Rock N Roll Vs Rock N Roll Saxophone Line Art
The Groove Line Horns (l-r): Carlos Sosa, Fernando Castillo, and Raul Vallejo (Photograph By John Carrico)
Horn players in rock bands? Next to the electric guitars, keyboards, and sophisticated gadgetry of the average stone band's stage setup, a simple bronze saxophone appears quaint. A novelty. And yet, stone & gyre wouldn't exist without the yelping saxophones of Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner, the magnificent boyish squawking of "Charlie Brown" or Junior Walker's double-barreled "Shotgun." Stax, Motown, James Brown, Sly Stone; imagine the theme from Shaft without those staccato horn breaks. Horn players in rock bands? Damn direct. Even in this decade, artists like Morphine, Cake, Rocket From the Crypt, Afghan Whigs, No Doubtfulness, Sublime, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Wilco, and Brook take seen their horn-enhanced output striking the modern-stone jackpot. At present that pop is once again the club of the day, horns are on the airwaves more frequently than car-insurance spots. A continuing presence to be certain, but are they equally essential equally cell phones? Or have horns been forever consigned to the role of rock & roll cilantro, a blowsy garnish that makes the main form all the more than mouthwatering? Several Austin bands challenge that long-held notion, elevating horns beyond their traditional sideman status into something, if non a lead, so certainly more than decoration. It'south not even that weird anymore to meet someone unpacking a trumpet or sax at Emo'south or Pigsty in the Wall.
Naturally, this is not a new phenomenon, but it is especially broad-ranging locally, stretching into virtually all corners of Austin's stone palette. Even if ane excludes the multitude of accomplished jazz, R&B, and Latin horn players in town, there'southward plenty to choose from. There'due south the Groove Line Horns blowing their horns at the Scabs' weekly Antone's shows, the lowdown squeal of Walter Daniels accompanying Texacala Jones on tenor sax, and D.D. Wallace's sock-hop raunch fueled by saxman Trevor Wallace. And that's just the beginning.
Brown Whörnet's post-punk freakouts would be rendered limp without their horns' clinking punch, while Allyson Lipkin's stylings inject a cautious layer of cool into the chameleonic Deep Sombreros. Hard-rock kings Vallejo and Pushmonkey have been known to toot a little trumpet between power chords, Retarted Elf recently resurfaced with its horn-driven hip-hop metal, and Stretford'southward gleaming popular-punk choruses have been brass-polished since the long-running local ring started upward. Continuing, in that location's Skanky Yankee's fine art-noise skronk, Tunji and Mingo Fishtrap's jam-based ethos, and even the Fuckemos coaxing bowel-like noises out of a trombone. Let'south not fifty-fifty get near that last one.
Such a broad sampling points direct to the heart of whatsoever brass player'south rock & gyre dilemma: Since horns are so versatile and are ultimately only express by their players' imagination and ability, in that location'southward only then far their not-horn-playing bandmates are willing to let them go, merely certain things they're immune to do. And because of their commanding presence both onstage and on album, winds are often used sparingly so as not to detract from the traditional rock & roll center of attention -- the singer and/or guitarist. There's also the small-scale matter of playing acoustic instruments in an ear-splitting rock-club environment.
"The stage volume is incredible up in that location," says Groove Line trombonist Raul "Rollo" Vallejo. "We play correct on that mike and so we can compete with the guitar player."
The Deep Sombreros' Lipkin has a similar solution: "Blow harder."
Jennings Crawford, Eric Mortenson, and Cynthia Sadler of Stretford (Photo By John Carrico)
Then in that location's the cheese factor. By the Seventies, rock & roll had taken a turn. More intricate arrangements, larger ensembles, and ornate stylistic flourishes meant more work for horn players.Then again, every time they raised their instruments to their lips, they raised the specter of the dreaded "F" word -- fusion. Or the other "F" word -- Foreigner.
"I grew upwards on this crappy popular music that, if I didn't accept any better gustation, I might exist really screwed upwards right now," says Lipkin. "I hateful, if my artful taste in music didn't develop any, I'd want to play Greenhorn sax, like "Cold as Ice.' Luckily, I grew up with bands like the Who and Rolling Stones."
