Rock Around the Crock: Sweet, Sweet Saxophone

I’m doing something new this week. Instead of featuring a specific composer, or a musical form, I’m going to focus on a particular instrument. The headline should have given that away. Let’s learn about the bendy sex whistle saxophone! We’ll start with Alexander Glazunov’s Concerto for Alto Saxophone, just to reassure everyone that we still get to listen to snobby concert music:

The saxophone was invented in the early 1840s by Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax, who wanted to design an instrument with the agility of a woodwind but the projection of a brass. It is a single reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. Traditionally, the instrument has a range from the Bb below middle C, up to the F two and a half octaves above, although some modern instruments have keys giving an extra note or two. For most saxophones, that musical range requires that the instrument have a bendy shape to it, lest it get too unwieldly to play, but soprano and sopranino saxophones don’t have that problem, so they can be straight, like what Kenny G plays:

Although the saxophone was incorporated into some musical ensembles in the fist decades after its invention, it has never become widely adopted as an orchestral instrument. It was added much more quickly to brass bands, and especially military bands. I find that interesting, because I associate the sound of a saxophone much more with seduction than with war. The sax solo in Never Tear Us Apart is gorgeous:

And maybe the sultriest use of a saxophone I’ve ever heard is in Careless Whisper:

Seether did a cover of that song, which I can respect, but they swapped out the sax with a guitar, which means the whole song is completely pointless. Instead of linking that, here’s Postmodern Jukebox:

Hall and Oates use a nice doubling effect on the sax solo in Maneater that I like a lot. I loved this song when I was a kid, and I still do. It was written about actress Kelly Lebrock. I would describe the bass line here as relentless:

Us and Them, Pink Floyd:

The Revivalists, Wish I Knew You. This video is really sweet:

Literally anything by Morphine, a three-piece band that features drums, bass and saxophone. Why can’t love be blind? Instead of just a blind man singing, “why can’t love be, why can’t love be blind?”

The Lonely Island, Saxman:

One of my absolute favorite things, from about eight years ago. Dude on a New York City subway busts out of saxophone and starts playing for tips. Little does he know, there’s another sax player on that train, and before he knows it he’s in an epic sax battle. They play off of each other so perfectly – two total strangers who know their instruments and have so much soul:

Now that you know about the power of the bendy sex whistle, I must warn you that it contains a power that, if not respected, can destroy the unwary.

To play you out, let’s get back to where we started with concert music, this time with Rhapsody, by Andre Waignein. Have a sultry Sunday.

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