saxophones

My one public solo performance on alto saxophone, was using a Yamaha YAS-23 with a Beechler B10 S4S mouthpiece; I'd aced, for the "Minute Solo Fundraiser" January 19th, 2009 for the next month's Seattle Improvised Music Festival. www.seattleimprovfest.wordpress.com Nothing like some applause from such an audience; and I even got to quip impromptu, just before people began to clap for me "that was something for unprepared prepared saxophone" because the F# key's spring had a habit of coming off, on an instrument I'd gotten used and hadn't yet dealt with.

The idea is to sound like a classically trained musician, which I accomplished to a tee; I think perhaps solely for having heard in concert The Royal Belgian Saxophone Quartet led by Francois Daneels, which never recorded; particularly their baritone saxophonist when they'd played a transcription of a Beethoven string quartet. That baritone saxophone sounding like a bowed double bass violin, yet with the power and projection of a saxophone; just struck some inner note for me, captivating me instantly. That was during the spring of 1971 while a student of graduate student Dennis Guillaume at North Texas State University; where the quartet had been in residence a week, just after the World Saxophone Congress in Chicago. They'd appeared in concert in Fort Worth that weekend with the Fort Worth Youth Orchestra led by John Giordano our professor of saxophone, a one time student of Francois Daneels, while on a Fulbright scholarship.