The Glazunov recording is from an old Deutsche Grammophon LP. I picked up my copy in the 1970s in a bargain bin at the UMass bookstore, along with Karl Boehm’s recordings of the Mozart symphonies. They were selling DG LPs for a buck apiece.
There is no conspiracy to keep saxes out of orchestras. They are niche instruments like lots of others, like contrabassoons, various tubas, hecklephones, piccolos, and so on. When a piece calls for one, a player is contracted. Orchestras keep the most commonly used niche instruments, like the bass tuba on staff. I play tuba in the local orchestra, and about 75% of the music doesn’t require my services. Saxes are the same, but not used about 99% of the time.
Doesn’t help that the core German repertoire doesn’t call for the saxophone. Mostly predates it’s invention.
Hurin3,
Good point. I also wonder if the exclusion isn’t exacerbated by the fact (I think?) that there is an existing orchestral reed that covers the range of all the saxes. As you note, the saxophone was invented after the other orchestral instruments, so it wouldn’t have really made sense to fire a clarinetist, or bassoonist, or oboeist or contrabassoonist in order to include a soprano, alto, tenor or bass saxophonist. Sort of like replacing the trombones with baritones. You could do it, but what do you gain?
Hurin3:
You’re missing the point: the reason most pieces don’t call for it, despite it being both popular AND exceptionally versatile IS the conspiracy.
Methinks you did not actually watch the vid.
Interesting, Neo.
Obloodyhell,
The effort by the Parisian instrument manufacturers to boycott the saxophone is an interesting part of the story, but I doubt it’s as simple as the video’s narrator makes it out to be; that the saxophone was clearly better in all respects and everyone would have gladly scrapped all the existing clarinets and oboes and plugged sax’s into the orchestra if not for the concerted campaign of the instrument making syndicate.
Change is hard. Even though electricity plays a part in modern orchestral performances, the structure pretty much still adheres to the era before electricity. If there is a power failure an orchestra can still perform. The Rolling Stones and Weather Report would be in big trouble. Modern synthesizers are arguably much more versatile, have a wider range, are more dynamic… than pianos, yet pianos are still around, especially on orchestra stages. As Hurin3 points out, some composers write niche pieces for other keyboard instruments, but piano still holds sway. Why? There is a rich tradition of piano as the keyboard in orchestras when a keyboard is called for. It’s hard to change.
Which is my point about the other reeds. The orchestra was pretty much already set by the time the saxophone was invented and there were scores of wonderful scores already written for orchestra, as situated. And orchestra as situated had a reed to cover all the range of the newly invented saxophone. So do you fire your clarinetist and replace him or her with a soprano saxophonist? If so, why? Sure, the instruments CAN sound different, but a soprano saxophonist playing a traditional, orchestral piece will be doing his darndest to sound as mellow as a clarinet. As Hurin3 points out, some composers write pieces featuring the saxophone, and in those they will often showcase characteristics of the saxophone that differ from one of the clarinets, or oboe, or bassoon. But in most of the other scores a saxophonist would be playing a part originally written for clarinet, or bassoon or oboe, and imitating those instruments’ tones.
I think saxophones caught on in marching (and other) bands because they can be played louder more easily than clarinets and other reeds. So they are also a natural fit for jazz and rock.
I watched the video. Saxes are niche instruments. Not needed most of the time. Pro level orchestral clarinet, bassoon and horn players can mimic the sound. Certain repertoire, French, Russian and British uses saxes more often, but most of that music is out of the mainstream, which is mainly German. Think the three Bs. There are big exceptions, like Ravel’s Bolero that get played a lot. When that happens, one of the clarinet players might play sax, or another player is contracted.
I don’t want to give the impression that I dislike the instrument.
The orchestration of “Pictures at an Exhibition” has a lovely saxophone solo in one of the movements. I heard it played live in an excellent concert hall — truly memorable.
P.S. Ritchie Blackmore (lead guitarist for Deep Purple, among others) suggested that aspiring lead guitarists listen to sax solos “because the average saxophonist can play much better than the average guitarist.”
While the saxophone was invented after most of the German classical repertoire had been composed, that doesn’t prevent one from changing orchestration to include the sax. In thinking of music that can be set to any instrumentation one wants, Bach immediately comes to mind. YouTube further informs us: Bach on saxaphone. I purchased The Amherst Saxophone Quartets’s “Bach on Sax” some time in the ’90s.
As Hurin3 points out, some composers write niche pieces for other keyboard instruments, but piano still holds sway. Why?
Tinny tone of harpshichord.
Charles Ives said that harpsichords sound like a June bug buzzing on a screen door. I’ve come to agree. I’m 40 years over my original instrument fetish. Give me Bach on a piano please.
Charles Ives said that harpsichords sound like a June bug buzzing on a screen door. I’ve come to agree. I’m 40 years over my original instrument fetish. Give me Bach on a piano please.
When I was in high school, without ever having heard any Brandenburg Concertos, I purchased a set of Pablo Casals conducting Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. That set the Brandenburg standard for me, both for Casal’s energetic interpretations, plus Serkin’s piano playing. In later years, I heard a number of Brandenburg interpretations with harpshichord- ugh! Fortunately, years later I was able to locate Casal’s version of the Brandenburgs on CD.
The year after purchasing Casal’s Brandenbergs, I heard Rosalyn Tureck in concert.
The Saxophone video had interesting information on why the saxophone had trouble being accepted in classical orchestras.
As with most human endevours more often than not, tradition wins out, and classical orchestra is steeped in tradition like no other art form.
In general I find the vast majority of musicians to be quite conservative when it comes to their art. There’s this tendency towards orthodoxy that exists within most forms and genres of music. This includes everything from classical, folk, pop, jazz, blues, EDM, country, hip hop, and all forms of rock and heavy metal. There’s always this perception of a “right way” to do things in every possible area, from the instruments used to the way they’re recorded. And amusingly there’s plenty of people who profess to be open minded about their art while in reality they become pretty curmudgeonly about anyone who dares to even try something a little different.
In fairness though, I imagine similar things could be send for most creative endeavours. People don’t like change.
I’m inclined to agree with Hurin about an hour ago. Beethoven, Haydn, what have you, couldn’t have scored for saxophones, or Wagner tubas, because those didn’t yet exist. Composers other than Wagner, or others, orchestrated for what was available, including Wagner tubas and saxophones, and as the electrically augmented stuff came along, those too.
