Longtime Cambria Heights jazz musician Carl Bartlett Jr. doesn\u2019t like to talk a lot about the six months of panic attacks he went through after his grandmother died.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the experience changed his approach to the alto saxophone, behind which he has long helmed groups of jazz performers in Southeast Queens, in jam sessions that explore his passion for what he has called the scene\u2019s \u201ccreative,\u201d \u201cswinging\u201d and \u201cinteractive\u201d sound. Amidst all of that, his music once landed him second place in the jazz category of the International Songwriting Competition.<\/p>\n
But the panic attacks were still on his mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just happened to key in on a report, I think it was on television, about baby boomers and younger adults experiencing high levels of stress and anxiety,\u201d Bartlett told the Chronicle in an interview. \u201cI heard that and I just really keyed in on it because, of course, I went through what I went through. And so, I studied relaxation music.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2020, that led Bartlett to pivot, slightly, to making and selling music \u201cspecifically to help people heal stress, recover from stress and overcome anxiety.\u201d He decided to call this new outfit Serene New You Sax.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t hear saxophone in the healing space very often,\u201d he said. \u201cYou hear the sound bowl, and you hear harps, and you hear a lot of handpipes and flutes, so the saxophone is very, very interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The saxophone is very versatile, he says. \u201cI just play with this inherent warm tone that I have and I wield it to be something that is really, really, calming. It\u2019s in how I set my mouth in the mouthpiece, how I do the vibrato, and it\u2019s a very distinct sound.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the Serene New You banner, Bartlett just put out what he calls his \u201cfirst deep relaxation music motion video,\u201d released Aug. 15.<\/p>\n
His first one is called \u201cQuietude,\u201d and Bartlett says that he shot some of it in various parks in and around Queens, such as Crocheron Park in Bayside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat it does is it gives people that extrasensory input, through not just audio, but audio-visual,\u201d Bartlett explains.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe scene has the trees and the water and the sand. It\u2019s just beautiful. I actually give people a personal restorative relaxation concert, because that\u2019s when I come on screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The video is a little more than an hour long and costs $25 a download. More will follow, he says.<\/p>\n
Outside of his work as an on-screen therapeutic shaman, Bartlett is still playing jazz. He\u2019s next booked to co-headline \u201cRhythms & The Summer Breeze,\u201d a small festival in College Point, on Aug. 23.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, I will always continue doing jazz. Jazz is my first love, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Longtime Cambria Heights jazz musician Carl Bartlett Jr. doesn\u2019t like to talk a lot about the six months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[22531,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-325874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-eastern","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}