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David Sanborn sax solo

13K views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  wesbrow 
#1 ·
I'm looking for the alto sax solo that Sanborn did for the Eagles song, "Sad Cafe". Can anyone help?
 
#2 ·
Hi eric, welcome back to sax land. I just had a listen to that solo and it seems to be a pretty simple set of variations on the sung melody. The song is in B (concert). That makes the high note near the end an Ab, which seems to be the most difficult part of playing the solo as it's held for quite a while with a lot of power and without wavering.

I'll have another looksee later tonight and see what I can dig out for you.
 
#3 ·
Is this from Sandborn´s Brilhart Levelaire periode?
 
#5 ·
Hey AltoLemur good work on the transcription. This is the song, well the solo actualy that made me want to play the sax many years ago when I was a young guy in the 80's.

How did it sound when you played it ? I will take it along to my lessons and get my teacher to play and teach me this. Bit of a bugger with all those high notes though ! doubt I will be able to get them.

Thanks for going to the trouble of doing this
 
#7 ·
I took the notes from the version on my best of Eagles double album.

The way I go through this, as I'm only learning how to transcribe for notation myself, is to listen to the song, work out all the notes on my guitar and then just plonk them all into Noteworth Composer a crotchets. Then I start the process of getting the timings right.

I'm currently having fun doing this for the Dire Straits sax solo at the end of Romeo and Juliet for another thread. I have 95% of the notes in. It's just doing my head in trying to make the playback in Noteworthy composer match the played version. I put a click track and sample bass line in to make the tracking of the rhythm easier.

BTW Tonyh, I can't play it on the sax yet either :D
 
#9 ·
You're welcome. I feel I'm more likely to put the effort in if

1: the poster not asking for stuff that is widely avalable in Real Books etc;
2: they've had a go at it themselves and got stuck at a point. I know there are people who say they've had a go just to make it look like they're not lazy scroungers, but lazy scroungers usually give themselves away; or
3: the song or version in question is interesting to me (I never clamied to be a saint ;)).
 
#10 ·
Hey everyone. I know this is an old thread but I am hoping you guys are all still around.

Like Tonyh, I too decided to play sax after hearing Sanborn's work on this song. He is still my favorite to this day. Also Grover. My main instrument is guitar, but I LOVE that sax. I only wish I could play better!

Now, I am not a pro. I am still only learning but I am to the point where I think David pulled his mouthpiece out and played this solo in A, not Bb. I believe he simply lipped it into key. He definitely is good enough to do this.

I know I am reaching on this one and I am not saying this is what he did. However, it does make much more sense to play it like this instead of Bb. Do pros do things like this? Is it a trick they can use like you would do on a guitar? I don't see it as out of possibility.

For a long time I though The Eagles played the song in concert C and slowed the tape to make Henley's voice sound bigger. This was a common trick in the 70's. Then Sanborn could have easily done this in Alto A. However, I did find a file of him playing the song with them live and it is definitely in B. This has led me to the theory of him pulling out his mouthpiece 1/2 step. http://lookingforlyrics.org/catalog/The Eagles with David Sanborn-The Sad Cafe Live Los Angeles/

What do you guys think of this theory?
 
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