Yet another excellent music post from Neo.
Please keep them coming!
Mr. Bruce says something to the effect that Mr. Sax was interested in filling in the bass of the orchestral woodwind section and that Mr. Sax had worked on the design of bass and contra bass clarinet.
I played in the brass section of both a university orchestra and another university group referred to as “the wind ensemble.” The latter group was large at perhaps 2/3 or 3/4 the size of the orchestra. It was unique in that the leader was very focused on the group having a tremendous bass end.
Not only did he add a couple string basses (in a wind ensemble?) but he had bass clarinet, contra bass clarinet, bassoon and contra bass bassoon. Aside from the bassoon, I’d never seen or heard those before. I believe there were some deep saxophones in there, but I don’t quite recall them. The group had an amazing sound, particularly in a large reverberant hall.
I do think the sax has a more brash sound, at least when played loud.
I taught high school band for 35 years. Bands are different animals than orchestras. Bands have a fixed instrumentation, always including saxes, plus much more percussion typically. Not much variation. This partially because most band music is pretty new relatively. And you don’t want your students sitting around with nothing to do.
Orchestras have a more flexible instrumentation other than strings depending on when the music was composed by Mozart or Mahler.
I’ve played tuba on the Dvorak New World Symphony four different times over the years. You maybe don’t know that the tuba has a grand total of fourteen notes in a forty-five minutes symphony. It’s the chorale at the beginning and end of the slow movement. I sit still in my chair and listen to the rest of the orchestra for the forty-four minutes I’m not playing. But I’m no longer a HS student.
I learned the instrument is named for its inventor. I had falsely assumed it was short for “anglo saxon.” Not such an odd assumption on my part when there are “french” and “english” horns.
Something funny that is sort-of on this topic:
At a recent practice I was talking with a trombone player in my band about how unfair it is that guitarists can just put a capo on their guitar’s neck and adjust to any key, so they don’t have to adapt fingerings based on key changes. We were trying to figure out how to do the same for brass instruments and we came up with a brilliant idea:
Take a baritone or trumpet or cornet or tuba and add a locking slide, similar to a trombone’s slide. So you have the three valves most brass instruments have, but you also have a slide that can be locked in half step intervals. Just move the slide to the key the song is in, lock it in place, and play the same fingerings for all keys!
That’s like Irving Berlin’s piano. He only played in G-flat (of all keys). The piano had a sliding mechanism that would change that into any key.
We added a sax for An American in Paris, as one must. A lovely piece all around.
As a player of the saxophone in my youth, I can’t resist adding Billy Collins’ poem to all these wonderful comments:
The Invention of the Saxophone
BY BILLY COLLINS
It was Adolphe Sax, remember,
not Saxo Grammaticus, who gets the ovation.
And by the time he had brought all the components
together–the serpentine shape, the single reed,
the fit of the fingers,
the upward tilt of the golden bell–
it was already 1842, and one gets the feeling
that it was also very late at night.
There is something nocturnal about the sound,
something literally horny,
as some may have noticed on that historic date
when the first odd notes wobbled out of his studio
into the small, darkened town,
summoning the insomniacs (who were up
waiting for the invention of jazz) to their windows,
but leaving the sleepers undisturbed,
evening deepening and warming the waters of their dreams.
For this is not the valved instrument of waking,
more the smoky voice of longing and loss,
the porpoise cry of the subconscious.
No one would ever think of blowing reveille
on a tenor without irony.
The men would only lie in their metal bunks,
fingers twined behind their heads,
afloat on pools of memory and desire.
And when the time has come to rouse the dead,
you will not see Gabriel clipping an alto
around his numinous neck.
An angel playing the world’s last song
on a glistening saxophone might be enough
to lift them back into the light of earth,
but really no further.
Once resurrected, they would only lie down
in the long cemetery grass
or lean alone against a lugubrious yew
and let the music do the ascending–
curling snakes charmed from their baskets–
while they wait for the shrill trumpet solo,
that will blow them all to kingdom come.
I blame Bill Clinton for the sax’s horny reputation on the contemporary scene. Here’s a video of Bubba playing the sax at a White House party, with Wife of Bubba introducing the gig. As one of the commenters below the vid said, “If it starts with S and ends with X, Bill Clinton is good at it.”
Who cares if the Chinese swamp the West? All that matters is a fried chicken in every pot and a Schwinn (made in China) for every pedaling pickaninny. Cue the trannies in 3, 2, 1 complaining about being left out of the equation.
It seems that Zaphod has fallen off his a magic bicycle without his helmet. Sad. to be him.
Good Morning Om! I’ve missed you.
Why the Melanin Challenged would even *want* to take up a sport where they are so utterly obtuse as to call pedals you clip-in to (I kid you not) ‘Clipless Pedals’, I have no idea. Just jealousy I guess.
Also they should agitating for swimming pools to be filled with Heavy Water so that their whole bone/muscle density disadvantage, cancel that, Discrimination thing goes away and they can win as many Olympic gold medals in swimming as they do in the 100m dash.
Never had a problem with John Coltrane though. I wonder what happened to that black church in LA or SF where he was worshiped as some kind of minor deity?
“Private equity has made me rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Yet private equity can be, as this book shows, a tool of the devil, a corrosive and destructive force in American life. Still, I do not think the story is as simple as Brian Alexander, the author of Glass House, would have it. The town in which he grew up, and which he profiles here—Lancaster, Ohio—has fallen far from its glory days, as have hundreds of similar towns across America. But the responsibility for that lies not just with the shady private equity companies that looted its largest employer, glass manufacturer Anchor Hocking, or with other elements of our rotten ruling class. It also lies with all of us, who bear more than some responsibility for the degradation of our towns, and of ourselves.
.
.
.
The goal of all this, and much more, is to create a society where the working class is aligned with the ruling class, as opposed to what we have now, where the ruling class makes degraded slaves of what remains of the working class. Foundationalism will have, to be sure, a ruling class, though no member of today’s ruling class will be in it. The working class will not be in charge, because the working class is not capable of being in charge. Nonetheless, for us, today, the key is the working class, because their aid in the wars to come will be crucial. To prevent them choosing rightly, our overlords rely on sedating the working classes with consumerism, drugs, porn, and video games. Thus, they have become degraded to a great degree, just like all of us. We can see, though, from Brian Gossett, and from phenomena such as Jordan Peterson, that many young people in the working class don’t want those things. The solution is to, at the right moment, weaponize the working class against the ruling class, and against their foot soldiers, the woke professional-managerial elite and the myrmidons of Burn-Loot-Murder, for both of whom the working class, of all races, have nothing but contempt. A new social compact, for a renewed society. Stephen Feinberg can move to Canada or England, or better yet, Mexico, with the one suitcase of possessions he’s allowed. Then Lancaster can flourish again.”
