Sauer and Alessi

[SteelDeRosa]

I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the difference I hear when I listen to solo recordings of Alessi and of Sauer. How might one well distinguish the sounds of these two paradigmatic players?

[Burgerbob]

Different.

[brassmedic]

I would say almost polar opposites. Both wonderful but such different sounds.

[paulyg]

I’ve heard both play in the same room (different times).

Joe is a powerful player. It is a kinesthetic experience hearing him play live. Even at the softest dynamics, he projects such a volume of “music” that it’s impossible to be anything but 100% focused on his sound. When he’s playing loud, it’s like watching the clouds part in front of the sun, but with your ears. You can feel his articulations in your chest.

Ralph sounds like he’s telling you a story. There’s a conversational quality to it. If I didn’t know better, and if his sound weren’t so dark and huge, I’d call it jazzy. It’s far from lazy, though- think about falling behind in a class lecture. If YOU don’t listen, you’re gonna miss out. Also, Ralph is an absolute acrobat on the horn. He has the most consistent timbre of any player I’ve heard live, but manages to make everything sound unique.

[brassmedic]

Ha. That's great. Let me say something else. There is a thing about Conn trombones. If you get everything just right and have absolute focus, the sound sort of goes exponential and it produces a color that defies explanation. And Ralph is a master of that. To me, it's a very difficult thing to do, because you are walking a line between producing a huge, full sound, and overblowing and having everything just collapse. But Ralph always made it sound easy.

[harrisonreed]

Conn based Shires too? As far as I know he's got a fancy Shires horn he plays on now.

[Vegasbound]

Conn & Bach

[GabrielRice]

Conn based Shires too? As far as I know he's got a fancy Shires horn he plays on now.

Yes, his Shires model is very much inspired by the Conns he played for most of his career. After all, the first requirement was that he would want to play it!

[harrisonreed]

Conn based Shires too? As far as I know he's got a fancy Shires horn he plays on now.

Yes, his Shires model is very much inspired by the Conns he played for most of his career. After all, the first requirement was that he would want to play it!

Right, just wondering if it has those same quirks, and paper thin margin for error that BrassMedic was talking about. I know all too well how those 88Hs are...

[GabrielRice]

I'm not sure how much of his career Ralph played on a "standard" Elkhart 8H or 88H from the 50s/60s. The first time I met him was in about 1989, and what he was playing then was a very old 8H with a yellow brass bell that had had the bell braces filled in so they were solid rather than hollow. I think it was pre-WWII, which would likely mean it had a soldered bell bead rather than unsoldered. Later on I think he played a modern 88H, and at some point he switched to the .525-.547 dual bore slide.

His Shires model does not have that unstable feel of some Conns, and it also has a screw bell, which adds a particular kind of focus and stability.

[hyperbolica]

I always felt that Alessi was the quintessential orchestral player, and Sauer was a much more colorful soloistic player. I think I gravitate more toward Sauer's interpretation, not least because he was more of a Conn guy, as am I. I studied some of Sauer's transcriptions, and there were so many, and his recordings spoke to me in a way Alessi's really didn't. Alessi is almost always perfect, but Sauer sings.

Plus, I think the Sauer Shires horn is the best of their large bore offerings. The colorful bell, the downsized slide, the more nimble valve... I think it reflects the namesake. Not to take anything away from Alessi, he's obviously a great musician, I just thought Joe was maybe a little sterile, but that's what orchestral playing is, compared to solo/chamber.

[brtnats]

Ralph Sauer on LP with *really good headphones* is one of they most amazing sounds in the world.

[Doug Elliott]

Sauer and Alessi are both obviously fantastic individual musicians and personalities.

They are both perfect examples of the two completely different downstream embouchures. All of their playing characteristics are typical of their embouchure type in it's most correct form.

It's all intertwined - you're more likely to succeed when your musical and sound concepts agree with your mechanical characteristics, and you celebrate those differences.

