Okay, where was I? Oh, yes, the life and times of Adolphe Sax and the saxophone. Well, not only was he constantly engaged in legal battles over his new instrument, in 1853 he developed a tumor on his lower lip. Five years of treatments did nothing to alleviate his ailment, until he sought out an Indian doctor who treated him with an exotic herbal concoction. Somehow, the treatment was effective and the tumor disappeared. The lucky Sax once again cheated death.
Back to the horn. On April 22, 1844, two military bands assembled on the Champ de Mars. A large crowd of enthusiastic Parisians had gathered to see the bands play. One band was led by Michele Carafa, the director of the Gymnase de Musique Militaire (the army band), the other band led by Sax. A battle of the bands, if you will. Seven of Sax's men were bribed to not perform, seemingly putting Sax's band at a sonic disadvantage. Sax himself stepped in to play the bass saxophone and after both bands played their selections, his band was declared the winner. The saxophone-saturated band, though fewer in number, out-played the larger band. It was agreed that the new horns were an improvement over the traditional band setup.
Not everyone liked the new arrangement, though. When Sax's benefactor, King Louis Philippe, was deposed in 1848, one of the first new orders was to have saxophones removed from military bands (don't lawmakers have more pressing matters to deal with?). The horn would face similar constraints throughout history. The Vatican forbade its use, declaring it "profane." Its rise to popularity coincided with jazz and dance band music, so perhaps it isn't entirely the horn's fault, given that jazz and the new dance forms that were coming around at the turn of the century were also condemned for causing corruption in young, impressionable youth. Even today, the sax is associated with less than prim and proper settings. You don't often find oboes or violas in rock bands, but you can usually find a saxophone. In movies and TV, romance and seduction are signaled by a lilting, moaning saxophone. It's rare to watch two characters get excited to a harpsichord or tuba soundtrack.
In my biased opinion, the world is better for Sax's great invention. And though he died in near ruin, his contribution to music history (and world history) will live on for as long as people play his creations...until our Sun expands and blows up, taking with it our Solar System and all remaining saxophone players, who, no doubt, will stubbornly stick around to see the explosion, playing their beloved instruments.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Sax-tastic! Part 2
Saxophones are everywhere now, but it took a lot of initial effort to get anyone to play them. Which is ironic, considering how much of their development was fought by jealous instrument makers. You will recall that Adolphe Sax barely survived past childhood to invent the saxophone in the first place. When he finally did manage to build the first true saxophone in 1841 (a bass model) and was able to get it to a Belgian national exhibit, an unruly competitor kicked the prototype across the floor of the exhibition hall.
Sax, fortunately, had a few important and influential people in his corner. The French composer Hector Berlioz championed the new instrument and Sax. Several bold clarinetists were willing to take a turn at capitalizing on the new novelty, notably Edward A. Lefebre, who decided to make it his life's work to promote the saxophone around the world. He wound up in South Africa in 1859 to set up a music shop where he introduced and sold the new horn to people around the world. From there, the saxophone spread. Saxian Flue. Saxpox. Saxovirus. The Sax-o-Plague.
Poor Sax was seemingly constantly under attack throughout his life. Jealous competitors, who foresaw their market shares slipping away to Sax's creations, took out at least one hit on his life (one of his unlucky assistants took a lethal bullet intended for Sax), and sued him repeatedly for supposedly ripping off their designs. They never really had a valid claim, but the legal proceedings were a drain on Sax's financial and personal well-being.
To be continued...one more time...the third part's reeeeally good!....
Sorry 'bout that...
Sax, fortunately, had a few important and influential people in his corner. The French composer Hector Berlioz championed the new instrument and Sax. Several bold clarinetists were willing to take a turn at capitalizing on the new novelty, notably Edward A. Lefebre, who decided to make it his life's work to promote the saxophone around the world. He wound up in South Africa in 1859 to set up a music shop where he introduced and sold the new horn to people around the world. From there, the saxophone spread. Saxian Flue. Saxpox. Saxovirus. The Sax-o-Plague.
