There's only one Lenny Pickett and when the greatest sax solo ever played lasts the entire song, it just doesn't get any better than this. This is the most soulful song ever recorded. IMO.
Yes I truly believe one of the greatest sax players up there with Jr Walker King Curtis Kenny G. Lenny Pickett was with The Legendary Tower of Power back in the 70s and 80s.
Unbelievable tenor sax!! SNL is NOT SNL without this closing theme song. Essential as Pete, Lenny, Kenan, Michael, Colin, Cecily, Kate, Melissa, and many more over the decades ... for telling the truth about our society!! Thank you, Lorne Michaels!!
Howard Shore (the original SNL musical director) who did the score for Lord of the Rings composed it. A beautiful goodbye and this a beautiful tribute to Lenny, Howard and all the awesome musicians involved in playing it over the years!
Lenny Pickett is on a different planet. He eats,sleeps and breathes the tenor saxophone. And He is so calm cool and collected as he’s absolutely crushing it!!!!
Not many players can be so consistent and melodic in the upper register. Consequently, the work it takes to get there translates to a fat, lush tone all over the horn. He’s known for his altissimo work, but really an incredible sound top to bottom. So good.
Stephen Colbert has a question on his questionnaire - if you had only one song to listen to for the rest of your life, what would it be? My answer is SNL closing theme, Waltz in A, without question. What a beautiful piece of music. It never gets old.
I've always loved Lenny Pickett's playing with Tower of Power - their recorded music is amazing, their live performances were stunning, and then to witness his great performances (with the band) to open and close the shows on SNL - man - what a player!
Been a fan of this man from his Tower of Power days. I remember, ToP played locally and I was just on pins and needles waiting for him...didn't know he'd left the band. One of the very, very best of all time.
Lenny learned by playing every waking minute. He learned to exceed the range of his altissimo teacher. I only heard Bert Wilson play higher notes than a grand piano a few times, but Lenny does it on command. THe master of sax altissimo AND split-tone chords was Bert Wilson, a polio quadriplegic living in Olympia WA. Some of his work is still on RU-vid. Pickett took it the farthest. Jeff Coffin and Ernie Watts studied with Bert. Benny Golson took a lesson on the phone. Not R & B in any sense, Bert played very modern bop, free, and wilder than you have ever heard, unless you are Lenny reading this or at his level. Most people hated Bert's playing.
Nobody can shred that altissimo better than Lenny!! It's the stuff of legends. He makes it look effortless. Could you imagine him sitting in on your Blues Jam?!? WTF!!!!!!
😭😭😭 it brought me to tears. Thank you for sharing this video, and agreed Lenny Pickett's altissimo is brilliant. Thank you to 💕SNL, Lorne Michaels for decades of being on the air since you began in the autumn of 1975. I was a child then. Wow. This is nostalgic. So heart wrenchingly beautiful. Life is precious and finite. How easily we've all taken our lives for granted, but once someone's life on earth is over there's no do over. It over. During this terrible, unexpected, life altering world we live in that began 8 months ago due to the 🌐worldwide coronavirus 😷pandemic has upended and altered the course of everyone's lives during the past 8 months. It's brought about such sudden change. Social isolation, lack of connection, interaction with other people, one of the many human necessities we all miss, we all seek and need to survive. Loneliness, despair, isolation. heartache, so many suffering, so many who've died, lives taken too soon. Just listening to this brilliant, beautiful saxophonist in the wee hours this morning, the same morning and I'll be getting surgery under general anesthesia. My late mom who died 5 years ago isn't here anymore. Thinking about how she's not here for me, and when things in life happen I still need her and miss her. I also think about how my life and my husband's life could of turned out if only this or that hadn't occurred. Wishing I didn't have to feel paralyzed by autoimmune disease Hashimoto's, depression and anxiety, and the lifetime of struggling with it I'm imagining what life could be like if I could get out and feel courageous to travel and see the world. How spectacularly beautiful, and exciting it would be. New York glitters in the pitch black dark starless night sky, yet still looks captivatingly beautiful, alluring, magical. Then the video shows performers, comedians, Keenan Thompson on stage performing at the microphone... like wow, how I can imagine, feel so many emotions played out in the musical instruments each band member's playing, their individuality is shared openly, honestly, like their vulnerability, trust is briefly exposed through their music. Each musician brings a dynamic to the group. Within each piece of the musical repertoire you get a sense if what each musician was feeling at the time they composed and created the music. The group's camaraderie and music is felt. SNL showing many uniquely, very brilliantly talented musicians. That brilliant saxophonist just makes you feel his love for music, his energy is infectious, electrifying and feel like it's brought you into a type of awareness, like you think to yourself, look what I'm missing out on in life. Why aren't I enjoying it? Why aren't I living my best life to the fullest and why does fear, depression and anxiety ruin it? Why isn't my husband? It's such a joy to listen to this, and be captivated by it for those who needed it. Who can't be there to see it live, this SNL video is truly appropriate and appreciated. Anyone who's able to perform on stage in front of a live studio audience on SNL is admirable and a feat I'll never accomplish in my lifetime.
