David Jackson

[peter_fitton]

Just wondered if anyone has any opinions on the guy who first made me want to play the sax - David Jackson of the band Van der Graaf Generator.

He was famously dubbed "the Van Gogh of the saxophone" by Melody Maker many years ago, and is perhaps best known for his occasional playing of two saxes at the same time (a la Roland Kirk) and as one of the first to experiment with electric saxes and fx.

A wonderfully expressive player IMO, capable of going from scarily dramatic and visceral to tender and lyrical within a few beats. Highly distinctive tone too. Check out VdGG's Godbluff, Still Life and Pawn Hearts albums to hear the guy at his best. Great stuff!

Peter

 

[Bobby G]

Peter, you would not believe how many times I saw VDGG live 'back in the day'. Always loved Jaxonsax playing, and Godbluff is one scary record. There's some good video of Van der Graaf on Youtube if you want to see them in action, including 'A plague of lighthouse keepers'.

You can quite clearly see cables coming out of the sax at the top end, presumably connected to some kind of pickup within the crook area (any idea what or how it worked?) I'm sure he used to put the sax through a wah pedal, sometimes as a wah-wah effect, sometimes leaving it in one position as a kind of tone control. I think delay/echo may have been used too, certainly on the flute.

Andy Mackay had some kind of wah effect on his sax in the very early Roxy Music, but that may have just Been one of Eno's 'treatments'.

Have you experienced Geoff Leigh's tenor and Tim Hodgkinson's alto with Henry Cow?

Cheers, Bob

 

[spike]

Those "pick-ups" are contact mikes, one is drilled into the mouthpiece and the other into the neck, not sure what make those are, I've got one in my drawer from Barcus Berry. Very popular in the late 60's and seventies, Chris wood from Traffic would be another example. When I was in Africa the flute player from the house band round the corner had one fitted to his flute and got a german tech to customize an input on his korg synth so he could play through the filters. Cool stuff, Flute pickups are bit dodgy though cos they pick up the sounds of the pads clacking, I still have one, also from barcus berry, that fits in the head in place of the stopper, but it's collecting dust too.

Also popular in those days were octaviders, the best one was very expensive, can't remember who made it, I used a belt model "Octavoice" from King Vox, which has 3 switchable octave voices, cool for its time. These days you can plug a mike into an effects box for half the price and twice the fun. gruss - spike

 

[Bobby G]

I had an early Barcus Berry fitted onto an acoustic guitar in about 1978. Not very pretty to look at, and the sound wasn't much better.

 

[peter_fitton]

Bob Green wrote:

Have you experienced Geoff Leigh's tenor and Tim Hodgkinson's alto with Henry Cow?

Cheers, Bob

Not too familiar with Henry Cow, Bob. I know a little of their stuff and like it but haven't got any of their albums. I hear Unrest and Legends (?) are the ones to start with? Just listening to Bellycan and War by them courtesy of Winamp at the moment. Two good tracks.

Nice to meet a fellow VdGG enthusiast. Did you see any of the reunion gigs last year? Last year's album, Present, also excellent and has some great Jaxonsax playing on it 8)

Jaxon used wah onstage in the 70s and also an octave divider type thing. Apparently, when he played alto and tenor at the same time he could use this device to get 6 note chords! Nice.

Yeah Godbluff is a scary record. It also sounds pretty contemporary for a record made 31 years ago too. Hasn't dated much at all.

Peter

 

[Bobby G]

Peter, for my money Henry Cow's first lp, LegEnd, is the one to get, but Unrest and In Praise Of Learning are also good.

I haven't seen VDGG since those far-off pre-punk days, although I still listen to them. Some music I find doesn't date well, whereas some just becomes part of your life, VDGG being one of those.

Godbluff still packs a wallop today, but isn't the production just slightly muddy in parts?

Cheers, Bob

 

[peter_fitton]

You can quite clearly see cables coming out of the sax at the top end, presumably connected to some kind of pickup within the crook area (any idea what or how it worked?) I'm sure he used to put the sax through a wah pedal, sometimes as a wah-wah effect, sometimes leaving it in one position as a kind of tone control. I think delay/echo may have been used too, certainly on the flute.

There's a good article about Jaxon's early experiments with "electrified" saxes here: http://www.vandergraafgenerator.co.uk/dave.htm it all sounds endearingly Heath Robinson-esque.

Yeah, I've got the Plague of Lighthouse footage on DVD, it's good stuff. Supposedly that footage was the one and only time that Plague was played live - although there seems to be some debate about that.

All the VdGG albums were remastered last year, and Godbluff in particular now sounds loud, punchy and generally ticketyboo.

Jaxon himself has an interesting website here: http://www.jaxontonewall.com/

Peter

 

[Jules]

Dave Jackson- my old sax teacher! I just thought I'd drop that name drop in.
Re VDGG- Peter Hammill has one of the most remarkable voice I've ever heard- If you see the guy live, it's absolutely spine tingling, there's something absolutely primal and raw which in his delivery which cuts right through you. I'm not quite of an age to have encountered Van der Graaf in their prime but I've seen Peter Hammill several times and it's always a.... well... enjoyable isn't really the word... probably go with moving, and somewhat traumatic (in a good way -if that's possible!) experience.

 

[Bobby G]

The adjectives that come to my mind are intense and manic. By contrast, he can also sing like a choirboy at times.

