Bill Clinton: the most influential saxophone player of all time?
Right, if you’re a member of our more jazz-inclined readership, please put your pitchforks, shotguns and Ornette Coleman box sets down and listen up. It’s time for an absolutely heartbreaking discussion about influence vs quality. The truth is that being the most influential example of anything has absolutely nothing to do with being the best. Taylor Swift inspired millions more to take up the guitar than Jimi Hendrix, and Harry Potter inspired millions more writers than Ulysses. Then you get to the saxophone.
When most people think of the saxophone…well, these days they’re probably thinking of Lisa Simpson, which is cool. In terms of real people, however, they’re almost certainly thinking of the 42nd President of the United States. Not Charlie Parker. Not John Coltrane. Not Clarence Clemons, but William Jefferson Clinton, whose skill with a sax arguably won him the presidency in 1992.
Now, obviously, that’s simplifying it a little. After eight years of Reagan and four years of Bush Sr, the times were due for a makeover. The combined might of third-party candidate Ross Perot splitting the GOP vote, Bush making a hypocrite of himself with the ‘No New Taxes’ blunder, and the unprecedented youth turnout for Clinton scored the Democrats a fairly major upset.
However, there is only one iconic image from that campaign. It’s one that has filtered through pop culture so thoroughly that it took the biggest political scandal of the entire 1990s to overshadow it. That of Slick Willie, clad in shades on The Arsenio Hall Show, honking through a fairly competent take on ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ to a standing ovation.
How did playing the saxophone make Bill Clinton appeal to the public?
After over a decade of the presidency being held by grandfatherly types, Reagan playing the kindly type, and Bush playing the stern and sensible, the 1990s saw a change afoot. The boomers had come of age, and Clinton, the handsome, pseudo-progressive Governor of Arkansas, was being sold as their platonic ideal. The rock ‘n’ roll dream with a haircut, a business suit and a job, but with his heart still in the right place.
On the surface, the saxophone stunt is the embodiment of this. However, this overshadows a crucial part of the context surrounding that interview. That episode of Arsenio aired in June 1992. The country was still reeling from the Los Angeles riots a few weeks prior, and Arsenio Hall, one of the pre-eminent voices of Black America of the time, put the then-presidential candidate to task over them.
Clinton spoke with empathy for those who felt disenfranchised by Rodney King’s murderers being found not guilty, announcing, “You’ve got millions of people in this country today that just don’t feel connected to the life they want to live”. While the saxophone stunt may have made headlines, it was this sentiment that won him voters.
If that’s still not enough and you want my head for calling him “the most influential saxophone player of all time”, then that’s fine, but think of it this way. At least he’s not Kenny G.
