Reed Rapture: The Saxophone on Movie Soundtracks

By Geoff Wills

Movie soundtrack music is big business. In both film studios and at major record labels, entire divisions focus exclusively on marketing movie music.

Film composers like John Williams have become internationally famous figures, and concerts of their music are regular occurrences. But while interest in movie music has greatly increased, both academically and among the public, focus on individual aspects of the music have been overlooked. Yet what movie-goer can forget the opening scene to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver? Behind the taxicab emerging from a cloud of vapour and the eyes of Robert De Niro, a haunting, yearning alto saxophone melody is heard, and it’s just one example of the power of the saxophone, a presence throughout the history of movie music, from the 1930s to the present day, highlighting scenes of drama, romance, and comedy, and making a vital contribution to the music which can be urgent, immediate, sweet, seductive, intimate, and erotic.

Reed Rapture is the first study to describe the background, the history, and the numerous important appearances of the saxophone on movie soundtracks, drawing on both jazz and classical influences, and, as such, makes a vital contribution to film music studies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: May 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781805148326

Geoff Wills

Geoff Wills is a former professional musician and clinical psychologist. He is the author of Pressure Sensitive (1988) and Zappa and Jazz (2015), and has contributed to Psychology of Music, The British Journal of Psychiatry, International Musician, jazz.com, Jazz Journal and the book Frank Zappa and the And (2013). 

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Copyright © 2024 Geoff Wills

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ISBN 978 1805148 326

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

For Judith

Contents

A Note On Terminology

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

The Power of the Saxophone

The Development of the Saxophone’s Use

The 1930s

Developments outside the United States

Chapter 2

The 1940s

The Saxophone in 1940s Film Noir

Other Appearances in the 1940s

Chapter 3

Benny Carter and Others

The 1950s

1952

1953

1954

1955

1956

1957

1958

1959

Soundtrack saxophone outside the United States

TV Crime Jazz

Chapter 4

The 1960s

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

1968-1969

Chapter 5

1970-1975

1976-1979

Chapter 6

1980-Present

Conclusion

References

A Note On Soundtrack Saxophonists

A Note On Terminology

Diegetic

Diegetic music, or ‘source music’, exists within the constructed world of a film: its source may be visible on screen, for instance issuing from a radio or a band in a club.

Nondiagetic

Nondiagetic music, also referred to as the underscore or background score, is all the music on a film soundtrack which is not part of the on-screen action.

Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to Professor Mervyn Cooke for his very helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Professor Kathryn Kalinak for her thoughts. Any flaws are entirely my fault.

Chapter 1

The Power of the Saxophone

On a night-time New York street, a taxicab emerges from a cloud of vapour. The camera focuses on the eyes of Robert De Niro, and a haunting, yearning alto saxophone melody is heard. This is the opening to the Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver (1976), and it provides a significant example of the use of the alto saxophone on movie soundtracks.

The solo alto saxophone (for it is usually the alto – the soprano sax is sometimes an alternative, followed by the tenor, and, rarely, the baritone) has become ubiquitous over the years on movie soundtracks, and is just one of the tools in the film composer’s armamentarium.

What is the unique power of the sound of the (mainly) alto sax in the movies? Christopher Palmer offers clarification in his discussion of Angela’s theme in A Place in the Sun (1951). He emphasizes ‘the overriding power of sonority … the saxophone’s tone colour was the only one suited to express the intoxicating attraction Angela [Elizabeth Taylor] exerts over George [Montgomery Clift] …’ (1990, 112). Sonority and tone colour are the key elements of the sound, which can be urgent, immediate, plangent, sweet, seductive, intimate and erotic. The sound is not confined simply to romance: it can also be gently mischievous, quirky and humorous, eerie and ominous, or desperately frightened and sad. Classically, it is a sweet, swing era sound showing the influence of eminent saxophonists like Benny Carter, Jimmy Dorsey or Johnny Hodges, and is cushioned by a lush orchestral backing, usually with strings.

