Song of Alto Study for Jim Hobbs

Song of Alto Study for Jim Hobbs by Stanley Jason Zappa

Hells Jeah Jim Hobbs!

I very much quite enjoyed Tragedies of Love, which featured Hobbs in the company of the ultra fantastic Laurence "National Treasure" Cook.

I also quite enjoyed Apparent Distances with the Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet.  That was quite a thing.  Hobbs' socks are pulled up, belt buckled, hair combed and believe you me gets the job done.

The alto saxophone on this recording is also a craigslist score.  The horn is pretty great, but the mouthpiece is a dog.  China does a perfectly fine job making horns, but still bunt with the mouthpieces.

This recording is from the first digital recording device purchased on craigslist--the VS880.  It's hard to get the zeros and ones out of the VS-880.  This is actually a recording of the analog out from the VS-880, which was then re-mastered on the Tascam 2488 (the new craigslist acquisition.)

I know these things have been around for a while, and the whole computer music studio-in-a-lap-top is nothing new, but it's pretty new to me, and kind of a lot to come to grips with--namely the fact that this is nothing new, and what was my excuse (other than price point) for waiting this long to get in on it?

It is also not entirely easy to come to grips with the fact that at a point in my life time, this Tascam 2488, which is essentially a plastic toy, represents unfathomable technical sophistication and power.  Mind you, it's no replacement for a Studer tape deck and some super trick analog board, but it was for a lot of people who took the digital plunge...thinking of a certain trademarked moustache...  Now, in 2012, a 24 track digital recording set up can be purchased literally out of the back of a pick up truck in the parking lot of a dry cleaner for less than the price of a roll of 2" tape.

8 tracks of alto saxophone...the newest horn, and many ways the hardest horn, ergo the admiration for Jim Hobbs, Marco Eneidi, Jimmy Lyons, Dudu Pukwana, Giuseppi Logan, Jack Wright, Rob Brown, etcetera and so forth.


More of the same sort of thing to follow!