[Dixielandjazz] Sigurd Rasher - was Nazi Band Rules

Tue Jan 19 15:04:20 PST 2010

As a saxophonist who studied both classical music and jazz, I'm in a strange situation of having saxophone "idols" from totally different fields.

It is my feeling that (besides Adolphe Sax himself!) that the really important early (alto) sax players are :

Classical : 
Sigurd Rasher (I had so much profit from his book about toptones. I studied it after finishing conservatory and it made me so much a better musician)
Marcel Mule (important teacher in Paris, wrote numerous books to improve your technique)

Jazz
Johnny Hodges (Most beautifull sound of them all. When a man can say important things with just a few words, why need too much talking?)
Charlie Parker (the most influential sax player ever, creative genius influencing not only saxists.)

There is a truth in what you say about jazz players that could learn from Rasher.
However, I certainly want to put it the other way around as well. I met so many classical players that are totally unflexible. Just one embouchure, just one vibrato, only able to play from notation.
If you listen to Hodges at the 1938 Carnegy Hall concert on soprano. How many sax players are able to tell such a story??? And that rhythm he plays there sure is free art.

Kind regards,

Bert Brandsma
www.dixielandcrackerjacks.com

> From: barbonestreet at earthlink.net
> Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:27:55 -0500
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Sigurd Rasher - was Nazi Band Rules
> CC: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> To: dixieorkest at hotmail.com
> 
> 
> On Jan 19, 2010, at 11:13 AM, dixielandjazz-request at ml.islandnet.com 
> wrote:
> 
> > Bert Brandsma <dixieorkest at hotmail.com>
> >
> >
> > In Germany before the war was one of the first great classical 
> > saxophonists. His name was Sigurd Rasher. He started as a clarinet 
> > player but loved the sax and made it his premier instrument. Many of 
> > the first important works for saxophone were dedicated to him, like 
> > the Glazounow saxophone concerto and many, many others. A lot was 
> > written in the 1930s.
> >
> > When the nazis became gradually more strict during that decade there 
> > came these weird regulations. The saxophone was considered American 
> > (Which was totally wrong, since it actually was invented by a 
> > Belgian who later went to France).
> >
> > And it was considered a Negro instrument as well. So poor Mr. Rasher 
> > had to flee his own country, the only reason being the choice of his 
> > instrument. He did a succesfull solo concerto in New York then, but 
> > then was not accepted in the US, because he was German! He fled to 
> > Cuba and for several years was doing country labour to stay alive.
> >
> > Finally after years he was accepted in the USA because of his wife , 
> > who was accepted as a refugee. I believe she was Danish if memory 
> > doesn't fail me.
> 
> Dear Bert:
> 
> Oh my, Sigurd Rascher. What a great player.
> 
> I first heard him in concert at Duke University, Durham North Carolina 
> in the 1950s. It was a similar experience to hearing Charlie Parker 
> for the first time.
> 
> INCREDIBLE!!!! The power and energy with which he played was 
> astounding. Jazzers can learn from him.
> 
> Below is his NY Times obit.
> 
> March 26, 2001 - NY Times - By Douglas Martin
> Sigurd Rascher, 94, Who Showed the Sax Could Be Classy
> 
> Sigurd M. Rascher, a classical saxophonist compared by some to Casals 
> and Segovia for his influence on his instrument and its concert 
> repertory, died on Feb. 25 at his home in Shushan, N.Y. He was 94.
> 
> In the course of a 50-year career, Mr. Rascher played with virtually 
> all the major orchestras, many of which have never had another 
> saxophone soloist. A critic for The New York Times wrote that the 
> saxophone had gained ''aesthetic respectability'' on Nov. 11, 1939, 
> when Mr. Rascher was the first solo saxophonist for the New York 
> Philharmonic in 3,543 concerts.
> 
> Mr. Rascher was proud of playing dance music, but he feared his 
> instrument's potential to add rich tones to more serious musical fare 
> was too often unachieved. For that failure, he blamed both mechanical 
> modifications in the original design of Adolphe Sax's instrument and 
> bad musicianship.
> 
> ''The nonexistence of a traditionally recognized tone quality gave 
> rise to this grotesque situation,'' he wrote in remarks that appear on 
> the ''Classic Saxophone On-Line!'' Web site (www.Classicsax.com). ''No 
> wonder that serious musicians disdain the saxophone!''
> 
> Two years ago, when the journal American Record Guide compared Mr. 
> Rascher to Casals and Segovia, it was by some measures an 
> understatement. For cello or guitar, the other two had available the 