There’s that F Word. Never repeats but alliterates, does the Divine Clio. Count me in.
Blame the Italians, Campy et al?
East Africans have been dominating long distance running for a long time, not sprinting events, or didn’t you notice? Deeper physiology matters; it ain’t all melanin. LOL
@om:
May have escaped your notice, but the USA is full of West Africans who sprint and jump and do other explosive fast twist muscle stuff — like play the Knockout Game. But don’t worry, in a few decades your neighbourhood will be Somaliland meets the Rift Valley and you’ll have scored a slow twitch debating point.
I love deep physiology. Amazing how it stops at the neck, isn’t it?
Poor old Campy… I love their kit. Dirty secret is that a lot of their stuff is now made in Taiwan and finished in a factory in Romania. I have a bike set up with mechanical Chorus and the ergonomics and haptics are as near perfection as one could hope for. But it’s Italian as far as pricing and fickle temperament goes: regular tweaking required to keep it all shifting just right. When it’s good, it’s very very good.. When it’s bad it’s horrid.
SRAM eTap Hydro for daily drivers — American/Taiwanese Ingenuity. Wireless shifting is something wondrous.
Meanwhile Shimano inscrutably hoovers up most of the money. Not bad for a fishing reel company.
Zaphod:
In case you forgot, Africa is a big place, West Africans are not quite the same as Kenyans and Ethiopians. Sprints aren’t the same as distance running. But melanin is melanin. Physiology is more than skin deep but your hates don’t go any deeper. Sad to be you? 🙂
Racial Harmony Post of the Day:
Black men caught on security camera vandalizing black-owned car dealership with white supremacist graffiti in North Carolina.
I read through about 25 comments in sequential order. Brutal! All but two or three were registering disgust with the author’s views, including several stating they found the article so offensive they have cancelled their subscriptions. I think only one even attempted to defend the author’s viewpoint. And I doubt their typical reader is a MAGA hat wearing West Virginian coal miner.
I can’t recall anything soliciting such unequivocal disgust since Gillette’s decision to advertise a product exclusively for people who have facial hair by offending people who have facial hair.
Thanks for the link regarding the church of Coltrane. First I’ve heard of it, and I only know what I read in the interview with the Deacon, but, in all sincerity, I’m on board with it as represented. Coltrane did intentionally try to connect people spiritually to the divine with his music and I think his attempts were well done; perhaps even supernatural. When I first read of “A Love Supreme” and his intentions I was skeptical and expected it to be atonal gobbledygook, but I was wrong. It’s very well done.
@Rufus:
Pleasantly surprised by the push back. Lycra Brigade seems to be mostly cucked even when it’s not out and out Bolshevik. Still all is not lost, the Z Man is a cyclist, and I’ve read discussions elsewhere about best options for concealed carry when out cycling.
Nice touch that Gillette ad dreamed up by a Dot Indian Female Brahmin with the Black Bodhisattva bringing the light to the Benighted BBQing Bad White Men.
I switched to Schick immediately. I wonder if *they* have been playing catch up in the Insult White Males Game. Not sure I want to grow out a Viking beard just yet.
Lester Young on Lester Leaps In, with Count Basie on piano, 1939:
As a teenager in Kansas City, future bebop star Charlie Parker used to sneak into clubs to see Lester Young with Count Basie. Below is Parker on alto sax, and Lester Young and Flip Phillips on tenor — also on Lester Leaps In — recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1949.
Substituting Ella Fitzgerald for Parker and except for the trombone and trumpet players, this is the same group of people, on I believe a local TV show in 1950 (on a different song and pre-recorded or lip-synced, I believe):
I had bought Gillette razors for decades. Not sure why. Maybe the first razor I happened upon in my teens and it worked, so I stayed with it?
After that ad came out I was determined to ensure the company no longer got a dime of my money. I happened to be in one of those stores that sells everything for $5 and they had a pack of 7 disposable, Schick razors so I decided to give ’em a shot. Fantastic! Work better than the non-disposable Gillette’s I was paying a fortune for.
I don’t have a degree in Advertising, but if one sells a product nearly indistinguishable from one’s competitors I’m pretty sure the first rule of advertising is never do anything to cause your existing customers to learn that there are competitors.
According to Reuters, Gillette suffered a net loss of billions of dollars last quarter. That’s billions with a “b”:
…A net loss of that much money can only mean that those who do shave have abandoned Gillette en masse, and rightly so. Gillette’s commercial that blanketed the male gender with the accusation of “toxic masculinity” while using feminist buzzwords and clips of hard-left news organizations was one of the most hated commercials of the past decade.
Of course, the ad that got so much attention that it redefined Gillette’s brand for millions of men that were former customers had NOTHING to do with the massive losses Gillette took. That’s certainly what it would like you to believe anyway. But, I think it’s instructive to look at some of the comments that are STILL being made on that ad 7.5 months after it came out. Here are just some of the many, many, many comments from the last 48 hours…
“Remember the day when Gillette destroyed their brand? I do. LMAO”
“It’s like watching the Hindenburg happen in fast forward with ‘Yakkity Sax’ playing. You just can help laughing at this disaster.”
“After 40 years buying Gillette, never never again, nor my family. I would not take their products for free.”
“You have founded the ‘Me Neither’ movement. ‘I don’t use Gillette products anymore.’ ‘Me neither!’”
“This should be renamed ‘the 8 billion dollar ad’”
“Hahahaha down $8,000,000,000! Guess you didnt want our toxic cash!”
“‘men need to hold other men accountable’. Ok, guys, you are not going to be my friend anymore if you continue to buy Gillette”
Years ago I deduced that central or south Americans from regions of high altitudes might be very good cyclists. Many have a genetic variation that allows them to thrive at high altitudes, sort of like the blood doping many professional cyclists do to increase red blood cell count. Also, many are short and lightweight, with short torsos, also ideal for cycling.
