Don Stevens is that rare musician who will never moan about not being taken seriously. But when you start a group called the Nuclear Whales Saxophone Orchestra, and your own instrument is a Monstro sax that dwarfs everyone this side of Shaquille O'Neal, what choice have you got?
"It's kind of unavoidable--we are a novelty," Stevens says. "But I like to laugh, and I think other people like to laugh, too."
The six-member orchestra, which plays tonight in Fullerton, has been keeping audiences laughing, or at least smiling, ever since Stevens started it 15 years ago in the Bay Area as a way to grab the public's attention without having to rise individually above the sea of talented saxophonists worldwide. The ensemble has since put out six albums, its latest, "Fathom This," a compilation of tracks from its previous five albums that carry such appropriately whimsical titles as "Gone Fission," "Thar She Blows" and "Isotopia."
The group's focal point since he bought it in 1989 is the King Kong of the sax family, a contrabass sax that stands 6 feet 8 inches and weighs 45 pounds--without its case. Its range extends 1those octaves lower than the vastly more common tenor sax.
"It is its own percussion section," Stevens says with a chuckle. "Some of the rods are so long you can sometimes hear them clacking away."
Sax historians report that only about 25 contrabasses were made, and fewer than 10 are still believed to exist, Stevens' included. In recent years, however, an Italian firm began producing contrabasses for the first time in nearly 70 years. They sell in the United States for a hefty $39,000.
Adolphe Sax, the 19th century French inventor of the saxophone, drew up blueprints for an even bigger, lower-blowing model--the sub-contrabass--but apparently never built one. New York City-based Charles Ponte Music Co. did create one in 1965. It stood close to 9 feet tall and required three men to work the keys.
Stevens later learned that the contrabass he bought from a man in Kentucky had been rescued in the '60s by construction workers when they came across it in the basement of a New Jersey building about to be demolished.
Although it is the contrabass that first catches many listeners' attention, Stevens says, it's the ensemble's music that holds it after the novelty has worn off.
All six members are accomplished instrumentalists schooled in jazz, classical and pop music, all of which they draw upon at Nuclear Whales shows. Most also play in other groups when they aren't appearing with Stevens.
