R.I.P. David Bowie

Yesterday, music lost one of its most important innovators; iconic rock/pop stars of the 20th century; and the saxophone world lost one of its strongest musical advocates. David Bowie died of cancer on January 10, 2015, just two days after his 69th birthday.

On his birthday, his 25th studio was also released. It is titled  Black Star. In actual fact the album doesn’t have a name, it is simply titled with the symbol:

Black Star has received wide-spread critical acclaim, and features a lot of saxophone. For this album, David Bowie teamed up with New York saxophonist Donny McCaslin, who led the band.

A central song on the album is Lazarus, which features a sax solo, lots of sax lines, and the typical David Bowie genius. Like it or hate it, I’ll leave it to you to decide, but the man knew he was leaving this as one of his final videos. The symbolism can’t go unnoticed.

Bowie kept his cancer diagnoses a secret, and thus his death came as a shock to fans who didn’t know that the star was suffering with a fatal illness. Reviewers of the album didn’t know it either, and apparently struggled with trying to understand the lyrics of the title track, Black Star.

Again the video is rich with symbolism, saxophone, and David Bowie creativity. Was it a good-bye to his fans? Was it a foreshadowing of his impending death? Whatever the case, the video/mini movie is a powerful statement that provides us a final glimpse into the mind of a true musical genius.

David Bowie and the saxophone

When he was just young boy of 9 or 10. He took lessons with the legendary saxophone player Ronnie Ross. Ross wasn’t in the habit of giving lessons, but Bowie phoned him up, and just asked. According to 2003 interview with Bill DeMain, apparently the conversation went something like this:

You’ve been making records for over 50 years. Do you remember what made you want to be a musician in the first place?

Little Richard. If it hadn’t have been for him, I probably wouldn’t have gone into music. When I was nine and first saw Little Richard in a film that played around town—I think it was probably Girl Can’t Help It —seeing those four saxophonists onstage, it was like, “I want to be in that band!” And for a couple of years that was my ambition, to be in a band playing saxophone behind Little Richard. That’s why I got a saxophone.

A good story about that: I got a saxophone and thought, “Somebody should teach me.” So I went through very early copies of the Melody Maker and found that one of the best saxophone players around at the time was Ronnie Ross. So I looked him up in the phone book and found he lived in Abingdon. He was the best baritone player in the jazz scene in Britain. I was like nine or 10 years old, and I phoned him up and said, “Hello, my name is David Jones, and my dad’s helped me buy a new saxophone, and I need some lessons.” And he said [in rough working-class accent], “I don’t give lessons. I’m a jazz player.” I said, “But I really want to learn.” He said, “Well, what are you doing Saturday morning?” “Nothing.” “If you can get yourself over here, I’ll look at you.” And he taught me for about three or four months on Saturday mornings. I’d get the bus to his house.

Source: performingsongwriter.com

Years later David Bowie had the opportunity to hire Ronnie Ross for a session job, but because it was the 70s, and Bowie was at the time in his full Ziggy Stardust regalia, Ross didn’t recognize him. It wasn’t until Bowie reminded him of the phone call that started with ‘Hello, I’m David Jones and my dad’s helped me buy a saxophone …’, that Ross made the connection.

Although Bowie can be seen playing alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones, the very first saxophone he ever owned, was the one his father bought for him. It was an acrylic Grafton.

The Grafton alto is, of course, extremely fragile, but also was so meaningful to Bowie, in that it was the only item he would not loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum for their David Bowie Exhibition. The exhibition is currently at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands.

The exhibition features over 300 objects, and has been seen by over 1.3 million people since it opened in 2013. It has so far travelled to: Toronto, São Paulo, Berlin, Chicago, Paris and Melbourne, and is confirmed in Japan for 2017. Yes, the tour will continue despite David Bowie’s death.

David Bowie’s thoughts on his own saxophone playing

I’ll let Bowie’s thoughts on the subject be the final words in this article remembering him…

In a 1983 interview Bowie offered up the following:

“I’ve always felt grossly uncomfortable playing it. I want it to do one thing and it wants to do something else, and between us, we get something that comes and sounds peculiarly like my style of playing…

On 1973’s Pin Ups, Bowie’s playing style abruptly changed. On “Here Comes The Night” and “I Can’t Explain” he fills the breaks with riveting barrelhouse sax lines. “That was a combination of rock ‘n’ roll and Earl Bostic, he states. “Some of my favorite stuff is on “Neukoln” (Heroes). I remember being very pleased with that.”

On “Neukoln” his playing seems markedly humorous in contrast to what else was going on musically. “Ill give you some background. Neukoln is an area of Berlin which is primarily Turkish and I had to work out a way of putting a Turkish modal thing into it. It was very hard for me to use that scale against the background, so that probably produced the humorous aspect.” The squawking sax as opposed to the very ethereal basic track…? “Yes, and whole notes where one would take a half note, it goes into whole notes on the Turkish scale. So it was really difficult to keep it going. Yeah (laughs). There’s kind of a lot of Ornate Coleman at the end of it.”