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what artist first made u wanna play the saxophone

135K views 560 replies 478 participants last post by  AddictedToSax 
#1 ·
what artist first made u wanna play the saxophone?

Ill be the first and truthfully say it was Kenny G, what can I say, I was 5 and he sounded kinda good and my family kept telling me that he was the best, I was young and impressionable

but now my tastes have tooooottallly changed..... trust me, no more of that no-talent a$$-clown for me

Doc
 
#2 ·
Oliver Nelson. I liked his use of quartal lines, or implied quartal harmony, in his solos.
 
#3 ·
I am going to sound very predictable here but....

Charlie Parker, first and foremost. Man, this guy just blew me away when I first heard his playing. What a talent he was.

Having then explored jazz in more depth I discovered John Coltrane (via Miles Davis) and switched to tenor almost immediately.

Could I be more predictable ? :? Ah well, I guess there is a reason why these two are giants of jazz, and are mentioned again and again and again. Not to everyone's taste of course - pretty much all of my friends hate Bird and Trane (I think the phrase "unlistenable, unintelligible nonsense" crops up a lot) - but they are just phillistines :roll:

Billy The Fish
 
#4 ·
Grover Washington Jr. was my earliest influence. In the world of jazz-pop and jazz-funk in the late 70's, nobody could build a solo like Grover. It was a slick approach that I could (at least begin to) emulate, and it's not like I could get a hold of any Parker or Coltrane recordings where I lived. And blissfully, Kenny G had never even been heard of back then ("those were the days...")

CultureOfOne
 
#5 ·
John Klemmer was the first solo artist I was aware of. I was also listening to a lot of the Don Ellis and Maynard Ferguson big bands. The first Coltrane I heard, I didn't care for. It took me years to develop a taste for his music - some I still don't like. I first heard Michael Brecker in the band White Elephant. I wish they had done more.
 
#6 ·
DocEash said:
what artist first made u wanna play the saxophone?

Ill be the first and truthfully say it was Kenny G, what can I say, I was 5 and he sounded kinda good and my family kept telling me that he was the best, I was young and impressionable

but now my tastes have tooooottallly changed..... trust me, no more of that no-talent a$$-clown for me
Sorry to hear you think that. Did you ever hear him play tenor with the Jeff Lorber Fusion Group? The stuff that he's become famous for is as much the fault of the buying public as anything. He has talent. What he records is a business decision.
 
#514 ·
Dr. G you are so right about this. We all love to bash Kenny G because he plays that pop crap that is geared to non musicians. I personally do not care to hear his music but he can play a saxophone. I used to bash his playing like most everyone else. But then a long time ago I was reading one of Bob Mintzer's blogs where he discussed going to a Kenny G concert. He said Kenny G was an amazing sax player even though he didn't care for the type of music he was playing. That made me re-think my Kenny G bashing even though I too truly do not care for his music. To say he has no talent is ridiculous.
 
#7 ·
For me it was David Sanborn. His sound and emotion just got me. I got to see him live last night in Kansas City and even though I have expanded my horizons of influence, he still just kills me. I have heard a lot of folks talk about his technical chops and the like compared to other greats but the one thing he can do is make me feel a certain way like no one else can.

It got me then and still gets me now.
 
#302 ·
Dave for me too. I started playing sax in the 6th grade (1976) and through the 9th grade. When I got to high school, I was not allowed to play in the "stage" band unless I marched as well (I was too cool for marching music). So, I quit playing in school and continued to listen to and play to David Sanborn albums. Dave's the man. He was my inspiration. I've seen him a few times - even while accompanied by the Charlotte (NC) Symphony. So versatile. He was once quoted as saying Hank Crawford was his inspiration. I saw Hank too and clearly Dave is a follower.
 
#10 ·
Like Billy above, Bird and Trane. What's funny is that I find Trane's straightup tone to be much brighter and edgier than Bird's. However Trane's solos sound to me like they're expressing anger and pent-up suffering, whereas Bird's solos are very joyous and almost reminiscent of sunshine 8)

Still, that's just my take. I liked they're respective styles. Trane has an odd sort of history that I liked. He moved from a very Hank Mobley type form to a very mathematical and calculated precision form of soloin. I never thought of him as a bopper, even on his obviously boppish stuff. Still, I prefer the days before he started going off on his totally new thing, much like I prefer Sonny Rollins' pre-bridge days.
 
