Sax for nine
Often seen as the coolest of instruments, the saxophone, and jazz in general, has been short changed in Cyprus. One man is hoping to change that
Nicosia’s jazz scene is almost nonexistent and many argue that a simple explanation for this lack of a smoky, bluesy equivalent to Ronnie Scott’s or Blue Note in the capital lies in the general dislike that Cypriots have for this kind of music.
“Absolutely not profitable,” I was once told by a popular club owner when trying to persuade him to bring some good jazz performers to his place. “Too expensive to start with and not enough fans to meet the costs.”
“OK, OK,” said another. “Just let’s make sure that they have a singer and she has big boobs.”
Well, if the only way to sell music is through big boobs, Yiannis Miralis, being a man, obviously doesn’t stand a chance. But, if for any reason something is changing in the jazz department of the collective Nicosian mind, maybe quite soon there will be a regular monthly saxophone jam session somewhere in town. And maybe soon the time will come when hearing good jazz in Nicosia on a Saturday night will become as natural as the chamber music concerts organised by the Pharos Trust.
Or maybe I’m going too fast. One of the main founders of Saxophonia, the Cypriot Saxophone Association, Miralis is rather a classical saxophone man and admits a total lack of ability to do jazz improvisations. “I don’t do it because I didn’t have training to do it,” he says after a great jazz performance that Saxophonia gave at Casteliotissa two weeks ago. “I can do it but in a classical style. It is like a different language and in order to do it you have to have the experience of listening to a lot of recordings and playing by ear and imitating people and having experience of playing with others for a long time. I didn’t listen to jazz until I was 18 so I lost this crucial period when this develops in you. But I appreciate and like jazz and when I play jazz with some people sometimes they improvise and I just play the rhythm.”
Miralis, who learnt to play saxophone at the age of 18 in order to join the military band in the Cypriot army, is an assistant professor of music at a local college and a passionate admirer of the instrument considered by many to be the ‘coolest’ in the world.
“Yes, it is very cool,” he agrees when I tell him that having watched New York New York and Birdie I also belong to this club. “It has an ethos. But both in Cyprus and other countries, many people want to learn to play it without really knowing what it sounds like and what it really plays. Many of them have never heard a classical saxophone sonata or concerto or even a great jazz saxophone player like Lester Young or Charlie Parker. Yes, people have in their heads this concept of a saxophone as a cool instrument and they want to play it. Maybe it is because they have seen it in some commercials or movies. But they don’t know the diverse history of this instrument and this is one of our aims — to teach them just that.”
When Miralis says “our” he obviously means the association that he and the other saxophone players established in Cyprus at the beginning of this year. “The main aim of the association is to promote our instrument,” he explains. “We want to make it better known to the public, make people aware of the fact that it is both a classical and jazz instrument. When I was living in the States, I participated in many regional and national conferences on saxophone, and even in the international saxophone congress that takes place every three years in various parts of the world. So when I came back I started feeling that we Cypriots should have our saxophone as well. I called some friends who play the instrument and we met and discussed the subject. Everybody was very supportive from the very beginning. Originally there were seven or eight of us and we thought that if we add our students in there will be maybe twenty of us but soon by calling friends and friends of friends we gathered together more than 20 people, still without students.”
According to Miralis, some of the association’s members are professionals who play in various musical groups that perform on the island, some have other jobs as well (one is, for example, a dentist, another a school teacher), and some still take classes. However, the band that the association has formed doesn’t consist of all its members since not all of them had time to come regularly to rehearsals.
“Some of them couldn’t come because they were playing at nights and were far too busy,” he says. “Also it was difficult to fix dates in such a way that it would be good for everybody. So in the ensemble we have nine sax players. But soon, we hope, we will have a more regular set time and everybody will be able to plan it better. Then, we will have more people.”
The band’s repertoire is chosen democratically by all members from music catalogues and books published especially for this kind of ensemble. “The group doesn’t have one leader,” Miralis says. “We make all our decisions together. Even when we practice a piece, we interpret it through a collective discussion. It is better this way, more open. Also, even though our ensemble consists only of saxophone players, we invite other musicians to play with us as well. At our last concert we had a pianist and a drummer who joined is in some pieces. Sometimes the best way to show how the diversity of saxophone is by playing it together with other instruments.”
The concert that Saxophonia played at Casteliotissa, organised with the support of the Belgium embassy (no wonder, since the man who invented the saxophone was Belgium), was a huge success. The hall was full of jazz lovers of various nationalities and ages, reacting with applause to everything that the ensemble played. Miralis admits that even he was surprised by the amount of interest.
“The other good thing is that the majority of people who came we didn’t know, which is great because so many times in Cyprus when you go to a concert you see always the same faces. Also after the concert we received many phone calls asking about the possibility of us playing in various places. Our next concert has already been fixed at Cyprus College in September. It will be combined with a lecture on the history of the saxophone. We have started practicing an arrangement of Bach’s piece for 14 saxophones. There are also some other possibilities but we haven’t finalised the dates yet.”
These are all short-term plans. And what about long-term?
“We have to register our association, strengthen the ensemble, play concerts in different cities, organise saxophone competitions, bring people from abroad to play, do masterclasses, organise lectures and seminars, do researches and establish a saxophone quartet,” answers Miralis in one sentence and you can see that he is serious about the matter.
