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REVIEW: The Star-Ledger
Saxophone Quartet Performs Its Rare Repertoire
New Jersey Saxophone Ensemble
What: new music for saxophone quartet
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Mount Fern United Methodist Church, 443 Quaker Church Road, Randolph
How much: Free will offering. Call (973) 366-4418.
By Willa J.Conrad
STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Though the saxophone was originally developed in 1845 by a young Belgian interested in bridging the gap between the clarinets and the tenor brass in military bands, it is an instrument with a full Hollywood story.
The reed instrument was an instant hit in military bands, was soon adopted for its mellow yet projecting tone by French composers such as Ravel, and then became the success story of the last century once Chicago-style Dixieland bands got hold of it.
For the past 50 years, it has been one of the most produced instruments in the Western hemisphere. It's also, hands down, the one with the hippest image. Would Lisa Simpson seem as cool if she were playing a trombone or a flute?
"It's a funny thing about being a saxophone player," says the New Jersey Saxophone Ensemble's baritone saxophonist, Paul Egan-Larsen. "You're exposed to a lot of different kinds of music. Since you don't have a full-time seat in the orchestra, by nature you've got to expose yourself to jazz, big band, Motown."This forced ambidexterity tends to make saxophone players some of the most versatile musicians around. All the players in the New Jersey quartet, for instance, have played with classical orchestras, done commercial studio work, played with jazz or pop groups. The Ensemble was founded in 1985 by soprano saxophonist Fred Davis, a music education teacher in the Hanover public schools, as a way of giving the players an outlet for chamber music, the one genre the saxophone seems not to have penetrated. Alto saxophonist Avi Goldrosen and tenor saxophonist James Garde make up the rest of the group.
"We really modeled after a string quartet, says Egan-Larsen, who teaches in the West Caldwell schools. "It's so much more opportunity to express yourself than when you play in a concert band or a big band."
Though the first American sax quartet was formed in 1879, it is still a rarely seen creature, and that has meant much scrambling for transcriptions of string quartets, brass pieces, even organ works, to play. By necessity, the saxophone is a vehicle for contemporary music. And so, Saturday's performance, one of three or four the group gives each season at its home base in Randolph, marks a new level of attainment for the quartet: the performance of the first work written expressly for the New Jersey group.
Composer Roberto di Marino, an Italian university professor whom the quartet met through an Internet chat site for saxophone lovers, has written "Quartette III" for the Jersey quartet. Also on the program will be Michael Torke's "July" in its New Jersey premiere, Jean Absil's "Suite on Popular Romanian Themes," Michael Nyman's "Songs for Tony," and Ramon Ricker's "Variations on a Theme by Sweelinck." New Jersey's own Paquito D'Rivera, one of the state's prominent jazz musicians, will also be represented by his "New York Suite."
If the saxophone's ubiquitous glamour is sometimes a headache — Egan-Larsen says he often gets students attracted to the instrument because they've seen it used in a music video but have no real musical interest in it — it has its positive attributes.
"It's the closest to the sound of the human voice," Egan-Larsen says. "It mimics the human voice and feelings. There's something very sensual about it. From playing it in everything from the seediest bar to the concert stage in front of an appreciative audience, you sure get a lot of life experiences."
