Ep 129-Tim Armacost

Grammy nominated saxophonist Tim Armacost has established himself as one of the most distinct saxophone voices on the New York scene today. 

Touring regularly around the world both as a sideman and a leader, Armacost has worked with a phenomenal number of jazz greats, including Al Foster, Jimmy Cobb, Kenny Barron, Tom Harrell, Billy Hart, Victor Lewis, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Peter Erskine, Ray Drummond, Roy Hargrove, Don Friedman and Randy Brecker.

Armacost has recorded 14 critically acclaimed albums as a leader, performed on more than 60 as a sideman, and has recorded over 100 original songs and arrangements. Armacost is a widely respected educator, teaching at the Jamey Aebersold and Stanford Summer Jazz Workshops, at Queens College in New York City and as a clinician at Universities throughout the U.S., Japan and Europe.

Armacost co-leads the New York Standards Quartet,  the Brooklyn Big Band, and In Trio, and is currently working on music for two new projects: a chord-less quartet featuring Gary Smulyan, John Patitucci and Al Foster, and a new quartet with Jim Ridl, Ugonna Okegwo and Rudy Royston.

Tim’s new book, The Jazz Saxophone Book, published by Sher Music, has received wide acclaim from many jazz legends, such as Jamey Aebersold, Bob Mintzer, George Garzone, Jerry Bergonzi and others. This is not just for saxophonists! There’s information and exercises for everyone at all levels of improvising.

We talk extensively about the content in Tim’s book, as well as his thoughts on creating it in this episode. 

Tim Armacost is a D’Addario Recording Artist, playing D’Addario reeds exclusively.

The link to his full biography, along with more Resources for this episode, is on our website.

Our sponsors for this episode are..

Sher Music

Sher Music Co., are the publishers of Tim Armacost’s “The Jazz Saxophone Book” and over 100 other world-class jazz and Latin Music publications, from authors such as Hal Galper, David Berkman, Rebeca Mauleon, Barry Finnerty, Marc Johnson, Michael Spiro.You will also find the best-selling books by the late Mark Levine, “The Jazz Theory Book” and “The Jazz Piano Book.”

Sher Music started out primarily as a publisher of the ONLY professional-level jazz fakebooks on the market, “The New Real Books” and their quality is still unmatched, as shown by endorsements from Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Ron Carter, Maria Schneider, Dave Liebman and many others. One of our newest projects is the Jazz Songbook Series with separate digital-only books of compositions by Kenny Barron, Tom Harrell, Steve Swallow, Kenny Werner and Alan Pasqua, among others.

Legere Reeds!

Legere Reeds produces premium synthetic reeds that sound warm and are consistent for many months.

Aside from the Signature Series, the American Cut is available for Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bari Saxes.

To learn more about why Derek Brown, Gerald Albright, and Eddie Daniels exclusively play Legere, visit www.legere.com

And for a limited time, if you live in the US or Canada, use the code  EVERYTHINGSAX for 10% off at their store at shop.legere.com.

The store is only available to US and Canadian residents.  

We talked about:

• Following your own aesthetic vision
• How Tim warms up
• Tim’s transcription exercise
• Tim’s Inevitable Note Exercise
• How to get out of the improvisation rut
• And much more!

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