This is Mai Sugimoto a sax player in Chicago. I had never heard of her until five minutes ago. I only heard about three measures before I signed up for her newsletter, sent her a brief note and then decided to post about her or about her instrument.

I am going to recreate my list or scroll or document or codex with spiral notebook called “One Thousand And One Saxophone Nights”. I threw away the original when I moved in with Terry. I gave away or sold 25 boxes of books. I threw away about 100 handwritten journals including the one with the list of sax players. I was a bachelor until age 53. I was creating spacer in my life for something new.

I am typing this at Coupa while wearing a dog leash on my right wrist. Duffy is not quite tugging at me but sits two feet below and towards the west, I think. South. South by South west.

I wrote to Mai: Concert promoter and artist manager and blogger in Palo Alto dba Earthwise but born on the south side.

I love using that line. The best response was Willie Big Eyes Smith (1936-2011) who said “Midway Chevrolet? that’s where Muddy bought his Chevy’s”.

The saxophone project probably took 100 hours and 500 attempts. It was an alphabetical list of one thousand saxophone players from the history of jazz. No one needs to know the names of 1,000 sax players. Better would be to know more about Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane and how they influence or not Chris Potter and John Ellis. I could probably make a list of 100 (not 1,000) sax players I have worked with as Earthwise Productions. I think Larry Ochs is the last sax player I booked. No, Jonathan Bautista also known as Jonathan Lagunta or Jonathan Lagunta Bautista who played Lytton Plaza a pop up with Delbert Anderson trumpet and Rabiah Kabir flute/bongos on January 29 is the most recent. Although I’m not sure Jonathan would qualify for “A Thousand and One Saxophone Night -II” because the criteria I think is a nationally distributed recording or a review in Downbeat where you are mentioned.

But it started by going thru three books and making index cards of players and their year of birth and year of death. Then I would update with year of death if they died. Then I alphabetized the three sets and wrote them into a book. I would add in the margins or at the bottom for recent players. I used Penguin, All Music Guide and Rough Trade. Plus Downbeat.

Maybe I will do it again, and include Mai Sugimoto. And adjust the criteria to include people like Mai Sugimoto and Jonathan Bautista.

I think the next sax player I will see is Ben Goldberg with Myra Melford on April 5. Maybe I will define it in such a way that that works. A Thousand and One Reed Players Who I Read About or Worked With then I can include Beth Custer, Harvey Wainapel, Sheldon Brown, Ben Goldberg, Anat Cohen.

May I work with Mai. My blog to god’s embouchure.

and 1:

I namechecked for Mai Akira Tana.

andand: Jonathan Lagunte is the steward for the official Earthwise/Plastic Alto alto.