Who plays saxophone in Cyprus?
Charis Ioannou
Last year he released a CD, New York Gravity, on the label Fresh Sounds. He has performed extensively in NYC, Boston, and all around Cyprus. A member of local groups Uptown Beat (performing every Thursday at Toy Club in Nicosia) and Modern Jazz Trio (performing every Wednesday at Jazzy B club in Limassol).
Iacovos Parpas
In 2002 he represented Cyprus in the Biennale in Rome. A member of Ambodis Jazz Quintet (performs regularly at Avlaia every Friday and Saturday).
Ahmet Elmas
Turkish-Cypriot saxophonist Ahmet Elmas is very active in the areas of ethnic jazz and world music. He performs regularly with various world music and jazz groups.
Ken Smith
American-born Ken Smith who is currently assistant professor and coordinator of the music programme at Cyprus College.
Rebecca Hadjipetri
Studied saxophone in Cyprus and Greece and has received Grade 8 in saxophone. She al
so attended courses in music history and history of jazz.
Neville Craig
Neville Craig comes from Ireland and has performed as a tenor saxophonist with various jazz groups in all five continents.
Vartan Gargaloyan
Armenian-born Vartan studied saxophone at the Komitas State Conservatory at Yerevan, Armenia with Alexander Manoukian. He performed with the State Wind Orchestra of Armenia and later with the Municipal Band of Orestiada in Greece. He performs with various music groups in Cyprus and he teaches saxophone at the Lyrico Odeio in Nicosia.
Nikos Kiliaris
Studied music at the Ionian University in Corfu, Greece. He is currently working as a music teacher at high school.
Silvia Toumaian
Senior at high school, she studied saxophone for four years with Zbigniew Irzenski.
Yiannis Miralis
Member of the Transcontinental Saxophone Quartet and the Macedonian Saxophone Quartet from Thessaloniki. He has a CD with the Transcontinental Saxophone Quartet titled Mountain Roads (Albany Records).
Zbigniew Irzenski
Performed in numerous jazz clubs in Poland and Cyprus. Worked as a music teacher and professional jazz saxophonist in Kuwait and Cyprus, where he has a private saxophone studio.
Brief history of the saxophone
The saxophone is the only musical instrument that is a product of a single identified person – Belgian innovator and instrument-maker Adolphe Sax (1814-1894).
Sax was born in Dinant as one of the eleven children of Charles-Joseph Sax, an instrument maker to the king of The Netherlands. From a young age he showed his musical talent and his genius in the making of musical instruments – at 13 he added valves to the French horn, the following year he built his own wooden clarinet and at 16 he won competitions for a number of improvements that he made in various wind instruments. At 27, he moved to Paris, where he created the family of the saxhorns, a series of valved brass instruments that were the ancestors of the tubas, flugelhorns and baritone horns. His inventiveness led him to the development of the bass clarinet and the saxophone, which he first performed in public in 1844 and of which he became the first instructor at the Paris Conservatory in 1857. His innovative instrument attracted attention and praise from numerous well-known composers and musicians. The French composer Hector Berlioz mentioned that “No other musical instrument in the world, as far as I know has such an appealing and attractive timbre that fades into absolute silence,” whereas Rossini said: “I have never heard anything so beautiful.”
This led to the granting of the saxophone patent in 1846. The success of the saxophone was due, not only to its rich expressive and dynamic range, but also to its ability to bridge the gap and blend the sounds of the woodwind and brass instruments.
But Sax was less fortunate. Even though he won the First Prize at the 1867 Paris International Exposition, the fierce competition and envy from French instrument makers who did not accept the fact that a young Belgian would have his factory in Paris and become so influential in the local music industry, led to the boycotting of his products, the burning of his factory and his inevitable bankruptcy. He died poor and forgotten in 1894. Nevertheless, his name survives and is remembered not only through the family of saxophones, but also through the numerous developments and improvements that he made for the family of clarinets, low brass and percussion instruments as well.
In the 1920s the United States went through a period of saxophone craze. Everyone wanted to own a saxophone and the most famous musician of the time was the saxophonist Rudy Wiedoeft, one of the first popular musicians of the modern era.
Best sax CDs
Classical Saxophone
John Harle Saxophone Concertos
Bradford Marsalis Romances for Saxophone
Claude Delangle Musique Francaise pour Saxophones
Eugene Rousseau Saxophone Concertos
Aurelia Saxophone Quartet Blow!
Aurelia Saxophone Quartet French Music for Saxophone Quartet
Classical Saxophone by Greek Saxophonists
Stathis Mavrommatis Music for saxophone, piano & percussion by Greek composers
Theodore Kerkezos Ballades for saxophone and orchestra
Theodore Kerkezos Music for saxophone and orchestra
Theofilos Sotiriades Recollections
Transcontinental Saxophone Quartet Mountain Roads
Jazz Saxophone
Charlie Parker Charlie Parker with strings
Cannonball Adderley Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
John Coltrane Giant Steps
John Coltrane My favorite things
Gerry Mulligan & Paul Desmond Quartet
Michael Brecker Tales from the Hudson
Jan Garbarek Selected recordings
Jan Garbarek & The Hilliard Ensemble Officium
Joshua Redman Joshua Redman
Joshua Redman Wish