> works of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as well as their more modern 
> heirs, but the saxophone was not invented until 1841.
> 
> Mr. Rascher first learned the clarinet and piano. When a friend 
> mistakenly told him the saxophone was easy to play, he picked one up 
> at a pawnshop and began supplementing his income as a shop teacher in 
> Berlin in the 1930's with dance band jobs.
> 
> But his aspirations for the saxophone soared higher. First he 
> perfected his technique on the instrument Sax invented to unite the 
> expressive power of string instruments, the force of brass instruments 
> and the many shadings of woodwinds. He occasionally played in the 
> Berlin Philharmonic when saxophones were required.
> 
> Then he approached Edmund von Borck, the composer and conductor of the 
> Berlin Philharmonic, and asked him whether he had ever thought of the 
> saxophone as a solo instrument, according to an article in Woodwind 
> World in 1971. He gave a vigorous no, but after Mr. Rascher played for 
> him for a few moments, he asked for his address.
> 
> Months passed, and Mr. Rascher had almost forgotten the conversation, 
> when von Borck called to say a concerto was ready. The piece was 
> selected for a music festival in Hanover in 1932. ''It was the first 
> time I ever played with an orchestra, and I created an unbelievable 
> sensation, not only at the festival but in music circles throughout 
> Europe,'' Mr. Rascher said. He told of another warm reception in 
> Berlin a few months later.
> 
> But what seemed the beginning of a meteoric rise came to a halt when 
> the Nazis rejected ''foreign'' instruments like the saxophone, which 
> was invented in Belgium. Mr. Rascher left Germany and did not return 
> for a quarter century.
> 
> He lived and taught in Copenhagen and Malmo, Sweden, performing with 
> symphonies throughout Europe, including ones in London, Prague, Paris 
> and Warsaw -- more than 200 in all. He also encouraged composers to 
> write for the saxophone. Among those who wrote pieces for Mr. Rascher 
> to play were Glazunov, Ibert and Hindemith.
> 
> Sigurd Manfred Rascher was born on May 15, 1907, in what is now 
> Wuppertal, in the Westphalian section of Germany. His father was a 
> doctor, and he grew up surrounded by music at home. He concentrated 
> mainly on the clarinet in his early studies.
> 
> When a colleague in his dance band ridiculed the saxophone's narrow 
> range of two and a half octaves, he developed a fingering method that 
> let him play four octaves.
> 
> ''No one before me had done this,'' he wrote in notes for a press kit 
> in the 1950's. ''Today, 25 years later, some of the more ambitious 
> players are beginning to follow my lead.''
> 
> He noted that his musical experiments were not appreciated by his 
> neighbors or landlady. ''A quick change of habitat saved me from the 
> attacks,'' he wrote.
> 
> Mr. Rauscher's scheduled performances in New York and Boston in 1939 
> were followed by invitations to perform in Washington and at Town Hall 
> in Manhattan the next year. At the Town Hall concert, Arturo Toscanini 
> hugged him.
> 
> He decided to stay in the United States, where his wife, Ann Mari, and 
> his son, Staffan, had joined him. But after difficulties with his 
> immigration papers, he went to Cuba, where he spent most of the war 
> harvesting sugar cane.
> 
> When he returned, the family settled in Shushan. Three daughters were 
> born there, Kristina Rascher, now of Düsseldorf; Carina Rascher of 
> Lürrach, Germany; and Astrid Radsh of Aberdeen, Scotland. Mr. Rascher 
> is also survived by a sister, Brigid Nosal of Salem, N.Y., and a 
> brother, Michael, of Manhattan.
> 
> Mr. Rascher taught at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, Union 
> College, the University of Mississippi and Yale. He formed the Rascher 
> Saxophone Quartet with his daughter Carina. The group is still active, 
> though Mr. Rascher played his last solo at 73.
> 
> Among his other contributions to the saxophone, he revived the making 
> of saxophone mouthpieces in the manner Sax had originally specified. 
> Newer models, yielding louder but harsher tones, had almost completely 
> replaced them.
> 
> When asked about this and his other achievements, Mr. Rascher always 
> had the same straightforward response: ''Someone had to do it.''
> 
> Hear him at:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TI_z3IfPsM
> 
> or
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npH-DULg5lI&feature=related
> 
> or
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvLzR3QZcJo&feature=related
> 
> Gee, I hope no one says technique gets in the way, or worries about 
> too many notes <grin>
> 
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
> www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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