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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
 
#473 ·
The usual suspects-a couple truly amazing moments were when I heard Stan Getz for the first time playing Menina Moca off of his album with Laurindo Almeida when I was 10. Down the road a little, I heard the first few notes of Coltrane's "Spiritual." I had been listening to Trane for a while at that point, but those few notes stuck with me. And again with Charlie Parker-the beginning of Blues for Alice. Maybe the first time I realized I wanted to be a jazz musician for life. No one player really made me start sax, but they sure make me keep wanting to play something that amazing someday.
 
#474 ·
The first player I listened to when I started checking out jazz was Paul Desmond, then Stan Getz. Others that stood out for me at that early stage were Zoot Sims and then John Coltrane. A year or two later came Art Pepper.

So I'd say those are the players that made me want to play the sax.
 
#476 ·
Del Puschert. It was 1957, I was 13 years old and Del was playing with the "Van *****" - a fantastic R&B group out of Annapolis Maryland. During his long career Del had played alongside many top performers including the likes of Elvis Presley. When I told Del that I wanted start playing sax, he took the time to encouraged me to pursue it. After I had been playing a few years I came across the Van ***** playing a "teen' dance and Del graciously let me 'sit in' and play Lee Allen's "Walkin' With Mr. Lee" - my first public performance. In many ways it seems like yesterday ....
 
#480 ·
Was it all the sax playing in the background of those Adult movies as a fifteen year old ?? no perhaps not. I started playing trumpet aged 11 and although I liked baker street and Raphael's sax the killer song for me was a track I heard called "Will You" by Hazel O'Conner the song has just an amazing sax solo, that I just had to learn and play it. The saxophonist is Wesley Magoogan, who sadly quit playing after a DIY accident. I stil love playing this song today and it keeps being voted the south UK's love song of the year, and it's all down to that sax.
 
#481 ·
Karl Stromberg, a co-worker of my father and an amateur tenor player who I played a bunch of musicals with (on clarinet) when I was in high school. He had this lovely velvety rich tone, that I thought was really beautiful. Then later the sax lick in Steely Dan's "My Old School," which I think was Phil Woods.
 
#482 ·
Whew, yeah. If there was ever a rock band that really put some great sax solos out front, it was Steely Dan - great taste in session players.
 
#485 ·
Sakari Kukko of Piirpauke and Kingston Wall fame: (snake charmer soprano warning!)

Also Dana Colley of Morphine, and whoever played sax on any Tom Waits song.
 
#488 ·
None. I wanted to play sax because I had a toy one as a toddler. My parents got it for my 3rd birthday and I loved that thing. But I really did love their boots randolph records too and pretended to play along on my fake sax. Actually if any sax player inspired me at that age it would have been the one that played in the plastic ono band. I loved the beatles as a kid and used to listen to John Lennon Imagine over and over. I tried learning electric guitar first, but I had an awful teacher. con artist. i paid for that thing myself with paper route money, and the lessons, and that bastard would grab it and show off all the butt rock licks he knew the whole lesson, then send me home, then chastise me because i wasn't learning anything. couldn't make heads or tails of those alfred books by myself. what a bummer that was. but i went into 6th grade the next year and they were signing up kids for band and i thought of my toy sax and decided i would play sax. my mom was freshly divorced for the second time, on welfare, but somehow got the money together for a crappy old used bundy alto rental horn from a third rate shop in a bad part of town. i was last chair out of 19 alto players, worked my way up to 2nd, then switched to tenor, because the 1st chair alto had a bladder problem and smelled like pee really bad.
 
#489 ·
This story is priceless! Thanks for sharing and bringing a smile to my face. We had lots and lots of alto players also when I was in band many years ago. Probably the greatest player in my mind at the time I started playing in the 6th grade, was Boots Randolph. Then, just a few years later, after I'd learned more about jazz and some of the great jazz sax players, I scorned any thought of his music! All these years later (now I'm 53), I've listened to a couple of his songs for old times sake. He really was pretty good for what he did, it's just that he mostly played popular music of the time, and not jazz.
 
#494 ·
In 1943, I was loading trucks at a Fargo bottling works at 14 after school and earned enough to buy a $7 simple system clarinet. Playing sousaphone in the school band in Moorhead, I heard some school saxes including the late Del Hereid on alto and a bass sax player. Selling my homemade bike for $15, I bought a Buescher C tenor sax from the bike shop owner also for $15 and tried to play with friends. Lester, Bird, Trane, Pepper Adams, Lockjaw, Dex, G, and Sanborn were still far in the future. What fun!
 
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