October 17, 2025
Battle Band: Eric Alexander & Vincent Herring in Conversation
Two of jazz’s premier saxophonists on 20 years of friendly competition, the secrets of impromptu arranging, and why Hank Mobley wrote remarkable tunes.
In conversation, the tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander frequently recalls bits of wisdom he’s gathered over his many years sharing bandstands and studios with jazz royalty. “There are people who never leave my train of thought for even an hour of my life,” he said recently, reflecting on the lessons he absorbed from jazz-guitar great Pat Martino. “There’s Pat, pianists McCoy Tyner and Harold Mabern, saxophonist George Coleman and organist Charles Earland. That’s the Holy Five.”
The alto saxophonist Vincent Herring can’t technically be considered one of Alexander’s mentors; after all, Herring is only three years his senior at age 60, and, for the past 20 years, the two sax masters have steered a fiery collaborative band known as the Battle. But Alexander still speaks of Herring and his approach to music with reverence and profound warmth.
“Musically speaking, we’re like peas in a pod and we love duking it out,” he says. “We both know that if we let our guard down, we’re going to get a little bit nicked up — and that’s OK. We love it.”
Risk-taking and respect — for each other, for their fantastic rhythm section, and for jazz history — are held in perfect balance throughout the Battle’s latest album, Split Decision, on Smoke Sessions Records. Captured live at Smoke, a vibey Manhattan club that has long been a haven for swinging mainstream jazz, Split Decision offers the same thrilling DNA as some of jazz’s finest sax-forward recordings. Think of pairings like Dexter Gordon with Wardell Gray or Johnny Griffin, John Coltrane with Cannonball Adderley or Sonny Rollins, or Sonny Stitt’s albums with Gene Ammons or Bunky Green. (Herring’s recent favorite is an underrated Stitt/Green album from 1966, Soul in the Night.) The Battle, Herring says, is “a natural extension of things that we’ve checked out musically and that we love. … The history is out there and you make your own history as well.”
As in those classic matchups, the competitive element throughout Split Decision is only a means to an artistic end. “I think musicality is always first,” Herring said recently. “I certainly try to do my best in battle with Eric, but we both have musicality in mind. I love the fact that he never sacrifices beauty, melody or his integrity to [score cheap points with] the crowd. We’re on the same wavelength there.”
Adds Alexander: “As Harold Mabern used to say, Competition without animosity is great. … Competition with animosity goes nowhere.”
Top to bottom, Split Decision, the Battle’s third album, is a must-hear for fans of timeless straight-ahead jazz. The album’s recorded sound is fantastic, reflecting both the vibrancy of a live session and the crystalline clarity of a studio date; indeed, you might think Split Decision is a studio record until you hear the applause between tracks. A world-class rhythm section, comprising pianist Mike LeDonne, bassist John Webber and drummer Lewis Nash, provides nimble but powerful support throughout.
We recently chatted with Alexander and Herring about the secrets to a great tenor-alto rapport, the genius of saxophonist-composer Hank Mobley, and why a young musician simply being themselves is the most “innovative” thing they can do. Enjoy.
The Odd Couple
In many ways, the Battle proves the old adage that opposites attract. United by their love for swinging tradition, Alexander, who grew up in Washington State, and Herring, who hails from California, couldn’t be more dissimilar in certain regards. “We are, personality-wise, oil and water,” Alexander says with a big laugh. “In other words, if a woman fell in love with Vincent Herring, she would hate me — and vice versa.”
Somehow, those frictions end up working to the band’s advantage, as each saxophonist’s unique skills serve the group without overlapping. Herring is the organized one — a natural planner with a knack for logistics and the band’s de facto leader. As Alexander has learned throughout his career, even expressly “collaborative” or “collective” bands need someone to grab the reins. “Somebody has to be the one who’s gonna say, ‘The buck stops here,’” he advises. Once the music begins, he adds, “it’s a pure democracy.”