Poor Sax was seemingly constantly under attack throughout his life. Jealous competitors, who foresaw their market shares slipping away to Sax's creations, took out at least one hit on his life (one of his unlucky assistants took a lethal bullet intended for Sax), and sued him repeatedly for supposedly ripping off their designs. They never really had a valid claim, but the legal proceedings were a drain on Sax's financial and personal well-being.
To be continued...one more time...the third part's reeeeally good!....
Sorry 'bout that...
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Sax-tastic! Part 1
It's fairly obvious by now that the saxophone is a huge part of my life. I started an interesting book about the history of the saxophone* and learned that the horn was in fairly constant threat of never being built at all. And once it was built, it was targeted, maligned, marginalized, stolen, and mangled. Even after it was patented and widely built, it still took a lot of effort to get the sax off of the "novelty" list. Let me explain.
Adolphe Sax (yes, that's how the horn got its name) was born in Dinant, Belgium in 1814 and was a walking accident. At age two, he fell down a flight of stairs, hit his head on a rock, and was comatose for a week. Shortly after that, he mistakenly drank sulfate of zinc and nearly died. Further misadventures arose from ingesting arsenic, white lead, copper oxide, and swallowing a needle. He survived several explosions and another coma (brought about by being in the wrong place when a heavy slate tile fell from a roof), and when he was ten, he almost drowned. That would have been the end of young Mr. Sax, were it not for a villager who happened to walk by at the right time to fish him out of the water.
His father was a leading instrument maker in Belgium at the time, and so young Adolphe learned a lot about building instruments by just hanging around the workshop. Adolphe was precocious, developing a new fingering system for the clarinet before age 20, and making incredible refinements to the then ailing bass clarinet.
To be continued...
* The Devil's Horn. Micheal Segell. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux: New York. 2005.
Adolphe Sax (yes, that's how the horn got its name) was born in Dinant, Belgium in 1814 and was a walking accident. At age two, he fell down a flight of stairs, hit his head on a rock, and was comatose for a week. Shortly after that, he mistakenly drank sulfate of zinc and nearly died. Further misadventures arose from ingesting arsenic, white lead, copper oxide, and swallowing a needle. He survived several explosions and another coma (brought about by being in the wrong place when a heavy slate tile fell from a roof), and when he was ten, he almost drowned. That would have been the end of young Mr. Sax, were it not for a villager who happened to walk by at the right time to fish him out of the water.
His father was a leading instrument maker in Belgium at the time, and so young Adolphe learned a lot about building instruments by just hanging around the workshop. Adolphe was precocious, developing a new fingering system for the clarinet before age 20, and making incredible refinements to the then ailing bass clarinet.
To be continued...
* The Devil's Horn. Micheal Segell. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux: New York. 2005.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Learn the clarinet, play music
One of my favourite quotes comes from a famous clarinet performer and teacher:
"Everyone discovers their own way of destroying themselves, and some people choose the clarinet.”
That quote comes from Kalmen Opperman (1919-2010). Opperman started playing the clarinet at age 10 and by the time he was a teenager, he was studying with Simeon Bellison (principal of the New York Philharmonic). After a time in the Army West Point Band and continued study with Ralph McLane, Opperman enjoyed a 50 year long career playing in Broadway orchestras, radio and TV commercials, and was principal clarinetist for the American Ballet Theatre, Ballet de Paris, and the Ukranian Folk Ballet.
I know about him because he was my teacher's teacher (that makes me a grand-student of Opperman, right?), and I was therefore introduced to Opperman's method books. To my non-clarinet-obsessed readers, these are great books. Not too frightening, but just difficult enough to keep me engaged. They spend a good deal of time noodling around in the low range (the development of the low range is crucial for creating a good high range), but transition seamlessly into the altissimo, forcing the player to get really comfortable over the entire (very large) range of the clarinet. And the etudes that appear "easy" have just enough traps to keep the player from becoming complacent. Each etude focuses on one concept to be ironed out through concentrated, methodical practice. And once you get the etudes worked out, you then need to try to play them up to the marked tempos.
