Goodman, Pepper, Benji & Bird

“I want to learn the saxophone.”

I wasn’t sure that I had heard my then nine year old son, Benji, correctly.  Since the poor guy had been in utero I’d fed him a steady diet of music.  His appetite whetted with an hors d’oeuvres of rock, the main course consisted of healthy helpings of jazz à la mode.  Lee Morgan’s 'The Sidewinder', Art Blakey’s ‘Straight Ahead’ and John Coltrane’s ‘Blue Train’ were albums I played in the (retrospectively unreasonable) belief that they would easily be accessible to an infant mind.  Jazz was surely part of his DNA, I figured, and exposure to my favourites would surely lead them to become his favourites as well.

In the mid-1980’s, Capital Radio, in headier times, had promoted an annual jazz festival on the South Bank.   At the beginning of the summer, Capital persuaded flight’s full of the finest jazzers to take a detour from destinations Dutch, German and French.  As and when the concert line-ups were announced, I would buy a pair of seats for four or five of them.  By night three I would be phoning around for a companion and thus it was that Benji started coming along to gigs.  It was only after the second festival I realised that his enthusiasm for coming along wasn't motivated by a penchant for the innovative tapping technique of guitarist Stanley Jordan or the hard-bopping tenor of Joe Henderson.  It was more about being out in the evening with his dad and doing something that seemed delightfully grown up.  On one occasion I can even recall carrying a virtually comatose Benji over my shoulder after a particularly lengthy bill at which I seem to recall one of the Marsalis boys doing his thing.  Benji’s inclination towards accompanying me to jazz concerts died at the same time as we took an early family holiday in July 1988.  Thus I missed what I recall was the last of the Capital Jazz Festivals at the Festival Hall.

“Dad, are you listening?  I want to learn the saxophone!”

“You do?” 

“Yes.  I don’t want to do piano anymore.” 

He’d been learning the piano for a couple of years.  He demonstrated some talent but no great love for the teacher and consequently no desire to practice. 

“Have you thought about which saxophone?”

“Alto,” he replied assuredly.

As a pavlovian reaction, some alto sax led favourites began playing on my mental juke-box: Art Pepper’s rendering of ‘Webb City’ with its studied probing solo; Bird’s free flowing excellence on the self-tribute ‘The Bird’.

“That’s great,” I replied.  Within seconds I was picturing a family group at a table on the rail at Ronnie’s as a future Benji ambled on stage on a triumphal homecoming from New York.  His all star band would include a then-to-be-middle-aged Wynton Marsalis guesting on trumpet.  Then the reality check: “but you do realise that you’ll need to learn the clarinet first.”

“Why?”

I was no expert, but I had always believed that learning the embouchure and fingering for the clarinet made the passage to saxophone all the more easier.  Quite apart from that, the clarinet is an easier instrument for a nine year old to handle.  The explanation was not acceptable.

“I don’t want to learn the clarinet.  If I had’ve done I would’ve asked to learn the clarinet.  I want to learn the saxophone.”

Over the succeeding days, the discussion was repeated.  No amount of logic would prevail, mine or his.  Even Benji's tried and tested route of lobbying my wife on the quiet made no difference to my view.   The subject was dropped at around the time the school year came to a close.  Benji took his last piano lesson and we headed off on a fly-drive to the States where our final destination was Los Angeles.

Venice Beach is like no other.  Open air body building gyms and basketball courts divide the promenade from the golden sands.  The promenade itself is lined with cafes and restaurants, head shops and hat shops, tarot readers and astrologers, panhandlers, cops in beach-friendly uniforms, Buddhist hangouts, preaching gurus and entertainers of every shape, size and persuasion: jugglers, and magicians, balloon-folders and charlatans.  Most alluring of all are Venice’s busking musicians.   A young guy, perhaps no more than 18 or 19, was playing an alto sax.  A poignant rendering of Thelonius Monk’s classic ‘Round Midnight’ drew us towards him.  He was good, very good.  We all enjoyed it and stopped to listen.  Another couple of standards followed.   He paused to adjust his instrument.  I dropped a dollar bill into his hat.  “How long have you been playing?”

