Sunday, October 22, 2 - 4 pm

In this workshop, saxophonist Tim Armacost offers practical advice on becoming a more spontaneous and creative improviser and musical storyteller through the use of melodic logic. He will address a variety of approaches to learning and delivering melodies, including:

How to start the day by closing the gap between what you can imagine and what you can deliver through the instrument

• How to make melodies that relate to each other in question and answer form
• How to create motion toward an Inevitable Note – the note that everyone in the room wants to hear next
• Practicing efficiently to learn new tunes
• Using melodies to challenge your ears to hear new things
• Rhythmic melodies – how to use rhythm to create ‘melodic hooks.’
• How to organize melodic phrasing to invite the rhythm section into your creative imagination

Each attendee will receive a free chapter from Armacost’s The Jazz Saxophone Book.  

About Tim Armacost

After a life of travel and discovery on three continents, Grammy-winning saxophonist, composer, and author Tim Armacost has established himself as one of the most important improvisers on the New York scene today. Armacost was born in Los Angeles but came of age as a musician in Tokyo, New Delhi, and Amsterdam, where he burnished his reputation as an upcoming talent with a big tenor sound and an impeccable rhythmic sense. He tours regularly around the world both as a sideman and a leader. Armacost has worked with a phenomenal number of jazz greats, including Al Foster, Jimmy Cobb, Kenny Barron, Tom Harrell, Billy Hart, Victor Lewis, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Peter Erskine, Ray Drummond, Roy Hargrove, Don Friedman, and Randy Brecker. He has recorded 17 critically acclaimed records as a leader, performed on more than 60 as a sideman, and has composed and arranged for Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Armacost is a widely respected educator, teaching at the Jamey Aebersold and Stanford Summer Jazz Workshops, at Queens College in New York City, and as a clinician at Universities throughout the U.S., Japan, and Europe.  He is the author of Sher Music’s The Jazz Saxophone Book. In addition to his own groups, Armacost co-leads the New York Standards Quartet and the Brooklyn Big Band, for which he composes and arranges. He is a member of Emilio Solla’s Grammy-nominated group Inestabile de Brooklyn and won a Grammy with Solla’s Tango Jazz Orchestra in 2020. Armacost’s outstanding recording, Time Being, featuring Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts and Bob Hurst, received a four-star review in Downbeat magazine and has met with critical acclaim around the world.  He is celebrating the vinyl release of The Inevitable Note, showcasing his working group with Joe Locke, Jim Ridl, Kenny Davis, and Rudy Royston.