Writers on film music tend to have specific ideas about how the saxophone is used. For instance, Mervyn Cooke describes the ‘identification between the saxophone and dramatic topics such as venality, sensuality, sleaze and corruption’ (2008, 102). And Christopher Palmer feels that ‘the saxophone has … a long history of ‘lowlife’ associations’ (1990, 112). Again, Charles Merrell Berg (1978, 12), referring to the Johnny Hodges solo on Duke Ellington’s ‘Flirtibird’ theme for Lee Remick in Anatomy of a Murder (1959), says that the jazz saxophone signifies ‘sleaze’, and Bordwell and Thompson describe the ‘clichéd use of oleaginous saxophone tones behind seduction scenes’ (2010, 273). Ronny Lang, arguably the most prolific alto sax soloist in the history of movie soundtracks (he played the solos on, for instance, the soundtracks of Farewell, My Lovely (1975), Taxi Driver (1976) and Body Heat (1981)) has said ‘… it was always the sound of sex … it got to be almost a cliché. André Previn once told me, If I hear another slurping alto saxophone solo in a bedroom scene, I’m going to throw up ‘(Segell 2005, 229). In effect, Lang is of the opinion that effects such as sweetness of tone, blue notes and smears are the musical equivalent of sleaze.

Kathryn Kalinak is even more specific, saying that ‘visual displays of female sexuality were accompanied by a nucleus of musical practices which carried implications of indecency and promiscuity through an association with so-called decadent forms such as jazz … These included a predilection for woodwind and brass instrumentation, particularly saxophones … a dependence upon … chromaticism and dissonance; the use of dotted rhythms and syncopation …’ (1992, 120-121). On a slightly different tack, Amy Taubin feels that the saxophone signifies urban glamour, ‘a glamour that has rubbed off on the city from a hundred movies in which the sound of a soaring saxophone promises danger or love’ (2012, 24).

So why does the saxophone on movie soundtracks have ‘lowlife’ and sleazy associations? Michael Segell, in his history of the saxophone The Devil’s Horn (2005, 12-86), offers many clues which throw light on this topic. As a latecomer to the world of musical instruments, the saxophone (invented by Adolph Sax in 1841 and patented in 1846) has always had something of an ‘outsider’ reputation, and has courted controversy. For instance, although a composer like Hector Berlioz could champion it, saying that ‘It cries, sighs and dreams … until its sound becomes crepuscular’, others were not so complimentary. For instance, in 1907, composer and pianist Isadore Berger felt that ‘No other musical instrument can be so immoral. The saxophone is guttural, savage, panting, and low in its appeal’. From the moment of the saxophone’s appearance, Adolph Sax was confronted by the enmity of rival instrument makers, who tried to ruin him.

The eminent concert saxophonist Jean-Marie Londeix is quoted by Segell (ibid., 36), saying that the saxophone ‘has a concentration of harmonics at around 200 hertz, the same as the human voice … [it] becomes capable of expressing the most extreme aspects of the human condition. It can be coarse or it can be delicate’.

The Development of the Saxophone’s Use

Wind bands became popular in nineteenth-century America, and had been infiltrated by the saxophone in the mid-1850s. It became an important member of the marching bands of John Philip Sousa, and by the beginning of the twentieth century it was a part of minstrel shows, circuses, vaudeville and dance orchestras. As early as 1913 it was used in the orchestration of a Broadway musical, namely Oh I Say, with a score by Jerome Kern. With regard to jazz, W.C. Handy claimed that he was using saxophones in his orchestra in 1909, and James Reese Europe stated that they appeared in his band in 1914.

The ‘lowlife’ associations of the saxophone were given prominence in 1903, when Pope Pius X banned the saxophone from Catholic Orthodox churches as an instrument that could cause ‘disgust or scandal’, and an article in a 1921 edition of The Ladies Home Journal, referring to the dance craze that was sweeping America, asserted that ‘those moaning saxophones … with their broken, jerky rhythm make a purely sensual appeal. They call out for the low and rowdy instinct’ (McMahon 1921). A definite racist element entered into the ‘lowlife’ connotations of the saxophone, because of its associations with jazz. The latter, as a part of black culture, was considered by white imperialist ideology to be the expression of black hypersexuality and irrational thought (Butler 2002, 31). It is also worth noting that ‘for many middle class, educated blacks, jazz was considered low class, secular (the devil’s music), played in dives and joints that morally disfigured black communities’ (Early 2010). A further point is that, from its early days, jazz had