January 4, 2018
HOW YA GONNA KEEP 'EM DOWN ON THE FARM...:
China's 'Saxophone Capital,' a Factory Town Transfixed by Kenny G (JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ, JAN. 3, 2018, NY Times)
SIDANGKOU, China -- By day, the factory workers pound sheets of brass into cylinders and slather metal buttons with glue. By night, they take their creations to the street and begin to play.The soothing melodies flow through cornfields, street markets and public squares. They interweave with the shouts of street vendors hawking tofu and men playing mah-jongg.This is the music of Sidangkou, a northern Chinese village of 4,000, where one sound rules above all else: the saxophone.Farmers take the instrument into fields to belt out patriotic tunes against the sunset. Children play in all-saxophone bands at school. Shopkeepers set their ringtones to the wistful songs of Kenny G.The saxophone has never had a large following in China, in part because it was long associated with jazz, individuality and free expression. After the Communist revolution of 1949, officials denounced the instrument for producing the "decadent music of capitalists."
But here in this town, the saxophone is king.Sidangkou, which calls itself China's "saxophone capital," produces about 10,000 saxophones per month at more than 70 factories, according to Chinese news media. The village exports nearly 90 percent of them, primarily to the United States, where they are sold for more than $100 each."It's vibrant and delightful," said Wang Yuchun, the president of one of the largest producers, Tianjin Shengdi Musical Instrument Co. "It's part of our lives now."For more than a century, the region around Sidangkou has been a hub of musical instrument manufacturing, including traditional Chinese instruments like the sheng, a reed pipe, and the di, a bamboo flute. Factories in the region now produce thousands of oboes, trumpets and tubas each year.Yet nothing seems to have captured the imagination of people here like the saxophone.
....once they've heard Kenny G.
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 4, 2018 5:24 AM