Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Saxophonist, the most recorded in the world, equally acclaimed as classical virtuoso and jazz improviser, composer of concert works and film scores.
On the island
Eight records
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
the sound of Johnny Hodges was the nearest thing I could imagine to the human voice coming from an instrument.
Hunting SongFavourite
This group was so far ahead of its time, so hip... These people were working with early music, with folk music, with a fusion of jazz, a fusion of sounds that I'd never heard
Sister Jean's Vision (from The Devils)
The Fires of London & Early Music Consort of London
I remember to this day the effect of the modern group on the one side and the early music group on the other, and hearing the juxtaposition of the two.
Tuesday's Child (from Jazz Calendar)
within the writing of this jazz calendar you can hear the kind of elegance of Richard Rodney Bennett... the sort of rhythmic poise of it just is so much the man that it would just be such a nice reminder of somebody whose friendship I really treasure.
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
I do remember when this first came out being so impressed because there was an alto flute at the end. He's so willing to accept strange ideas into his music
Punch's Lullaby (from Punch and Judy)
Stephen Roberts, London Sinfonietta & David Atherton
I dream about this, you know, about this nightmare English Victorian toy shop world, and this next piece... is like a nightmare come true for me.
Miserere (from The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover)
London Voices & Michael Nyman Band
there's this beautiful angelic boy singing at the washing up tub where he's clanking away, have mercy upon us. And it's just that, again, I mean obviously it's it's a very English thing, but it's to do with things not being what they seem.
really it's to remind me while while I'm while I'm sort of moping around on my own on the desert island of my family, of my wife Julia and Matthew and Daniel.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:31Do you mean when you say that [the saxophone is a direct representation of how you're feeling], John, that the saxophone is very close to the singing voice?
It's not only very close to the singing voice, it actually uses the... with the exception of the vocal cords, it uses the same bodily systems, the diaphragm and the lungs... and when you growl, it growls... When you cry, it cries.
Presenter asks
2:05How would you define the noise you make through [the saxophone] then? What's the personality that's coming through when you play it?
What I strive for is a kind of purity and a purity of line and a purity of sound. That is, I suppose, unusual in saxophonists... my main background, as you know, is contemporary classical. And it's the idea of I suppose the purity of classical line in a jazz environment or sometimes the gruffness of a jazz sound in a classical environment that makes me a sort of moving target musically.
Presenter asks
2:55Are classical aficionados sniffy about the saxophone, because it's not a pure instrument that has a voice of its own?
The classical world, I suppose, was fairly sniffy. But... it's a very young instrument in terms of its real development. I mean it it was only around from eighteen forty onwards and even then it was developed purely for military bands really and it was jazz musicians at the beginning of the twentieth century that actually saw its potential
The keepsakes
The book
Roger Scruton
touches on music as an object and music in a place in philosophy and in the world
The luxury
a lute, a lute tutor, and an endless supply of strings
I would enjoy teaching myself to play another musical instrument, because it would help pass the time
Presenter asks
3:51Do you believe that what you care about, the accessibility of music? Is that important to you?
I do care about that deeply. I think also the manner of our presentation of it on The Last Night of The Proms was deeply disturbing to some because it wasn't apologetic. It was new music, it was dissonant, it was fiery, it was direct.
Presenter asks
30:59If you could only play one kind of music, John, jazz, classical, or contemporary classical, which would you choose?
I think I would choose classical... I find the open-endedness of much jazz very unsatisfactory... I don't find the open-endedness of bebopping, bebop soloing to be anything that I want to listen to. I just don't I don't feel anything for it.
“I do remember moving from the clarinet to the saxophone and feeling an amazing sense of relief and of freedom, because the saxophone offered this breadth and this variety of expression that I just had had no idea that I was capable of.”
“I've always been fascinated by that collision of the old and the new... the idea of the saxophone as almost like a primitive reed pipe with a lot of folk influences and a lot of early music influences is very dear to me.”
“I find that also playing, especially from memory, the whole area of making one's mind blank, like in the semi-sleep, is for me the way to do it. I find that I can look straight ahead, eyes open, and just turn my mind off completely and play, and for some reason all the thoughts that I would be having seem to go through the instrument.”