[SteelDeRosa]

Can you say more about that, Doug? Again, my vocabulary fails me, but how would you describe/identify their embouchures as different from one another.

By the way, these are some great thoughts.

[brassmedic]

Conn based Shires too? As far as I know he's got a fancy Shires horn he plays on now.

Yeah, good point. I was basing it on all the times I heard him play in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, when he played an 88H.

[Doug Elliott]

If you look for similarities in Ralph Sauer, Jay Friedman, JJ Johnson (low horn angle, 50/50 mpc placement, "consistent timbre" but expressive --- and similarities between Joe Alessi and (I won't bother to name them but) the vast majority of other players (70/30 mpc placement - straight out horn angle, brighter but wider-ranging sound quality and power --- you'll start to understand.

[harrisonreed]

I think CL falls on the Ralph Sauer 50/50 camp too?

[Doug Elliott]

Yes but his playing and sound characteristics are not as typical of that type. I think that's just his personal choices as a soloist. Charlie Vernon is also that type, but it's harder to tell on bass trombone. Maynard Ferguson too.
But let's keep this thread about Sauer and Alessi as it started. I don't mean to derail that.

[FOSSIL]

Doug is right....it's ridiculous to reduce two world class musicians to a construct of equipment and embouchures. Surely the conversation should be about their musical approach and perhaps what has influenced them along their paths to that approach.

Chris

[GabrielRice]

Doug is right....it's ridiculous to reduce two world class musicians to a construct of equipment and embouchures. Surely the conversation should be about their musical approach and perhaps what has influenced them along their paths to that approach.

Chris

I find the embouchure and equipment considerations interesting, but Chris makes a great point that needs exploring.

From the standpoint of trombone history, Ralph is incredibly significant as representing the last generation of Remington students (I'm sure he would be equally amused and horrified to be described that way). The Remington approach is characterized by easy, unforced tone production, singing style, elimination of tension, and, yes, the Conn 88H. Obviously there's more to it. Ralph is incredibly skilled at maintaining all of that ease even while playing at high orchestral volume, which he does by being smart. Louder = longer = not needing to blow your head off to be heard.

Joe comes from a different pedagogical lineage, and he's one of the first generation or so of orchestral trombonists to get their jobs as the Remington students were retiring. Joe grew up in San Francisco, and his early teachers were Miles Anderson (look him up - completely unique player that I make my students listen to) and Mark Lawrence. Then he went to Curtis and studied with Glenn Dodson, and I hear Joe's approach as being very much related to him, which is more like the Chicago style than the Remington/Eastman style: more direct sound and a somewhat more muscular approach. The same smarts apply in the orchestra, and obviously Joe's approach is not just about force.

And all that said, if you heard the two of them play together, you might be surprised at how different they DON'T sound.

[FOSSIL]

There you go...interesting and insightful!!!

Chris

[GabrielRice]

Here's an excellent comparison of the same repertoire, the Sulek Sonata. You can hear subtle but significant differences in tone color, as well as articulation style. Both sing beautifully, and both make incredibly exciting sounds at the end.

Sauer:
Alessi:

[paulyg]

And all that said, if you heard the two of them play together, you might be surprised at how different they DON'T sound.

As I said, I've heard them in the same room (different times). They sound pretty darn different.

[GabrielRice]

As I said, I've heard them in the same room (different times). They sound pretty darn different.

Ah...but that wasn't what I wrote...

I heard Joe give a recital with Jurgen van Rijen at the 2014 ITF. VERY different players when you hear them by themselves. When they played together the blend was seamless.

[Doug Elliott]

I was writing this at the same time...

I think Gabe's saying that if they played together they would have no trouble matching styles and sounds, because that's what good players do. Individually they're free to do their own thing.

