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Posted by Fleabit Peanut Monkey on February 22, 1999 at 17:39:13:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: comments on Milwaulkee show posted by Daniel in Dallas on February 22, 1999 at 10:50:43:
Fair enough! Hope Stormy does weigh in here with an opinion - his knowledge of jazz far
surpasses mine.
: . But there is a lot of truth to the fact that Bobby Keyes is not well known as a great sax player.
Well, it depends on the genre. I saw Bobby in NYC with fellow Texan Joe Ely at the Ritz in 1986 and he was equally at home honking on "MustaNottaGottaLotta" and other Ely faves. But in comparison to the GIANTS of the instrument (in jazz at least), well, I guess Bobby couldn't drain their spit valves.
:Josh Redman is not either.
I think, from what I hear, that this may change in time. Storm?
:...there is unbelieveable work by Cannonball Adderly.
Yep. He's one of the big guns, I reckon. Charlie thinks so, anyway.
:And that may be what is missing--the ability to distinguish the quality of the sax
work...
The Stones made a great step toward correcting this by using SONNY FUCKING ROLLINS on Tattoo You. I know it made me search out his work, and eventually see him live.
However, the quality of the work within the Stones' catalog IS what would be of most importance to most of us. And Bobby's sax, while predictable, is also irreplaceable. Just a handful of tunes and a handful of licks, but consider what's IN that handful.
: Lots of people think that the sax player who made his fame with Springsteen is the cats' meow...
Good point. Clarence Clemmons is a one-trick pony. Saying he's a great sax player just reveals that you don't know squat about sax playing. (By "you" I don't mean YOU...you know what I mean!)
:... our passion for the entire group...has been generated by their history... as well as our own...
That's certainly a factor, but much less so than with all of the other groups from the 60's, because the Stones kept producing. They represent my past, present and future in different ways.
:--helping to perpetuate the entire sound that we have loved for so long.
Well, yes, I was forgetting the context. As regards Bobby, the fact that he lived through the 72 tour, that he was TV Repairman #2 and lived to tell the tale, IS something I think about everytime I see him.
: We worried about his being there not because we would miss his playing; we simply did not want anyone up there playing his sax lines and making the show look like the Stones were attempting to imitate their own sound with replacement personell.
Then how to explain Chuck Leavell? Well, perhaps because Nicky & Stu aren't among the survivors, sadly.
: We don't want a Bobby Sound Alike on Brown Sugar-- who could hear that and like it?
Although on some shows they brought Bobby out just for Brown Sugar (anyone know why the limited run? Was he still on junk in '81?), I thought the addition of Ernie Watts in '81 was an atrocity. He RUINED YCAGWYW. Shoulda stayed with Doc Severinson where he belonged.
: We have had to endure some difficult changes in the band, and the current members are now our favorites and we do not want any more changes.
Well, Bobby's a peculiar case...nobody's crying "Oh WHERE is Andy Snitzer??" this tour. He's NOT a Stone, yet he is. And that has as much to do with heroin as with his horn.
An aside: what happened to the great muted trumpet in Out Of Control????
:But I do know that in fifty years the writers will talk about Mick and Keith and not the revolutionary sax lines of Bobby Keys.
Of course not! Actually, he's a reactionary element, a tie to the sax-driven rock of the early 60's. And I think his TONE is far more important than the lines he plays. On B2B, when he broke out the baritone on "Flip The Switch", he was playing two notes, but they hit you in the gut and made you say "hell yeah!"
:...unless my list was "great sax players who have worked for the Stones"
In which case Bobby's at the top. On this peculiar list (and nowhere else) he's ahead of Sonny Rollins!
: Sorry about the lenthy response--
Ha! Then imagine how sorry I am!
: And don't think for a minute that I am not looking forward to hearing Bobby when I go to
see the show.
I don't. Because within the confines of THAT wonderful universe he is the MAN.