Tim Price is a Roberto’s Winds endorsing artist for all their saxophone and clarinet reeds. (Roberto’s Winds is under the direction of the world famous icon, Roberto Romeo.)
Tim is a world-class artist, performer and educator worldwide, a Berklee College of Music graduate and one of the country’s foremost woodwind artists.
Tim has played with musicians like Bennie Green, Hans Dulfer, Lew Tabackin, Ray Drummond, Jon Mayer, Greg Bandy, James Gadson, Don Patterson, Billy James, Major Holley, Alan Dawson, Bill Doggett, Jack Mc Duff, Cecil Payne, Richie Cole, Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones, Gary Burton, Doc Severinson, Dr. John, Lew Tabackin, Charlie Mariano, Shirly Scott, Trudy Pitts, Bootsie Barnes, Sonny Stitt, Ernie Krivda, Rachel Z, Larry Young, George Young, Sweet Sue Terry, Greg Piccolo & Super Heavy Juice and Claire Daly.
He’s performed in the big bands of Tommy Dorsey, Cab Calloway, and Harry James.
He’s played soul and rock shows with Aretha Franklin, Billy Paul, The 5th Dimension, Lou Christie, Lloyd Price, Four Tops, Ike Turner, Lynyrd Skynyrd and many others from that idiom.
Tim was a featured writer for the Saxophone Journal, and still contributes regularly to the online Sax on the Web website forum.
Tim performs and does clinics throughout the world. He teaches private instruction in New York City and from his home studio in Reading, Pennsylvania.
In this interview, Tim spoke about:
- His ground-breaking projects with Philadelphia Jazz
- His amazing work with the Satellites are Spinning, an Homage to Sun Ra
- A Radical concept that can expose people to Jazz in any city you live in
- How to stop performing for low or no pay
- What his Berklee teacher, John La Porta, taught Tim at the time that was the best lesson he could have ever learned
- How to play in a big band section
- His mindset strategies for dealing with improvising in public
“The greatest practitioners are out on the sidewalks…” Tim Price
Check out the video interview below (and please share 😊)
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Donna: Great interview w/Tim Price. I am going to have a lot to say so please bear w/me.
First, I studied w/Tim using cassette’s through the mail around 1989 -1991 or so. I actually took my last lesson at his house i Reading, PA while on leave from my Navy Band. Tim was a great teacher for me. He has also been a mentor at times.
So let’s start w/projection. I agree it has to come from within. However that said students need to be able to project w/out the clip on mics etc. So iMHO that must play reasonable setups. I cannot think of anyone playing jazz or in a big band, studio band, rock horn section using a Selmer S-80 C* mpc. That sound dies at the end of the bell. For tenor it’s Links, Link knockoffs, etc. Alto it’s Meyers, White Brilharts etc. I was told by two sources, one the Jazz Ensemble teacher at Old Dominion University (ODU) and two another sax player that both Dick Oatts and then two yrs later Vicent Herring admonished the sax section for not playing on the right setups and for just not projecting enough during Master Classes at ODU.
Part of the problem is ODU is a Music Ed factory. ( I say that and I teach there) SO the teachers who teach sax players are using the classical method. Okay the SA-80 mpc is fine for that. Maybe the teachers just assume the sax students will use the right mpcs for big band. They should not assume. This generation is different. They really do not know. have listened to the big band in concert numerous times the sax section is buried except during a soli. Even then the balance is all off. Can’t hear the bari, the inner voices are not filling out the chord. It’s like they never listened to Basie, Artie Shaw,Duke etc.
The idea of the Pop-up or Sidewalk Symphonies is a great one. However Philly was home to Trane, Jimmy Heath, Gerry Mulligan etc so maybe the Powers to Be are more appreciative of Jazz. Here in Norfolk, VA, Va Bchit’s more like. “What’s that stuff?” Why aren’t you playing “Under the Boardwalk” and stuff like that. (Loosely called Beach Music). Or how come you’re not playing like Boots Randolph playing country music. Why aren’t you playing rock? It’s like they are afraid to book Jazz for City Functions etc. Except for one City and that is the poorest city but it seems to be more jazz Friendly. That is Portsmouth, VA which is across the river from Norfolk, VA and connected by two tunnels. I live in Va Bch but have actually done more gigs in Portsmouth over the years. I think I’ll see if Portsmouth, VA will agree to some Jazz Sidewalk concerts this summer. Maybe right in front of the big Mural of Tommy Newsom and Ruth Brown.
Okay more to follow, I have to tune into the Saxophone Symposium COncert that starts at 8 Pm w/the Navy Commodores and Bob Shepard.
Okay, great concert w/Bob Shepard and the USN Commodores coming from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Usually go but not up to the trip this year.