Bobby Keyes blowing riff for riff with Keith Richards on "Tumblin' Dice" or "Brown Saccharide" is certainly badass enough to make near stone & rollers entertain notions of picking upwards the sax. Although synthesizers began to supplant saxophones in the Eighties, the advent of New Wave demonstrated that bands such as Blondie and the B-52'due south still had room for horns. Even U2 used a trumpet on its War album. Aggro skate-rockers eventually came around likewise, Social Distortion using brass on their self-titled 1990 album, and Suicidal Tendencies recruiting the Groove Line Horns for a Stubb'due south gig a couple of years back. As they retrieve it, the ST guys wouldn't even look at the Groovers until after the testify. Then they wanted to party with them. How cheesy is that? At least information technology taught them an important lesson.
"We have this picayune philosophy that no matter what it is, particularly subsequently playing with Suicidal, that annihilation is better with horns," says Groove Line saxophonist Carlos Sosa.
"Saxophone has a wide enough range that each different personality blazon can see themselves playing the kind of music they wish they could play on saxophone," says Skanky Yankee sax player Wayne Swoyer.
Some other nugget horns have is that, in the right hands, they can exist electrifying live. The visceral nature of someone blowing their lungs out nether hot lights is tailor-made for rock & scroll. Combining elements of voice and instrument, horns possess a certain spiritual attribute completely alien to more mechanical instruments.
"I call up when yous add together a horn department information technology just really adds to the excitement," says Stretford saxophonist Cynthia Sadler. "Every performance is unique -- it's not driven by some computer plan somebody's put in a PC or Mac."
Max Brody (Photo Past John Carrico)
Even in a supporting role, horns create a cushion of sound harmonious enough to echo a guitar or keyboard, and punctuated enough to allow the rhythm section to relax a bit. Horns also offering a perfect counterpunch for the choppy, chromatic figures then indelible to R&B and early on rock & roll, but are every bit capable of extended forays into the finger-twisting scale stratosphere at a moment'due south notice. Visceral, spontaneous, charismatic -- they're perfect.
"I think the big thing for us is to be huge, and not be timid at all," says Sosa. "All three of us just being this huge, powerful wall of sound, and really tight."
Yet, there'due south a substantial brick wall in horn players' path: Rock & curl is a lyric-dominated medium at least to some degree, and thus the talking chemical element unique to horns and then useful in jazz is inevitably muted. In fact, ever since Elvis shook his hips on Ed Sullivan, the guitar has ruled rock instruments with an fe fist. As the music evolved quickly from Chuck Drupe to Jimi Hendrix, horns found their already-small role becoming considerably more marginalized. Whereas in the mid-Fifties horns and guitars stood on equal ground carried over from R&B, by the early Seventies, they'd been relegated to the second tier with the background vocalists, but seizing the spotlight in outfits such as Blood, Sweat & Tears, World, Wind & Fire, and Chicago -- all bands that fit the rock definition rather loosely to brainstorm with.
"Nearly people that play three-chord stone & roll, at that place's no room for a horn," posits Swoyer. "When you think almost bands that have had a horn on one or 2 songs, it's considering they were doing a song that wasn't straight-out rock. They're a rock band doing a lilliputian bit of a blues thing or a jazz affair. People really call back of the horn every bit something y'all use to play dejection or to play jazz."
So, are horns instruments of stone & coil, or are they just slumming?
"Anything can be a rock instrument," says Max Brody, drummer for Sangre de Toro. Brody spent a portion of last summer in Europe as Ministry's touring saxophonist, and experienced shut-upwardly some of the difficulties horns encounter in stone settings. Starting time, in that location was the seemingly impossible task of wiring the saxophone so it could be heard over the industrial institution'due south notorious din.
"What they ended up doing was finding this stethoscope-looking bargain that attached onto my reed," he explains. "I recollect it'southward used for audio-visual guitars, like a pickup, but nosotros attached it to the reed so that fashion I could plug directly into their amps."
Allyson Lipkin (Photo By John Carrico)
Once the horn was run through Ministry'due south myriad of furnishings gadgetry, still left to consider was how exactly the saxophone should be used. Ministry'due south sound is not exactly horn-driven, not in a million years, yet Brody'south role was all the same vital. In the face up of such an unrelenting aural set on, the subtle shadings and colorings a wind musical instrument can provide are essential, no matter how sparingly they are used.
