Bill Clinton on sax

[SaxyAcoustician]

Does anyone out there have any mp3's of Bill Clinton playing the saxophone? What appearances has he made on the saxophone besides the Arsenio Hall Show? And of course, what do you think of his playing?

[gary]

I got a recording in the Czek Rebublic of Clinton in some club in Prague. The recording is called "Two Presidents". It seems that the Czek president took him and Madelene Albright to the club and they surprised him with a new Amati sax and he sat in with the group.

They played Summertime and another tune I can't remember. Clinton just sounded like an amateur but he played OK. Not a bad Czek group, either, especially the trumpet player.

What I liked is that it didn't seem like he was holding back or playing with too much restraint just 'cause he's the man and didn't want to be criticised. I think, to the contrary, he played from the heart and played what he could. If you've ever heard Truman or Nixon play the piano, I think you'd choose Bill.

His playing was not bad....but no cigar! :oops:

[Frank D]

As I recall, on Aresenio, Clinton sounded like a guy playing a 5* piece with a 1.5 reed - real buzzy and sounding like it's about to close up at any moment.

And yes, this is one of those topics that will always take a turn for the worse..........

[Gandalfe]

I wonder if Bill Clinton plays better now. He probably has more time to practice and he is, after all, in New York city. I suspect his career as a statesman is pretty much shot, so he could do the sax thang.

[mr00420]

When was this a good topic?

Bill's sound may be that crappy all the time, but a lot of that buzz is probably the result of someone picking up a horn for the first time in twenty years and trying to blow through it as loud as he thinks he has to in order to play in front of the biggest crowd he's ever performed for.

[soulsax]

well I guess I never thought about it that way... I can't fault a sax player who sounds decent, regardless of experance if he blows with heart n' soul. Clinton's a pretty smart man. Nine million in tips, first year out of office! (Hillary's gig made him show the feds) I don't think that included sax income either! I've never heard him. A newspaper clip I cut once asked Phil Woods, David Sanborn and a few others what they thought of his preformance on the Arsinio Hall show. Wood's ; "he's got potential, but his tone could use some work". "he should go on the road with Ray Charles for a while". Sanborn; "hang on to your day gig", suggested he inhale. :?

[Bill Mecca]

I'm sure he wasn't carrying his own horn and set up around on the campaign trail. His people did tell Arsenio's staff he wanted to play, so they probably had someone run out and get a horn, mpc and reed, so in that situation. Who knows what they setup they came up with. I think he did pretty well for a guy who hasn't focused much on playing. Heck he was Governor at the time, not like he could carve out several hours a day to practice. He took what he had and made it work.

I remember way back on some television show, maybe It's Your Life, they were doing the life of Sid Ceaser, and handed him a horn live, Ssssqqqaaaacckkkkk! he hadn't played in years.

I give them both extremely high marks for having the brass to play in those situations. :wink:

[colibri]

http://www.angelfire.com/ga/sax99/images/clinton.gif

Is this the solo?

[Peterk]

I was at an Aebersold camp about 5 years ago and Jamey used to play this game where he'd play a solo off a CD and we'd have to guess who the player was. He stumped us one morning with one of Clinton's solos.
No-one could figure it out.

I could swear that Jamey actually had a whole CD of Bill Clinton on it - but he's such a joker, it may well be something he cooked up himself for laughs.

[jazzbluescat]

Does anyone out there have any mp3's of Bill Clinton playing the saxophone? What appearances has he made on the saxophone besides the Arsenio Hall Show? And of course, what do you think of his playing?

I don't understand the attention Clinton gets for playing sax; just because he was president? What does that have to do with the price of rice in China? 8)

[Nisso]

Clinton gets such attention on sax because, yes, he was the president. I don't understand how that could not make sense, (not that it doesn't to you, i'm just saying) being the President of the best country of the world, AND he plays the sax....he's gonna get some attention.

[Ritchie]

Bill Clinton on sax is interesting from the political and historical perspective, not from the musical perspective. Just by number far more people care for Chinese rice prizes than for sax playing presidents. BTW, king Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand plays sax well enough to be recorded.