Opperman's philosophy of practice and music is inspiring. He had a clear idea of what he expected from his students and himself, which show through in his etudes. He wanted his students (and all students of the clarinet) to have a solid technical foundation. Why? In his own words: "You can't teach music. You can teach the instrument. The basic premise that I work on is that you master the clarinet. You play music."
That's worth thinking about.
"Everyone discovers their own way of destroying themselves, and some people choose the clarinet.”
That quote comes from Kalmen Opperman (1919-2010). Opperman started playing the clarinet at age 10 and by the time he was a teenager, he was studying with Simeon Bellison (principal of the New York Philharmonic). After a time in the Army West Point Band and continued study with Ralph McLane, Opperman enjoyed a 50 year long career playing in Broadway orchestras, radio and TV commercials, and was principal clarinetist for the American Ballet Theatre, Ballet de Paris, and the Ukranian Folk Ballet.
I know about him because he was my teacher's teacher (that makes me a grand-student of Opperman, right?), and I was therefore introduced to Opperman's method books. To my non-clarinet-obsessed readers, these are great books. Not too frightening, but just difficult enough to keep me engaged. They spend a good deal of time noodling around in the low range (the development of the low range is crucial for creating a good high range), but transition seamlessly into the altissimo, forcing the player to get really comfortable over the entire (very large) range of the clarinet. And the etudes that appear "easy" have just enough traps to keep the player from becoming complacent. Each etude focuses on one concept to be ironed out through concentrated, methodical practice. And once you get the etudes worked out, you then need to try to play them up to the marked tempos.
Opperman's philosophy of practice and music is inspiring. He had a clear idea of what he expected from his students and himself, which show through in his etudes. He wanted his students (and all students of the clarinet) to have a solid technical foundation. Why? In his own words: "You can't teach music. You can teach the instrument. The basic premise that I work on is that you master the clarinet. You play music."
That's worth thinking about.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
5 Bits About Benny
Benny Goodman was a big influence on me as a young Music Zombie. He played clarinet like me! Well, he played the clarinet a lot better than me, but like me, he played the clarinet. You know what I mean. Here are five things about the "King of Swing" that you may not know.
1. Grew up in the not-so-nice part of Chicago; the ninth of twelve children. Got his first clarinet lesson at the age of 10 and was getting paid for his playing within two years of picking it up.
2. He was the first successful band leader to hire (and often defend) black musicians. This all happened nearly ten years before Jackie Robinson was allowed to play Major League Baseball. Charlie Christian on guitar, Teddy Wilson on piano, and vibraphone master Lionel Hampton were all hired by Goodman for their virtues as musicians. In the end, the music was all that mattered to Goodman, and he didn't care what color you were, as long as you could play jazz.
3. He funded several music conservatory educations and could be very generous, but he never talked about it and had no desire to make these things public. When asked why he didn't want people to know, he responded that if everyone knew, more people would come to him "with their hands out."
4. On January 16, 1938, Benny's band became the first real jazz band to play at Carnegie Hall. With this performance, swing music was introduced to a larger audience and was the beginning of jazz music's acceptance into the mainstream.
5. So what did he do that was so innovative? He successfully blended "hot" jazz with the current format of a "sweet" sounding dance band. Up until his big break at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles in 1935, dance bands were employed to provide relatively sedate music for social dancers. The current bands swung a bit, but nowhere near as hard as Benny's band, thanks in part to his shrewd taste for top-notch musicians, his clear vision of what he wanted, and his insistence on perfection.
Bonus:
“Listening to Benny talk about the clarinet was like listening to a surgeon get hung up on a scalpel.”
-- Artie Shaw, quoted in the liner notes by Richard M. Sudhalter for the CD “Benny Goodman: The Complete Trios”
1. Grew up in the not-so-nice part of Chicago; the ninth of twelve children. Got his first clarinet lesson at the age of 10 and was getting paid for his playing within two years of picking it up.