Low and behold, Colombians are starting to compete and do very well in cycling. But don’t tell Mr. Saucier, the author of the piece on racism in cycling.
I’m going to be all mercurial and recommend the Israeli safety razor blade brand Personna.
Tried them for a while when experimenting with the Old Way: badger hair brushes, etc. and was impressed with the quality.
Personally, Life is too Short not to use more modern multi-blade kit, but for those who like to do things the old way, Personna could be a good choice. At least Personna likely only wants some Arabs dead. That’s perfectly fine by me. Gillette on the other hand wants *me* dead.
@Rufus:
Been a bit of a move to try to ring in some Ethiopians who live at high altitude. Early days though. Some might make it as specialist climbers. Be interesting to see as it’s physiologically and biomechanically ‘Complicated’ — proven long distance running dominance won’t automatically translate — they’re a bit bird-like bone-wise as opposed to wiry — guy like Phil Gaimon is *light* but wiry. Anyway more power to the Ethiopians.
Now a Gurkha on a bike could be interesting.
Zaphod,
If you haven’t read, “The Sports Gene” I think you would find it interesting.
I used to shave old school, making my own lather from solid bars and badger hair brushes. One of my sons told me it’s all a hoax created by “Big Shaving Cream” and convinced me to simply splash warm water on my face. He said the first few days would sting a bit, but after that there’d be no difference.
By golly, he was right! What’s even odder is now that I only use water the quality of the blade seems even less important. I can get a good shave with just about any razor; hence the $5 store disposables.
Regarding Ethiopian distance runners; many of them have thinner ankle bones than most Europeans and Americans, and reducing weight far from the knee really adds up in a long race with a lot of strides.
I don’t approve of shaving brushes.
Being a tuba honker since the mid 1970’s, I would nevertheless, like to build and learn to play the Bazooka.
Michael Mann loses another round of his interminable lawsuits (financed by which component of the sorosphere it has never been disclosed). National Review is now excused from the case. Defendant Steyn slices-and-dices Richard Lowry and his legal counsel. (Here’s a suggestion for the prudent litigant: don’t hire Jones, Day).
Note, this is what the Democratic Party and the bar serve up to the 1st judicial district of New Mexico, and this is what the feckless voters therein accept: a prosecutor with the mentality of an incompetent elementary schoolteacher.
Old-school shaving: recommend a Gillette Super Speed from the 1940s-1950s (pre-woke era) and Astra (Turkish) or Feather (Japanese) blades. You can get Super Speeds relatively cheaply on eBay. Harry’s is a good contemporary multi-blade alternative, but proggy.
OT: recently watched “Petulia”, a 1968 Richard Lester flick set in swinging San Francisco and starring Julie Christie, George C. Scott, and Richard Chamberlain. If you’re interested in the origins of our current dysfunction, give it a look: excellent source material. Cameos by Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead.
Chinese satellites, Chinese virology research labs, Chinese exploding Li batteries, Chinese poison pet food …. Can Do!
SCOTT @ 4:20am,
I have it on good authority that the badger quills used in my shave brush were plucked from mature badgers as they slept peacefully on a bed of silk pillows filled with peacock down. Upon waking each badger was hand fed diced apples while being massaged by virgins until being released, back into the wild.
Rufus:
Must have been from European Badgers, not the North American variety. 🙂
“OT: recently watched “Petulia”,” – Hubert
I don’t think it’s possible to be Off Topic on an Open Thread.
I suspect you are right about the movie, which I have not seen.
Wikipedia:
Giving the film four stars, Roger Ebert wrote in his Chicago Sun-Times review of 1 July 1968: “Richard Lester’s Petulia made me desperately unhappy, and yet I am unable to find a single thing wrong with it.”
In her 1969 essay “Trash, Art, and the Movies,” Pauline Kael wrote that “I have rarely seen a more disagreeable, a more dislikable (or a bloodier) movie than Petulia.”[3]
@DNW:
Amateur move on the Badgers’ part if they wrote being massaged by virgins into their contracts.
Ten Thousand Hour Rule.
Postman has just delivered an HP-10C manufactured in September 1982 in Corvallis OR at the Mothership. They don’t make ’em like they used to.
Free Speech. We all love Free Speech.
Someone just posted this on Gab:
“hitting the cycle on Gab is getting called a Fed, a Jew, a Fag, and a Nazi in a single 24 hr period, that’s the original 4-bagger Full Gab, throw in a Nagger and we’re talking Royal Flush Gab
there are variations, of course, it’s all about opposites
Jew vs Nazi, Fed vs Cuck, Boomer vs Zoomer
you wanna get called a slur and its opposite
ideally in reaction to the same post”
If you’re not annoying *everyone*…
…well I guess you might not be a totally annoying #$%^&! 😛
AesopFan,
Not to flog a dead thread, but: you’re right. I should have said “new fork”.
“Petulia” has it all: the collapse of the family (a subplot concerns George C. Scott’s divorce–his wife is played by Shirley Knight–and their bewildered children), the collapse of social norms, hollow institutions, anonymous housing tracts, illegal immigration, dysfunctional bureaucracies, and the abdication of cultural and other authority by the WASP elite. Deep rot covered with a shallow overlay of 1960s “color”, with black-and-white TV coverage of the Vietnam War flickering in the background in tacky living rooms. “Mad Men” glamorized the 1960s; “Petulia” is how it was.
Interesting. Some orchestral pieces for saxophone by Villa-Lobos, Ibert (Bruce includes an excerpt from this one in his video), and Glazunov:
Villa-Lobos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mFKTOQ9LLw
Ibert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7iJIp_C32A
Glazunov: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pBfDiPlVaA
The Glazunov recording is from an old Deutsche Grammophon LP. I picked up my copy in the 1970s in a bargain bin at the UMass bookstore, along with Karl Boehm’s recordings of the Mozart symphonies. They were selling DG LPs for a buck apiece.
There is no conspiracy to keep saxes out of orchestras. They are niche instruments like lots of others, like contrabassoons, various tubas, hecklephones, piccolos, and so on. When a piece calls for one, a player is contracted. Orchestras keep the most commonly used niche instruments, like the bass tuba on staff. I play tuba in the local orchestra, and about 75% of the music doesn’t require my services. Saxes are the same, but not used about 99% of the time.