[pfox]

Yes, let's leave it at that. We had a president who was cool enough to play the sax. By most accounts, he did a passable job of it, especially for someone who most likely hadn't played in years.
Now for a true embarrassment to the human race, find a video clip of George W. (lil' bushie) Bush dancing with Ricky Martin. I believe it was at his coronation.

[Pete]

Folks, let's keep this discussion focused on saxophone -- I've been getting complaints. If you want a political discussion, please find a different forum.

[jazzbluescat]

Folks, let's keep this discussion focused on saxophone -- I've been getting complaints. If you want a political discussion, please find a different forum.

OK.
I wonder what size reed Mr. Clinton uses; and, his favorite keys.
:twisted:

[Scaper]

There was a bad movie ("2001 A Space Travisty" I think) with two
Clintons playing sax towards the end. Was that really Bill Clinton?
What song did he play?

[Peterk]

They played "In The Navy". That was not the real Bill Clinton (thank heavens) and it was easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

[Silscio]

So does anyone have an actual sound clip of Clinton playing?

[amalfitano_hamilton]

Why would anyone have that. The man was terrible. I'd rather watch Al Gore dance again than hear Clinton play sax!

[saxduck]

Let me get this straight, saxpics, YOU get complaints so YOU interject?

So, if I complain that someone isn't posting the way I feel they should, then you get involved - and that's all I need to do? Just send you some complaining email? The complainers are the ones who control this board?

How many complaints does it take? Do you have an independent judgement or do you just go by your complainers?

In order to keep this on the track of saxophones - I saw Bill Clinton on Arsenio. He wasn't that bad. He made a few licks and did better than any president that preceeded him. Keep in mind that he was campaigning at the time so he didn't have a whole lot of time to practice/rehearse. Of course, he aint no pro - but he was pres and he did play. Do as well yourself and you'll be fine.

[mellowtone]

From what I recall the club in Prague was called Reduta. It is one of the more well known places, esp. since his '2 presidents' gig.

here's a link to the band who he jammed with:

http://www.robertbalzar.cz/rbtrio_en.html

[jazzbluescat]

I wouldn't mind if this ludicrous thread got accidentally deleted. :twisted:

[Pete]

Accidential deletions rarely happen. Once, for me so far on this new format: our former moderator, Zman and I tried to edit the same thread at the same time and that ended up deleting about 50 posts ...

Saxduck, if someone complains about a thread to me via an e-mail, that means that I should take a look at the thread immediately. In probably about 90% of the cases when I get a complaint via e-mail that means there's a problem.

Some of our former moderators would just delete posts and not say anything in the thread. This always bothered me if I got to a thread late and found that it shrunk from 50 posts to 10 without an explaination. I also feel just deleteing stuff and expecting people to read my mind as to why I deleted their posts is unreasonable.

Anyhow, my job is to enforce the rules as defined by Harri. There is no possible way of me tracking all the threads that are here, so I partially rely on people to send me an e-mail saying there's a problem. If, in my opinion, the complainant is correct and someone has violated SOTW rules, I will take action.

If you have further questions, please send me an e-mail. Thank you.

[Bloo Dog]

Before we go further with this thread, define "sax."

[Pete]

I hear it depends on what "is" is :)

[les]

Dudes,
The opinions of our beloved former presidents playing are getting out of hand, so I'll lay it out so everyone can understand how I (and many others) feel about BC::: Bill Clinton is EVERY BIT as good a Saxophonist as he was a President!!! There. I've said it. I feel better now. Talk amongst yourselves. A subject: The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman! Discuss.....

[Pete]

Plagarism! Mike Meyers would be proud, though.

[Ritchie]

I just found a recording of Bill Clinton's "Summertime" from the Reduta jazz club is currently on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2549858879&category=28 763

[gary]

Dudes,---I'll lay it out so everyone can understand...Bill Clinton is EVERY BIT as good a Saxophonist as he was a President!!!

LOL!!!

Quite a coincidence. I was driving to a rehearsal yesterday and played the Prague jazz gig for a friend/trumpet player riding with me. As we were looking at the CD cover of him, we both laughed and agreed that, all said and done, this was at least one guy you'll sure never forget!