I started to play the alto saxophone just before christmas in 1968. And I’m playing ROCK & ROLL SAXOPHONE. No classical or jazz saxophone. I listen to jazz and classic music, but to play ….. well it’s not my cup of tea!
Nowadays I sometimes wonder why I continued to play the saxophone? In the mid and late 70’s I played football. My team played 1-1 against Chelsea in -74 and a year later we beat Hamburg HSV at Volkparks Stadion in Hamburg. The peak of my ”career” as footballplayer. During those years I didn’t play that much sax.
http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm201/thomsax/?action=view¤t=boiskopiera.jpg
(Fourth raw from above, fourth person from left. You know, I was a lite-hippie as well. Long hair, "Love , Peace & Understanding" …. and playing football. Weird!! Today some of my hair has fall out and what’s left is grey).
And I also became a cook/chef and that was also hard to combinate with the saxplaying. I often worked when my fellow musicians were out ”gigging”!! So not that much saxplaying during those years as well.
I guess I play the sax in the same way as I played football and in the way as I’m cooking. Football/saxplayer: With attack and hit hard! Follow your instinct! Don’t ask yourself to many questions. Chef/saxplayer: No recipies/charts. Learn how things blends and react. Listen/taste what you’re playing/cooking. Keep it simple! Few ingredients/tones. Learn the tones in the chords and the chordchanges.
Today my saxlife is good. I play almost every day and I’ve also started Rocksax- and Blues Projects. No regular band.
Tenor or baritone sax is my main weapon/tool. I love the saxophone as an instrument. I bought my Martins when nobody wanted a sax like that. Also the Dukoff mouthpieces were available for me. And I decided that Martin saxes and Dukoffs was the combination I should play. (I thought I would switch to Rovner mpc on all my saxes but they’re now re-desiging!!). I didn’t care so much what shoe brand I used as footballplayer so why should I bother so much about my sax and setup? It’s the instinct that make the football and rocksaxplayer??
Lot’s of drivel!! Now I have to drive to work at the restaurantschool in Kristianstad. We are celebrating Martin of Tours aka Mårten with serving goose. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_of_Tours) today. We call the day Mårtensafton! My students are going to serve the Scanian Goose !!!
Back to the question. I have played the saxophone for 42 years, more or less.
Thomas