Doesn’t help that the core German repertoire doesn’t call for the saxophone. Mostly predates it’s invention.
Hurin3,
Good point. I also wonder if the exclusion isn’t exacerbated by the fact (I think?) that there is an existing orchestral reed that covers the range of all the saxes. As you note, the saxophone was invented after the other orchestral instruments, so it wouldn’t have really made sense to fire a clarinetist, or bassoonist, or oboeist or contrabassoonist in order to include a soprano, alto, tenor or bass saxophonist. Sort of like replacing the trombones with baritones. You could do it, but what do you gain?
Hurin3:
You’re missing the point: the reason most pieces don’t call for it, despite it being both popular AND exceptionally versatile IS the conspiracy.
Methinks you did not actually watch the vid.
Interesting, Neo.
Obloodyhell,
The effort by the Parisian instrument manufacturers to boycott the saxophone is an interesting part of the story, but I doubt it’s as simple as the video’s narrator makes it out to be; that the saxophone was clearly better in all respects and everyone would have gladly scrapped all the existing clarinets and oboes and plugged sax’s into the orchestra if not for the concerted campaign of the instrument making syndicate.
Change is hard. Even though electricity plays a part in modern orchestral performances, the structure pretty much still adheres to the era before electricity. If there is a power failure an orchestra can still perform. The Rolling Stones and Weather Report would be in big trouble. Modern synthesizers are arguably much more versatile, have a wider range, are more dynamic… than pianos, yet pianos are still around, especially on orchestra stages. As Hurin3 points out, some composers write niche pieces for other keyboard instruments, but piano still holds sway. Why? There is a rich tradition of piano as the keyboard in orchestras when a keyboard is called for. It’s hard to change.
Which is my point about the other reeds. The orchestra was pretty much already set by the time the saxophone was invented and there were scores of wonderful scores already written for orchestra, as situated. And orchestra as situated had a reed to cover all the range of the newly invented saxophone. So do you fire your clarinetist and replace him or her with a soprano saxophonist? If so, why? Sure, the instruments CAN sound different, but a soprano saxophonist playing a traditional, orchestral piece will be doing his darndest to sound as mellow as a clarinet. As Hurin3 points out, some composers write pieces featuring the saxophone, and in those they will often showcase characteristics of the saxophone that differ from one of the clarinets, or oboe, or bassoon. But in most of the other scores a saxophonist would be playing a part originally written for clarinet, or bassoon or oboe, and imitating those instruments’ tones.
I think saxophones caught on in marching (and other) bands because they can be played louder more easily than clarinets and other reeds. So they are also a natural fit for jazz and rock.
I watched the video. Saxes are niche instruments. Not needed most of the time. Pro level orchestral clarinet, bassoon and horn players can mimic the sound. Certain repertoire, French, Russian and British uses saxes more often, but most of that music is out of the mainstream, which is mainly German. Think the three Bs. There are big exceptions, like Ravel’s Bolero that get played a lot. When that happens, one of the clarinet players might play sax, or another player is contracted.
I don’t want to give the impression that I dislike the instrument.
The orchestration of “Pictures at an Exhibition” has a lovely saxophone solo in one of the movements. I heard it played live in an excellent concert hall — truly memorable.
P.S. Ritchie Blackmore (lead guitarist for Deep Purple, among others) suggested that aspiring lead guitarists listen to sax solos “because the average saxophonist can play much better than the average guitarist.”
While the saxophone was invented after most of the German classical repertoire had been composed, that doesn’t prevent one from changing orchestration to include the sax. In thinking of music that can be set to any instrumentation one wants, Bach immediately comes to mind. YouTube further informs us: Bach on saxaphone. I purchased The Amherst Saxophone Quartets’s “Bach on Sax” some time in the ’90s.
As Hurin3 points out, some composers write niche pieces for other keyboard instruments, but piano still holds sway. Why?
Tinny tone of harpshichord.
Charles Ives said that harpsichords sound like a June bug buzzing on a screen door. I’ve come to agree. I’m 40 years over my original instrument fetish. Give me Bach on a piano please.
Charles Ives said that harpsichords sound like a June bug buzzing on a screen door. I’ve come to agree. I’m 40 years over my original instrument fetish. Give me Bach on a piano please.
When I was in high school, without ever having heard any Brandenburg Concertos, I purchased a set of Pablo Casals conducting Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. That set the Brandenburg standard for me, both for Casal’s energetic interpretations, plus Serkin’s piano playing. In later years, I heard a number of Brandenburg interpretations with harpshichord- ugh! Fortunately, years later I was able to locate Casal’s version of the Brandenburgs on CD.
The year after purchasing Casal’s Brandenbergs, I heard Rosalyn Tureck in concert.
The Saxophone video had interesting information on why the saxophone had trouble being accepted in classical orchestras.
As with most human endevours more often than not, tradition wins out, and classical orchestra is steeped in tradition like no other art form.
In general I find the vast majority of musicians to be quite conservative when it comes to their art. There’s this tendency towards orthodoxy that exists within most forms and genres of music. This includes everything from classical, folk, pop, jazz, blues, EDM, country, hip hop, and all forms of rock and heavy metal. There’s always this perception of a “right way” to do things in every possible area, from the instruments used to the way they’re recorded. And amusingly there’s plenty of people who profess to be open minded about their art while in reality they become pretty curmudgeonly about anyone who dares to even try something a little different.
In fairness though, I imagine similar things could be send for most creative endeavours. People don’t like change.
I’m inclined to agree with Hurin about an hour ago. Beethoven, Haydn, what have you, couldn’t have scored for saxophones, or Wagner tubas, because those didn’t yet exist. Composers other than Wagner, or others, orchestrated for what was available, including Wagner tubas and saxophones, and as the electrically augmented stuff came along, those too.
Yet another excellent music post from Neo.
Please keep them coming!
Mr. Bruce says something to the effect that Mr. Sax was interested in filling in the bass of the orchestral woodwind section and that Mr. Sax had worked on the design of bass and contra bass clarinet.
I played in the brass section of both a university orchestra and another university group referred to as “the wind ensemble.” The latter group was large at perhaps 2/3 or 3/4 the size of the orchestra. It was unique in that the leader was very focused on the group having a tremendous bass end.
