Notes From The Battlefield: 10 years of Baritone Army by Stefan Zeniuk
2008 seems like a lifetime ago. Eight years of the Bush administration were winding down, the economy was crashing, the country was embroiled in wars it didn’t know how to end, Obama was harnessing a lost sense of hope and idealism while the entire world was in the first stages of embracing smartphones and social media as their overlords. Enter Baritone Army, a group, to use the term loosely, that was comprised of a bunch of baritone saxophonists, playing anywhere and everywhere, and confronting the general public with loud, low sounds.
Full disclosure: I am in the Baritone Army.
Lying somewhere between the disruptive shock-art of The Living Theater and the anarchic humor of The Marx Brothers, the group’s numbers hover between 50 and 200 New York City baritone saxophonists. The musicianship varies from some of the city’s luminary professionals to amateurs and even non-players — but that is part of the aesthetic. Music, connections, and audience transformations can happen in the most unexpected places from the most unexpected sounds. The group wanders (or storms) into laundromats, CVSs, restaurants, and once they even followed a couple in through their front door, down a hallway, and into their home. One of the earliest mantras was a reference to the phrase, “Where does an elephant sit?” Answer: “Anywhere it wants.”
For several years, it existed with no stated political, social, or commercial doctrine. A group that had no agenda besides being fully in the moment; immediacy and direct connection, combined with the lack of a definable melody or rhythm, was a way to accept the power and joy of pure sound and vibrations. People would make fun of it, calling it “too loud”, “annoying”, saying “Where’s the melody?”, “Where’s the beat?”, “What’s the point?” But once surrounded by five or six baritone saxophonists, everyone knew exactly what the point was.
Yet the social, political, and commercial doctrines were there, and subtly (though not quietly) implied. We treated our attacks as if we were an alien army, sent from a foreign planet to confuse people, shocking them into an alternate plane. We didn’t speak, to each other or the public, but instead barraged them with foreign sounding strange sounds, like something between a traffic jam of car horns and rolling thunder in the distance. Hearing and experiencing this, while in isle 4 of a Duane Reade, is a truly arresting, and powerful, feeling.
Baritone Army seemed to reject any form of social definition, besides some vague idea of “performance art” or “flash mob.” There was no clear idea of how to make it more than just what it was, besides posting some videos to Youtube. Yet through that process, the “word” grew. Events have included marching in the NYC Halloween Parade, appearances at the Socrates Sculpture Park, a few jazz festivals (for one of which we were written about in the New York Times, mistakenly thinking we were actually part of the festival), countless laundromats and pizza spots, and even a few hotel lobbies. Other appearances include several low-budget films, and the creation of our own parody videos, “The Honking Dead” (recreations of The Walking Dead, but with noisy baritone saxophones instead of zombies).
In 2014, to celebrate the 200th birthday of Adolphe Sax, we created a “festival” — seven days of events, that included playing for the sunrise, at 6am, in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, and culminating in performing La Brabançonne, the Belgian national anthem, in front of the Belgian consulate. Through this event, and the steady strange awareness of our missions, we connected with groups of like-minded baritone saxophonists that adopted our events, adding their own style. There are now satellite Armies in Austin, Texas, (led by Joseph Woullard), Vilnius, Lithuania, (led by Dovydas Stalmokas), and Bristol, England, (led by Craig Crofton), and unbeknownst to me, a group even assembled at Truman State University, Missouri (led by Shelley Washington). The Austin, Texas chapter, known as Bariachi, and the Vilnius chapter, known as The Baritone Army of Lithuania, are quite active on their own now, doing several events per year.
After the strange, dystopian confusion of the 2016 election, it felt like for a moment, the use of humor and sound were no match for today’s politics. The impending potentiality of an authoritarian rule made Baritone Army seem powerless like maybe it really was pointless. Or at least, completely ineffective. But, much like the human spirit, the group continues to rise again, never able to fully stay quiet, and it just completed a series of events in November. And, to my surprise, its message and mission seem just as relevant now as they were 10 years ago. In a time when physical brick-and-mortar venues are closing down, and the social importance of revolutionary arts seems to be dwarfed by the world’s online presence, the existence (and surprising continuation and growth) of the Army is a cause for celebration.
Look for the Baritone Army confronting SantaCon this month. For more information, there is no website. But you can see more on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, via “/baritonearmy”.
And, as the group’s tagline states, “In Low Notes We Trust.”
Stefan Zeniuk is a Brooklyn-based musician, writer, DJ, and animator. You can reach him at szeniuk@gmail.com
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