Saxophonist interested in more than music

Tiffany Brown

Local saxophonist Phil Wigfall, who plays with the Nevada Jazz Orchestra, the Fat City Horns and Bette Midler’s band, is also an aspiring author. He’s written a novel set on Mars 2,500 years in the future, and his CD due for release this summer includes a Wigfall-written sci-fi story that takes place in Vegas in 2031.

By Kristen Peterson (contact)

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 | 2 a.m.

A weekly snapshot of creative people living in the Las Vegas Valley.

Name: Phil Wigfall, saxophonist

Age: 45

Education: UNLV; Berklee College of Music

Family: He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters.

Gigs: Santa Fe and the Fat City Horns, “Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On,” Nevada Jazz Orchestra

Starting out: Wigfall grew up on Nellis Air Force Base in a home filled with music — Motown, Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck and the like. His dad listened to the blues. His mom favored jazz. They both loved R&B. Wigfall zeroed in on the saxophone, first enamored of its beauty, then taken in by its sound.

When his father was stationed in Korea, Wigfall wrote to him every week telling him that he wanted a saxophone. “I begged and pleaded and begged them to death to get me one,” he says.

That his dad was a huge Louis Jordan fan helped. Two months after his dad returned from Korea, Wigfall had his sax — though he was too young and too small to reach all of the keys.

At 16 he knew he wanted to play professionally. While at UNLV he absorbed as much ensemble experience as he could. Eventually he left for the more musically aggressive Berklee College of Music in Boston.

The jazz snob years: Wigfall arrived at Berklee as a self-described “jazz snob,” a purist devoted to bebop. Watching Miles Davis perform electric jazz funk in concert changed that. Mostly it was Davis’ saxophonist that night, Kenny Garrett, who inspired Wigfall to expand musically.

Working Vegas: Plans to move to New York as a bebop artist fell through when Wigfall realized he didn’t like the East Coast. He returned to Vegas, playing mostly Top 40 stuff on the lounge circuit, followed by an eight-year stint with Sheena Easton’s band. Clint Holmes’ show and “Madhattan,” a New York-New York production show, were other stops. He also plays with the Nevada Jazz Orchestra.

Music in Vegas: “The music scene in Las Vegas is dying. Casinos are closing more lounges and going for the ultralounges. There are less bands to go see. We’re all feeling it. Every casino had a lounge. We used to lounge hop. You’d go sit in and play with them. You can’t really do that anymore.

“From a business sense I can understand why, but there’s nothing like a live band.”

Sante Fe and the Fat City Horns: This tight horn band packs them in week after week. The popularity surprised Wigfall: “I didn’t even know there was a crowd for that anymore. We’re basically from Tower of Power style, which was ’70s. It’s great stuff to play.”

New CD: A fan of electronica — Boards of Canada, Squarepusher, The Bays — Wigfall is releasing a CD this summer that is all electronica, or as he says, “straight-ahead jazz brought into the 21st century, only a little darker.”

The CD is inspired by Wigfall’s love of science fiction. It is accompanied by an elaborate dark story he wrote. It is set in Las Vegas in 2031, and a war has obliterated coastal cities and 20 million people live here.

“I had to try to find a way to put my love of sci-fi into my music in any way or form. A lot of music comes from literature.”

It’s not just sci-fi. Wigfall’s previous CD, “Cosmic Soul,” was inspired by John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” — one of Wigfall’s favorite books.

Other interests: Science fiction literature and movies, gardening with his wife, writing. Wigfall’s unpublished novel, “A Sol in the Life of Otto Fink,” takes place on Mars 2,500 years in the future.

Sticking around? “As far as I know. We do have aspirations of being somewhere more green. We like the Pacific Northwest.”