Sax on the Web Forum banner

Best blues saxophonist?

57K views 147 replies 36 participants last post by  BH9 
#1 ·
Well, there seem to be a number of "best ________ saxophonists" but not one dedicated to this topic. I have a long history of playing blues harmonica and guitar before I picked up the sax. Who do you guys think rate?
 
#4 ·
Thanks Saxpiece. I am thinking straight blues. An awful lot of guys seems to get sucked into jazz (maybe understandably) pretty quickly.
I know several sax players who don't know the difference... at least in their playing....
Unfortunately, I don't think I could name a pure blues sax player. Everyone I can think of is either a rock or jazz player that also plays blues.
 
#5 ·
The separation between jazz & blues (REAL blues) is a falsity. They go hand in hand. The blues is the foundation of jazz. Charlie Parker, who no one would dispute was one of the best and most innovative jazz musicians of all time, was a GREAT bluesman, through and through. His music was drenched in the blues.

Every great jazz saxophonist could and did play the blues. To name a few: Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Jimmy Forest, Hank Mobley, Arnett Cobb, all of them. Whenever you hear a young modern player who sounds mechanical and leaves you cold, it's probably because he never came to grips with the blues. And when I say the blues, I mean the pure, gritty, in the gutter, true blues.

Then there were the jump blues guys like Red Prysock. And King Curtis came out of that school.

I could name dozens and dozens, but a search on here will reveal several threads on this very topic.

Having said all that, yeah, in a down home blues setting you don't want to play a lot of outside, abstract things. But the better jazz musicians would know better than to do that in such a setting.

There is no best blues saxophonist.

Pete Thomas has a long list of "R&B" sax players playing the blues, with clips. It's on his website:

http://tamingthesaxophone.com/blues-saxophone
 
#7 ·
I think the OP means more like a Harmonica playing blues, which is as far as I'm concerned pretty straight ahead like stuff on Stones songs and other Blues tunes for example.

There are all different types of Blues and regional differences as well and I don't think that Charlie Parker ever played a Robert Johnson type of Blues, that I've heard anyway.

I associate Charlie with more of a Jazz style Blues.

I don't even know if Charlie listened to Blues singer/guitarists at all.

The R&B Sax players from the 50s are of course playing some sort of Blues and so is Parker, but to define the styles of Blues playing is hard to do exactly as there can be crossovers between them etc etc, especially as time goes by.

To me, the Blues went one way and stayed pretty simple and Jazz went another way and Jazz contains the Blues but it also contains other things besides the Blues IMO, whereas the Blues is and has remained pretty basic.

Most of those basic Blues players were guitarists who only knew basic stuff and they played around with different tunings and slide and the guitar was probably the instrument of choice when someone is singing and moving from town to town, maybe also the banjo but it's a bit like a harpsichord in being maybe too distinct and more suitable for certain niche things.

Also the harmonica was an instrument used in Blues.

Jazz has different instruments in general.

Guitars and harmonicas are replaced with band instruments and piano's but it's not always strictly like that but there are not many Jazz harmonica players around and no one would say that the harmonica was one of the dominate instruments in Jazz.

Jazz on the other hand, had more variety in the harmony etc but there is still the Blues there but it's often a component, but not always as some early Jazz can be very Blues.

Someone could say there is Blues in Ragtime and there is also Blues in Country.

Someone could say that Parker and Leadbelly are both playing the Blues, but they sound very different.

Anyway that's my general impression, and others have their take on it.

Getting back to Sanborn and Paul Butterfield, Paul Butterfield played the harp (harmonica) and covered a fair bit of straight ahead Blues (and variations) and it was probably a bit unusual to include Sanborn but Sanborn fitted in pretty well as he was playing with Blues players early on when he was in his teens but Butterfield used other horn players as well.
 
#8 ·
You can find the current crop for yourself; but from a previous generation the following are worth chasing up:

On tenor: Have a listen to Chicagoans Eddie Shaw, A.C. Reed and J.T. Brown (who came originally from Louisiana); or the great Louisiana tenor man, John Hart (you'll find him on recordings by Clifton Chenier and Rockin' Dopsie); from New Orleans you have Herb Hardesty and Lee Allen (both with the Fats Domino Band), Emanuel Paul (with the Kid Thomas Valentine Band); from Texas you have the great Arnett Cobb and the even greater Illinois Jacquet (though Louisiana claims him, too), and also Jesse Powell; from the West Coast you have Red Prysock, Sil Austin and Maxwell Davis.

On alto: there arent so many bluesmen to choose from, but don't miss Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Louis Jordan and Earl Bostic, as well as the man who influenced Jordan and Bostic, New Orleanian Captain John Handy (not to be confused with his modern jazz altoist namesake).

That's a start. And the best of them ? It depends which day of the week it is.
 
#10 ·
You can find the current crop for yourself; but from a previous generation the following are worth chasing up:

On tenor: Have a listen to Chicagoans Eddie Shaw, A.C. Reed and J.T. Brown (who came originally from Louisiana); or the great Louisiana tenor man, John Hart (you'll find him on recordings by Clifton Chenier and Rockin' Dopsie); from New Orleans you have Herb Hardesty and Lee Allen (both with the Fats Domino Band), Emanuel Paul (with the Kid Thomas Valentine Band); from Texas you have the great Arnett Cobb and the even greater Illinois Jacquet (though Louisiana claims him, too), and also Jesse Powell; from the West Coast you have Red Prysock, Sil Austin and Maxwell Davis.

On alto: there arent so many bluesmen to choose from, but don't miss Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Louis Jordan and Earl Bostic, as well as the man who influenced Jordan and Bostic, New Orleanian Captain John Handy (not to be confused with his modern jazz altoist namesake).

