Ben Webster’s “Mellow Tone”

While thinking about Ben Webster this morning, I began messing around with Duke’s tune “In a Mellow Tone.” I was working on the ascending minor 6^th leap and came up with this fun little exercise to develop fluency with that 6^th skip. Although this phrase sounds more like Duke’s tune “Do Nothin’ Til You Hear From Me,” and the band was in a Bossa mood, the lick is meant to go with Webster’s “In a Mellow Tone.”

For a chart in all 12 keys, click on “continue reading” below. Or – if you want to learn to play effortlessly without charts, download “New Ears Resolution.”

Here’s a note to players who are constantly searching for the perfect horn:

“Ben Webster used the same saxophone from 1938 until his death in 1973. Ben left instructions that the horn was never to be played again. It is on display in the Jazz Institute at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.“
—- Wikipedia article on Ben Webster