Label: Music & Arts
You know, a lesser individual might try and disguise the resemblance between a saxophone and a duck call. A lesser individual might *avoid* honking and buzzing like some gigantic extinct bird on a solo CD consisting of saxophone overdubs. Luckily, we have Dan Plonsey.
Note: instruments are listed in last column, e.g., the first is 6 Baritone saxes. T=Tenor, A=Alto, V=Voice
| 1 | 1:28 | Titanis | Wow. Multiple-layers of baritone saxes making a weird, beautiful, buzzing cacophony. Both majestic and ridiculous. | BBBBBB |
| 2 | 3:25 | Wedding Music for Mantra & Dan | Slow restrained melodic piece (with some touches of duck calls in the distance). More a waltz than a wedding march. | AAAATTBB |
| 6 | 4:20 | The Butterfly Path is Gone | Doot doot deet deet. Fast ditty, which somehow sounds like 40s movie musicals, and renaissance faires. | AAAAA |
| 15 | 4:03 | Gift of Ballet | Slow, melodic...the drunken bees find their way back. | TTT |
| 17 | 4:10 | Fulvous Whistling Duck | Overlaid voices recite strangeness, alternating with slow, sexy jazz licks. Finish: quiet valve chattering then "OK". | TTTTVVVV |
| 19 | 2:53 | Saha Meets Sabu | Slow melodic... demented? Ends restrained, almost delicate. | TTTT |
| 5 | 2:59 | Ivory Bill | Nifty solo. If Freedonia didn't already have a national anthem... | T |
| 18 | 3:48 | Swollen Apparatus | Slow, noisy licks, shuddering with effort, and a touch of dementia. Way off in outer solo space. | A |
| 4 | 2:51 | But We Love You, Charlie Brown | Very composed sounding, layers of saxes in unison (but in counterpoint, those peculiar duck calls...) | AAAATTBB |
| 8 | 1:10 | Cleveland Heights, Ohio | An uplifting little tribute to Cleveland Heights, Ohio. A virtual orchestra of altosaxes... | AAAAAAA |
| 11 | 7:15 | Appearance of Birds | Almost classical (reminds me of Janacek) Kinda tweaked, though. Neat. | SATB+AAT |
| 13 | 2:52 | Lizard Music (for D. Pinkwater) | Fast, melodic. Bursts of strangeness. Twisted cartoon music. | AAAAB |
| 21 | 1:42 | Solaris | Fast. Hornets nest. Few seconds of near silence at the end. | TTTT |
| 9 | 2:22 | Now What? | Note: leads with 10 secs of near silence. Delirious, lurching melody. Beautiful. | AATTTBBB |
| 3 | 2:31 | Dance of Ignorant Passion | Awkward honking, that gradually takes on assurance. Like you handed a sax to someone that learned to play in 5 mins. | T |
| 7 | 3:23 | For John Gilmore | Live noodling all around. Well, okay, maybe Gilmore sounded more disciplined, and less silly than this, so what? | T |
| 10 | 4:41 | Borgani | Lead: a few seconds of quiet, silly remarks about the pie: Silly solo soprano sax. Gets really frenetic. | S |
| 12 | 2:32 | Bird Extinction | Leads with buzzing, distortion. If Jimi Hendrix played sax.... Gets kind of Old MacDonald at the end. | A |
| 14 | 1:46 | Merry-Go-Round (C. Parker) | Nice jazzing noodling. Finish: a howl and some clappping. | A |
| 16 | 2:38 | Ah-Leu-Cha (C. Parker) | Rapid jazziness with a touch of anguish. | A |
| 20 | 0:58 | I Can't Get Started (V. Duke) | Intro: slow jazz lick, then sings silly lyrics. Touch of sax at the end. | TV |
| 22 | 0:29 | Black-Bellied Whistling Duck | "Toot! Tooooot! That's right, I'm singing through an empty saxophone mouthpiece." . | V |
I forget. You could try writing to plonsey@sunra.berkeley.edu.