Phillip Johnston: alto saxophone
Peter Farrar: alto saxophone
Tim Clarkson: tenor saxophone
James Loughnan: baritone saxophone
Saxophone Special is a contemporary saxophone quartet playing a diverse repertoire, ranging from jazz and contemporary classical to tangos and waltzes, with a special focus on quartet arrangements of the music of Steve Lacy.
See Saxophone Quartet music for an overview of Johnston’s history of writing and performing music for saxophone quartets.
Saxophone Special is drawn from the front line of The Greasy Chicken Orchestra–a collection of saxophonists who display an astonishing versatility, stylistically and technically. This allows the group to develop a unique repertoire, combining both challenging composed pieces, improvisational skills in various genres, and dramatic genre music, such as tangos and waltzes: music which is both thought-provoking and moving through the stories they have to tell.
Originally gathered together in 2021 as a quartet to launch the book Steve Lacy: Unfinished, edited by Guillaume Tarche, a unique tri-lingual assembly of writings about the soprano saxophonist/composer Steve Lacy, to which Johnston contributed a chapter entitled “The revolutionary conservatism of Steve Lacy’s Prospectus, they have continued to grow and develop since then.
You can read this chapter online, excerpted in Point of Departure magazine.
At that concert the group performed Lacy’s classic saxophone quartet suite ‘Saxophone Special’, and a number of other Lacy tunes arranged for saxophone quartet, and also a variety of other material, from originals by Johnston written during the pandemic, to a saxophone quartet arrangement of Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho theme.
From that time onward, the group has continued to perform around Sydney and its environs, and develop their repertoire, towards a planned recording. Venues have included both community events and clubs and concert venues such as Johnston Street Jazz, Katoomba’s Avalon Bar, the 2024 Power Up! festival in Sydney’s Inner West. A version of the repertoire was performed at the 2023 MONA FOMA festival, featuring 10 gigs in 10 days by top Tasmanian saxophonists (See Prospectus Sax Quartet at link above).
A short excerpt of the group performing an excerpt from Johnston’s ‘Snake Race’ on the street at the Inner West Pop Up Music Festival.
A short excerpt of the group performing an excerpt from Lacy’s ‘Snake Race’ on the street at the Inner West Pop Up Music Festival.