Chicagosax is one walking, talking Taste of Chicago all by himself. He brings that Chicago blues vibe and he's not talking about something he saw in a magazine as he has been playing jazz and blues in Chicago since the late fifties. He knows Chicago blues.
Chicagosax is so smooth. He will talk to you a little, do a song, and then talk some more. It never feels there should be more of this or less of that as it's all part of the story. He's very good at it and he would be as he has spent a lot of his life on the stage.
His saxophone is a Yamaha EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument) and Chicago mentioned how the synthesizer section supported an extra-cost chip for those downtown sounds. He sure got them and he can give you anything from guitar to flute. With the guitar I was noticing in the sound that it had the attack of the guitar but gave way to a breathiness on the decay which I thought was highly delicious. You can do things like that with synthesizers and some have no use for digitally-generated music but, to my taste, it has an incredible richness and has no reason to apologize for anything.
The liveness of the instrument comes because it detects how hard Chicago blows into the sax. That gets turned into electronic information but it's still 'real' in the sense that nothing synthesized it. In other words, this music doesn't come from cleverly pushing buttons. It really is the true reflection of his live play. Chicago has been playing sax since the Fifties so someone is going to tell him how a saxophone should sound ... I don't think so.
It's the Chicago lead that takes so long to learn. Most times when you're playing a lead line you'll want to follow the melody, maybe you do some kind of unison or maybe you do some kind of whizzy flash bang but still it will be generally predictable. Chicago knows how to make it unpredictable but you realize the predictability as he plays. In this way it's a continual revelation. At first maybe you think, dude, what are you doing but then it comes, yah, I see it, I see it. Welcome to Chicago jazz.
Chicagosax is so smooth. He will talk to you a little, do a song, and then talk some more. It never feels there should be more of this or less of that as it's all part of the story. He's very good at it and he would be as he has spent a lot of his life on the stage.
His saxophone is a Yamaha EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument) and Chicago mentioned how the synthesizer section supported an extra-cost chip for those downtown sounds. He sure got them and he can give you anything from guitar to flute. With the guitar I was noticing in the sound that it had the attack of the guitar but gave way to a breathiness on the decay which I thought was highly delicious. You can do things like that with synthesizers and some have no use for digitally-generated music but, to my taste, it has an incredible richness and has no reason to apologize for anything.
The liveness of the instrument comes because it detects how hard Chicago blows into the sax. That gets turned into electronic information but it's still 'real' in the sense that nothing synthesized it. In other words, this music doesn't come from cleverly pushing buttons. It really is the true reflection of his live play. Chicago has been playing sax since the Fifties so someone is going to tell him how a saxophone should sound ... I don't think so.
It's the Chicago lead that takes so long to learn. Most times when you're playing a lead line you'll want to follow the melody, maybe you do some kind of unison or maybe you do some kind of whizzy flash bang but still it will be generally predictable. Chicago knows how to make it unpredictable but you realize the predictability as he plays. In this way it's a continual revelation. At first maybe you think, dude, what are you doing but then it comes, yah, I see it, I see it. Welcome to Chicago jazz.
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