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Whatever happened to sax?

#121
Sax? *flips Sirius XM over to the jazz channels* Yep, there it is. Just not heard so much in rock these days.

Of course, there were many great sax moments in the 70s and 80s rock scene.

Lou Reed - Take a Walk on the Wild Side. Instantly recognizable to anyone over a certain age.
Huey Lewis & The News - Hip to be Square. Sax was part of their sound on many songs.
J. Geils Band - Freeze Frame. Horns and Hammond organ refusing to go quietly into that synthesized 80s night.

There were many more for sure, but that's just three that immediately jump to mind.
 
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#123
brianrost said:
Yeah, but... :whistle:

Yeach, but... :whistle:

The Beatles really launched the guitar rock craze here in the USA. Surf and rockabilly bands sometimes used horns. The Beatles also kickstarted the shift of college listeners from jazz and folk to rock and roll. I've been in many bands with horns but none of them were rock bands, funk and soul is about as close as they got.

BTW lots of "hillbilly" bands added horns in the 1940s when swing dancing was at it's peak. Bob Wills, for instance.
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Presley, who was dubbed ‘the hillbilly cat’(hence my use of the phrase)precipitated the shift away from the saxophone-based black rhythm and blues roots as more white country boys jumped onto this new music. It would only pop up in his music on “Return To Sender” or with orchestrations like “Hard Headed Woman”. No, sax didn’t go away immediately, but suffered a slow fade during the ensuing decade. When I survey rockabilly as a subgenre(as opposed to the umbrella term of ‘rock’n’roll’), sax doesn’t really factor in much, if at all. By the time of the arrival of the guitar-centric surf genre, while sax was featured in some bands, its presence in the music was greatly marginalized. As for Bob Wills, while he had a sax only occasionally, his thing was fiddles(in addition to steel guitar and a hot jazz style rhythm section), as well as his closest rival, Spade Cooley. The Beatles may have legitimized rock’n’roll, dragging it away from stupid disposable kiddie pop, but the guitar was already in place from folk, then surf, as the go-to youth instrument, while sax was already becoming unfashionable.
 
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#126
Anybody need some?

movie-theatre-popcorn-800x1200-720x540.jpg
 
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#128
I love horns. But I think it's only understandable that as the amount of money in the pot shrinks, monophonic instruments (except for bass) are gonna get the short end of the stick. Actually - the only thing that really keeps this from happening to bass guitar is thinking and training. Would the music suffer if the bass guitar were replaced with keyboards? Perhaps. Most keyboardists don't think like bass players. But it has happened and could happen if the wrong circumstances aligned.
 
#132
swarfrat said:
I love horns. But I think it's only understandable that as the amount of money in the pot shrinks, monophonic instruments (except for bass) are gonna get the short end of the stick. Actually - the only thing that really keeps this from happening to bass guitar is thinking and training. Would the music suffer if the bass guitar were replaced with keyboards? Perhaps. Most keyboardists don't think like bass players. But it has happened and could happen if the wrong circumstances aligned.
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You love horns...but do you love saxes?
 
#136
swarfrat said:
I love horns. But I think it's only understandable that as the amount of money in the pot shrinks, monophonic instruments (except for bass) are gonna get the short end of the stick. Actually - the only thing that really keeps this from happening to bass guitar is thinking and training. Would the music suffer if the bass guitar were replaced with keyboards? Perhaps. Most keyboardists don't think like bass players. But it has happened and could happen if the wrong circumstances aligned.
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These may be fighting terms around here, but I think you're giving bassists a little too much credit here in our ever growing synth oriented world. Any keyboard player worth their weight in salt can usually play lead, bass and harmony simultaneously; depending on the patch or keyboard it can often times sound just as good as a bass guitar. I'd argue that a good guitar or sax solo (articulations, feel and all) would be and is much harder to replace. A rise in synth solos though, now that's another story.
 
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