We all know that saxophone is used extensively in jazz, blues, even reggae, R&B, and salsa.
One place you might not expect it is with house music….
A few months back I saw DJ Mark Farina do his thing at a club in San Francisco. I’m wasn’t the biggest fan of house music, but I liked his stuff when I heard it live. Listening to ‘Mushroom Jazz’ today (related to acid jazz but more ‘organic’ according to Farina). Seemed like it could be a lot of fun to play with live and could add something to the music.
http://www.djmarkfarina.net/ if you would like to check his stuff out.
My friend was up in SF again the other week and the power went off at a club. There happened to be some percussionists in the crowd and they started playing house music with congas & bongos. The people at the club started getting into it and when the power came back on the musicians played with the DJs.
Another time I heard Todd Clickard’s addition of some flute to a Thievery Corporation song. Sounded better to me.
House and other electronic music can really set up a groove, it seems like that’s a huge part of it to me. And they sample the sounds from great musicians.
Sometimes live music lacks a solid groove. But at the same time, I think that the spontaneity and improvisation of live music is missing from electronic music sometimes. An electronic baritone sax just doesn’t cut it for me.
The combination seems like a cool thing.
Doron wrote a post about his experiences playing saxophone with DJs and also went into all the equipment and some tips for making it work.
Personally, I have played along with some recordings, but haven’t played sax with a DJ live yet.
Have you done that before? What styles have you heard saxophone in that you hadn’t expected it?
Thanks for the nod to my article!
I personally think that the DJ+sax gigs are a lot of fun, and on top of that, they generally pay a whole lot better than jazz gigs. Another cool thing is that people are getting physically involved, as opposed to jazz where sometimes you end up as window dressing, or people are just sitting down instead of being entranced by your playing.
So far, very little surprises me in terms of music that one wouldn’t suspect the sax in, and playing along w/DJs is becoming quite commonplace these days.
Neal, I think you’d sound great along with a DJ, so here’s hoping it happens soon!
Doron
Thought you wrote a cool article and since I had seen Mark Farina not too long ago, figured I would talk about my experiences.
Having people dancing to the music is fun, I have done a lot of that lately with the salsa band. That is our crowd, the dancers.
Thanks
hi neal ,yes and no have not played sax with d.j yet but a few years ago i quit a double that was background drums,bass,keyboard,on midi orchestrated by a guy who had a lot of experience with forming groups and performing .
he played lead guitar and i took care of the saxtual parts and would sometimes sing just to keep crowd from ear fatigue of sax(4hours of sax was a little to much).it worked well we would pass solos back and forth.the cool thing was we programed all the instruments we wanted ourselves so we could say it was all us when people would look at us with tilted heads wondering if it was live or memorex,had alot of people come up to my bell and stick there ear down close to see (hear) if i was playing or just faking,OF COARSE I made sure they knew we were not no Milly Vanilly.
there were some songs that were—-o.k,but one that would always get the couples on the floor for a slow dance was unchained melody which was highly orchestrated and i would just open up the heart and let it pour, that one i always used my selmer alto and at times my eyes were filled when it ended.we called ourselves after hours and i guess we were a jazzy/light rock double,i would switch between alto and tenor all evening and would even switch mid song on a guitar break just to surprise regulars,like i said earlier i quit that to join full rock band that couldn’t keep together now i just play at home and sometimes jam sessions.
i guess in hind sight quiting that double might have been a mistake,it was fun at first but after a few years got tired of midi and like you said spontaneity was gone when i started feeling like i was playing with half my heart THAT WAS IT
Hey Darrell,
Thanks for sharing your story about playing with the guitarist. That’s funny people would check to see if you were playing. Gotta keep it fun for the musicians too sounds like a pretty taxing gig.
glad you liked it neal, and YES on the taxing there was NO room for mistakes with that midi,you hade to be on the mark coming in to a verse and had to end and get out to let the next piece in almost perfectly every time no getting lost and saying to yourself just take another verse cause it would be or could be the chorus/release,then of course remember 4 hours of music =approx. 40 songs all in your head.=practise,practise,practise…………………practise too much? HAHA
That’s pretty crazy, a lotta music! What are you playing these days?
Oh, there are many things that I like about jazz music. Just remembered a guy, who creates music (jazz music too) using only his mouth. I think it’s unbelievable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNZBSZD16cY (look at the end of the video).
Also, I agree with Doron, who said that DJ+sax gigs are a lot of fun 🙂
Have not played yet but experienced with such kind of music. Really amazing experience and want to play by myself. And the DJ+sax gigs gives enough entertainment to the audience. Recently, I’m following Farina. He is a cool guy.