Great Players Who sparked your love of Sax music

My mum loved that music and I heard it many times. She had the tape!

I don't dislike it, but I moved on... My Dad had more eclectic tastes and was an explorer, so he played records from Parker, Coltrane, Davis, Mulligan and many others until he really fell in love with classical music and although I like listening to some, I'm not as passionate as he was.

Not enough sax maybe!
 
My first experience of the saxophone was at the Creiff Hydro Hotel in Perthshire in the summer of 1966: I was 10 years old. We used to go for two weeks as a family and in the evenings the Blue Ribbon Dance Band (Tenor, Trumpet, Pno, Bass, Kit) used to play reels and foxtrots and waltzs and I danced with my Mum and Sister! As I danced around and passed the Band the sound pressure seemed enormous and incredibly exciting! What a great sound for a young lad. I wonder if any 10 year-olds get that nowadays?

Much later when I was already playing, it was Andy McKay from Roxy Music, then Dick Heckstall Smith, then Tom Scott, David Sanborn & Michael Brecker.
 
Ahem...
He's new here and hasn't done a search on it yet! I did the other day ( Baker Street Day 😳 ) and my computer caught on fire! 😛 Or spontaneously combusted.

Don't worry @Bones I like Baker Street! 😛 I can't make the upper notes 'scream' or play nicely properly of course (yet) but I blame the neighbour.
 
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Ahem...

He's new here and hasn't done a search on it yet! I did the other day ( Baker Street Day 😳 ) and my computer caught on fire! 😛 Or spontaneously combusted.

Don't worry @Bones I like Baker Street! 😛 I can't make the upper notes 'scream' or play nicely properly of course (yet) but I blame the neighbour.

Okay, I get it, not everyone loves Baker Street. Thanks Nick! Lol.
@Alice I look forward to hearing you play it one day mate!
 
When I heard the Born to run album by the Boss I fell in love with the sax & Mr Clemons, every band that had a sax player in the 70's & 80's I loved but it took me 42 years to finally purchase one, loving it so much you wouldn't believe.. 😉
 
Mid 70s. Im about 20. A guy in a local blues band, playing sax. I just loved the sound he was getting. But he had a beard and a beret, so he was from another world. A musician. It was a world that I thought wasnt for me. Idiot.

Then the LP "dark side of the moon" by Pink floyd. That was another "love" time.
tenor sax this time, but I didnt know there was a difference. Listened to sax bits over and over

Then live concert with Supertramp. I still remember the tone of the sax now. Love.

then, im in my late 20s by now, and music was becoming increasingly important to me. Mainly because Im living in a little fishing village in North of Scotland, and there is nothing else to do. Just me, my nice hi fi, and lots of Lps.

One in particular helped cement my love of sax. Total Control, by the Motels.
i must have played that song a million times.

I go to see Joan Armitrading live, in Aberdeen. She has a sax player.
Yet again, the sax knocks me out. Hairs up on the back of my neck. Etc etc.
I listen to the little voice in my head, at last.
Next day, 10 am on a Saturday, Im in a music shop buying a sax. Im almost 30 years old. Starting to learn sax. I Must be mad.

Im still mad, and still get hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
 
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Was it John Helliwell? We saw him play as part of Manchester Jazz festival last year in the Midland Hotel, great afternoon 🙂

Jx


yes it was John.

amazingly, I got to know him in the 90s when he went to RNCM.

I wasnt studying there, but I used to go in there early in the morning, and we did sax geek stuff like trying millions of mouthpieces and saxes, with one of us facing the wall and trying to pick out which was sax or mouthpiece was which etc etc.
Very geeky, but great fun.

It was wierd being in that situation with one of the sax sounds who was so influential all those years before. great sound.
 
yes it was John.

amazingly, I got to know him in the 90s when he went to RNCM.

I wasnt studying there, but I used to go in there early in the morning, and we did sax geek stuff like trying millions of mouthpieces and saxes, with one of us facing the wall and trying to pick out which was sax or mouthpiece was which etc etc.
Very geeky, but great fun.

It was wierd being in that situation with one of the sax sounds who was so influential all those years before. great sound.

He's a lovely guy, I saw him play at the RNCM a few years ago with the students doing Supertramp stuff.

Jx
 
Jan Garbarek when I was 13 playing 'Entering'. David Sanborn with Bob James "More than Friends", The saxophonist from 'Street Life' ( Randy Crawford & the Crusaders). Chris Potter live.
 

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