Personal Greats

Nick Wyver

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Dunno if we've done this yet. If we have it must have been more than, oh at least a week ago, or I might have remembered it.
Anyway.
Just out of curiosity (nosiness).
List your favourite players. That is, really your favourites. Not a list of all the greats in the last 100 years. Who would you pay money to go and see (if they were alive)? Who gets most hits on your vast collection of mp3s or vinyl (if you can't let go of the past)? And I don't want a list of the ones you think you ought to like cos you're super-hip or something. I want the the ones you actually listen to - lots. Even Kenny G - don't be ashamed - I wish I had his technique.
I know it varies from year to year, month to month, etc. but now will do.
Me:
soprano: Jan Garbarek, Tore Brunborg
alto: Miguel Zenon
tenor: Jan Garbarek, Tore Brunborg, Ken Vandermark
baritone: Ken Vandermark, Luca Mai

Shame Elton Dean isn't there. But if you added up all the time I've listened to him over the years he'd be number one in sop and alto. Coltrane would be there on tenor and Surman in baritone.
 
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The ones I listen to regularly in no particular order

Jan Garbarek
Kenny G
Pete Thomas (Love Midnight)
Snake Davis

I have cd's from others but I don't seem to put them on much. I also like more popular music that has a sax in it for example Supertramp is on in the car at the moment 🙂

and I'm not ashamed though I am trying to listen to more. I listen mostly in the car and it has to suit my mood.

Jx
 
Alto
Gerald Albright
Alan Barnes
Art Pepper
Tenor
Kirk Whalum
Wayne Shorter
Marius Neset
Sop & Bari
I don't particularly listen to specialist players but what I've heard of Gerry Mulligan on Bari I've liked, also Kirk Whalum and Marius Neset both sounded excellent on the sop when i saw them.
 
Sop; Andy Sheppard, Wayne Shorter, Jan Garbarek
Alto; Cannonball Adderley, Pete King, Johnny Hodges.
Tenor; Stan Sulzmann, Wayne Shorter, Andy Sheppard, Pete Thomas.
Bari; John Surman (Favourite album of all time John Mclaughlin and Surman on "Extrapolation")
 
Tommy McCook, King Curtis, John Coltrane, Frank Wright, Charles Gayle, Charlie Parker, Anthony Braxton - this is the stuff that's lingering near my CD player..

The list of players I'd pay to see would be a lot longer

the one's who I have paid to see and would go and see again and again include -
Ken Vandermark, Pharoah Sanders, Paul Dunmall, Virginia Genta, Jeffrey Morgan, Evan Parker, Jan Garbarek, John Surman, Alan Wilkinson, Tony Bevan, Joe McPhee, Peter Brotzmann, Wayne Shorter, Charles Gayle, Marshall Allen, Ornette Coleman ..
experiencing their music has enriched my life immeasurably
 
If I listed them all, there'd be a couple of hundred names on the list. So, here's a very short group:

Alto - Johnny Hodges, Paul Desmond, Charlie Parker, Phil Woods
Tenor - Ben Webster, Stan Getz, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Gene Ammons, Scott Hamilton, Harry Allen
Bari - Gerry Mulligan, Leo Parker, Adam Schroeder, Lauren Sevian

and those are just a few of the sax players; I won't even get started on trumpet, 'bone, piano, guitar, or bass...
 
I generally put recently played CDs at one end of a shelf... until I get fed up with chaos, then I group them.... which happens every few weeks - but I can tell that in the past couple of weeks saxophonists I have listened to include...

Charlie Parker, Zoot Sims, Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon, Pete Thomas, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Oliver Nelson, Booker Ervine, John Handy, Benny Golson, Sonny Stitt, Roland Kirk.... and maybe a few others.

PS

I have just remembered that I also listened to some stuff on youtube.... so add on Don Rendell. Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott....I was reminiscing on the British jazz scene of my youth at the time... but was unable to find anything by Terry Sloggett, whose tenor and alto playing greatly impressed me in my late teens while haunting various jazz venues in Plymouth...
 
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Tenor and bari players in the Rocksfield for me! Ok, I also listen to soprano and alto players as well, but it's not often!

Clarence Clemons, Noble Watts and A.C. Reed are still with me a lot.

Contempoary and still active players like: Eddie Shaw, David Woodford, Joe Sublett, Don Wise, Terry Hanck, Pete Thomas, Jimmy Carpenter, Sax Gordon, Keith Crossan, Ron Dziubla, Andrew Clark are often running in my CD player/or through my computer( Spotify). Most of them are singing saxophonists as well.
 
On the CD player over the last few weeks -----

soprano; Jane Ira Bloom, Stan Getz.
alto: Hayden Chisholm, Lee Konitz, Eric Dolphy, Paul Desmond, Lennie Niehaus.
tenor: Hank Mobley, Wardell Gray, Getz, Lester Young, Warne Marsh.
bari: Mulligan, Lars Gullin.

next week - who knows?
 
no one's mentioned Brecker?

I like Lou Donaldson, Bird, Desmond, Stitt,Maceo Parker, Eric Marienthal., Sanborn
Tenor , Dexter, Gray, Scott Hamilton, Getz, Tubby, King Curtis. Gene Ammons, and many more

Always finding new greats!

I don't listen much to bari or sop...
 
Nick: Who would you pay money to go and see (if they were alive)?
Jeanette: Pete Thomas

?


The only one on my list I haven't seen play live is Pete 🙂

Also saw John Helliwell (Supertramp) last year at RNCM he was great

Jx
 
Sop. Branford Marsalis Jay Beckstein on Sydney Bechet.
Alto Johnny Hodges,Paul Desmond, Kaori Kobayashi, Jay Beckstein
Tenor Jr Walker, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins. Stan Getz, Brian Travers, Aubra Graves.
Baritone Gerry Mulligan, Harry Carney
BbBass Adrian Rollini
and a recent discovery Joan Chomarro,on baritone bass and tenor. He plays brass too.

Edit. I can't believe I left Wayne Shorter off my list. Weather Report 8.30 is one of my all time favourite albums
 
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Thanks, Chris, I saw that but I was hoping to find something on youtube. He is still playing around Plymouth but I rarely go there...

Terry had a day job with Yardley's music store in Cornwall Street, Plymouth and I used to buy clarinet and alto reeds from him. I had a pal who took clarinet lessons with him and also joined the student big band Terry ran. Big band wasn't my scene and I took lessons with Jock Craig, who at the time was with trumpeter Les Colmer who occasionally used to jam with my mother, who played piano. I tried to learn piano but all the hammers started to snap off... the piano was near the end of its life when we got it...
 

Similar threads... or are they? Maybe not but they could be worth reading anyway 😀

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