Saxophone

YouTube has removed limits on uploads from my account! Here is a complete set (~30 minutes) of saxophone duos with Lucas Pino, recorded with my new mobile rig.

Zack Lipton - Tenor Saxophone, Composer
Lucas Pino - Tenor Saxophone

Set:
"Since I Became Stupid" - (Zachary Lipton ©Point14 2011)
"Giant Steps" - (John Coltrane)
"Hurricane Suite" - (Zachary Lipton @Point14 2011)
"Skylark" - (Hoagy Carmichael)

Had the great pleasure of playing with the amazing saxophonist, and even better person, Lucas Pino last night at Lasers in the Jungle.

"Since I Became Stupid" ( Lipton, ©2011 )

Zack Lipton - Tenor Saxophone
Lucas Pino - Tenor Saxophone
Tobin Chodos - Piano
Leon Boykins - Bass
Dustin Kaufman - Drums

Dear Yamaha,

I have spent most of my life as a saxophonist blowing into Selmer saxophones. From a young age, I was told that they were the best and, despite my otherwise contrarian nature, it seemed plausible enough that I never spent much time considering newer horns, especially not any manufactured outside Paris.

Over the ensuing 10 years since I bought my first professional model saxophone, I have changed mouthpieces, switched reed companies. I graduated from high school, went to college. I fell in love for the first time and had my heart broken for the first time. I graduated from Columbia with a degree in Mathematics and Economics, and kept a music career going too.

Along the way, I lost my sense of smell, suffered a catastrophic presumed autoimmune attack on my brain, decimating my memory and higher cognitive function, endured 2 spinal taps, plasmapheresis (incompetently performed, blowing out a vein, begetting what promises to be a lifelong fear of needles), five trillion different cytotoxic chemotherapeutic therapies, and high dose steroids.

Yet throughout the entire decade, despite the constant doubt cast into every corner of my life, I never stopped to consider that amidst all the chaos and uncertainty in the world, perhaps my deeply ingrained faith in the quality of Selmer's saxophones warranted reconsideration.

Finally, this past weekend, escaping from a little too much family time in Smithtown, Long Island, I stumbled into Cornet Music. Looking to try out horns, I asked a friendly staffer if they had any professional Yamaha sopranos I might be able to try.
He came back with what I believe was a YSS-62, presumably not even the top of the line.

Not sure what to expect, but glad to be holding a saxophone in an air conditioned practice room and not losing years of my life to the heat wave while sitting around a pool, I gave it a try, using a stock mouthpiece.

It blew my Selmer Series III away. Your horn was so much better than my soprano that I was embarrassed to have bought mine in the first place. The intonation was superior, the tone more robust, the feel heavier, and the key-work equally nimble. I am afraid to consider how much better than my horn your top-of-the line soprano is.

Alas, I am a 25 yr old trying to play art music in New York City while paying hefty medical bills in an attempt to remain alive and lucid. So my saxophone purchasing power is minimal and - left to my own devices - I might never (and certainly not soon) be able to afford one of your real deal sopranos.

So here is my audacious and perhaps laughable request. I would like to endorse your product! With my joints gimpy, I might not be quite as dextrous as a young Michael Brecker (but neither is anyone else on your artist roster). And my website is surprisingly well trafficked for a relatively unknown kid playing saxophone in New York City.

If you can be so generous as to gift me one of your brilliantly crafted sopranos, I will happily do any or all of the following.

1) Place a notice of endorsement with a link to your products somewhere on my website such that it will appear on every page. While I might be unknown, my site does get some eyeballs.

2) Write the best commendation of your horns of any endorsee you'll ever have. A literate jazz musician is a rare commodity.

3) Stick Yamaha stickers on everything I own.

4) Anything else you can think of, short of tattooing your logo onto my forehead.

So, what do you say?

Yours truly,

Zachary Lipton

The primary obstacle to my saxophone career has been my flirtation with life-threatening, cognition-impairing autoimmune brain disease. But the first runner-up would have to be the prohibitive cost and notorious inconsistency of most brands of saxophone reeds. In a $25 box of 5 reeds by some of the premium names in reeds, most players would be lucky to find 2 they could play on a gig.

Fortunately, once while in college, I sent my father to Roberto's Woodwinds (around the corner from his office, my sloth was not so egregious) to pick up a couple of boxes of reeds. While there, he heard some chatter about the quality and consistency of Rigotti Gold reeds and grabbed a box in my strength to see if I might like them.

At first I was stupefied by his audacity. In a decade of saxophone playing, I had yet to find a reliable manufacturer of reeds; surely he, a non-musician, could not have bested me. However, when I eventually gave the reeds a try, I was bowled over by their projection, warmth, and consistency. In a box of 10, the majority were playable and the best were inspiring.

Ever since my sophomore year at Columbia, I have dutifully played Rigotti's reeds, and it is a great honor to announce that after speaking with Daniel Rigotti, the man behind this great company, I will be endorsing their product.

Check them out at their website!

Opening thoughts: There exists about me a painful legend of undeniable veracity that exposes some bugs in my programming. Most versions of the tale start with me boarding a train with a saxophone and some baggage; they end with me exiting the train with … some baggage. A second thought: I normally despise proselytizing tales of ‘real-life miracles’, blasted through the Internet, in an effort to prove the validity of some system of belief. So take the following harrowing and uplifting tale of midnight madness however you choose.

I awoke this morning early by New Yorkers’ standards, late by Parisians’. I walked off the jetlagged malaise on a stroll through Montparnasse, feating on a salade du saumon and pounding an espresso before attending to some logistical matters, sauntering in and out of a few stores.