Goosebumps EVERY TIME!!!!!!!! LOVE the top tones!!!!! This used to LIGHT ME UP when I was a little kid! Whole reason I love the sax is this tune that got me going… finally started playing 2 years ago at 52. Faaaakin love it!! Thank you LP!!
Thank you Danilo Blanco for this video that I have hunted since the 1980’s to get recorded. Saturday Night Live always seemed to cut it short. I don’t remember how many times I worked my cassette tape deck or reel to reel recorder to get it. Lenny, like any one knows, is a master musician. I think he was a music professor at New York University. He was truly a gift to Saturday Night Live. The waltz he composed is the only piece in my musical collection that I can play over and over again at one sitting and never grow tired of it. I tell you this waltz draws you in . The haunting notes of his sax with that deep bass still can make me tear up. I love you Lenny Pickett. You are the MAN ! There is no one out there like you at all.
Dude! Thanks for posting this. This is the best quality Audio of SNL closing theme I've ever heard (and the video is awesome too). Lenny Pickett, with his 6 Octave range on tenor, is a beautiful freak of nature. I think he can play higher than any of us. when I was a kid growing up in the 70s (before Lenny was in the band as he was still in Tower of Power), I used to stay up late just to hear the 20 seconds (30 seconds if you were lucky) of that NYC Gospel/R&B sax sound. It forever changed how I prefer to Play Saxophone. When Lenny joined the SNL Band in '85, he took it to another level with his Soulful Altissimo. It's a rare treat to hear this closing theme song. Fantastic! Liked and Subscribed for sure.
Hitting those altissimo notes is not necessarily that hard to do on their own but his articulation of those notes is insane. You don’t really hear anyone that can do it on that level on the upper end of the range. Crazy stuff.
This is like a companion piece to Sofa by FZ, as heard on The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life. I call both them a gospel waltz. One part waltz, one part church, and one part funky reed.
Check out the piano version of “Waltz in A” (SNL credits) by Ben Schwartz. Words can’t explain. He doesn’t need any instruments to support. It’s hard to say, but best version of this song.
I I’ve spent my entire life doing improv and sketch comedy hoping one day I would get a chance to be on SNL… Move to LA and spend every single waking minute for the past 10 years chasing that group dream… Today I’m giving up on it
Anybody know the highest note Lenny hits in this solo? I'm thinking it's well above Concert C2, but I could be wrong. But he gets way the h--ll up there!
Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin and Garret Morris - I still remember there names ... They were absolutely the greatest ... I remember when they said that the original first half of the first season was unscripted because most of them were too high to remember their lines ... NOW EVEN THATS funny ... , I was 15 when the first SNL started - way before Internet or social media or cellphones. Cassettes had just really came out and ppl still had 8 Tracks in their cars. We use to all get together as kids / neighbors and watch the entire thing at someones house on a 27" TV set with rabbit ear antennas. . And then would talk about the episodes in class on Monday. THAT was back when it was funny to everyone - EVERYONE was insulted - EVERYONE was picked on - there was 0% Political Correctness - AND IT WAS FUNNY ... I watched it all the time thru college and the military but at about Season 15 it just stopped being funny ... NOW its not even remotely entertaining. I rarely watch it but when I do catch it everything is SO SCRIPTED as so to not to insult anyone for any reason -- and that just removes the funniness. I'm going to forecast that SEASON 50 will be their last season. BUT - Everytime I hear this closing song I think about my old friends, old loves, and family and miss them all - so many are gone now -- a very sad nostalgia comes over me as you hear the song - you realize its all gone and all you really all you have left is a great song at the ending of a terrible show ...
So, as the guy who''s been advocating for "Live from New York! All the Themes from 50 years" Original charts; current band, and of course... anchored by this... I have only one question: WHERE DID THIS LEAK OUT OF???
