A NPR article on Friday flogged a CD complication of world music. In the intro one eight-second snippet of cool chords caught my ear while the announcer said "The Japanese offer up ten, yes ten, baritone saxophones."
"Let me hear the rest of that" I thought. I sat in the car for the entire interview but heard nothing more about saxes. I searched the Internet when I got home. Nada. (Except one curious reference to two ("Yuch") jazz bands with multiple bari saxes.)
A few weeks ago I heard a multi-saxophone cut ("Paris") by Moondog on WFMU. "Very Cool" I ordered the album The German Years. I'd heard Moondog's music a little when I was a student but have had no contact since.
In theory it's music I should like a lot: catchy tunes, interesting counterpoint, upbeat attitude without pop cliches. But after listening to the entire album I thought "This music is way too consonant." I guess he resolves all his dissonances properly. Nothing wrong with simple harmonies unless that's all there is. Gotta break the rules sometimes.
Two of Moondog's tunes are used to sell luxury automobiles on television (Paris and Bird's Lament). I've seen the ads dozens of times. For the life of me I can't remember which brand of car. I could look it up, but I'd really rather not know. Some mega-corporation is paying big bucks to entertain me with mysterious music and I can't even identify their product. All is well.
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