There’s nothing wrong with minimalist solos. Though some of the most celebrated players, regardless of genre, are acclaimed for exhibiting incredible technical skill during solos, this is not the only approach. A good solo can sound meandering or amateurish and end up capturing the heart of a song’s theme or mood. Really, a good solo can really be anything at all as long as it works to make the track it’s featured on stronger in some way.
With that in mind, please listen to an alternate recording of “The Jones Girl,” a 1956 tune from doo-wop group The Five Satins, that features one of the worst saxophone solos ever recorded.
Musician Gal Gracen tweeted out the relevant section, neatly summing it up as “absolutely the worst solo i have ever heard by any instrument.” This is hard to argue with. “The Jones Girl” is an otherwise good track and the sax starts off just fine, blasting a single, enthusiastic note for a few bars. As it continues, though, that same note is blown over and over and over again until it begins to feel like the sax player is reaching out across the decades to insert a drill into the listener’s ear. The only real variation comes from a few, hilariously strained notes toward the end where the repetitive rhythm also begins to break down and the player soon stops abruptly, allowing the rest of the band to come back in.