#12 ·
This is a really good question~ i never thought of dat yet really.

but wat made me wanna play the sax after 6 years at the drums is pretty clear to me.

1. I couldnt play any MUSICAL instruments then. i love music in a musical sense but i could only do it with drums, the percussion way, thus i didnt really like dat even though i liked drums. i wanted to express myself in a musical way.

2. Then came the part where i wondered wat to play and i didnt wanna do contemporary instruments cos i felt they were overdone.

3. I cant play strings for nutz. dun ask why, i just cant play guitar for some reason.. so therefore my choices became more narrowed down.

4. i was looking for a challenge.

5. i looked at wind and because i love jazz, wat better instrument to pick up than the sax? plus i knew noone who played sax which sorta made me feel differentiated, so i wanted to be the best sax player among my peers~

but i guess the first player i've truly listened to has got to be Sanborn. And it was a gd first impression at a music store when i got to listen to Double Vision, the collaboration with Bob James and Al Jarreau and i was so blown away by the sound. Dat was the first Sanborn album i bought :)
right now, it's Nelson Rangell. I kinda dig bright sounds alot hehe~
 
#14 ·
The person who really inspired me remains unknown to me. I was cycling through France about 18 years ago and just before dusk on a beautiful summer's evening I arrived in Rennes. I pushed my bike into the main square and sat down to rest. As I was soaking up the atmosphere, along with a cool beer, the sound of an alto sax came wafting across the square from the open window of an apartment nearby. He/she didn't play any recognisable tunes, just a succession of chords and scales and improvisations, but the whole thing was just magical. It was another 4 years before I got my hands on saxophone........and it was a disaster! The sax was an old silver plated French tenor which was falling to bits and was so heavy I could hardly hold it. Even when it was cased, lifting it up would cause the case to distort and look about to burst. I swapped it for a clarinet. However, 3 years ago I diecided to have another go and bought a cheap alto. It isn't the greatest sax in the world, but I've made extremely good progress with it and shall upgrade when I can afford to.
Anyway, I just want to say "Thank you" to that anonymous French sax player who inspired me to take up a hobby which is now a way of life.
 
#16 ·
Trane.

The My Favorite Things album did it for me. I still have my original copy of it that I bought when my school library cleared it out in the seventies. His soprano sound still sticks in my head.

I was lucky; my school music library had Trane, Diz, Bird, Coleman...
 
#18 ·
Riff, that is hilarious but you're showing your age. I bet alot of these guys [if not most] are saying "Ricky who ? " Remember how you had to patiently wade thru the Ozzie and Harriet show just to get the 1 Ricky Nelson tune at the end? Ah yes...back when TV was free and you only got 3 channels.
 
#19 ·
Raphael Ravenscroft from his labours in Gerry Raferty's Baker Street… I must have been about 13 or so and everyone of my age group picks that as his or her all time favourite sax solo… Raphael has also written a not entirely bad book to learn the sax from so I guess he is by default going to be my all time single biggest influence…
[Edit]
http://www.redstone-tech.com/gerry/mp3/baker_street.mp3
Oooo Just listened to it for the first time again in years having written this post and been prompted to search for it on the web... Goose bumps down my arms and everything.... I'm inspired... now, where's me tenor.....
[Edit ends]
Funny thing is, that for some reason there is a bit of an urban legend here [UK based joke sorry folks] that say's it was Bob Holness of Blockbusters fame who was the solo artist on Baker Street so in a completely bizarre twist then, I guess it was him…."Can I have a 'P' Please Bob?" :roll:

[…and for the non UK based folks who don't get this, no, I'm not going to even attempt to explain it… find a Brit and ask them!]
http://www.ukgameshows.com/atoz/programmes/b/blockbusters/
 
#20 ·
Well initially it was just some guy whose name I don't remember since I only met him once. All through grammer school I played clarinet, then as a freshman in high school I was over at friend's trying to improvise on clarinet while he played the piano. This guy walked in with an alto sax, played a few phrases, and just blew my mind (this was the 60's). I don't really know if he was that good, but the sound of his sax was so much bigger than the clarinet, and so full of soul, that I was hooked. I got a Buescher TT alto about a week later and started playing. My first big name influence was Sonny Rollins after I saw him perform live, playing solo. At that time I was also heavily influenced by all the blues guitar players, like Albert King, BB, etc. Then of course, all the jazz greats, especially Charlie Parker. First time I heard King Curtis, it all came together.
 
