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

106 GOURWITZ: He could do this. LULLOFF: I would like to see what he would do with it. You know, he might take it more from a jazz standpoint on some things. I think the last movement would scare the crap out of him. As it scares the crap out of me every time I play it. JENKINS: (Laughs) LULLOFF: But it’s a fun kind of scared. I want to take this roller coaster ride at Cedar Point, that they say, you know what, people over 50 years old shouldn’t take if you have a heart condition. Well, I don’t have a heart condition or that, but I probably shouldn’t take it. Vertigo might come back, you know. So that’s where this opening here introduces the idea, and then it morphs a little more. And then, I start to improvise in this section a little bit now (following 69). When I recorded I didn’t. First playing I did maybe a little bit. But I started to really take it off. And then, I take all that information and try to wrap it in the cadenza. So, I’ve gone on and on too much, and I’m sorry, and you’ve probably got more specific questions we need to get to. JENKINS: You’ve actually along the way, answered several of them. It’s been good, it’s been profitable. LULLOFF: I hope so. JENKINS: Because one of my questions was just about your collaboration with Steven, and how that back and forth went. LULLOFF: And he was not one of these composers. I mean yes, he would be very picky in the band rehearsal. Oh the clarinets need to do this, this and this. Joe, I really think there’s a couple of things you need to do here, this and this. So he was very instructive. Let me finish one thing on Steven’s comments on my playing. So, first movement was always good. Maybe every once in a while he would say I was rushing, or I wasn’t getting these, I’ll go through here in a second, I wasn’t getting the rhythmicity I call it, of the piece exactly. And sometimes it rushed things. I was trying to get the piece not to sound metronomic, but to sound more organic. It would have more of a flow to it. Have a sense of shape and direction on a micro and much more on a grandiose or macro. This part here, he was very specific, I have a problem with that rhythm after 143, just making sure I was exactly together with percussion. Very important to do. Here, this area, (m. 155, 1 st movement). I would always have a problem getting that right off. He also wanted the trills to be very morphing (m. 162, 1 st movement) You know how a trill…but, and trying to make these, into the trills and out of the trills very smooth and still be very rhythmic so somebody could transcribe….I always feel somebody needs to