Yours, Ricky Nadir

 

[Jules]

Bob Green wrote:
The adjectives that come to my mind are intense and manic. By contrast, he can also sing like a choirboy at times.

Yours, Ricky Nadir

I know a guy who used ot paly in Peter Hammill's band- He was saying that it never ceased to surprise him how he would sit behind his piano- very, calm, quiet and reserved- then suddenly kick into this amazing primeaval howl.

 

[peter_fitton]

Bob Green wrote:
The adjectives that come to my mind are intense and manic. By contrast, he can also sing like a choirboy at times.

Yours, Ricky Nadir

Hammill's probably the most literate and intelligent lyricist around, as well. The guy should be a megastar.

So what was Jaxon like as a teacher, Nachoman? The mind boggles... lol

 

[Bobby G]

...and did he still have the leather cap? 😛

From seeing VDGG live many times, one thing that struck me is P Hammill being this intense, manic, primeval, literate, howling thing of a singer, but often quite funny in the between-song chat.

Cheers, Bob

 

[Bobby G]

So, nachoman, how was Dave Jackson as a teacher? Fairly straight, or unorthodox methods?

I've often wondered how bands like VDGG, King Crimson, early Genesis etc produced their music. Were the parts written and learned? I never saw any of these bands use written parts on stage.

I used to play bass in a band with 2 guitars and a drummer, some of our stuff was quite complex, kind of guitar VdGG, but none of it was written, and some friends had a band that was very much in the Peter Gabriel-era Genesis mould, and all their tunes were learned rather than written.

I know most jazz is scored (a famous exception being some of Mingus' stuff), even at the jams I go to a lot of music paper gets passed around, but the complex rock stuff? I know some of these people were 'proper' musicians, but a lot weren't. Any ideas/insights? Do you have Dave Jackson's phone Number? 🙂

Cheers, Bob

 

[Jules]

Bob Green wrote:
So, nachoman, how was Dave Jackson as a teacher? Fairly straight, or unorthodox methods?

I know most jazz is scored (a famous exception being some of Mingus' stuff... Do you have Dave Jackson's phone Number? 🙂

Cheers, Bob

Bear in mind he's a maths teacher too, and as such- his quiet academic side was pretty much to the fore. This was a long time back (mid-1980s).
... I never knew Mingus' stuff wasn't writen down!

 

[Bobby G]

nachoman wrote:

Bob Green wrote:
So, nachoman, how was Dave Jackson as a teacher? Fairly straight, or unorthodox methods?

I know most jazz is scored (a famous exception being some of Mingus' stuff... Do you have Dave Jackson's phone Number? 🙂

Cheers, Bob

Bear in mind he's a maths teacher too, and as such- his quiet academic side was pretty much to the fore. This was a long time back (mid-1980s).
... I never knew Mingus' stuff wasn't writen down!

I can imagine from his stage persona that Dave was quite academic, he always appeared to be thoughtful, kind of the eye of the Hammill - Banton - Evans maelstrom.

Re the Mingus stuff not being written down; I don't know if this applies to the more complex or through-composed tunes, but it's true of tunes off albums like Blues & Roots, Uh-Huh, or Dynasty. Apparently he would play the horn lines on piano and then the horn-players would interpret these lines and play them in their personal style. I suppose this led to the almost semi-improvised, roots-in-New-Orleans style that I love.

Cheers, Bob

 

[Jules]

I've recently got hold of a copy of VDGG's reunion gigs- there's some great sax playing on 'em... following the Hammill angelic pretty flipping into absolutley terrifying primal howl mode... great stuff.
"Independent as a hog on ice", a man of good taste to be sure... have you seen that he's got a 3 cd new album comnig out next month?

 

[peter_fitton]

nachoman wrote:
I've recently got hold of a copy of VDGG's reunion gigs- there's some great sax playing on 'em... following the Hammill angelic pretty flipping into absolutley terrifying primal howl mode... great stuff.
"Independent as a hog on ice", a man of good taste to be sure... have you seen that he's got a 3 cd new album comnig out next month?

Hi Nachoman, just had a look at your profile. You wouldn't happen to be the Jules Lawrence who works at sax.co.uk and is very helpful when answering e-mail queries, would you?

Sadly there seems to have been some sort of bust up between Jaxon & Hammill as the latter states, rather tersely, on his website "David Jackson has not been a member of the group since November 2005." :cry:

If you haven't already heard it, I'd recommend the reunion album Present - some great sax, especially the Jaxon composition Boleas Panic and on the improvised 2nd CD.

Peter

 

[Bobby G]

nachoman wrote:
I've recently got hold of a copy of VDGG's reunion gigs- there's some great sax playing on 'em... following the Hammill angelic pretty flipping into absolutley terrifying primal howl mode... great stuff.
"Independent as a hog on ice", a man of good taste to be sure... have you seen that he's got a 3 cd new album comnig out next month?

No, I wasn't aware of that, I'll have to keep an ear out. Some of ol' Tom's stuff has been a bit primal lately, hasn't it? I like his entire sweep of music, some of his earlier piano songs like Tom Traubert's Blues or On The Nickel definitely move me quite a lot. I also love the Nighthawks at the Diner album. Whos the sax-player on that, his name escapes me? Has he done much other stuff?

Cheers, Bob