SAXY LADIES
Back in the 1940s you’d be hard pressed to find anybody who could name a saxophonist. Most people would scratch their noses, furrow their brows and eventually, perhaps, come up with Ivy Benson – famous and female. Of course, there were plenty of male saxophonists in the field, but Ivy enjoyed the advantage of being seen as a novelty, not only a saxophonist in a frock but also leader of an all-girl band.
Ivy was born in 1913. From the age of five she played the piano, taught by her father. Aged nine she appeared on Children’s Hour on the wireless. Her father urged her to train as a concert pianist, but the dance band music of the 1930s beckoned her to the clarinet and saxophone, playing with Edna Croudson’s Rhythm Girls. Even then promoters were ready to exploit the gender element to sell an act. No wonder that when Ivy came to lead her own band its signature tune was Lady Be Good.
Ivy had blazed a trail of sorts. Girls began queuing up to learn the saxophone, not only in dance bands and jazz groups but in a classical context, too. Australian-born Amy Dickson is a Classic Brit Award winner, with a clutch of successful albums to her credit. Like Ivy Benson, she started by learning to play the piano. Persuaded by her music teacher she took to the saxophone when she was six. It was an instant love affair, and still intense; she plays mostly alto and soprano sax.
‘I’m magnetically drawn to the sound of the saxophone, more than any other instrument,’ she says. ‘If it’s being played I just have to stop and listen. I can’t ignore it.’
What about the age-old perception that the saxophone was an instrument predominantly for the chaps? The index of one encyclopaedic work lists a Tina Brooks and a Marion Brown; both of whom turn out to be blokes. The only woman to show is Barbara Thompson, composer and performer of the theme music for A Touch Of Frost. Any new edition will need to take account of the changes.
‘Growing up in Sydney,’ says Amy Dickson, now 32, ‘over half the saxophone players were girls. Then when I was studying at the Royal College of Music I’d say at least half of them were girls. Then I studied in Amsterdam at the Conservatorium and half of them were girls.’
The inventor of the family of instruments that perpetuate his name was Adolphe Sax, a Belgian born in 1814. His home town of Dinant celebrates him with a museum and a thoroughfare called Rue Adolphe Sax. One disciple who trod its hallowed stones is yet another Amy – Amy Roberts (who remembered it as ‘Saxophone Road’, but she was very young at the time).
A graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music, these days Amy often plays in the Big Chris Barber Band. ‘It’s a sort of Duke Ellington band,’ she says. ‘You’ve got three saxophones, there is quite a bit of section work, which I really enjoy, working and blending together.’
She’s the only girl in the band, part of a powerful sound, mindful of what her teacher at the Royal Northern told her: ‘Play it like a man.’
One of the men she’d like to play it like is Johnny Hodges, a pillar of the Ellington band for years. Another is Paul Desmond, famously partnered with pianist Dave Brubeck. ‘He floats through things,’ Amy says, ‘and makes it sound so easy and effortless. I absolutely love it.’
Sarah Field is a Desmond fan too. ‘I think it was Paul Desmond who said he’d like to think his saxophone sound was like a dry martini, which is kind of cool.’ Sarah is a member of Marici Saxes, an all-female London-based quartet that’s done the Proms and Radio 3, and smart social events. Two of the girls, Hannah Riches and Fiona Asbury, are graduates of the Royal Northern, where Amy Roberts studied.
Although each of the four is adroit on any of the saxophone family, it’s Sarah who plays mainly soprano. But it was the sight of a tenor sax as she watched Wham! on Top Of The Pops that fi rst lured her to play. She was about 11 at the time.
‘I want to do that,’ she told her parents. There was a bit of fatherly scepticism to overcome. ‘I was already playing the cornet and he was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make a commitment.’ She prevailed, he capitulated, and now she plays both saxophone and trumpet – she teaches them too.