Herring warms up before the gig, while Alexander prefers that the first note of the evening be played on the bandstand. “I love doing that,” says the tenorman. “That makes me feel empowered. If something goes wrong, I wanna fix it spur-of-the-moment.” When a rehearsal is needed, Herring will lead it. Alexander generally doesn’t like set lists, preferring to call tunes on the fly and welcoming the challenge of unfamiliar compositions. Herring is a masterful builder of repertoire who selects most of the Battle’s music. Which brings us to…
The Genius of Hank Mobley
“It’s so funny, we keep ending up with so many Hank Mobley songs,” Herring says with a chuckle. “But Hank is just pure logic and pure beauty, and we both love him.”
The tenor saxophonist and composer Hank Mobley (1930-1986) is easy to love, even if he’s been overshadowed by peers like John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. Today, he’s best remembered for the impeccable LPs he recorded for Blue Note in the late 1950s and 1960s. On albums like Soul Station (1960), Roll Call (1961) and Workout (1962), Mobley presents an ideal vision of the hard-bop style. Both his playing and his writing are thoroughly modern but anchored by a soul-deep understanding of the blues; somehow, his work has plenty of weight while also feeling featherlight — a perfect balance of brains and brawn.
“His tunes don’t play down to the audience,” says Alexander, who goes on to praise the intelligence and versatility of their harmonic structure. “They always have a catchy thing; they’re toe-tappers; they’re memorable. … You can be very relaxed and play intuitively, instinctively, but you can also be really intellectual with them too.” On Split Decision, they perform Mobley’s bebop burner “A Peck a Sec” with the requisite firepower.
Reed Talk
Herring opts for D’Addario Reserve reeds — strength 2 or, in certain climates, 2.5. Alexander prefers D’Addario Select Jazz reeds, unfiled, in strengths 4 Soft or 3 Hard.
Arranging on the Fly — and Why Rhythm Rules
Because the members of the Battle have decades of gigging experience, the arrangements don’t need to be overly detailed. “Somehow that just magically happens,” Herring says. “I play a role almost like a trumpet, and Eric accompanies or reharmonizes and makes a kind of instant arrangement. Sometimes we both have spur-of-the-moment ideas to make things interesting.”
“He’s the higher-pitched instrument,” Alexander adds. “If there’s a harmony part, I’m going to take it. Ninety-nine percent of the time, Vincent is playing the lead line.”
Sometimes, when a tune has an iconic recorded version, they’ll stick to the script for the main melody. For example, on their recent rendition of Horace Silver’s “Strollin’,” you can hear them pay homage to the parts recorded by saxophonist Junior Cook and trumpeter Blue Mitchell in 1960.
Battle Tip #1
Stop Showing Off!
Even when it’s competitive, jazz is still an art form, and too many tricks and licks on the bandstand will earn you no real respect. “Like a class clown, you’ll get a lot of cheering and hollering,” Alexander says, “but at the end of the day, nobody wants to be around you.” Focus on the music and remember that a great band always beats a flashy solo.
On some tunes, playing in unison works just fine — “in the exact same [range],” says Alexander, “or it’s an octave in unison.” He continues: “When I played with Pat Martino, I would try to find harmony notes and he would say, Eric, think about it, man: The greatest harmony is a unison.”
With Herring, Alexander’s approach to harmony is looser — more open and intuitive. He’ll feel the impulse to improvise some tasty counterpoint, and Herring says to go for it. Even on the bandstand, that process is defined by trial and error. He thinks about the notes of the melody, as well as the roots and guide tones of the chords; he also trusts his ears to discern when he’s on to something. “It’s not rocket science,” Alexander says. “You gotta find something that works with the chord quality.”
Even more critical than the pitches is the rhythmic delivery. “The next very important thing is to [fit] your guide tones and harmony notes with the rhythm of the melody,” Alexander says. “It behooves a person who’s playing a second part to play the exact rhythmic values that the lead player’s playing, but with different notes. Then it actually sounds like it was composed or arranged — and it’s not.”
He tells an instructive story from his days subbing in the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the Monday-night house band for the Village Vanguard, jazz’s most legendary club. Alexander played the second tenor part, seated among veteran VJO members like saxophonist Dick Oatts: “Dick would look at me and say, Listen, I don’t care if you hit all of those notes correctly — I care if you play the same rhythm that I’m playing, because the notes are going by so fast.”