"That was more than of the job, really -- taking over for samples," chuckles Brody. "The new album has some actual saxophone, little parts, simply I played on some of their older songs, too. That's when I'd take over for a sample with a trumpet-like sound or something. I could replace that, or little siren kind of samples. I could pull those off. In that whole set, I probably sounded similar a saxophone 2 times or something."
Brody, whose horn graced an L7 option at Emo's just concluding week, thinks the more than judiciously saxophone is used in stone, the amend. The instrument's tendency to overwhelm other instruments must be kept carefully in cheque.
"Saxophone is a really strong season, and y'all've gotta exist really conscientious when you use it," he says. "It'due south actually easy to overuse it. I think that's part of the reason I became a drummer. I love playing the saxophone, it'south cracking fun, but I want to play more often in a song and take it feel like it'due south needed."
Nevertheless, the prevailing trend locally is for more horns, non less, at least for bands such as Deep Sombreros and Stretford. Lipkin spent a twelvemonth honing her chops as Superego'south sax role player at the Sun nighttime Free for All, and says being put on the spot was an integral role of learning to master her instrument.
"I learned onstage how to pick up a song," she says. "Like correct and then, because Superego throws out covers a lot. I was fresh, I learned how to only get that fear away, to spring in and play something that fits."
Sadler has several co-writing credits on Stretford's recent Long Distance album, a product of her and vocalizer-guitarist Carl Normal passing melodies back and along via demo tapes. Both women notice that bold a greater office in the ring means there's more room creatively, and say information technology's been very good for their playing.
Skanky Yankee'due south Wayne Swoyer (Photograph Past John Carrico)
"The collaboration that we have is exciting to me, because I never know what Carl's gonna give me," enthuses Sadler. "He gives me a four-runway demo, and and then I put some horn arrangements on summit of that. He probably feels the aforementioned fashion -- he never knows what I'm gonna give him. It's a unique situation, because we never sit down in the same room and work on a vocal together."
"I wanted to exist a player -- I didn't want to exist, similar, another girl vocalizer, for one thing," Lipkin says with a shudder. "Just the idea of information technology. I wanted to play and be a part of the music."
For the most function, though, it remains an uphill battle for horns looking to be part of a rock & roll package, and even for some bands to accept horn players as full-fledged members. It took a while for the Groove Line Horns to get three full shares of the Scabs' aplenty gate, but now the trio can signal to songs that wouldn't be without them.
"If you took the horn line out of "Tarantula,' it just wouldn't exist that vocal," states Sosa.
Maintaining a separate identity as a horn section has also proven tricky for the Groove Line Horns due to the Scabs' overwhelming popularity. The trio has teamed with everyone from Ian Moore and Vallejo to a recent engagement with Luscious Jackson at La Zona Rosa, but all anyone wants to hear lately is Scabs, Scabs, and still more Scabs.
"When we played with Luscious Jackson, they said, "Groove Line Horns!' and there was like 20 people [applauding]," recounts Sosa. "Then they said, "From the Scabs,' and the whole place went psycho."
Things have been worse.
"When we were first starting out, we'd become play with these bands and they wouldn't pay us shit," he remembers.
Horns continue to find themselves in the paradoxical position of perpetual rock & roll outsiders that can supply but the right touch necessary to push a song or alive performance over the top. Ultimately, it comes downwardly to the individual, and how he/she interacts with the other ring members using his/her horn. Ike & Tina Turner, Jesus Christ Superstar, Oingo Boingo, Southern Culture on the Skids -- over the years, brass has come to occupy a somewhat idiosyncratic, merely well-entrenched, spot in rock & curlicue.
This is not to say that every ring should have horns, of course not, but rather that the ones who practice have come to capeesh what having that actress sound means. It's an attention-grabber, something that sets them autonomously. That so many local bands now feature horns but points to the irrepressible urge to create something different, something unique, even if it's something people say y'all're non supposed to do. That, in a nutshell, is Austin music'due south rallying weep.
"[Saxophone] brings that soulfulness of an extra vox," says Lipkin. "Information technology'southward an extra lead, an extra way to create melodies that'south different any other sound. Like the Gourds, they prefer to bring an squeeze box in for the actress sound."
"Your whole life feel is filtered through what comes out of the horn," Swoyer says. "And my life is pretty Blackness Sabbath." 
Source: https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/1999-11-19/74723/