Not only did he add a couple string basses (in a wind ensemble?) but he had bass clarinet, contra bass clarinet, bassoon and contra bass bassoon. Aside from the bassoon, I’d never seen or heard those before. I believe there were some deep saxophones in there, but I don’t quite recall them. The group had an amazing sound, particularly in a large reverberant hall.
I do think the sax has a more brash sound, at least when played loud.
I taught high school band for 35 years. Bands are different animals than orchestras. Bands have a fixed instrumentation, always including saxes, plus much more percussion typically. Not much variation. This partially because most band music is pretty new relatively. And you don’t want your students sitting around with nothing to do.
Orchestras have a more flexible instrumentation other than strings depending on when the music was composed by Mozart or Mahler.
I’ve played tuba on the Dvorak New World Symphony four different times over the years. You maybe don’t know that the tuba has a grand total of fourteen notes in a forty-five minutes symphony. It’s the chorale at the beginning and end of the slow movement. I sit still in my chair and listen to the rest of the orchestra for the forty-four minutes I’m not playing. But I’m no longer a HS student.
I learned the instrument is named for its inventor. I had falsely assumed it was short for “anglo saxon.” Not such an odd assumption on my part when there are “french” and “english” horns.
Something funny that is sort-of on this topic:
At a recent practice I was talking with a trombone player in my band about how unfair it is that guitarists can just put a capo on their guitar’s neck and adjust to any key, so they don’t have to adapt fingerings based on key changes. We were trying to figure out how to do the same for brass instruments and we came up with a brilliant idea:
Take a baritone or trumpet or cornet or tuba and add a locking slide, similar to a trombone’s slide. So you have the three valves most brass instruments have, but you also have a slide that can be locked in half step intervals. Just move the slide to the key the song is in, lock it in place, and play the same fingerings for all keys!
That’s like Irving Berlin’s piano. He only played in G-flat (of all keys). The piano had a sliding mechanism that would change that into any key.
We added a sax for An American in Paris, as one must. A lovely piece all around.
As a player of the saxophone in my youth, I can’t resist adding Billy Collins’ poem to all these wonderful comments:
The Invention of the Saxophone
BY BILLY COLLINS
It was Adolphe Sax, remember,
not Saxo Grammaticus, who gets the ovation.
And by the time he had brought all the components
together–the serpentine shape, the single reed,
the fit of the fingers,
the upward tilt of the golden bell–
it was already 1842, and one gets the feeling
that it was also very late at night.
There is something nocturnal about the sound,
something literally horny,
as some may have noticed on that historic date
when the first odd notes wobbled out of his studio
into the small, darkened town,
summoning the insomniacs (who were up
waiting for the invention of jazz) to their windows,
but leaving the sleepers undisturbed,
evening deepening and warming the waters of their dreams.
For this is not the valved instrument of waking,
more the smoky voice of longing and loss,
the porpoise cry of the subconscious.
No one would ever think of blowing reveille
on a tenor without irony.
The men would only lie in their metal bunks,
fingers twined behind their heads,
afloat on pools of memory and desire.
And when the time has come to rouse the dead,
you will not see Gabriel clipping an alto
around his numinous neck.
An angel playing the world’s last song
on a glistening saxophone might be enough
to lift them back into the light of earth,
but really no further.
Once resurrected, they would only lie down
in the long cemetery grass
or lean alone against a lugubrious yew
and let the music do the ascending–
curling snakes charmed from their baskets–
while they wait for the shrill trumpet solo,
that will blow them all to kingdom come.
I blame Bill Clinton for the sax’s horny reputation on the contemporary scene. Here’s a video of Bubba playing the sax at a White House party, with Wife of Bubba introducing the gig. As one of the commenters below the vid said, “If it starts with S and ends with X, Bill Clinton is good at it.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtpjJ6obfsE&ab_channel=APArchive
Add this to your list of facts that sax:
https://twitter.com/mercoglianos/status/1397158035554983936
“China’s new shipbuilding orders up 182.1% in first four months
“China’s newly received shipbuilding order volume for the period of January-April was 27.87m dwt, a 182.1% surge year-on-year.”
This is more tonnage than the US built in 1942 & 43, combined.”
And now the n%##&*^@ are coming for your kids’ bicycles:
https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a35334981/cycling-and-the-power-of-white-privilege/
Who cares if the Chinese swamp the West? All that matters is a fried chicken in every pot and a Schwinn (made in China) for every pedaling pickaninny. Cue the trannies in 3, 2, 1 complaining about being left out of the equation.
It seems that Zaphod has fallen off his a magic bicycle without his helmet. Sad. to be him.
Good Morning Om! I’ve missed you.
Why the Melanin Challenged would even *want* to take up a sport where they are so utterly obtuse as to call pedals you clip-in to (I kid you not) ‘Clipless Pedals’, I have no idea. Just jealousy I guess.
Also they should agitating for swimming pools to be filled with Heavy Water so that their whole bone/muscle density disadvantage, cancel that, Discrimination thing goes away and they can win as many Olympic gold medals in swimming as they do in the 100m dash.
Never had a problem with John Coltrane though. I wonder what happened to that black church in LA or SF where he was worshiped as some kind of minor deity?
Ah yes… here we are:
https://ultraculture.org/blog/2015/05/08/church-of-john-coltrane/
Nothing against a little bit of syncretism, mind you — it’s how the West was Won.
Long but good read from Charles Haywood who has done very well for himself but is possessed of some unfashionable ideas, e.g. Noblesse Oblige.
https://theworthyhouse.com/2021/05/25/glass-house-the-1-economy-and-the-shattering-of-the-all-american-town-brian-alexander/
“Private equity has made me rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Yet private equity can be, as this book shows, a tool of the devil, a corrosive and destructive force in American life. Still, I do not think the story is as simple as Brian Alexander, the author of Glass House, would have it. The town in which he grew up, and which he profiles here—Lancaster, Ohio—has fallen far from its glory days, as have hundreds of similar towns across America. But the responsibility for that lies not just with the shady private equity companies that looted its largest employer, glass manufacturer Anchor Hocking, or with other elements of our rotten ruling class. It also lies with all of us, who bear more than some responsibility for the degradation of our towns, and of ourselves.
.
.
.
