‘Don’t use your fingers,” Lynne commands. “Stick it further into your mouth, cover your teeth with your lip and blow hard. Yes! Yes!” I follow her direction and the peace of the morning is shattered by shrill wailing. Another sax lesson is in full swing.
Over the years I’ve sought relaxation in many forms. Some, such as running, have eased body and soul, providing much time to think. Others, such as motorcycling, demand total absorption so distract from thinking and worry. This latter need sees me taking music lessons from Lynne and discovering the joy of the saxophone.
Actually, the only person taking joy in my playing is me; for others it is a less welcome new obsession. Matt raises his head from his educational (he tells me) gameplay, “Daaaaaaaad. Can you be quiet? I can’t hear the zombies’ screams.” Harry the cat only has to see me pick it up and he’s out of the cat flap like a furry rocket leaving Houston.
Its impact on the household and neighbours is enhanced by the fact that, Gollum-like, I keep my shiny, golden “precious” close to hand on a stand in the hall. I can blow it in passing, and often do.
Millie, herself a saxophonist, suggests: “We can grade together, Dad.” No way. I don’t have enough life left to grade my way up. More pertinently, though, this is all about stress relief that comes in a case not a glass. I don’t want any pressure of exams.
I love playing, though – the level of absorption is total and the instrument is a thing of beauty. I polish it, play it and service it. I pull the bell end through with a cleaning string in a comforting echo of cleaning a rifle barrel – from so many years ago when shooting provided the same distracted pleasure. Unlike shooting, however, no one gets earplugs when I play, no matter how much they beg.
I need something to aim for so choose an alto sax piece from my youth: Hazel O’Connor’s ballad Will You. It’s the soundtrack to a thousand seductions; the vocals end halfway, the rest being Wesley Magoogan’s unexpected and stunning sax solo. The length and the instrument’s dominance are probably helped by the fact that he co-wrote it.
It’s a tricky piece, much of it in the alto’s upper register. For a novice it’s a very punchy choice, akin to hoping to produce a Bake Off “showstopper” the day after you buy your first cake tin.
If you watch him in concert on You Tube, Magoogan plays with breathtaking feeling, skill and style. Of the many other people who have covered it, no one gets close to matching his note-perfect, sensual delivery. It may help that he seems to have very long fingers and can cover the keys with a speed my stumpy ones can’t get close to.
The day after Lynne has suggested I may be “rhythmically challenged”, I’m discussing my wider shortcomings and finger length with Pete. “Actually, mate, I bet you £100 you can play Will You better than Wesley Magoogan,” he says with a glint in his eye that suggests mischief rather than comfort.
I assume the worst: “Don’t tell me he’s dead – he can’t be much older than me?”
“No, he’s not, but those long fingers lost a fight with a circular saw and he’s not playing the saxophone like that, or probably at all, any more.”
I’m speechless. Poor Wesley! I’m not surprised, though, given that so much of my new life seems waymarked by pathos-laden back stories. Bereavement seems like a magnet to bizarre coincidence and event.
I should have taken the bet though, as even now Wesley is still probably better than me – my F sharp sounding like Harry when his tail gets trodden on.
For a while, his accident taints the piece for me but when I look up how positive he is now, curating the art talent of his son Lester (who has Down’s syndrome), I’m determined not only to play the song but also nail it. It may be aural torture for now but it’s a tribute to Wesley, to positivity, a distraction from grief and another step forwards. Will You? – too bloody right!
Adam Golightly is a pseudonym
