A Conductor’s and Performer’s Guide to Steven Bryant’s Concerto for Alto Saxophone - Chester Jenkins

101 LULLOFF: And, it’s not easy, just part of me, can I brag a little bit, I’m not meaning to brag… GOURWITZ: Sure, you should! LULLOFF: I’ve got pretty good technique JENKINS: (Chuckles) Yeah, I would say that’s true LULLOFF: What I mean is I was taught well, and for some reason it comes more naturally to me. I can’t slap tongue worth a shit. I can’t circular breathe to save my life. If I had to be on life support or circular breathe, I’ll take the life support. Or, no, maybe not. Just let me die… JENKINS/GOURWITZ: (Laughs) LULLOFF: You know…I have a deviated…I don’t know what I have up here. Maybe I should have an operation, but I don’t want to screw anything up. JENKINS: Yeah LULLOFF: So the point is, but the technique comes easy, but I have to work at it, but I can assimilate it pretty quick. And then he says, ‘Oh, you can do that, OK, try this. Ok, that’s good…’ And then we worked on some other things. Then the third movement the same thing. He had me do a little bit of the third one. He had more of the third movement I think kind of sketched a little more. He didn’t have as much of the first as the third, as I recall. And, he said ‘The Creston sonata was my favorite piece in high school coming up. I am a horrible saxophonist.’ Well, it certainly doesn’t show in your composing. You know? Your compositions are brilliant, you must have had some musical talent as a saxophonist, certainly or else you wouldn’t be writing this well. So I said, ‘Sky’s the limit. Whatever you want.’ ‘How high do you want to go?’ And I said, ‘Well, I can probably get an Eb, E’ I can get an F now, but that’s because I’ve grown since that time and I’ve changed equipment. I mean, I can really nail an F. Originally, the last note was supposed to be an F. I said, I’d prefer an Eb or an E. JENKINS: I actually asked him about that. I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m just a dumb saxophonist and conductor. I’m not a composer. I don’t pretend to understand your thought process. But why do go from this open fifth of B-F# to this Eb-Ab?’ And he was like, ‘Well, originally I had it up to an F…’ So he told me about that. LULLOFF: And I might ask him on subsequent performances, which I hope there are many more, I’m looking for more. If, by the way, if you have any extra leads or somewhere… GOURWITZ: I think it should be performed at Ohio State University.