Nuthin' like reclining on the deck of a 31' Spinnaker, the smell of salt air, overpriced fried food and red faced drunk fisherman crying in their beer at 11 AM to something Billy Joel wrote about how Ammaganset used to be, since he grew up next door to Bill O'Riley in Levitown.
I'm wearing my gently flaking Jimmy Buffet concert-shirt, a pair of man capri's, and dock shoes with no socks. I have on a hat with rope and an anchor, as this denotes me being a man o' the sea. In my hand is a luke-warm chardonnay in a plastic cup with a split down the side and I'm just chillin' to Christopher Crosses "Sailing" coming out of a set of speakers that have rusted directly into the hull and could not be unscrewed with a heliarc welding torch.
(OK, REALITY CHECK: IF in fact if you did see me under these circumstances I would chalk it up to some historically bad LSD and tie the anchor around my neck before crying out "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" and throwing myself into the murky bosom of Oyster Bay Harbor.)
Saxophone is one crazy ass instrument. There was a time in the 80's were you could not use a public matter-anti matter transporter or portable outhouse and not hear the whole note fool-assery(tm) of a saxophone solo. By the late 80's constant saxophone bombardment had reduced thinking people in Cut off shirts, gravity defying hair gel and Day-Glo socks that any band that recorded with a saxophone was bigger than the album Jesus did with the Beatles (Jesus Submarine)
Bands were scooping up saxophone artists at an alarming rate. Just buying a saxophone and sticking your head in it could make you star overnight if you did not pass out from the saxophone fumes. A saxophone in your song said "This band is hot, this band is sexy, in fact this band is having sex in your radio right now! So don't touch those dials, they're probably sticky from all that sex! And besides if you put on the classic rock station what do they have? Freebird? Stairway? Shooting Star? Come on, that crap has no saxophone what-so-ever and you know it!"
Saxophonists were revered as gods among men, sometime more when they wore ties with piano keys on them. Massive wooden effigies of the late Clarence Clemmons were erected, stuffed with certified public accountants and set ablaze while the musical stylings of Kenny G. drowned out the screams. Oatmeal Chip-which was also served.
And everyone was sent to bed without dinner.
It was the season blockbuster summer movies: "Over the Top", "Karate Kid 3" and "CaddyShack 2" when members of Miami Sound Machine metamorphosed into a giant saxophone playing robot and vowed to destroy the Detroit's Joe Louis Arena with 1989's "Get on your Feet". The band merely succeeded in wedgie-ing Red Wings Center Scott Zygulski. Many saxophoneistorans theorize this event heralded not only the end of the saxophone solo, but also the end of the domestic red codpieced saxophone.
To know this for sure we need to have a lengthy and incredibly self aggrandizing attempt on my part to discuss the amazing history of the instrument that was often mistaken for the cry of the Irish Mule Dear after binging on corned beef whiskey and stale lucky charms.
You may be surprised the Saxophone was not invented exclusively for Eric Carmon's 1985 Prom staple "Hungry Eyes"; the Sax (short for Saxophone!) has been around even longer:
J.S. Bach had written several inventions for the Sax for the coordination of Emperor Slobodon in 1704, however this event was marred by the consumption of several hundred pounds of tainted wolverine livers imported for the occasion. Distressed at the crowds desire to go home and throw up on their servants Bach threw his Saxophone into the raging waters of the Danube and then changed the "S." in his name from Saxophone to something else entirely that has been long forgotten.
The first known mention of the Saxophone is actually from the Old Testament where the Israelites circled the city of Jericho Long Island for 3 days, and 16 nights until Joshua was told by the Lord to "Play it Fat Man!" (Joshua 6:13) and the walls of Jericho were destroyed or everyone in the city just got sick of repeated attempts to nail the intro to Wham's superhit "Careless Whisper" and left.
The rebirth of the "Sax" can be dated sometime in the 1930's. Bands leaders like Louis Armstrong and Louis Prima were looking for new ways to terrify upper middle class Anglo Saxon Americans and realized the Saxophone was the next best thing to hurling cow manure at guys in white sheets who were setting fires to their hospitals and nursery schools because it was the Christian thing to do. The staccato blaring of the Saxophone made it possible to simulate the existence of an ham-armed colored or garlic scented Italian lurking under the parlor floorboards with a rusted knife clenched between his teeth.
In the 1940's however the Saxophone was nearly lost due to the spastic recording techniques used at the time. Entire horn sections often stood beneath a microphone during sessions only to learn later it was nothing more than a Prosciutto with a string going to the mixing board.
NY Mayor Lou Costello speaking into some Mortadella.
Stereo recording with lunch meat would not be perfected until 1969 when Doors frontman Jim Morrison and future Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet released the Admiral Pepperoni sessions.
NEXT POST: THE TERRIFYING CONCLUSION OF: SAXOPHONE: THE FORBIDDEN DANCE WITH SAXOPHONES IN IT
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