Benjamin Taylor Music Epic Bacon Funk - Taylor - Alto Saxophone/Concert Band - Gr. 3

Composer: Benjamin Dean Taylor
Format: Score and Parts
Instrumentation: Solo Alto Saxophone and Concert Band
Level: 3

As an American people, perhaps nothing unifies us more than our shared love of bacon. Our culture is epically obsessed with it! In fact, the average American eats 18 pounds of bacon per year. It fascinates me that bacon has progressed from being an occasional addition to scrambled eggs or burgers or salads or a BLT to now being found everywhere! Bacon donuts, bacon potato chips, bacon ice cream, chocolate covered bacon, even bacon flavoured soda. Oreos has a bacon cream filling flavour and you can even find bacon flavoured toothpaste and dental floss. The solo alto saxophone in this work is like the bacon - sometimes smooth and greasy, and other times crisp and crunchy - always asserting itself on top of whatever entree the ensemble is dishing up. I love bacon and yet I feel a tinge of guilt every time I eat it. We all know it isn't healthy for us! And so epic bacon funk enthusiastically celebrates and humorously questions America's love of bacon.

(Sound Sample: Samuel Fritz, solo alto and director, Center Grove Middle School)