One of the big problems w/jazz in this area and I’m sure that you’ll agree w/me and Tim will agree is that some players are playing for FREE or for a way below scale price. Because this is a Right to Work State (that means you have the right to work for nothing or next to nothing if you want to) the local union is powerless in all matters except for maybe the symphony contract. Actually the local union has a blind eye scale. Big Bands are allowed to work for under scale. All of this really hurts the local music economy. Of course these guys say, “if I don’t play for free then where will I play jazz.” Well maybe if they showed some guts and stood up to this then things will change. No one will respect you if you play for free or next to nothing.
Interacting w/people. Yeah, ya get out there and hustle. My band gets paid at least scale if not better. I negotiate all the contracts, meet w/the vendor, pay the guys, do the book keeping, plan out the sets etc, etc. So dealing w/people is important as are some business skills.
Hey Tim, maybe that Hawk flying around was the spirit of Coleman “Hawk” Hawkins. Ya never know.
Joy of playing. Yes enjoy your playing, have fun, show some spirit but get paid too. After all if you are a professional then act like a pro. When was the last time you called a plumber or any tradesmen who worked for free. Let alone a lawyer or doctor etc.
Big Band Sections: This is a pet peeve. Played in to many puny sounding sections. Also played in some really good sections. The section I played in the Orlando Navy Band was good. Really full sounding. I have it on tape, Disney recorded us at the Science Stage, good stuff. We had an 8 piece band there I also played in called TGIF. Three saxes, alto, tenor (me) and bari. Really strong in tune section. We just knew where the pitch was, could feel each other out. No arguing about note lengths etc. We just knew where to put it. Then there were the big bands where they would spend all day arguing about how long a quarter note should be. Plus they could never find the pitch.
BB Sections cont: yes learning to play in school is a good thing if you have a good teacher or older guys in the section who’ve been around. I went to Towson back during the tail end and post Vietnam War. The teacher was Hank Levy. All he ever said to us was “you’re not a band until your all sleeping in the same gutter and dating the same girl.” (This was an all guy band). In my sax section we had two older guy,late 20’s, early 30’s. The rest of us were 18. I actually just started playing tenor. The two “older” guys were ex- Army Band guys from up at Aberdeen Proving Grounds. They could out play us, had stronger sounds, read better and soloed better. We/I learned so much just by being around them and this was the # 2 band I was in. The # 1 band I’m convinced were all ringers. They were older and we hardly say any of those guys around except for their rehearsals and sectionals. That sax section was tight. The whole # 1 band was tight. They won Quinniapac (sp) 2 yrs in a row, the 3rd yr they had to be the opening band and could not compete.
So yeah, knowing how your section mates play is very important. A section needs to play together and hang together, be friends not competitors. To often these days a player is playing a solo and one guy is thinking, “I could play that better,” another two guys look bored and miss the cue for the background parts ya dig. Guys need to encourage each other, clap for each other etc, etc.
Fear of soloing or playing in public. Just do it, get over it. Find a focus point away from the audience. Maybe the sound booth in the back. The red head girl in row 58. The 3 deep breaths trick works. I teach that to my students. It is a Yoga trick. Or was that Yoda, lol, lol.
I do Combo gigs w/out mic/sound support a lot. You just learn to project. Yrs ago when guys were playing for Strippers guys didn’t have mics. The tenor players were playing Links, Bergs, etc. They were playing “Night Train” and Harlem Nocturne” five thousand times a night. Yet they gave it there all. Phil Woods tells this story. My 1st clar/sax teacher played for strippers on the Block in Baltimore back in the late 40’s early 50’s. This is where Tommy Newsom learned to play when he wasn’t in class in Peabody. Tommy Newsom told me this himself. He is was from Portsmouth, VA and moved back when the Carson Show ended.
I agree w/you Donna in many parts of the country the jazz audience is dwindling, people do not know what jazz is. It’s like if it has a sax or trumpet in it or it’s instrumental, then it’s jazz. Yet one thing I do see especially when playing over in Portsmouth. I see these older homeless guys when we play and they seem to really dig the music. Maybe they remember from when they were younger and things were popping around here before the Do-Gooders closed the Night Spots, closed the strip joints w/live bands playing “Night Train” etc, etc. As Tommy Newson said, “those place were great to learn in unless you wanted to be a nun or something.” Guys got a chance to play all night and could spell each other.
Also one last thing. Players should know how to play tunes. How are you going to play “Stardust” and make it swing. Same for “There Will Never Be Another You.” The tune is mostly quarter notes. Well you learn this by LISTENING to recordings of the tune.
Also I have a friend who is really big into having everything on an app and bringing that to the gig. The big excuse is he can instantly transpose a tune into the singers key. Whatever happened to knowing the key the singer was going to sing it in?? What happened to having some tunes known by heart??
I told him don’t go to NYC and do that. He said 5 yrs ago he was in some joint in the Village and these guys were using music. I said they must have been 2nd or 3rd tier guys. Because if they went to Smokes or Small’s they would not be allowed on stage according to Eric Alexander.
Okay, that is it. I have other things to say but I’ll save it for another time.
Ciao,
Larry W