MulesRasch

A rencent posting by Doug Ramsey on his blog Rifftides, talks about Ben Webster's personality, how  "... Webster could be cantankerous, intimidating; one of his nicknames was The Brute." Then he then sends us to this beautiful youtube clip showing Webster performing Perdido with the late Oscar Peterson at the piano which definitely shoes Webster more gentle side. 

That made my day!!

I have just set up a new WIKI as a ressource to keep us informed of any new pieces written or performed for saxophone. 

For those of you unfamiliar with a WIKI, it is an interactive web site which can be edited by many people. The best example of this is Wikipedia. 

Well, now we have our own wiki site. 

What I propose is a collaborative of all saxophonist and composers who wish to keep us informed of new pieces which are being created. As we all now, the saxophone repertoire has grown exponentially in the last decades and although books such as Jean-Marie Londeix's A Comprehensive Guide to the Saxophone Repertoire are a great ressource, they become outdated the minute they hit the bookstore. 

Enter 

The Saxophone New Works WIKI

The internet can serve as a better medium to keep us abreast of all the latest developments in our field. And I feel a Wiki is the ideal setting, since no one person needs to be the sole provider of information. The whole community can participate and become the ressource.

An advantage of a Wiiki is the open form of editing which it allows. If information is found to be incorrect or lacking in any way, it can be updated by other members of the Wiki community.

This can also lead to some interesting discussions. 

I have created a protected Wiki, which will help prevent vandalism, which can be a problem in this type of site. To participate, simply join the group. (This is free). If you only wish to visit the Wiki, no problem since anyone can view the information which will be published there.

To make this a great resource, the saxophone community needs to participate. The more participants there are, the better a resource the site will become. 

One of my special interest is the role the saxophone has in the classical symphony orchestra. Most people only know of a few pieces which have made their way into the mainstream with the saxophone playing a role in this formation. 

Adolphe Saxe had the use of the saxophone in the orchestra in mind when he first designed our favorite instrument. He even built a full family of F and C saxophones just for this purpose. His thinking was that the Bb/ Eb saxes would be able to adjust more easily to the tunings of the wind bands and the C/F instruments would work well with the orchestral instruments. 

Well, as we all know, even the best laid plans don't always work out. I'll discuss some of the reasons why this didn't happen in later posts. 

We all know about Ravel's Bolero, Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition or Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, just to name the most obvious. But composers of all stripes have been enhancing their orchestral palette by adding the beautiful and expressive sounds of the saxophone family. Where most of you may be aware of a few dozen pieces of this ilk, I've collated information for close to 3,000 such pieces. You can expect my discussing some of these in the future. 

So, why don't we hear about these pieces? Why don't we, as saxophone players, have more occasions to work in the symphonic field? 

The answer to this is rather complex. I believe one of the main reasons is related to why modern composers have a lot of trouble getting their works played. Orchestra's are, in most cases, very conservative in their programming. They also have limited space for works. If you figure a hard working orchestra might play a new program every week or so, and each program usually consist of three pieces, that does not amount to a lot of spots for new pieces. The majority of the pieces which are usually programmed are from the Romantic period or earlier. The small portion of post-1900 repertoire are in the most conservative style. It's not hard to figure why contemporary composers aren't being played. And since most of the repertoire using saxophones fall under this umbrella, we suffer from the same faith as our composer friends.

If you are interested in finding out a little more about our symphonic history, I've set up a selection of record choices which you can find in my store (which is linked to Amazon.com). Just follow the link for Orchestra Saxophone and you'll find a varied selection which you can browse to, Most have Amazon's previews so you can get a brief introduction to the variety of music. 

Speaking of orchestral works, here's a link to a review I just read a review about a recording of one such piece: Virgil Thomson's The Plow that Broke the Plains. This is a beautifully orchestrated work full of Americana themes which is very approachable and enjoyable. One wonders why this is not programmed more. You can read the review here. 

I've added new pages to the Composers and Performers lists. 

You can now find out about French composer and saxophonist Christophe Havel who is based in Bordeaux and is a member of the Proxima Centauri ensemble. 

You'll also find a new page on French composer Jérôme Joy who is based in Nice, France.

Also new to the list is Joël Versavaud, another French sax player, based in Marseille. 

I've also started a page about the Ensemble International de Saxophones de Bordeaux, which Jean-Marie Londeix founded in the 1980s. This page will be an ongoing project, since many players, mostly students of Londeix, have performed in the ensemble and a lot of music for large saxophone ensemble has been commissioned for the group. Another part of the Londeix immense legacy,

My net meanderings have led me to the site of John 'Buzz' Jones, a composer and jazz bassist based in Gettysburg, PA. A sampling of his work can be heard on his web site : http://www.buzzjones.net/Audioclips.htm