My, What A Large Instrument You Have

by Patrick Jarenwattananon

Will Friedwald profiles versatile multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson in a Wall Street Journal that ran this morning. And when he says multi-instrumentalist, he means it:

There's no one else doing anything close to what Mr. Robinson is doing: playing every style that exists in the jazz world (and classical, pop and world music besides), on almost every horn known to man (reeds, brass) and even some rhythm instruments. He is the only musician I have encountered who is equally likely to play clarinet in a re-creation of the music of Sidney Bechet on a Monday, and then turn up on Tuesday playing tenor saxophone with a swing-era big band. On the next night, you might spot him playing baritone in the sax section of a contemporary orchestral jazz composer; then on Thursday, he'll bring out his really far-out horns for an outerspace jam with musicians from the Sun Ra Arkestra.

Friedwald also documents Robinson's sopranino saxophone, C melody saxophone, slide saxophone, sarrusophone, bass saxophone and contrabass saxophone. He reveals that Robinson is contracting a Brazilian firm to construct a subcontrabass saxophone, which would be "the biggest and lowest sax in history." And that's only the beginning: there's information on his various percussion instruments, new experimental record label, and a video feature to boot. Have a look. [Wall Street Journal: Jazz Futurist, Mad Scientist]
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Related At NPR Music: Hear a Scott Robinson contrabass sax track on this Take Five feature on weird jazz instruments.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2010/05/25/127117581/my-what-a-large-instrument-you-have?ft=1&f=10002