Sax maestro Dan Forshaw visited Market Harborough at the weekend to run an all day jazz workshop for saxophonists, all keen to try their hand at a bit of improvisation!
Organised by Harborough’s Phoenix Saxophone Orchestra, 20 sax players came along to Church Langton Community Hall on Sunday 24 March to work on pieces by Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, to name but a few.
This is the first time Phoenix has run a jazz focused workshop, and we were delighted to welcome 13 guests to join seven Phoenix members for this session. Many of us had never tried improvisation before, but Dan is a great teacher, taking us step-by-step through the basics of the pentatonic scale and showing how it’s used in different types of music, until we were ready to give it a go!
We’d like to thank Dan for coming along to run this workshop. It gave us all the chance to try something new in a friendly and supportive environment, and we’ve all picked up some great tips that we can take away to improve and develop our playing. A great day all round!”
Dan Forshaw said: “Sunday’s session with these passionate musicians was a joy! They impressed not only me, but I believe even themselves with their incredible achievements. Jazz embodies life—it’s about listening, responding and forging your unique musical journey. We had a blast, and I’m eagerly anticipating the remarkable progress of all who joined us.”
You can find sax tips and advice from Dan Forshaw at cambridgesaxophone.com and sax.coach, and on his YouTube channel @danforshaw.
