Josh Sinton’s Second Pedagogical Album

 

Cover of the album being discussed

At the beginning of this past September, this site posted an article about a solo album by baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton entitled Steve Lacy’s Book of Practitioners, Vol. 1 “H.” Sinton had studied with Lacy at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he became acquainted with the volumes of études that Lacy had composed and collected in a series of volumes. The first of those volumes was given the title H because it consisted of six études, each of which had a title that began with that particular letter.

One week from today FiP (Form in Possibility) will release Sinton’s Vol. 2 performance. This will be part of a double disc CD, whose second disc, Couloir, consists of recordings of sixteen short improvisations, all of which are less that six minutes in duration except for the final track, which is a little more than nine minutes long. Bandcamp has created a Web page for pre-orders of this new release.

The title of the second volume is W. It also consists of six études, whose titles are share the same first letter: “Willy-Nilly,” “Whoosh,” “Whoops,” “Waterline,” “Wrinkles,” and “Windfall.” To be perfectly honest, If someone were to play any one of those twelve études selected at random, I doubt that I would be able to distinguish any selection from the second volume from any selection from the first.

Lacy may have had his own ideas as to how the twelve études should be properly sorted; and, for all I know, I might have been able to make the same distinctions had I been able to look at the score pages. However, my guess is that it would take a fair amount of time divided between reading and listening before I could sort the études correctly. I suspect that, at best, the études are distinguished by fingerwork that would probably be apparent only to a seasoned saxophonist.

On the other hand I did not feel as much “at sea” with the Couloir improvisations. I only have to wonder whether the full complement was executed in one spontaneous burst or the tracks on the album were harvested from a larger collection of improvisations. In the latter case I would then ask whether there were any specific criteria that would “elevate” one improvisation over the others.

The one factor that joins the two compositions on their respective discs is that each selection has its own way of impacting the listener. As is the case with more traditional jazz variations, the attentive listener is challenged to figure out what the performer is doing and why (s)he is doing it. Thanks to Pandora, I have had a prodigious number of opportunities to focus on improvisations by the likes of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Charles Mingus (to name three decidedly different practitioners). Each musician has his own toolbox with which he can transform a familiar tune into a jaw-dropping solo; but, to be perfectly honest, I still have a very hard time homing in on who is selecting which tools from whose toolbox!