Amy Dickson, Amy Roberts and the Marici Saxes are all professional musicians, but there is a legion of dedicated amateurs seriously devoted to playing Adolphe’s invention. The London Saxophone Choir fields about 20 players, half of them women. One of them is Sharon Moloney, whose day job is working for Making Music, a charity supporting amateur musicians across the UK.
As a flautist she was playing in a concert band when some of the group asked if she’d like to join the freshly formed saxophone choir. ‘I pointed out that I don’t play the saxophone, neither do I own one,’ she says. ‘They turned up the next week with a spare, said “Here you go”, and there was no getting out of it.’ Now she owns an alto, a tenor and baritone, and says she’s pretty flexible.
‘The beauty of the saxophone is that the sound lends itself well to such a variety of styles,’ says Sharon. ‘We try playing Renaissance recorder music, and it sounds brilliant. The suites of recorders are similar to the suites of saxophones. So with a piece written for four diff erent-size recorders, it’s just translating it on to four different-size saxophones. If you think about some of the earlier Renaissance instruments like the shawm, for example, they had quite a honky sound, and saxophone has quite a honky sound, so it replicates the medieval sound quite well.’
To honky, you could add limpid, lascivious, lilting, blazing, seductive, perky and creamy. Adolphe’s family offers all these and more. It depends on who is blowing – and how.
‘They do say it’s the closest thing to the sound of the human voice,’ says Karen Sharp. She was part of the Humphrey Lyttelton band and is a familiar name on the jazz circuit. She is another who began on piano. The flute followed, but she swapped it for a clarinet, and at the age of 22, took up the tenor sax, adding alto and baritone later. She immerses herself in the work of the acknowledged giants of jazz, all from another era, therefore all men, such as Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Stan Getz. But she’s no copycat. ‘I strongly believe if you’re going to find your own voice you’ve got to go back to the source,’ she says.
Adolphe’s invention was less an instrument than a musical contraption, a brass horn, sometimes curvy, sometimes straight, with keys and rods all over it, topped with a mouthpiece into which a reed is clipped. Blow it and press the right bits. For over a century it was almost exclusively a boys’ toy, but now the girls have got it too.
Girls and boys might combine to celebrate this bicentenary year, from the mighty bass to the dainty sopranino. All together now: ‘Happy birthday, dear Adolphe…’
Ivy was born in 1913. From the age of five she played the piano, taught by her father. Aged nine she appeared on Children’s Hour on the wireless. Her father urged her to train as a concert pianist, but the dance band music of the 1930s beckoned her to the clarinet and saxophone, playing with Edna Croudson’s Rhythm Girls. Even then promoters were ready to exploit the gender element to sell an act. No wonder that when Ivy came to lead her own band its signature tune was Lady Be Good.
Ivy had blazed a trail of sorts. Girls began queuing up to learn the saxophone, not only in dance bands and jazz groups but in a classical context, too. Australian-born Amy Dickson is a Classic Brit Award winner, with a clutch of successful albums to her credit. Like Ivy Benson, she started by learning to play the piano. Persuaded by her music teacher she took to the saxophone when she was six. It was an instant love affair, and still intense; she plays mostly alto and soprano sax.
‘I’m magnetically drawn to the sound of the saxophone, more than any other instrument,’ she says. ‘If it’s being played I just have to stop and listen. I can’t ignore it.’
What about the age-old perception that the saxophone was an instrument predominantly for the chaps? The index of one encyclopaedic work lists a Tina Brooks and a Marion Brown; both of whom turn out to be blokes. The only woman to show is Barbara Thompson, composer and performer of the theme music for A Touch Of Frost. Any new edition will need to take account of the changes.
‘Growing up in Sydney,’ says Amy Dickson, now 32, ‘over half the saxophone players were girls. Then when I was studying at the Royal College of Music I’d say at least half of them were girls. Then I studied in Amsterdam at the Conservatorium and half of them were girls.’
The inventor of the family of instruments that perpetuate his name was Adolphe Sax, a Belgian born in 1814. His home town of Dinant celebrates him with a museum and a thoroughfare called Rue Adolphe Sax. One disciple who trod its hallowed stones is yet another Amy – Amy Roberts (who remembered it as ‘Saxophone Road’, but she was very young at the time).
A graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music, these days Amy often plays in the Big Chris Barber Band. ‘It’s a sort of Duke Ellington band,’ she says. ‘You’ve got three saxophones, there is quite a bit of section work, which I really enjoy, working and blending together.’
She’s the only girl in the band, part of a powerful sound, mindful of what her teacher at the Royal Northern told her: ‘Play it like a man.’
One of the men she’d like to play it like is Johnny Hodges, a pillar of the Ellington band for years. Another is Paul Desmond, famously partnered with pianist Dave Brubeck. ‘He floats through things,’ Amy says, ‘and makes it sound so easy and effortless. I absolutely love it.’
Sarah Field is a Desmond fan too. ‘I think it was Paul Desmond who said he’d like to think his saxophone sound was like a dry martini, which is kind of cool.’ Sarah is a member of Marici Saxes, an all-female London-based quartet that’s done the Proms and Radio 3, and smart social events. Two of the girls, Hannah Riches and Fiona Asbury, are graduates of the Royal Northern, where Amy Roberts studied.
Although each of the four is adroit on any of the saxophone family, it’s Sarah who plays mainly soprano. But it was the sight of a tenor sax as she watched Wham! on Top Of The Pops that fi rst lured her to play. She was about 11 at the time.
‘I want to do that,’ she told her parents. There was a bit of fatherly scepticism to overcome. ‘I was already playing the cornet and he was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make a commitment.’ She prevailed, he capitulated, and now she plays both saxophone and trumpet – she teaches them too.
Amy Dickson, Amy Roberts and the Marici Saxes are all professional musicians, but there is a legion of dedicated amateurs seriously devoted to playing Adolphe’s invention. The London Saxophone Choir fields about 20 players, half of them women. One of them is Sharon Moloney, whose day job is working for Making Music, a charity supporting amateur musicians across the UK.
As a flautist she was playing in a concert band when some of the group asked if she’d like to join the freshly formed saxophone choir. ‘I pointed out that I don’t play the saxophone, neither do I own one,’ she says. ‘They turned up the next week with a spare, said “Here you go”, and there was no getting out of it.’ Now she owns an alto, a tenor and baritone, and says she’s pretty flexible.
‘The beauty of the saxophone is that the sound lends itself well to such a variety of styles,’ says Sharon. ‘We try playing Renaissance recorder music, and it sounds brilliant. The suites of recorders are similar to the suites of saxophones. So with a piece written for four diff erent-size recorders, it’s just translating it on to four different-size saxophones. If you think about some of the earlier Renaissance instruments like the shawm, for example, they had quite a honky sound, and saxophone has quite a honky sound, so it replicates the medieval sound quite well.’
To honky, you could add limpid, lascivious, lilting, blazing, seductive, perky and creamy. Adolphe’s family offers all these and more. It depends on who is blowing – and how.
‘They do say it’s the closest thing to the sound of the human voice,’ says Karen Sharp. She was part of the Humphrey Lyttelton band and is a familiar name on the jazz circuit. She is another who began on piano. The flute followed, but she swapped it for a clarinet, and at the age of 22, took up the tenor sax, adding alto and baritone later. She immerses herself in the work of the acknowledged giants of jazz, all from another era, therefore all men, such as Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Stan Getz. But she’s no copycat. ‘I strongly believe if you’re going to find your own voice you’ve got to go back to the source,’ she says.
Adolphe’s invention was less an instrument than a musical contraption, a brass horn, sometimes curvy, sometimes straight, with keys and rods all over it, topped with a mouthpiece into which a reed is clipped. Blow it and press the right bits. For over a century it was almost exclusively a boys’ toy, but now the girls have got it too.
Girls and boys might combine to celebrate this bicentenary year, from the mighty bass to the dainty sopranino. All together now: ‘Happy birthday, dear Adolphe…’