#21 ·
I came into jazz(and sax)in a sorta backdoor/osmosis way; no one artist in particularly influencing a decision. My first introduction and love for the horn came about by listening to the Glen Miller Band(sax section), then May-nard Ferguson, Kenton and Basie. Frank Hittner solidified my love for bari. Then, I made a switch to tenor for financial reasons. But, I flipped over Trane and was eternally lost to finding my voice and doing an artistic thing.
 
#22 ·
The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz did it to me. :shock:

Mom got it for me one Christmas after she noticed I was compulsively playing her old Errol Garner records. I think she was trying to further wean me away from my punk rock ways. . . .and my loud loud electric guitar.

Sax-wise it was Don Byas doing "I Got Rythmn", Sonny Rollins' "Blue 7", and the Lennie Tristano numbers with Lee Konitz. But Bix Beiderbecke & Clifford Brown also killed me -- in fact, until I could actually afford a sax I taught myself a bunch of brass licks on a beat-up student cornet a friend gave to me. I still keep a trumpet around for kicks.
 
#23 · (Edited)
I played the clarinet in school bands from the age of 10 to 15. When I was 15 I heard the local college jazz ensemble play at my high school. The lead Alto player for the college was a guy who was 18 (just 3 years older than me at the time) and he just kicked holy you-know-what as far as I was concerned.

The guy's name was XXX XXXXX and he became a professional musician and has played all around the US over the last 30 years since I first heard him. Currently he is a college professor in Knasas City.

The very next Friday night after hearing this guy XXX play, I convinced my parents to take me to the local music store and they bought me an old silver plated Martin stencil Alto Sax for $ 65.00. (I still have it by the way)

So I began to play Sax instead of 'The Agony Stick'.

The next well known professional Sax player that I heard (my uncle gave me a copy of the record album 'Saxophone Colossus for my birthday) was Sonny Rollins. So again, I convinced my parents to buy me another horn...a 'The Martin' Tenor...so I had both an Alto and a Tenor then.

But...my first inspiration to switch to play Sax was...a local guy...XXX XXXXX.

My first inspiration to try Tenor was...Sonny Rollins.

PS. I became friends with XXX after a few years and I am still friends with him to this day. (though he ECLIPSED me in musical ability long ago)

I heard Sonny Rollins play live back in 1977 and I have an autograph that he signed for me that I cherish to this day.
 
#24 ·
The musician who gave me inspiration to pick up the sax was a drum teacher, who after 3 lessons, suggested I learn another horn....since my wrists were loaded with cement.( I had already played the trombone for a couple of years). The sax players who gave me the inspiration to not set it back down were: Lockjaw Davis, King Curtis, and Mr. T. They still keep me motivated
 
#26 ·
Like riff (above), I first aspired to play guitar from watching Gene Autrey. The sax player that influenced me was my Dad. Though he had given up professional playing in favor of selling furniture to pay the bills, on a whim, he would pull out his sax or clarinet and walk around the house or his store playing cool sounding transition licks from the Tommy Dorsey era. Frankly, I never much cared for his alto playing, but he had something special with baritone and clarinet.

I actually dug very few sax players. In the 60's guys like Plas Johnson (Pink Panther), Paul Desmond, Bud Shank, Marshall Royal (Basie), and Jay Corre (Buddy Rich) were the guys I listened to the most.

Around 1980 or so, David Sanborn showed me the sound and style I love on alto. Just over a year ago I switched to tenor. My fav tenor guys are Kirk Whalum and Ernie Watts.
 
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