Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers
Stephon Alexander: A Real Horn Player
Season 2010 Episode 52 | 1m 57s | Video has closed captioning.
Stephon Alexander: A Real Horn Player
Aired: 11/02/10
Problems Playing Video? | Closed Captioning
Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers
Season 2010 Episode 52 | 1m 57s | Video has closed captioning.
Stephon Alexander: A Real Horn Player
Aired: 11/02/10
Problems Playing Video? | Closed Captioning
(introductory music plays) (instrumental music plays) - My first saxophone, it was a vintage E flat alto sax.
My dad bought it for 50 bucks.
My dad loved the saxophone.
He used to listen to a lot of sax music.
So that was my first horn.
Mr. Kaplan was the one that started really educating me about jazz and jazz improvisation.
Who's good and who sucks.
One of my musical favorites when I was younger was a sax player I discovered on my own, his name was Kenny G. (sax music plays) So I took a tape into Mr. Kaplan's office and said "Mr. Kaplan, you gotta listen to this guy.
This guy is amazing, he can really blow."
Very excited to educate him on my new discovery.
Mr. Kaplan said, "I'll take a look at it."
He comes back the next day with another tape.
He goes "this, this is a real horn plate."
It was a John Coltrane tape.
So I took this home and it absolutely blew me away.
(sax music plays) The first thing that stood out was his sound.
The tone made my hair raise.
It was like nothing I've heard before.
And his dexterity and his harmonic conception.
He was waiting to be discovered by me.
And that's when I really started to take music a lot more seriously.
(sax music plays)