“Only a few months, but I played clarinet in high school.”

I looked at Benji raising my eyebrow.  He said nothing but it was clearly an electric lightbulb moment. 

A couple of weeks later, it was Autumn term at St Anthony’s School in Hampstead, North London.   One evening, after waiting for my key to turn in the front door, Benji coolly advised me that the school music teacher had recommended a local clarinet teacher.  Clarinets could also be borrowed from school. “If I learn the clarinet for a while, can I learn the saxophone afterwards.”

I had then recently fallen in love with Benny Goodman’s rendering of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto.  I had heard the master’s sparkling reading of the rondo in a TV re-run of the 1956 biopic ‘The Benny Biopic’.  I tracked down a CD of the recording featured in the film that I still play frequently.  There is nothing quite as exhilarating as hearing jazz greats playing classical masterpieces into which they inevitably throw interesting variations and interpolations.

“OK,” I responded, “here’s the deal.  Once you can make a passable attempt at playing any one of the movements of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, I’ll buy you an alto sax and pay for the lessons.”

Benji responded positively and with enthusiasm.   After a couple of years in which he featured in school concerts, he attained a decent enough standard, though I cannot now remember the grade he reached.  Of more significance, he could play extended sections of the first two movements of the Mozart.  I judged that he had met the challenge I’d set him.  

In the early Autumn of 1990, we went to a music shop in Kentish Town that is now no longer.  The helpful store-manager picked out a Yamaha alto from the ranks of shiny brass instruments that lined one wall.  He asked Benji about his previous musical experience.  On the basis of the responses, an appropriate reed was selected and fitted.  Benji eagerly took the saxophone, hung it round his neck and placed his lips on mouthpiece.  Immediately able to make the requisite embouchure, a note or two emerged.  He flexed his fingers and discovered that the fingering required to play a scale was within his capability.  Then a tune began to emerge.  Playing the piece he knew best, the opening movement of the Mozart began to fill the shop.  Other customers stopped to listen and smile.  While endeavouring to hide his admiration, the manager pronounced that it wasn’t really ‘on’ to use an alto sax to play a piece intended to be played on the clarinet!  I’m not sure that Mozart would have agreed with him.

Sadly, Benji’s acquaintance with the sax lasted less than a year.  At the age of 13 he traded it for a Gibson SG with which he joined his first rock band.  He made his first recording in a professional studio very shortly thereafter, of which more anon. 

At the time of posting this blog, Wynton Marsalis has not yet called Benji to offer him a gig.

Lee Morgan’s ‘The Sidewinder’ (1961 Blue Note) and Art Blakey’s ‘Straight Ahead’ (1981 Concord Jazz) are both vinyl albums.  I had an old cassette copy of John Coltrane’s ‘Blue Train’ (1957 Blue Note) that dated from the 1970’s which has now been replaced by a 2003 CD re-master.  Stanley Jordan’s ‘Cornucopia’ (1989 Blue Note) is on CD as is Joe Henderson’s ‘So Near, So Far’ (Verve 1993); Henderson’s two 1966 Blue Note albums ‘Mode for Joe’ and ‘Inner Urge’ are on vinyl.  Art Pepper’s ‘Omega Alpha’ includes ‘Webb City’ (1957 Blue Note reissued as a Blue Note Classic in 1980 and is on vinyl). Charlie Parker’s ‘The Bird’ recorded in 1949 is included on Metro Records’ compilation ‘The Definitive Charlie Parker Vol.1’ released in the mid 1970’s on vinyl.  I have a number of recordings of ‘Round Midnight’, my favourite being the title track to Bertrand Tavernier’s movie of that name released in 1988.  Included on the CD soundtrack release, it features Bobby McFerrin on vocals and Herbie Hancock on piano.  Benny Goodman’s performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto was recorded in 1956 and is on a 1985 RCA CD reissue.  I have a number of recordings by Wynton Marsalis of which, too, more anon.