The Soul of the Elephant | David Pope
A couple weeks ago, Facebook (and real-life) friend David Pope posted a video of him performing a live recording of one of his own solo tenor sax compositions, called Soul of the Elephant. He explained in a brief description that this piece told the story of an “circus elephant which went berserk and unfortunately had to be destroyed.” It was shared shortly after news of George Floyd’s death began sweeping the nation and seemed to be a reactionary lament to the frustration we all felt.
His performance online was raw in every meaning of the word. It was unbelievably moving and full of as much emotion as any music I’ve ever heard. It had mistakes, as a spur-of-the-moment project. It was something I rarely experience in music anymore: a real meditation or response to feelings felt now. It could not have been a more ephemeral experience.
Despite my resonance with this short piece, I have to admit it was also quite troubling. I was sitting down in my apartment experiencing one of the most moving musical performances of my life on the tiny screen of my cell phone. I’ve attended hundreds of concerts, recitals, and other performances; I’ve listened to Pulitzer Prize winning compositions and been apart of some magnificent performances myself; I’ve composed from the very depths of my own heart and mind, but here I was seeing that nearly everything I held important about truly masterful and meaningful music maybe didn’t matter. Every grand statement produced by professional musicians, every brilliant and crafty composition, every live performance I’d attended was trumped by a single human saying something intensely real.
And, for any budding composer, you can imagine the concurrent sense of dread that may follow: how can I ever hope to achieve anything like that in my own music? No wind band or string quartet or choir has ever moved me like that, and I certainly don’t think I’ll be the first to write something that can. The only comparable experiences I’ve had were live events that were similarly raw: improvisational, jazz-influenced and, I admit, saxophone-heavy. Am I just a sucker for saxophone?
This journey didn’t wrap up quite as tidy as I hoped it would; I never really came to any conclusion in my own thinking that made me feel better. The closest I’ve come is that the really foolish perspective would be that the barriers in front of me are insurmountable. Maybe pen and paper, standard-notated ensemble music isn’t the way I should go for what I want to create, or maybe I can be a part of a bigger shift toward making it something that can…
In any case, Professor Pope’s composition and the CD it came from (of the same name) turned out to be something that checks just about all of my boxes. The solo tracks feature some amazing multiphonics that, unlike so many other examples I’ve heard, finally don’t feel like novelty, but celebrating something about the saxophone seems "‘secretly beautiful,” and the combo tracks are as tight as anything I’ve heard at the Blue Note.
Go check it out. You can listen to the recording I referenced here.