2. He was the first successful band leader to hire (and often defend) black musicians. This all happened nearly ten years before Jackie Robinson was allowed to play Major League Baseball. Charlie Christian on guitar, Teddy Wilson on piano, and vibraphone master Lionel Hampton were all hired by Goodman for their virtues as musicians. In the end, the music was all that mattered to Goodman, and he didn't care what color you were, as long as you could play jazz.
3. He funded several music conservatory educations and could be very generous, but he never talked about it and had no desire to make these things public. When asked why he didn't want people to know, he responded that if everyone knew, more people would come to him "with their hands out."
4. On January 16, 1938, Benny's band became the first real jazz band to play at Carnegie Hall. With this performance, swing music was introduced to a larger audience and was the beginning of jazz music's acceptance into the mainstream.
5. So what did he do that was so innovative? He successfully blended "hot" jazz with the current format of a "sweet" sounding dance band. Up until his big break at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles in 1935, dance bands were employed to provide relatively sedate music for social dancers. The current bands swung a bit, but nowhere near as hard as Benny's band, thanks in part to his shrewd taste for top-notch musicians, his clear vision of what he wanted, and his insistence on perfection.
Bonus:
“Listening to Benny talk about the clarinet was like listening to a surgeon get hung up on a scalpel.”
-- Artie Shaw, quoted in the liner notes by Richard M. Sudhalter for the CD “Benny Goodman: The Complete Trios”
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Driving around in cars
Driving around town this morning, trying to get through the first snowfall of the winter season without banging up my car too badly, I heard a song on the radio that I've never particularly liked, but as I'm usually dialed to a classic rock station (when not listening to a CD), I hear a lot. I started thinking how Pink Cadillac, by Bruce Springsteen (I even thought someone else did this song, not the Boss), is really a very silly song. I was paying attention to the lyrics because focusing on music helps me concentrate while driving. Weird, yes, but it seems to work for me. I get some of my best thinking done in the car.
ANYWAY.
Pink Cadillac by Bruce Springsteen. Originally, I wanted to write an open letter telling him how silly and illogical he's being. I mean, in several lines he says how annoying his girl is to be around, and then he says that he has money so it isn't that she's rich or anything like that (which means he can buy his own Cadillac-in whatever colour he wants- and can therefore get away from the annoying woman). No, he loves her for her "pink Cadillac." Which I learned, upon further research, was originally a veiled reference to a unique part of the female anatomy. Hmmmm.
You'll never hear this song again in quite the same way. In fact, through this lens, I can't even read the last verse without losing my brain to the gutter. Well, there you go.
ANYWAY.
Pink Cadillac by Bruce Springsteen. Originally, I wanted to write an open letter telling him how silly and illogical he's being. I mean, in several lines he says how annoying his girl is to be around, and then he says that he has money so it isn't that she's rich or anything like that (which means he can buy his own Cadillac-in whatever colour he wants- and can therefore get away from the annoying woman). No, he loves her for her "pink Cadillac." Which I learned, upon further research, was originally a veiled reference to a unique part of the female anatomy. Hmmmm.
You'll never hear this song again in quite the same way. In fact, through this lens, I can't even read the last verse without losing my brain to the gutter. Well, there you go.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Kind of cool
First off, Happy Birthday to Dave Matthews!! A favourite musician whose music has kept me from going off the deep end.
Second, I'm still thinking about the cool. Namely, Miles Davis. He was too cool for cool. Born not into a life of hardship, but privilege, his parents sent him to The Juilliard School, only to have him drop out after spending all of his time working out new chords and harmonies in the practice room instead of going to class. Too hip to even look at the audience, he preferred to play with his back to the crowd and would commonly leave the stage after his solo. The trumpeter went through the typical drug addiction routine, like many of his contemporaries, but eventually got clean and continued to record.
There are many theories about why Davis was so iconic. Why was he cool? What made his music cool? What is cool jazz? Davis entered the New York scene just as bebop was taking off, and he actually shared the stage with bop saxist Charlie "Bird" Parker. Bebop is, to use Ted Gioia's terms, "hot jazz at its most intense." Long, winding phrases, unrelenting progressions, florid solo passages, usually all at a very fast clip. Which makes Davis' transition to cool all the more remarkable. Here he was on the best bop training ground possible, but instead he turns around, musically, and lays everything so far back that his first record, Birth of the Cool (recorded in 1949 but released later), though a musical masterpiece, was a commercial flop.
