What does it take to make your audience go wild for your sax playing?
Sax School member and Blues fan Charles Benoit gets the inside info on getting that crowd-pleasing sax sound, from Joel Edinberg .
The show
Picture the scene: tiny club, packed crowd, on a shoebox stage a four-piece, roots-rock band wailing away. The drums and guitar keep a tight groove and the piano player – a teenage phenom – has the ghost of Jerry Lee dancing. Suddenly a growling sax blasts into a red-hot, paint-peeling solo. And the place goes nuts.
Welcome to a Veronica Lewis show.
Get 14 Day FREE Trial of Sax School PRO
Veronica’s first album, “You Ain’t Lucky,” debuted at number 2 on the Billboard Blues charts, #1 on iTunes Blues chart, and landing the title track as the Number #1 Blues Song of The Year 2021. She sings as well as she plays, and brother, this girl can play! While she’s burning up the ivories, she counts on the cat on the sax to raise the roof with some jukejoint righteousness.
Joel’s influences
That cat is Joel Edinberg. Raised in a jazz-mad family, he honed his road chops in a ska band, earning a masters degree in engineering physics along the way. He worked that tech stuff for a few years but eventually got back on the right track, leaving that life and making what he calls “a very unsound financial decision to pursue a career in music.”
Joel was working as a producer/recording engineer when he met the then 14-year-old Veronica. He ended up playing sax on “Whoo-Wee Sweet Daddy” on Veronica’s debut album. A few years later he joined the band.
When it comes to his sax sound influences, Joel thanks the screamers. “I’ve been on a huge Junior Walker kick for the last couple of months and I really love Lenny Pickett’s soulful approach to slower ballads. I found that Veronica’s audience really loves the altissimo notes. Every time I get up there is when they go nuts, so I work that in where I can.”
Joel’s Tips for crowd-pleasing sax sound
Joel has a tip for working on that rockin’, pitch-bending sax sound. “Play a high D, then a high C#, and then back to a D. Then while fingering a high D, do the same thing but only with your embouchure. Then do the same thing but going down in half steps, C#, C, C# and then a C, B, C. As far down as you can go. After you get good with that, go down two half steps and then three, and see how accurately you can lower the pitch.”
Energy and feel
While he’s at home jammin’ with a straight jazz quartet, Joel knows that Veronica’s fans want something a bit more, shall we say, unhinged.
“For this type of music, it’s not about showing the world your vast knowledge of theory and harmonic structure, but rather about the energy and feel you put into the solo. Repetition of a good lick or even a single note, within reason, just works really well for this music and gives space for the rest of the band to build.
“Make sure every note has a purpose, like a landing note, a transitional note, a wrong note that hopefully sounds good if you hold it out long enough making the audience think, ‘Wow, that sax player was really just looking really ahead a few bars. They’re super cool,’ or a high note for energy.”
Solo ideas
As for solo ideas, don’t think sax. “Taking ideas and motifs from non-sax players Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis works really well for a boogie woogie sax solo. It’s a slick way to get something that feels like a unique saxophone approach.”
Catch Joel on tour with Veronica Lewis just about everywhere, with his soul project The Superbs, and his Balkan Punk band Somerville Symphony Orkestar. Which probably deserves its own sax interview.
Get Get 14 Day FREE Trial of Sax School PRO
Want to work on your wild, growling, screaming sound? Check out these free lessons:
Better Blues Solos for Sax Players
2 Easy Growl Techniques for Saxophone
Perfect Fall-Offs on Sax in 5 Steps
And when you’re ready to make real progress on saxophone, check out what we’re doing in Sax School Online here.