Great Players Saxophone albums you wish existed.

[Pete Thomas]

Stan Getz Plays Bob Dylan

 

[Targa]

Targa’s Greatest All Time Platinum Chart Toppers.

 

[Vlad]

Targa’s Greatest All Time Platinum Chart Toppers.

Is that like one of those toast topper things ?

 

[Jimmymack]

James Carter plays the Pete Seeger.
Albert Ayler plays Simon and Garfunkel.

 

[Ballymenaboy]

Bobby Keys plays Rachmanninov

 

[atwl77]

After hearing Kaori Kobayashi's Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You... Kaori Kobayashi plays Hits of the 80s/90s.

 

[SaxBerg]

"Charlie Parker with Strings" with new arrangements by Gil Evans (and without the oboe in the orchestra!)

"Concerto For Stan Getz" by Richard Rodney Bennett - with Stan Getz as the soloist.

 

[progger]

More Michael Brecker albums with Jim Beard... both of them left us too soon. 😞

Likewise (and featuring Jim), I wish THIS band had made a dozen records.

View: https://youtu.be/DSTagy1QBOk?si=F6h0XWNEo5jQijpO

 

[Taragot]

"Charlie Parker plays Bossa Nova" - imagined by the great Haruki Murakami

 

[hedgehog]

Scott Hamilton plays Night Train.

 

[rhysonsax]

The album I wish existed would have been recorded at the time and place that I will set my time machine for, just as soon as it is finished.

That would be the famous "cutting contest" that took place at the Cherry Blossom Cub in Kansas City, probably in 1934. At that time the reigning "heavyweight champion" of the tenor saxophone was Coleman Hawkins who was the star tenor soloist of the Fletcher Henderson band. But there were several tenor men in Kansas City, spurring each other on to great heights, including Lester Young, Ben Webster, Herschel Evans, Dick Wilson and more.

Various people have recounted what happened on that legendary night, including pianist Mary Lou Williams and Count Basie.

Count Basie detailed the circumstances leading to the night of the legendary cutting contest, ending with Lester Young dethroning Hawkins as king of the tenor saxophone during an all-night freewheeling jam session. “Herschel and Ben Webster and Lester and a few others were up there jam-ming, and Hawkins came by and decided to get his horn,” Basie recounted.​

​

Somebody kept asking him to play, so he finally went across the street to the hotel, and when he came back in with his horn, I was sitting at a table with John Kirby and some friends, and John thought that something was unusual. “I ain’t never seen that happen before,” he said. “I ain’t either,” I said. Because that was something that Hawk didn’t do in those days. Nobody had ever seen Hawk bring his horn in somewhere to get into a jam session. That’s the main thing I remember about that night. Because it was so strange. All of those other saxophone players were up there calling for their favorite tunes, and then Hawk went up there, and he knew all of the tunes, and he started calling for all of those hard keys, like E-flat and B-natural. That took care of quite a few local characters right away. Not many piano players were too eager to mess with that stuff. T know I wasn’t going up there.​

​

As the tenor battle raged on, exhausting all pianists brave enough to venture into the fray, Mary Lou Williams came to the rescue. “The word went around that Hawkins was in the Cherry Blossom, and within about half an hour there were Lester Young, Ben Webster, Herschel Evans, Herman Walder and one or two unknown tenors piling in the club to blow. Bean didn’t know the Kaycee tenormen were so terrific, and he couldn’t get himself together though he played all morning,” Williams related.​

​

I happened to be nodding that night, and around 4 a.m. I awoke to hear someone pecking on my screen. I opened the window on Ben Webster. He was saying: “Get up, pussycat, we're jammin’ and all the pianists are tired out now. Hawkins has got his shirt off and is still blowing. You got to come down.” Sure enough, when we got there Hawkins was in his singlet taking turns with the Kaycee men. It seems he had run into something he didn’t expect. Lester's style was light and, as I said, it took him maybe five choruses to warm up. But then he would really blow; then you couldn’t handle him on a cutting session. That was how Hawkins got hung up. The Henderson band was playing in St. Louis that evening, and Bean knew he ought to be on the way. But he kept trying to blow something to beat Ben and Herschel and Lester. When at last he gave up, he got straight in his car and drove to St. Louis. I heard he’d just bought a new Cadillac and that he burnt it out trying to make the job on time. Yes, Hawkins was king until he met those crazy Kansas City tenormen.​

As that session wasn't recorded. I have to make do with watching the scene from Robert Altman's "Kansas City" with a jam session with current jazz musicians playing characters partially based on Hawkins, Young etc..

View: https://youtu.be/IWnUZQNBsiA?si=qiLAuc10Qqu140eU



Rhys
(off to fire up the De Lorean)

 

[Taragot]

Opposites attract - Peter Brötzmann meets Paul Desmond

 

[Vlad]

Boots Randolph plays The Human League...

 

[SaxBerg]

Kenny G interprets "Never Mind the ********, Here's the Sex Pistols" on his soprano sax.

 

[Targa]

Aldevis plays Ivy Benson

 

[Vlad]

Aldevis plays Ivy Benson

Wouldn't that make him a pimp or something....