The goal of all this, and much more, is to create a society where the working class is aligned with the ruling class, as opposed to what we have now, where the ruling class makes degraded slaves of what remains of the working class. Foundationalism will have, to be sure, a ruling class, though no member of today’s ruling class will be in it. The working class will not be in charge, because the working class is not capable of being in charge. Nonetheless, for us, today, the key is the working class, because their aid in the wars to come will be crucial. To prevent them choosing rightly, our overlords rely on sedating the working classes with consumerism, drugs, porn, and video games. Thus, they have become degraded to a great degree, just like all of us. We can see, though, from Brian Gossett, and from phenomena such as Jordan Peterson, that many young people in the working class don’t want those things. The solution is to, at the right moment, weaponize the working class against the ruling class, and against their foot soldiers, the woke professional-managerial elite and the myrmidons of Burn-Loot-Murder, for both of whom the working class, of all races, have nothing but contempt. A new social compact, for a renewed society. Stephen Feinberg can move to Canada or England, or better yet, Mexico, with the one suitcase of possessions he’s allowed. Then Lancaster can flourish again.”
There’s that F Word. Never repeats but alliterates, does the Divine Clio. Count me in.
Blame the Italians, Campy et al?
East Africans have been dominating long distance running for a long time, not sprinting events, or didn’t you notice? Deeper physiology matters; it ain’t all melanin. LOL
@om:
May have escaped your notice, but the USA is full of West Africans who sprint and jump and do other explosive fast twist muscle stuff — like play the Knockout Game. But don’t worry, in a few decades your neighbourhood will be Somaliland meets the Rift Valley and you’ll have scored a slow twitch debating point.
I love deep physiology. Amazing how it stops at the neck, isn’t it?
Poor old Campy… I love their kit. Dirty secret is that a lot of their stuff is now made in Taiwan and finished in a factory in Romania. I have a bike set up with mechanical Chorus and the ergonomics and haptics are as near perfection as one could hope for. But it’s Italian as far as pricing and fickle temperament goes: regular tweaking required to keep it all shifting just right. When it’s good, it’s very very good.. When it’s bad it’s horrid.
SRAM eTap Hydro for daily drivers — American/Taiwanese Ingenuity. Wireless shifting is something wondrous.
Meanwhile Shimano inscrutably hoovers up most of the money. Not bad for a fishing reel company.
Zaphod:
In case you forgot, Africa is a big place, West Africans are not quite the same as Kenyans and Ethiopians. Sprints aren’t the same as distance running. But melanin is melanin. Physiology is more than skin deep but your hates don’t go any deeper. Sad to be you? 🙂
Racial Harmony Post of the Day:
Black men caught on security camera vandalizing black-owned car dealership with white supremacist graffiti in North Carolina.
https://gab.com/MarkDice/posts/106298700775804068
Bonus:
“A black female named Candice Coles was arrested in Burlington, NC for brutally beating a complete stranger with a metal baseball bat.”
https://gab.com/Caudill/posts/106291562580658032
zaphod @ 6:50pm,
I saw that article in Bicycling.
I read through about 25 comments in sequential order. Brutal! All but two or three were registering disgust with the author’s views, including several stating they found the article so offensive they have cancelled their subscriptions. I think only one even attempted to defend the author’s viewpoint. And I doubt their typical reader is a MAGA hat wearing West Virginian coal miner.
I can’t recall anything soliciting such unequivocal disgust since Gillette’s decision to advertise a product exclusively for people who have facial hair by offending people who have facial hair.
Thanks for the link regarding the church of Coltrane. First I’ve heard of it, and I only know what I read in the interview with the Deacon, but, in all sincerity, I’m on board with it as represented. Coltrane did intentionally try to connect people spiritually to the divine with his music and I think his attempts were well done; perhaps even supernatural. When I first read of “A Love Supreme” and his intentions I was skeptical and expected it to be atonal gobbledygook, but I was wrong. It’s very well done.
@Rufus:
Pleasantly surprised by the push back. Lycra Brigade seems to be mostly cucked even when it’s not out and out Bolshevik. Still all is not lost, the Z Man is a cyclist, and I’ve read discussions elsewhere about best options for concealed carry when out cycling.
Nice touch that Gillette ad dreamed up by a Dot Indian Female Brahmin with the Black Bodhisattva bringing the light to the Benighted BBQing Bad White Men.
I switched to Schick immediately. I wonder if *they* have been playing catch up in the Insult White Males Game. Not sure I want to grow out a Viking beard just yet.
Lester Young on Lester Leaps In, with Count Basie on piano, 1939:
https://youtu.be/f60JYoHdfVM
IIRC, this was part of their first recording.
As a teenager in Kansas City, future bebop star Charlie Parker used to sneak into clubs to see Lester Young with Count Basie. Below is Parker on alto sax, and Lester Young and Flip Phillips on tenor — also on Lester Leaps In — recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1949.
https://youtu.be/pT40dHhQNsE
Substituting Ella Fitzgerald for Parker and except for the trombone and trumpet players, this is the same group of people, on I believe a local TV show in 1950 (on a different song and pre-recorded or lip-synced, I believe):
https://youtu.be/xgXythJAkhw
The musicians are listed on both YouTubes. Buddy Rich is on drums.
I’ve a sneaking feeling that YouTube Algo is zeroing in on me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jua4HXEd6Pw
Cuddly Kuban Cossacks.
New Candidate for Canonization:
https://www.channel3000.com/man-pleads-guilty-to-killing-his-5-year-old-son-over-piece-of-cheesecake/
Zaphod,
I had bought Gillette razors for decades. Not sure why. Maybe the first razor I happened upon in my teens and it worked, so I stayed with it?
After that ad came out I was determined to ensure the company no longer got a dime of my money. I happened to be in one of those stores that sells everything for $5 and they had a pack of 7 disposable, Schick razors so I decided to give ’em a shot. Fantastic! Work better than the non-disposable Gillette’s I was paying a fortune for.
I don’t have a degree in Advertising, but if one sells a product nearly indistinguishable from one’s competitors I’m pretty sure the first rule of advertising is never do anything to cause your existing customers to learn that there are competitors.
https://brasspills.com/the-price-tag-on-gillettes-woke-anti-man-ad-8-billion-dollars/
Years ago I deduced that central or south Americans from regions of high altitudes might be very good cyclists. Many have a genetic variation that allows them to thrive at high altitudes, sort of like the blood doping many professional cyclists do to increase red blood cell count. Also, many are short and lightweight, with short torsos, also ideal for cycling.
