Horns

Brother Jimmy Street drove up from SoCal to see his daughter Rebecca at UC Santa Cruz, so he just kept on coming afterwards and stayed a few days with Plot and Duck. The Bro has been out at sea on cruise ships long enough now that terrestrial pleasures mean a lot to him -- a great cup of coffee or dim sum at Koi Palace, for example.

Plot had been thinking of putting a trumpet figure on "American Joe," but since Bro Street was here we decided to try the idea on tenor and alto sax. WHAT a good idea! 

Method: alto on top, doubled. Then tenor at the top of its range in the middle, and tenor at the bottom of its range on the bottom, sounding very much like a baritone sax.

Plot loves horn sections. Horns give you the same indescribable sense that voices do -- music that comes from the body. When you play a horn or a wind instrument you blow what's inside you out into the world. Same with your voice -- whatever you're feeling flies directly into the microphone.

Not so on a piano or guitar -- there are those pesky strings and keys and hammers in the way. It's more brain, less guts. Not that Plottie doesn't love guitar and piano, after all these are his instruments. But blowing a horn or singing like a bird -- well, maybe in the next life.