That's a start. And the best of them ? It depends which day of the week it is.
Great post. Let's add the late great Maurice Reedus Sr, longtime sax player with Robt. Jr. Lockwood. An absolute classic blues tenor player!

 
#16 ·
There is one guy that comes to mind.

Hank Crawford. This is the guy David Sanborn got it from and he is more of a strictly blues player than anyone I can think of.

Sure he played other genres occasionally as most blues players, but listen to Hank play the blues and tell me he's not one of the greatest ever in that genre.
 
#20 ·
I've heard loads of players playing in some sort of Blues style.

What I'm saying is that in a period like the 1930s, Blues and Jazz were not exactly the same.

Robert Johnson was not a Jazz dude like Louis Armstrong and Louis Armstrong was not a Blues dude like Robert Johnson.

What they both had in common was that they both had Blues elements in their playing/style but Johnson didn't have that much of a Jazz element in his playing/style and that is the big difference and the Blues as a lot of people would recognise it would be more of a Robert Johnson thing then a Louis Armstrong thing.

Johnson would have heard Jazz and Country, just like anyone around at the time could, but Johnson is not a Jazz dude or a Country dude even though he might have a few of those elements in his playing/style, so what is he then except mainly a Blues dude.

If someone reads a history of Jazz, then Robert Johnson probably only gets a passing mention if mentioned at all and Lois Armstrong will get a substantial mention but if some reads a history of the Blues then Robert Johnson will get a substantial mention and Louis Armstrong might get a passing mention.

I'm not saying that Blues elements don't exist in Jazz but I am saying that certain Jazz elements don't exist too much in basic Blues IMO anyway.
 
#21 ·
I'm not saying that Blues elements don't exist in Jazz but I am saying that certain Jazz elements don't exist too much in basic Blues IMO anyway.
Fair enough. I will admit I hear a bigger difference between blues guitarists and jazz guitarists than I do between sax players in both genres. But there's still considerable overlap with the guitarists. I actually prefer the blues guitarists to the "pure" jazz guitarists. But the best are the ones who combine the two; guys like Duke Robillard, Ivan 'Boogaloo' Joe Jones, and the forementioned Kenny Burrell.

But the OP was asking about sax players and I really don't see a clear division between the blues & jazz sax players.
 
#25 ·
I dunno, guys. I seriously would rather play blues in E, G, A than Ab, Eb, or Db. I guess it's because I've been around guitar players for so long. E is a GREAT key for tenor.
 
#26 ·
I agree E is a great tenor key. But so is Ab (Bb on the tenor). I love playing blues in that key (ex. Night Train). Also F (Honky Tonk) is one of my favorites. G & A are good too. C is cool, lots of blues in that key. Bb, B, & D aren't bad either. I guess the only keys I'm not crazy about because I rarely play any tunes in them are Eb, Db, & F#. I'm talking concert keys.

Sorry, I guess we're getting a bit off-topic here. Bringing it back on topic (maybe), I'd say if the OP is interested in playing blues sax, be ready to play in all the keys (yeah, E and A, like MMM says).
 
#29 ·
I like playing blues in (concert) G because lots of things are kind of in the left hand on tenor, so I can play the keyboard at the same time with my right hand. C is nice too (D on tenor) because you can do fast runs up and down the length of the horn from octave to octave and not go through the break. The one key I have momentary trouble with is Bb (C on the tenor) because blues and rock players almost never play there, but then you get someone who thinks he knows that horn players like Bb so he calls a blues in that key. That happened a couple of nights ago at a jam. Sure, I'm on the pentatonic notes right away but it took me a chorus or 2 to get my fingers on all the other notes that I like to play. But a blues in A – I can play every note on the horn somewhere in that blues ... and do it in my sleep.
 
#41 ·
Great classic clip there: Dr. John, Levon Helm, Paul Butterfield, and a white crayon! :)
 
#39 ·
Back to the topic, the epitome of THE blues saxophonist for me is King Curtis. Very close, a tiny bit more kitsch, Sam Butera. Then, of course, the whole lineage of Texas Tenors: Jacquet & Cobb to start with, and all their descendants, including Houston Person, Lockjaw, David Newman, Plas Johnson, Stanley Turrentine. Most of them are actually considered jazz musicians, but they have a strong bluesy influence in their playing.
Speaking of alto: Eddie Vinson, Hank Crawford, David Sanborn come to my mind.
And let's not forget our member Pete Thomas. His latest CDs allow no doubt. His playing on whatever pitched horn is very bluesy.
 
#44 ·
Been busy with work, and recording! I really appreciate everyone's input. This topic has put me onto some great recordings! I live in Virginia and have played Piedmont style blues for quite a while. It is really simple music and the challenge becomes keeping it interesting. With the harmonica, there are only so many notes available and I have frequently resorted to timing changes to make songs different and interesting. A lot of the lyrics float from song to song and they can really start to sound the same after a while. The water is much deeper with the sax. I am currently working on a project to take a gospel choir to Normandy France for a short tour next summer. We have tour dates and locations and we are doing some recording this weekend to assist with this trip. It is so interesting to hear the same musical devices in the gospel music, in the blues and in jazz. We will be doing old gospel songs as well as more contemporary stuff but there is a similar feel and sound that ties the music together.

I have heard some students of music from Europe comment on the difference between folk music in Europe and folk music in the US. Folk music in Germany, France and Italy seems to have a common sound. Folk music from the US is distinctly different. I have always thought that difference was to a large extent from Africa, whether we call it Gospel, Blues or Jazz.

Thanks for all the posts. You guys should write a book. Where else could someone go, ask a rather obscure questions like this, and get so many informed answers.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top