By Ande Jacobson
Over the years, I’ve written several articles promoting the annual holiday tradition – San Jose’s Saxophone Christmas (or SaXmas for short). Saxophone Christmas is the brainchild of founder Ray Bernd, a man who is a walking saxophone encyclopedia and strives to bring saxophonists together to share their love of this unique and often misunderstood family of instruments. While not exactly a flash mob in the traditional sense, SaXmas is a one day festival of holiday music to brighten the season. The players gather in the morning to renew old friendships and spend a couple of hours together playing through a set of holiday tunes, most of which are arranged for this momentous ensemble by Ray himself. After a short break, the group then plays two free concerts in the local area that afternoon. Ray always tries to schedule the earlier concert at an outdoor venue, and the second concert at an indoor location. That way even if the weather doesn’t cooperate, there will be at least one concert, and with any luck, two. The San Jose SaXmas is always on the third Saturday of December. This year that puts the 29th annual event on 16 December 2023. The San Jose SaXmas concerts will take place as follows:
- San Jose’s Christmas in the Park from 2-3pm, weather permitting
- Eastridge Mall from 5-6pm no matter the weather
For those in the Sacramento area, there’s a SaXmas for you as well! The 11th annual Sacramento SaXmas concerts (both inside) will take place on 2 December 2023 as follows:
- KP International Market – Rancho Cordova (inside the market – by the food court) 2-3pm
- Sunrise Mall – (inside mall – near entrance of Macy’s south) 5-6pm
So what exactly does SaXmas look like?
Here’s a video of Ray introducing the various saxophones being played at the 2019 event:
As Ray mentions in the above video, they had lots of different kinds of saxes in 2019 as they do every year. The various saxes that you’ll often see there are:
- Soprillo (smallest commercially made saxophone, so small that the octave key opens on the bottom of the mouthpiece)
- Sopranino
- Soprano (curved sopranos that look like miniature alto saxes that were put in the dryer and shrunk and straight sopranos that look a little like metal clarinets)
- Saxello (a soprano sax trying to be both curved and straight at the same time)
- Alto
- C Melody
- Tenor
- Baritone (Bari)
- Bass
- Sarrusophone (essentially a metal bassoon with sax fingerings that can be played with a soprano sax mouthpiece originally used for military bands because bassoons don’t do well in severe weather)
- Contrabass
- Tubax (sort of a paperclip version of a Contrabass)
Players from near and far come together for this one day event and like the instruments, they range in size and age. They also range in playing expertise, and that’s one of the great things about SaXmas. Students who have only been playing their instruments for a couple of years get to play with professional musicians and everyone in between. Any player of any ability is welcome to sign-up for the event on the SaXmas website. Just click the “Register” link for the event of your choice.
There is a small, $30 registration fee to cover the cost of the t-shirt and the music (which you get to keep). The deadlines for preregistration are:
- San Jose: 4 December 2023 for the event on 16 December 2023
- Sacramento: 21 November 2023 for the event on 2 December 2023
They often take walk-ups at the morning rehearsal for each event, but there is no guarantee that there will be music or a t-shirt for you at that time if you have not pre-registered.
If you are a little rusty and have to leave out a few notes, fear not. It’s guaranteed that somebody else in your section will be playing them.
Here’s a video of one of my favorite pieces from SaXmas – Dance of the Sugar Plum Saxes. As Ray points out, this is how Tchaikovsky originally intended the piece to be played!
And one more – a remix of The Carol of the Bells made famous by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra that always gives me chills in the best possible way. This was Christmas Eve – Sarajevo 12/24. If you look carefully toward the back of the ensemble, you can see that some of the bari players add choreography to their playing.
I first started playing San Jose’s SaXmas in their single digit years and played my last SaXmas in 2019, the 26th annual event. In 2019, they had 228 players, which may have been the largest SaXmas ever. In the last several years before the pandemic, we normally had over 200 players, and Ray loved having the biggest ensemble he could muster. It made for a rich sound that fully engulfed the venue.
For the first time since its inception, there was no SaXmas in 2020 due to the pandemic.
In 2021, the rehearsal venue capacity was limited due to COVID-19 restrictions that were still in place. That year they cutoff registrations once they hit their rehearsal space limit of 150 in San Jose, and all participants had to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination at check-in. In 2022, they increased those limits.
Now for 2023, there are no venue restrictions, and Ray is hoping to return to their pre-pandemic numbers. This year, there are also no restrictions related to COVID-19 vaccination status though players are welcome (but not required) to mask up when they are not playing.
I’m still crowd averse due to personal health risks in our COVID-19 endemic world, but for those able to get out and about, SaXmas is a good time. As a player, you get to meet and make music with a lot of interesting people all sharing a love of saxophones and holiday fare. As an audience member, you get to enjoy a spirited concert to put you in a festive holiday mood.
If you just like to get out and help, you can even volunteer at the rehearsal. SaXmas is volunteer-powered, and people are needed to help set up the rehearsal space, sign players in, hand out music and t-shirts, and so forth. If you are interested in volunteering, take a look at the SaXmas website, and contact Ray Bernd to let him know that you want to help.
As I’ve written before, I had a friend who played with the San Francisco Symphony who came to San Jose’s SaXmas for many years. He looked forward to hearing what he called the “saxophone orchestra.” Pretty much every instrumental ensemble was an orchestra to him, and despite playing numerous holiday concerts every year, he said that the season really didn’t start until he got his SaXmas fix. Make this the year you start your SaXmas tradition!
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