Best of Belwin Jazz: Jazz Band Collection for Jazz Ensemble: 1st Tenor Saxophone Book

You're playing through genuine jazz vocabulary: Ellington's swing feel in "Jumpin' at the Woodside," the breezy optimism of Gershwin's "Oh, Lady be Good!," the cool sophistication of "On Green Dolphin Street." The collection moves between uptempo grooves, introspective ballads, and contemporary jazz-rock textures, so every rehearsal brings stylistic variety and keeps students engaged across multiple musical moods.

1st Tenor Saxophone players in medium-level jazz ensembles who need a comprehensive collection of playable standards and jazz classics. Whether your band meets once weekly or rehearses daily, these ten arrangements give you reliable material that develops jazz fundamentals without requiring students to transcribe solos or decode complex voicings.

• Listen to the full conductor recordings before rehearsal to internalize the style and feel of each tune; swing and jazz-rock require different articulation approaches, and hearing the intent first makes your section's phrasing land more naturally.
• Pay close attention to the ballads ("My Foolish Heart" and "On Green Dolphin Street") as vehicles for developing vibrato control and tone warmth; these aren't rhythm section features, so your lead voice carries the melody.
• Lock the rhythmic feels with your section mates during the initial read-through; the variance between straight-eighths passages and swung material means you need precision agreement on subdivision before the full ensemble gets involved.

Build a jazz concert around this collection in the second half of your school year, when students have developed ensemble cohesion and can manage the stylistic nuance. You can also use individual arrangements as standalone features in mixed concert programming, or sequence them intentionally to showcase range: open with an uptempo swing chart, move through a ballad, and close with the energy of a jazz-rock feature.

• Swing articulation and phrasing in jazz idiom
• Reading and executing syncopated jazz rhythms
• Distinguishing and performing multiple jazz styles (swing, ballad, jazz-rock)
• Blending and balancing within a section of multiple tenor saxophones
• Listening to and responding to rhythm section grooves
• Sustaining tone and control through longer melodic phrases