Liner Notes: Sax Dreams

"Amadee is for real. He is the closest thing I've heard to the great Lee Allen - Amadee is in the same class. He is one of the great players of all times. Everywhere he goes, he takes charge. I wouldn't think of going anyplace without him. When he first started with me, we went to Paris and all we would hear is 'Amadee! Amadee!'" This is no small statement coming from the lips of Dave Bartholomew, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and the man who almost single-handedly was responsible for an entire era of American popular music.

Then again, Amadee Castenell is no ordinary player. He is one of the premier tenor saxophonists and flautists to emerge from New Orleans' fertile musical soil. Moreover, he has a vision. "I see myself performing around the world. Not just for jazz buffs, but for average people too; people who listen to R&B stations. My music has a strong beat - people can dance to it. It's something that everyone wants to hear. I want to please the masses. I get off on seeing people enjoy my music."

Bartholomew reminisces: "I first heard him play a wedding reception with Chocolate Milk at St. Gabrielle Hall. They were all great players, that was a very good band. But with Amadee it was always a house full of joy - he would always make the people have even more fun than they were already having. He'll bring that out of a band. He'd make you stop your conversation or whatever you were doing so you could listen."

Allen Toussaint, another Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and musical legend, agrees with the assessment of Castenell's ability to project joy through his music. "Amadee and I have played music together for many years and we're still having a great time doing so. Amadee's personality comes through in his music. Live and let live comes through loud and clear and Amadee is quite alive! His music projects a positive energy with his own unique melodic structure. He also has the special endowment of having been born in New Orleans, and as a musician there's a special given that comes along with that. You'll feel it in the mix."

Castenell, who is an alumnus of St. Augustine High School (nationally recognized as a musician's school) and Dillard University, credits Toussaintfor giving him an education the schools couldn't. "He's such a perfectionist; he'll put you under pressure. You mess up, you get fired. Come pick up your check and you never get called again. The studio experience Allen gave me polished my playing - Allen gave me my Ph.D."

Aside from Toussaint, Castenell identifies his greatest inspiration as having come from Cannonball Adderly, Grover Washington, Jr. and The Crusaders' Wilton Felder. "They were more soulful. They didn't just play the notes right, but they felt what they were playing."

Amadee takes a similar approach to his own playing. "You're not thinking about some patterns. You play what you're thinking, play as if you were singing - hold it, bend it, scream with it as if you're a vocalist. This is my method of communicating with the audience. A lot of musicians will lose the audience because they take it outside and leave it out too long. Certain gigs become mental rather than emotional. Sometimes I'll play something and I'll get chills or start crying, it moves me so much." Castenell's soulful style has made him an in-demand session player, and his talents have been featured on recordings by such notable artists as Paul Simon, Dr. John, Lee Dorsey and the Neville Brothers.

"He's a man full of good music - that would be my definition of Amadee," says Bartholomew. "In other words, when you see him, you'd say that's a music dictionary. He is music - that's what he loves. I'm not just saying this, this is the way it is."

Sax Dreams is the second album on NYNO for Castenell, the first being the 1996 release Amadee. Of that album, Don "Moose" Jamison - veteran New Orleans musician and radio personality - relates: "I have played his first album a lot on my show and got a lot of calls on it. I was glad to see him put a second one out."

Jamison continues, "I like his style - I like his tone. A lot of cats have those imitation tones, but his is beautiful." Composer, arranger and bandleader Wardell Quezerque - often referred to as the Bach of the Bayou - agrees with Jamison's assessment of Amadee's instrumental voice. "He has a very unique tone that really sticks in my mind. Very few people know it, but he has a tone on the flute that's unbelievable."

In the end, it is Toussaint who expresses it best. "A tenor saxophone in and of itself is a beautiful instrument with its range and timbre being one of the closest musical instruments to the human voice. However, like other instruments a sax is just a sax until it comes into contact with the lips, the hands, the heart and the soul of devotion... the player. In this case, such a union is in fine supply along with extra-added attractions, being a breath and spirit of New Orleans, which in all equals Amadee! Check-it-out."

CD Tracks

1. Night Vision
   
2. I Wouldn't Mind
   
3. If I
   
4. Would You Be My Sweetie
   
5. Raggedy Funk
   
6. Catch Me
   
7. No Clue
   
8. Fish
   
9. Mojo Mama
   
10. Mumbo Gumbo
    

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