In 1959 Kind of Blue was released. It features Davis on trumpet, Bill Evans on piano, John Coltrane on tenor sax, Cannonball Adderley on alto sax, rounded out by drummer Jimmy Cobb and bassist Paul Chambers. In this record Davis placed restrictions on his soloists. Instead of following the progressions in a conventional way, he had them restrict note choices to within specific modes. This modal jazz gives an intensely cool sound (intensely cool is a bit of an oxymoron. Haha!). The world was changing and audiences were more prepared for this shift in style, Kind of Blue was a success. Even today, it is cited as one of the most influential jazz records.
I have a special memory of one of the tunes from this album. While at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp one summer, I remember walking through the woods to get to rehearsal and on more than one occasion hearing a simple, plaintive melody. Basically made up of two notes. The tones stuck in my brain, and later I learned that the music I heard in the forest (probably from a jazz group rehearsing nearby) was Freddie Freeloader from the Kind of Blue album. Go listen.
Second, I'm still thinking about the cool. Namely, Miles Davis. He was too cool for cool. Born not into a life of hardship, but privilege, his parents sent him to The Juilliard School, only to have him drop out after spending all of his time working out new chords and harmonies in the practice room instead of going to class. Too hip to even look at the audience, he preferred to play with his back to the crowd and would commonly leave the stage after his solo. The trumpeter went through the typical drug addiction routine, like many of his contemporaries, but eventually got clean and continued to record.
There are many theories about why Davis was so iconic. Why was he cool? What made his music cool? What is cool jazz? Davis entered the New York scene just as bebop was taking off, and he actually shared the stage with bop saxist Charlie "Bird" Parker. Bebop is, to use Ted Gioia's terms, "hot jazz at its most intense." Long, winding phrases, unrelenting progressions, florid solo passages, usually all at a very fast clip. Which makes Davis' transition to cool all the more remarkable. Here he was on the best bop training ground possible, but instead he turns around, musically, and lays everything so far back that his first record, Birth of the Cool (recorded in 1949 but released later), though a musical masterpiece, was a commercial flop.
In 1959 Kind of Blue was released. It features Davis on trumpet, Bill Evans on piano, John Coltrane on tenor sax, Cannonball Adderley on alto sax, rounded out by drummer Jimmy Cobb and bassist Paul Chambers. In this record Davis placed restrictions on his soloists. Instead of following the progressions in a conventional way, he had them restrict note choices to within specific modes. This modal jazz gives an intensely cool sound (intensely cool is a bit of an oxymoron. Haha!). The world was changing and audiences were more prepared for this shift in style, Kind of Blue was a success. Even today, it is cited as one of the most influential jazz records.
I have a special memory of one of the tunes from this album. While at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp one summer, I remember walking through the woods to get to rehearsal and on more than one occasion hearing a simple, plaintive melody. Basically made up of two notes. The tones stuck in my brain, and later I learned that the music I heard in the forest (probably from a jazz group rehearsing nearby) was Freddie Freeloader from the Kind of Blue album. Go listen.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Cool
I want to talk to you about the Prez. No, not Mr. Barack Obama, I mean Lester Young. The President of cool jazz. And the president of cool, period. Not only was his music and playing style influential, his style of being was influential. It was Lester Young who gave Billie Holiday her nickname "Lady Day." You know how people refer to money as bread? He may not have been the first to use that expression, but he was the one to make it popular. When offered a gig, his response would be: "How does the bread smell?"