[SteelDeRosa]

Thank you all for this very instructive series of remarks. If you would permit the one final follow up on the subject of vocabulary, I would be grateful. After listening to side-by-side comparisons of both artists playing the same works (thank you, Gabe), how might you all directly answer these comparisons:

Which player has a “brighter” sound?
Which player has a “darker” sound?
Which player has “more color” in their sound?
Which player’ sound exhibits the most overtones?
Which player has a “warmer” sound?

I post these questions, in order to get a handle on what we as trombone players mean when we use these adjectives. At bottom, I am trying to get us to define our terms to the extent we are able.

[Kbiggs]

Slightly off topic...

There’s a couple of implied questions here that have been mentioned periodically on this forum and the old TF: To what extent does a player’s equipment choice influence their sound and style?

And the reverse: To what extent does a player’s “natural” playing ability affect their choice of equipment? What about their physical characteristics?

The question becomes moot when discussing players from a particular pedagogical school. If you went to Eastman in the 50’s through the 70’s, you played a Conn. Players from Eastern Europe, e.g., Vienna (until quite recently), have been strongly influenced by the teachers and the instruments/brands played—you played what your teacher told you to play. And of course, as has been recently noted in another thread here, players in the UK have strongly gravitated towards Conns and Holtons.

[brassmedic]

Thank you all for this very instructive series of remarks. If you would permit the one final follow up on the subject of vocabulary, I would be grateful. After listening to side-by-side comparisons of both artists playing the same works (thank you, Gabe), how might you all directly answer these comparisons:

Which player has a “brighter” sound?
Which player has a “darker” sound?
Which player has “more color” in their sound?
Which player’ sound exhibits the most overtones?
Which player has a “warmer” sound?

I post these questions, in order to get a handle on what we as trombone players mean when we use these adjectives. At bottom, I am trying to get us to define our terms to the extent we are able.

Ha ha. You have no idea the can of worms you just opened. I'll give you my answer, and I know there will be as many differing opinions to follow as there are trombone chat members.

Which player has a “brighter” sound? Ralph

Which player has a “darker” sound? Joe

Which player has “more color” in their sound? That's a tough question, because you can have different colors. So if I had to pick an answer I'd say Ralph.

Which player’ sound exhibits the most overtones? I think a better question would be which player exhibits the most upper overtones, which is what I consider to be a "bright" sound, and again it would be Ralph.

Which player has a “warmer” sound? I will abstain on this one because it's such a subjective term and I'd be more interested to hear what other people think.

Anyway, to my ear Joe has a dark, powerful sound with a lot of core. Ralph has a more shimmering sound with a lot of color (see, there I go using that term. )

[GabrielRice]

I'm not a huge fan of these terms, as they tend to be reductive and have value associations. But here you go:

Which player has a “brighter” sound? Alessi
Which player has a “darker” sound? Sauer
Which player has “more color” in their sound? Alessi
Which player’ sound exhibits the most overtones? Alessi
Which player has a “warmer” sound? Sauer

[GabrielRice]

See? Two professional players gave you opposite answers!

[brassmedic]

When we get more answers it could also be interesting to see how they divide with regard to West coast vs. East coast.

[harrisonreed]

I don't know much about Sauer, but the one solo recording I heard of his was from the 80s or something, where he plays Sulek. I would say he has a dark tone that is "floaty".

Alessi has a lot more solo recordings from the 90s through to today, and his sound has changed over time. The 90s were a weird time! I think his early solo recordings are VERY dark and heavy sounding. More recent recordings of his are with orchestra and band, playing concertos, and his sound is VERY bright with "pingy" overtones. I love the sound he has been getting lately, like in the last ten years or so. I don't know if it is because he moved to a lighter horn or just changed his sound concept, but the new sound is AWESOME. We can't forget, though, that the fancy DAWs and EQ we have today can bring out overtones like crazy, and this wasn't available to Sauer when he recorded the album with Sulek on it. Who knows what role that plays?

