Music
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| Bands played in | These are some of the bands I played in from around 1961.
* Outer Limits * Swinging Hangmen * Kudos * Blues Unlimited * District Blues Company * Cat road show (London) *Rain & Tears * Pied Pipers(Germany) *(If you click the link above Brian Yorke has a good write up on life in the sixties & in particular, the Swinging hangmen) On returning from Germany, I did a short spell backing the Hollies on tenor sax, with Jimmy Jewel from Brierfield on alto, where r u now Jimmy?Ricky Allen Set/Cats Whiskers Burnley, where we had cabaret every Friday & saturday nights. We had a band-call at 5pm on the Friday to run through their dots, then off up to "the Hop" on Trafalgar street for a pint With our favourite comedy of that era "it ain't arfe hot mum" on the box. Then it was back to the mecca for the opening spot of the night. After that spot it was round to the "Princess Royal" for a couple of pints of the best Masseys beer in town. We were then moved to Tiffanys Wigan for a few months,and finally to the Grafton Rooms Liverpool. Grab a granny night on a Monday!!! Our local pub there was "the Clock" where I ordered a pint in a "scooner" & was served with a "sherry", because unknown to me , a scooner in liverpool is a sherry. I then left Ricky & joined Dream Machine at Tiffannys Bradford * |
"Remember!!!" | |
"Flairs"!!! | |
"1970's"!!! |
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| "1980's"!!! | Now it was 1978 & time to go solo, so Stevie Gold was born. From then on it was the club & cabaret scene for a good 20 years which was to lead to my eventual move up here to the North East, all down to a female, of course.
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"1990's"!!! |
My Card |
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also photos at flickr |
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Saxophone Tuition Please email me Cost per lesson Lessons are half hour or hourly sessionsRecommended Tutor books: ABRACADABRAas used by Dave Clarke I also use"Saxmania blues greats/Jazz Hits," & a book called "Session time"(solos that expand into ensembles), published by Boosey & Hawkes. | Listen to this short clip Click herefor me on alto playing Allegretto from the tutor book i learnt from in 1954, Otto Langey page 25 My approach to teaching is to encourage enthusiasm. If the student is to become bored easily, he or she is never going to learn very much. but if one is taught the basics, plus tunes that mean something to them, they will enjoy practicing. Theory is taught alongside technique , and improvisation, plus I advocate regular lessons, promoting good routine , thus promoting progress . |
If you're into improvising around some great standards, get the book & cd from "Jamie Aebersold". It carries the scores for all instruments, piano, alto, Tenor, & bass, & the backing tracks on the cd are ace.Top Tip Practicing at home Ten minutes every day is better than one long lesson per week. It allows the pupil to get more quickly aquainted with their instrument. |
Instruments |
The "Selmer Mk6" tenor is my favourite instrument of all, & I've owned one since 1972. My alto which I mainly use for teaching is a very old "Hawkes", from long before Boosey & Hawkes was formed.
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This is just something that came into my head as i warmed my alto up the other day, no particular tune, just something showing my mood i guess, if i'm sad & knackered, then it will probably be a bit bluesy. But on the serious side, note the light & shade, the bending of notes, i tend to "bend up" to a note, subconsciously, but that comes from years of experience.>/td> |
Improvisation! I've been playing sax for 51 years now, & improvisation is second nature to me now. But the people who come to me who have these books on the subject are nearly always completely bewildered by all the talk about basing it around chord progressions etc. A few years ago a guy asked me where he was going wrong, he couldn't seem to get anywhere. He asked me who my favourite sax players were, & i said none in particular, he was amazed. He had literally hundreds of cd's of sax players. He put a cd backing track on of "autumn leaves" & he played a few verses running up & down scales as most books seem to preach. Then i came in on tenor for a couple of rounds. He stood back & said how did you do that & what chords did i base it around, was it dimminished or what. I said i hadn't thought of any chords or scales, i just played what came into my head, i have to say obviously it comes with all the years practice & experience i have. The advice i gave him was don't listen to his cd's for a month & try to do his own thing. The main thing that was missing with his playing was "emotion" & "feeling". Technically he was quite good but without those two qualities it was a road to nowhere. But the way i teach "improvisation" is to just simply play the the melody but add a few different notes each time, but don't forget the basic tune. You must keep the original melody going in your head & just keep drifting off it & then back into it, until you can play nearly the whole verse. |
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