The Joy of Sax: Mirror in the Bathroom, The Beat

originally published: 11/27/13

If the birth of 70’s punk in England was all mosh pits, fights and spit, then the subsequent second wave ska revival it helped to inspire elevated these brawls to a whole new psychic scenery of steamy, gilded Turkish bathhouses. The integral role of The Sax in the genre, and this song, add just a hint of decadence and class to the punky scrappiness of the reborn genre.

A genre in whose message of racial unity spread to its instrumentation. Here, The Saxophone found itself on equal footing with other instruments for the first time outside an orchestra or big band. Having achieved such an elevated egalitarian state, did it rest on its laurels to become staid and bourgeoisie? No, dear reader, it did not. The Saxophone stayed true to its hardworking roots and conducts its business here like a good film director; working together with the rest of the talents at play to guide them into a more coherent and unified whole.

One where you can feel there’s action going somewhere, with an intimated strain of direness abound, but all of which is obscured by the misty directorial hand of the Saxophone. And like Hitchcock, The Sax knows that to suggest is far more powerful than it is to show in the clear light of day. And so it builds this world of song for you, and brings you into it with hints at its action and danger, and then withdraws quietly through a back exit as you’re enveloped.