I heard Alessi at a master class a few years back and he sounded somewhere in between his latest solo albums and the Doom Hammer from the 90s -- probably because he was mostly helping students with excerpts!!

Which player has a “brighter” sound? New Alessi
Which player has a “darker” sound? Old Alessi by far / Sauer
Which player has “more color” in their sound? New Alessi
Which player’ sound exhibits the most overtones? New Alessi
Which player has a “warmer” sound? Sauer

[Doug Elliott]

I don't know that you can make generalizations in those terms.
They have very different characteristics at different volumes, articulations, and sustain.

Joe has more "front" on the notes which makes for a brighter approach that immediately gets darker after the attack and then grows brightness back quickly, with a tiny bit of vibrato at the end;
Ralph has a gentler start to his notes which give an impression of darker but his sustain blooms slowly into brightness in a very controlled way.
Overall, Joe is playing louder than Ralph, so his sound has more of the brightness that comes with more volume. Ralph has more variation in his sound color because he is using more variation in volume.

[SteelDeRosa]

Keep this up; y’all are putting a fine edge on otherwise clumsily used terms. I wish I would have added this: which player’s sound has more “core”?

[brassmedic]

That's a great point Doug made, that their sounds compare differently at different dynamics, and their attacks are a lot different. Also, I didn't realize that Joe's playing had changed a lot until Harrison pointed that out. So I may be hearing it with my memory rather than my ears. I got out my Slide Area CD and Ralph's excerpt CD, and Joe sounds really dark to me. But yeah, that's from quite awhile back. And solos vs. excerpts are apples and oranges, so .

But just for fun, I plugged the last note of the Sulek into Audacity (just the sustain), and mapped the frequencies. I know, I know - there's piano in there so I'm not proving anything. But here are the graphs. You see so much more of the bottom end in Joe's sound, but at the high end, it's much more muted and even disappears at the very highest part. Ralph's has more high end to the sound. That's how I hear it on loud passages. In soft passages I'm not sure.

Joe:

Joe.jpg

Ralph:

Ralph.jpg

[FOSSIL]

When it comes to the sort of subtleties that we are now discussing, recorded sound is a very imperfect tool. Especially with brass instruments, the processing of the sonic input has a huge effect on the final product.
Having never heard Ralph Sauer in a solo context I am simply not in a position to judge the performance subtleties of these two artists, one against the other.
What I will say is that after a lifetime of analytical listening, I look forward to simply enjoying listening to music at some point in the future .To perform at a professional level, we sometimes have to forgo that simple pleasure.
I very much enjoy listening to these two musicians in recorded form and applaud their individual musical personalities...I'll leave it at that.

Chris

[imsevimse]

I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the difference I hear when I listen to solo recordings of Alessi and of Sauer. How might one well distinguish the sounds of these two paradigmatic players?

We have tried to discuss sound in so many threads. Here when we discuss musicians at this high level who both have great sounds but different, we can not make much sense because our words and our languages is not sufficient. I couldn't describe the thoughts about how I hear them to you in Swedish so how could I do it in English? Sound can best be described with another sound. If we put words in there and go into details we loose the picture.

When there are technical issues that affects a sound then we are trained to put what we hear into words. To characterize a sound as "not open", "pinched" "small", "dull" as opposed to "open", "free", "big", "complex" is something we can do with ease when there are technical issues involved but at this high level we can not use that vocabulary.

Interpretation is much more interesting to discuss at this level and also as have been done where the soloists comes from, their background and influences. It can help to build a picture of their differences. Miles Andersson is an absolute favourite of mine and I did not know Joe was a student of his, that was interesting reading

We can say we prefer one more, but I guess what we say about that player can be said about that other player too. If we say one of them has that great sonorous sound with that full core and complex spectra of overtones we would like our selves then what about that other great sound?

Accept they are different and enjoy both.

/Tom

[GabrielRice]

Brad, I'd be interested in how you answer those questions based only on the Sulek recordings I posted. That's what I did. Even better if you didn't know which was which (though I think you'd figure it out quickly) and answered the questions just as player A and player B.

