Last week’s post on Jay-Z and ostrich musicians reminded me of one of the many memorable conversations I had with my saxophone teacher when I was a graduate student at the University of Michigan. The conversation was one in which he recounted the amazing experience he’d had at an Alanis Morrisette concert that weekend. Let me explain why this is a little more noteworthy than it sounds so far: the dude was in his mid-60s. He and his wife went to the show because their son Blair was Alanis’s drummer at the time. I remember him telling me, with great enthusiam: “There were 60,000 people standing for 4 hours for this thing. And they couldn’t get enough. There’s something we can learn from that.”
Now, Don Sinta is one progressive guy. For example, one of his solutions for getting more of the general public to attend concerts at the every-three-year saxophone geek-out known as the World Saxophone Congress was to invite Bill Clinton, Kenny G, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (What? You didn’t know he was a sax player?!) to play Hook Trios together. Now that would seriously sell some tickets.
God only knows how blasphemous the saxophone cognoscenti would deem this proposal, despite the fact that Mr. Sinta is regarded as one of the godfathers of American “classical” saxophone playing. I can hear the hypothetical snide comments and quips in my head: “Well, that’s just cheapening our “serious” artform and undermining the decades of work we’ve done to legitimize our instrument. We simply won’t stand for this kind of pandering to the masses!” It’s that sort of closed-mindedness and elitist nonsense that continues to leave the saxophone marginalized and irrelevant. Any sort of niche artform needs a hook—please notice that I didn’t use the word ‘gimmick’; I think there’s a difference between the two—if it hopes to expand its’ audience and fan base.
Anyway, what Sinta was onto with his “there’s something we can learn from that” comment was that there were elements of the culture surrounding pop and rock music that we—’we’ meaning, musicians engaged in the creation and promotion of the music of our time—could harness to further our own cause. So the question is, do we need pyrotechnics, fog machines, spinning aerial drumset cages, and lasers at new music shows? Would that help sell the art? (I would personally enjoy having an LED curtain at Mobtown Modern shows, but that’s just me.)
As an aside, I’m wondering if Daniel Bernard Roumain had a similar conversation with Mr. Sinta about his Alanis concert experience because if he did, it seems like he might have taken some of that advice to heart:
