[NewMusic] Other Things Ruined by Saxophone

[Phillip Greenlief]

-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of David Slusser
Subject: Re: [NewMusic] Other Things Ruined by Saxophone

On Sep 12, 2007, at 9:51 PM, Matthew Goodheart wrote:
> Well, it's tangential " but the saxophone in "Blade Runner" pisses me
> off every time. . .

Other Things Ruined by Saxophone...try my life.

Seriously, as many (probably all) of those clips that I
could stand to view for more than a few seconds
were intolerable garbage.  That's what happens
when people who are successful in pop culture get
to be "creative".  They cluelessly trot out the cliche,
confirming their mediocrity, and further damning
a noble instrument to gratuitous abuse.  Half those
guys were playing way too much, and the other half
couldn't play.

PG:
I always liked Bowie's out of tune saxophone playing - especially on the
older stuff, like "Pinups"...it has a naiveté that works, I think.

My favorite comment was by the guy that pretty much said, "put a
saxophone in it and it sucks..." 

DS:
In film (like Blade Runner) it's just as bad, if not worse,
because it doesn't really belong there in the track, unless
it's for the cheap effect - and that's always distracting, to
the point of being laughable to most of your audience; and
if it takes you out of the film for even a second - it's shit.

PG:
Right on...film music is the one example where it's good when you say,
"I wasn't aware of the music", totally contrary to the old Max Steiner
school of film composing. Now, Bernard Hermann: that's a different
story. Every time the themes come in on North by Northwest, I just want
to cheer. Great music (and it's hard to remember if he ever wrote for
saxophone...). Could Psycho work as well as it does without that amazing
string quartet stuff? 

DS:
If the sax is in the score from the beginning, like some all
too rare film noire with an urban subject, it's welcome at any
moment (Johnny Mandell's "I Want To Live", or Elmer Bernstein's
"Man With The Golden Arm"...or the Pink Panther for that matter).
Rahsaan Roland Kirk's work throughout "In The Heat Of The Night"
was a case where it consistently plussed things.  (Also check out
"Lift To The Gallows" with Miles French quartet and bits of Sonny
Rollins in "Alfie"....way too few and far between.)

PG:
Those are all nice examples, especially "Alfie". I was never a fan of
the alto in Taxi Driver...but I imagine many would disagree. That's a
case where I'm too aware of the music and the ironic "slick/smooth"
style and phrasing of that saxophone player is so contrary to what's
going on in Travis Bickle's life that I've often wondered how they ever
thought that would work.