Low and behold, Colombians are starting to compete and do very well in cycling. But don’t tell Mr. Saucier, the author of the piece on racism in cycling.
I’m going to be all mercurial and recommend the Israeli safety razor blade brand Personna.
Tried them for a while when experimenting with the Old Way: badger hair brushes, etc. and was impressed with the quality.
Personally, Life is too Short not to use more modern multi-blade kit, but for those who like to do things the old way, Personna could be a good choice. At least Personna likely only wants some Arabs dead. That’s perfectly fine by me. Gillette on the other hand wants *me* dead.
@Rufus:
Been a bit of a move to try to ring in some Ethiopians who live at high altitude. Early days though. Some might make it as specialist climbers. Be interesting to see as it’s physiologically and biomechanically ‘Complicated’ — proven long distance running dominance won’t automatically translate — they’re a bit bird-like bone-wise as opposed to wiry — guy like Phil Gaimon is *light* but wiry. Anyway more power to the Ethiopians.
Now a Gurkha on a bike could be interesting.
Zaphod,
If you haven’t read, “The Sports Gene” I think you would find it interesting.
I used to shave old school, making my own lather from solid bars and badger hair brushes. One of my sons told me it’s all a hoax created by “Big Shaving Cream” and convinced me to simply splash warm water on my face. He said the first few days would sting a bit, but after that there’d be no difference.
By golly, he was right! What’s even odder is now that I only use water the quality of the blade seems even less important. I can get a good shave with just about any razor; hence the $5 store disposables.
Regarding Ethiopian distance runners; many of them have thinner ankle bones than most Europeans and Americans, and reducing weight far from the knee really adds up in a long race with a lot of strides.
I don’t approve of shaving brushes.
Being a tuba honker since the mid 1970’s, I would nevertheless, like to build and learn to play the Bazooka.
https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1397352445974663169
Julie Kelly’s concise illustration of the worthlessness of McCarthy and McConnell.
Help yourselves to some of that Wholesome Weimar Goodness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0D4fHieW8o
https://www.steynonline.com/11153/michael-e-mann-loser-again
Michael Mann loses another round of his interminable lawsuits (financed by which component of the sorosphere it has never been disclosed). National Review is now excused from the case. Defendant Steyn slices-and-dices Richard Lowry and his legal counsel. (Here’s a suggestion for the prudent litigant: don’t hire Jones, Day).
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/05/26/a-political-problem-new-mexico-district-attorney-gives-probation-to-all-rioters/#more-173627
https://www.nmdas.com/judicial-districts/first-judicial-district/
Note, this is what the Democratic Party and the bar serve up to the 1st judicial district of New Mexico, and this is what the feckless voters therein accept: a prosecutor with the mentality of an incompetent elementary schoolteacher.
Old-school shaving: recommend a Gillette Super Speed from the 1940s-1950s (pre-woke era) and Astra (Turkish) or Feather (Japanese) blades. You can get Super Speeds relatively cheaply on eBay. Harry’s is a good contemporary multi-blade alternative, but proggy.
OT: recently watched “Petulia”, a 1968 Richard Lester flick set in swinging San Francisco and starring Julie Christie, George C. Scott, and Richard Chamberlain. If you’re interested in the origins of our current dysfunction, give it a look: excellent source material. Cameos by Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead.
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/05/26/toxic-ideology-english-neo-nazi-given-four-years-for-his-extremist-views/#more-173617
Remember when Britain was a free country?
(NB, this is after 11 years of ‘conservative’ government).
Zaphod:
Regarding CCP and the Can Do.
First shipbuilding, others have noticed and commented about it for years:
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/
Regarding the quality of the Can Do:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/05/a-disturbing-review-of-stolen-and-failing-chinese-technology/ h/t ace.mu.nu
And back to those Chinese ships:
https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM
Chinese satellites, Chinese virology research labs, Chinese exploding Li batteries, Chinese poison pet food …. Can Do!
SCOTT @ 4:20am,
I have it on good authority that the badger quills used in my shave brush were plucked from mature badgers as they slept peacefully on a bed of silk pillows filled with peacock down. Upon waking each badger was hand fed diced apples while being massaged by virgins until being released, back into the wild.
Rufus:
Must have been from European Badgers, not the North American variety. 🙂
“OT: recently watched “Petulia”,” – Hubert
I don’t think it’s possible to be Off Topic on an Open Thread.
I suspect you are right about the movie, which I have not seen.
Wikipedia:
Giving the film four stars, Roger Ebert wrote in his Chicago Sun-Times review of 1 July 1968: “Richard Lester’s Petulia made me desperately unhappy, and yet I am unable to find a single thing wrong with it.”
In her 1969 essay “Trash, Art, and the Movies,” Pauline Kael wrote that “I have rarely seen a more disagreeable, a more dislikable (or a bloodier) movie than Petulia.”[3]
@DNW:
Amateur move on the Badgers’ part if they wrote being massaged by virgins into their contracts.
Ten Thousand Hour Rule.
Postman has just delivered an HP-10C manufactured in September 1982 in Corvallis OR at the Mothership. They don’t make ’em like they used to.
Free Speech. We all love Free Speech.
Someone just posted this on Gab:
“hitting the cycle on Gab is getting called a Fed, a Jew, a Fag, and a Nazi in a single 24 hr period, that’s the original 4-bagger Full Gab, throw in a Nagger and we’re talking Royal Flush Gab
there are variations, of course, it’s all about opposites
Jew vs Nazi, Fed vs Cuck, Boomer vs Zoomer
you wanna get called a slur and its opposite
ideally in reaction to the same post”
If you’re not annoying *everyone*…
…well I guess you might not be a totally annoying #$%^&! 😛
AesopFan,
Not to flog a dead thread, but: you’re right. I should have said “new fork”.
“Petulia” has it all: the collapse of the family (a subplot concerns George C. Scott’s divorce–his wife is played by Shirley Knight–and their bewildered children), the collapse of social norms, hollow institutions, anonymous housing tracts, illegal immigration, dysfunctional bureaucracies, and the abdication of cultural and other authority by the WASP elite. Deep rot covered with a shallow overlay of 1960s “color”, with black-and-white TV coverage of the Vietnam War flickering in the background in tacky living rooms. “Mad Men” glamorized the 1960s; “Petulia” is how it was.
May as well ask for banjo and accordion.
Dudley Moore performs with MAMA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES55oH3yxzo