phrasings, 2) poor tone quality, 3) loud and nonsensical finger wiggling, 4) playing like 2nd year student.I even tested Stan Getz alone, and listened to hundreds of his tracks, and oh boy, I could hear his ups and downs; sometimes he was in a great mood, and sometimes he was playing as if he was bored to death, or wanted to run away but he was forced to be there. That man could insult producers with his saxophone, but they did not hear it and that was why he did it!As an instrument, saxophone is a true lie detector, it is so honest and candid instrument, that it reveals everything! It reveals skill, or lack of it; it tells all about someone playing in good, or in really bad mood; sober or intoxicated;  emotional  or purely intellectual; reveals musicality or lack of it; overconfidence; clumsiness; great care; or carelessness; and so forth.And I confirmed again, that never before in my life I ever heard anyone who is like you. So impeccably consistent, never in bad mood, always full of surprises, who perfectly balances heartfelt content with intellectual content; who can balance skill and the beauty of the tone; who always drives the melody forward and yet with entertaining twists, which are too often awe inspiring and original.

Thank you.

Zvonimir