As Alexander explains, the frontline’s sequence of events varies. Alexander and Herring share a single microphone onstage, in the style of Miles Davis’ quintets of the 1960s, and communicate the solo order through body language that has become second nature. As the main melody comes to a close, Alexander will be able to sense whether Herring wants to take the first solo. Herring is usually positioned to the right of the tenor player, and if he wants Alexander to take the first solo, he will shift further rightward.
Battle Tip #2
Listen to the Masters
As with any musical pursuit, listening to the elders is paramount. Herring and Alexander are well versed in the history of swinging sax-fronted bands, and have a stack of classic albums they consider sacred texts. To name one example, Herring mentions Dexter Gordon’s 1978 Carnegie Hall performance featuring Johnny Griffin, which he studied diligently as a teenager.
Straight-Ahead Doesn’t Mean Safe
Hank Mobley’s “A Peck a Sec” is based largely on one of the most durable chord sequences in jazz, Rhythm changes, which upholds Alexander’s belief that a great jazz composition doesn’t need to be complex or especially ambitious to be effective. “If I were to say, ‘I’ve got Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin ready to play: Do you want to hear an original composition in 13 [time] that’s got a bunch of pages to turn, or do you wanna hear a blues?,’ every single person would say, ‘Just tell ’em to play the blues so we can see what they got.’ A tune doesn’t have to do much to be a vehicle.”
Alexander emphasizes the value in exploring every tune as thoroughly as possible — a philosophy he picked up in conversation with McCoy Tyner, the pianist in John Coltrane’s Classic Quartet: “McCoy Tyner told me that Coltrane was his greatest teacher, simply because he said, I want you to play until you have nothing left to play on every tune, every night. And if you do any less than that, I’ll be disappointed.”
As Alexander sees it, being a bold improviser has more to do with the player than the material: “You can be just as experimental and risky playing Rhythm changes as you can be playing [free or avant-garde jazz]. It’s the same — you’re walking yourself to the end of a plank and checking out if things work.”
In that spirit, Alexander argues that young players should worry less about being innovative and be more concerned with naturally finding their personal voice. This, in the end, is perhaps the most groundbreaking thing a musician can do — no self-importance required. “The best thing that can happen,” he begins, “is when a horn player just puts air through the horn in a way that feels good to them, and they address musical material that they love with panache, and address the harmony in a way they feel proud of. They will automatically have their own personality and their own sound.”
Battle Tip #3
Mind the Melody’s Rhythm
When improvising harmony, remember that getting your rhythms aligned with the rhythms of the melody line is essential — even more than making sure every note you play is harmonically perfect. “If you play the right note out of rhythm, it’s a mistake. If you play a wrong note in rhythm, it’s like the interior of a Red Garland block chord,” Alexander laughs.
Rhythm Section Essentials
The rhythm section on Split Decision — which Alexander calls the “crème de la crème” — consists of veteran players whose individual résumés include work with some of the heaviest names in jazz history. But they also join up to support and interact with the horns easily and beautifully — which isn’t always the case, even among top professional musicians.
To illustrate, Alexander recalls an insight he heard from Jimmy Cobb, the revered drummer on Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue: “Jimmy said, Look, I’ve got good time; I know it. And lots of bass players have good time. Lots of piano players have good time. But sometimes my good time doesn’t work with their good time. It is what it is.”
“The bass player is always the boss of the band,” Alexander adds, “and it can’t be any other way, like it or not. If the bass player is the boss and establishes a time and a harmonic structure in a way that the pianist likes and the drummer likes, you’ve got it made. The drummer can take a piggyback ride and concentrate on creating interest through interplay with the pianist. … And the horns — we’re just icing on the cake. We could have our worst night and it’s still gonna be worth the price of admission [if the rhythm section is clicking].
“You could turn off Miles or Coltrane and just listen to [drummer] Philly Joe Jones, [bassist] Paul Chambers and [pianist] Red Garland. That’s already worth the price of the record, because their interplay and their confidence is a magic carpet ride you can’t even put into words.”
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