Doug...same. In particular, your comments about fronts of notes is a little more complex than that I think, because, at least in these recordings, the two are tonguing in completely different ways.

[Basbasun]

They are both fantastic player, with different personalitys, and different equipment. Also different sound engineers and studio room. Different mices. Of course they do sound different, but I would not try to describe the difference in sound with words. For me the most obvious different is the different equipment, it is easy to hear what horn is biggest/smallest and what mpc is biggest/smallest.

[Doug Elliott]

Not sure what you're asking, Gabe.

I was not thinking about equipment at all, I think if they switched horns they'd sound exactly the same. It's about their approach, and part of that approach is intertwined with stylistic choices they have developed as least partly due to their different embouchure types.

[GabrielRice]

Maybe I'm not entirely clear what I'm asking either...but it wasn't about equipment. It was about articulation - you talked about fronts of notes. To my ear, at least on those Sulek recordings, Ralph tongues harder and more forward. Even on short notes, Joe's articulations are less prominent, closer to a breath attack.

In fact, one of the things I've observed about Joe from watching him live is that he's not quite as pinpoint-accurate as people think he is (especially when he's playing on almost every concert at an ITF where he's also the host, and premiering a concerto with the Philharmonic the same weekend...it was astounding to witness), but that his articulation approach, generally with a very light tongue and very much led by air, makes it so that when he's not quite centered at the start of a note it resolves so quickly as to be barely noticeable.

[Doug Elliott]

I'd love to talk about this in person but it's way too complicated to bring it up here. That's exactly related to what we are talking about in the Articulation thread, and what I just wrote there. And different embouchure types, because they have different response characteristics.

[GabrielRice]

I'd love to talk about this in person but it's way too complicated to bring it up here. That's exactly related to what we are talking about in the Articulation thread, and what I just wrote there. And different embouchure types, because they have different response characteristics.

[FOSSIL]

Well, can't we talk about attack from a musical point of view ??? As a reader, this thread gets way more interesting when we talk music.
Your Sulek example Gabe... Ralph recorded that more than 40 years ago, so tonally it is a child of the recording technology of the time. Although I could not see a date I am assuming Joe's recording is more recent...at least it sounds that way, but I don't hear such a big difference in articulation in itself. The funny thing is that to me, Joe's style has more of a connect to older styles, especially in his portamento. Elements of the early 20th century but in a very refined, modern way. Ralph plays within that strong Remington tradition, but with his own musicianship, elegant refinement.
I have heard much stronger articulation on this side of the pond, though there is now a much less articulated style prevalent here.

Chris

[RustBeltBass]

Many thoughts on this and unfortunately no time until tonight to contribute anything meaningful in an organized way but:

Thank you everyone for this really interesting conversation. It seems that slowly this forum and its content are going in a great direction.

[brassmedic]

Brad, I'd be interested in how you answer those questions based only on the Sulek recordings I posted.

The post where I answered those questions was based only on the recordings you posted.

[GabrielRice]

Brad, I'd be interested in how you answer those questions based only on the Sulek recordings I posted.

The post where I answered those questions was based only on the recordings you posted.

So interesting how we hear it in different ways. Kind of like how different people's taste buds work differently. Wouldn't it be boring if we all heard the same things and played the same ways?

[Doug Elliott]

Their relative sounds surprised me too, I expected Ralph to sound darker than he does and Joe to sound brighter. That's why I started to analyze how their sounds start and get to their brightness in different ways and times.

[paulyg]

Those overtone analysis graphs can be misleading. Since a note isn't the same from start to finish, the actual audio sample matters a whole lot.

[Doug Elliott]

Between the recording quality and techniques and YouTube sound quality, I was trusting my ears more. And they're both very flexible in changing pretty much everything in different sections of the piece to create a mood.