And Now For Something Totally Quirky In The Realm Of Contrabass Saxophone Playing
Author: Helen
Bassoonist, Dave Wells, happened across an old vinyl record by The Burbank Philharmonic, while in a thrift shop in Madison, Wisconsin. This recording, which Internet research indicates may have been released in 1970, appears to have been the band’s first, and perhaps last album.
On this album, The Burbank Philharmonic took pop songs of the day, such as: Hey Jude, Spinning Wheel, King Of The Road, Light My Fire, among others, and performed them in a Dixieland style. If this wasn’t unusual enough, the bass saxophone part that one might find in a trad jazz band, was replaced by a contrabass.
Source: S. Robinson
Dave Wells describes the band like this:
Here, the contra is part of a mix of instruments — trumpet, clarinet, banjo, trombone, string bass, Hammond organ, accordion, and drums that create sort of a psuedo-neo-Dixieland band. The whole record is quite strange, but most of it falls squarely into the good/funny-weird category. Here’s my favorite track from the disc, one that prominently features the massive contrabass sax:
Unfortunately credits were not given to the individual musicians on the album, so we don’t know who the contrabass saxophonist was who performed with The Burbank Philharmonic.
Given that this recording was likely done around 1969 or ‘70, the contrabass would most likely be of the vintage variety. Therefore, the possible list of players is quite small, given that there would have been perhaps only 20 or less of these instruments in existence worldwide.
In any event, this is certainly the most unusual recording of Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made For Walking, that I’ve ever heard. How about you? Oh, and in case you’re wondering what the original might have sounded like, here is a video of Nancy Sinatra performing her #1 hit song on an Italian TV program, in 1966.
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