Lester Young was a saxophonist, primarily tenor, who played with many of the big name big bands of the 1940s and 1950s, including the Fletcher Henderson and Count Basie Orchestras. He was hired into Henderson's band to replace Coleman Hawkins, another tenor great, and the result was a collision of styles. Hawk played strongly, fiercely, and hot. Young's style was more "cool", which, if you think about it enough, becomes a contradiction in terms. Jazz, as an art form, is a "hot" style of music. Rambunctious, unpredictable, bouncing all over the place. The "cool" style is more relaxed, still "hot" in the sense of ideas and integrity (and it isn't parlor music, a decidedly non-hot kind of music), but not in an in-your-face kind of way.
All of this comes to mind because I'm reading an interesting book about the "cool." The Birth and Death of the Cool by Ted Gioia begins with a discussion that deals with anything but jazz music. He points out to the reader that cool was a way to create a lifestyle for oneself, which people in the Depression era didn't have the luxury to do. To be cool is to not care too much, but in a highly calculated way. Gioia argues that Bix Beiderbecke was the first truly cool jazzman. Not in the musical sense, but in the way he carried himself. Bix spent his short life in pursuit of his craft, while simultaneously doing everything in his power to sabotage his success. Bix never learned to read music very well, which became a handicap during his stint with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, and he didn't really bother to learn how to properly play his cornet. But, still, he went after music like nothing else. Witness accounts tell us how he wouldn't let the other band members "have any fun" because he wanted to experiment with chords and different sounds for the section.
So how does Bix bring us back to Lester Young? One of Young's biggest influences was the saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer, who often played with Bix. "Tram" as he was called, played a C-melody sax, which puts the instrument between an alto and a tenor. The C-melody lacks the power of a tenor, but still produces a heavier tone than the alto. I'm not certain whether it was the horn or the man playing the horn that influenced Young more. Maybe both. But the influence was strong and Young's style was in direct opposition to what the Basie band was accustomed to. But even after repeated attempts to have him listen to recordings of Hawk in the hopes that he would soak up some of the older player's style, he refused to change the way he played. And it worked for him. He became a leading soloist and highly regarded player in his time and since. That's really cool.
Lester Young was a saxophonist, primarily tenor, who played with many of the big name big bands of the 1940s and 1950s, including the Fletcher Henderson and Count Basie Orchestras. He was hired into Henderson's band to replace Coleman Hawkins, another tenor great, and the result was a collision of styles. Hawk played strongly, fiercely, and hot. Young's style was more "cool", which, if you think about it enough, becomes a contradiction in terms. Jazz, as an art form, is a "hot" style of music. Rambunctious, unpredictable, bouncing all over the place. The "cool" style is more relaxed, still "hot" in the sense of ideas and integrity (and it isn't parlor music, a decidedly non-hot kind of music), but not in an in-your-face kind of way.
All of this comes to mind because I'm reading an interesting book about the "cool." The Birth and Death of the Cool by Ted Gioia begins with a discussion that deals with anything but jazz music. He points out to the reader that cool was a way to create a lifestyle for oneself, which people in the Depression era didn't have the luxury to do. To be cool is to not care too much, but in a highly calculated way. Gioia argues that Bix Beiderbecke was the first truly cool jazzman. Not in the musical sense, but in the way he carried himself. Bix spent his short life in pursuit of his craft, while simultaneously doing everything in his power to sabotage his success. Bix never learned to read music very well, which became a handicap during his stint with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, and he didn't really bother to learn how to properly play his cornet. But, still, he went after music like nothing else. Witness accounts tell us how he wouldn't let the other band members "have any fun" because he wanted to experiment with chords and different sounds for the section.
So how does Bix bring us back to Lester Young? One of Young's biggest influences was the saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer, who often played with Bix. "Tram" as he was called, played a C-melody sax, which puts the instrument between an alto and a tenor. The C-melody lacks the power of a tenor, but still produces a heavier tone than the alto. I'm not certain whether it was the horn or the man playing the horn that influenced Young more. Maybe both. But the influence was strong and Young's style was in direct opposition to what the Basie band was accustomed to. But even after repeated attempts to have him listen to recordings of Hawk in the hopes that he would soak up some of the older player's style, he refused to change the way he played. And it worked for him. He became a leading soloist and highly regarded player in his time and since. That's really cool.
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