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

109 Oh, we had to do a lot of changes of hums and growls from the original. Because of where you are in the range, he didn’t quite understand. Of the things I can do of contemporary techniques, I think my hums and growls are most universal amongst most players. In other words, some players, like the Beat Box guy last night. You know, he can do anything with…(laughing) whatever…but then again he plays on a set up that allows sometimes much more forgiveness for that, not like a classical set up. For me, the hum and the growl was pretty universal. The higher up you get, the less you can growl and the more you gotta hum, as you well know. JENKINS: Yeah LULLOFF: So if you look at this…200. (Sings ensemble tutti line m. 199-200), right in that, there’s eight bars or so that I’m out. Then I’m back at 210. And then he wrote this, rewrote it. He took this stuff out at 210 (original score: soloist plays 8 th note chords with trumpets from 210-218). (Sings current line starting at 210 in solo part). I wanted him to go up the octave. JENKINS: Where you’re there with the horns if I remember right. LULLOFF: Yeah (sings more of the line), but the problem is, I’ve got to go up to an F#. And again, that was out of my range. Now it’s not quite in the range, but not out of the possibility. Except it sounds like squealing chickens, you know. You don’t want that sound. And the reason he said he wanted it with the horns is he wanted the power of the saxophone to connect within the band, and it just sounded better. So, you blow your butt off here, and get that big sound. A little more accent. So there’s a change there as you will probably see from that. It’s an emotional piece. This is a marathon, this is a true marathon. You have to work out and you have to prepare yourself. And yeah, does an F make sense, fine. But I do hear the Eb. I don’t hear Steven’s open fifth idea. And sometimes, you want a little crunch. A lot of these band pieces end with this nice consonant chord. Come on, let’s end it with a sharp eleven, it’s a jazz piece for God’s sake. So, those are the couple things. He wanted me to be a little stricter here and there. He was pretty liberal with letting me have my voice. JENKINS: Yeah, well, that was one of the things I asked him about. In things that I’ve seen him post or write, he’s pretty pragmatic about writing music, because he wants it to be performed at the end of the day. But this is such a personal piece. I don’t feel like it’s written for you, I feel like it’s written with you. LULLOFF: I don’t want the exclusivity.