Great Players Who sparked your love of Sax music

[Juju]

Dexter Gordon !!! He was and is my biggest influence.

 

[andyb1970]

For me it was listening to 80's and 90's soul music, such as Johnny Gill, Keith Washington, Keith Sweat etc, where I discovered Gerald Albright and Kirk Whalum doing their solos. Pop hits such as Whitney's Houston's I'll Always Love You and Take That's Million Love Songs are memorable too. Most of the stuff I listen to is Smooth Jazz although some of that is very boring and to be avoided 🙂 My favourite players are still Gerald Albright, Kirk Whalum as well as Euge Groove. I think these guys tend to class themselves not as smooth jazz artists these days, and I can see why they have an individuality about them that seems rare in that genre. I also like what I like to call proper Jazz, Charlie Parker, Stanley Turrentine etc.

 

[Chris]

Dexter Gordon,Paul Desmond,Ben Webster,Marshell Royal.But I've only been playing 7 weeks and started of listening to Coltrane and Parker.I think that was because I came from a guitar playing background:shocked:,and the last two are all guitar players seem to talk aboutSo perhaps my tastes will change the more I play..I do think my taste is heading the right way though:welldone

Chris

 

[LAP13]

I grew up listening to the rock n roll/bigband greats so a whole myriad really but I'll never forget getting my first alto home and my Dad saying "have a listen to this"... Earl 'sticky' Bostic - Deep Purple

 

[Neal]

Saw the start of this thread.....

The careless whisper sax line is probably the most memorable part of the tune! Have you seen Sergio's video with it in LA?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaoLU6zKaws

I couldn't stop laughing when I saw it at first.

Listening to Maceo Parker, Lenny Pickett, and Stanley Turrentine when I was young helped get me interested in saxophone.

-Neal

 

[baritonesax]

Going through my dad's collection of Beethoven and Schubert symphonies and string quartet LPs when I was eleven, I found two Dave Brubeck LPs - Bossa Nova USA and Jazz Goes to College. Paul Desmond's solo on "Le Souk" seemed to me the most exotic thing I'd ever heard, and the coolest.

So - Paul Desmond for me!

 

[angie54321]

Wilton Felder from the Crusaders - the song that hooked me was their version of Carole King's So Far Away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ygAhakw5w&feature=share

when I heard my brother play it - I was about 15 or 16. I loved all their music - still do, still play their music regularly.

At the time I didn't know the original Carole King version, so I borrowed her version of the song from the library, and ended up being a Carole King fan too. Which then led me into liking James Taylor's music, and that led me to....nope, I think it stopped there!

 

[Saxlicker]

Wilton Felder from the Crusaders - the song that hooked me was their version of Carole King's So Far Away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ygAhakw5w&feature=share

when I heard my brother play it - I was about 15 or 16. I loved all their music - still do, still play their music regularly.

At the time I didn't know the original Carole King version, so I borrowed her version of the song from the library, and ended up being a Carole King fan too. Which then led me into liking James Taylor's music, and that led me to....nope, I think it stopped there!

Have you seen this then?.....enjoy

 

[angie54321]

Have you seen this then?.....enjoy

I did! Thank you for that!

 

[jthole]

Literally, my granddad, since he gave me my first sax. I played clarinet at that time.

My love for the sound of sax? Stu Matthewman, on the Sade "Smooth Operator" album 😎

(since then my music tastes have broadened, but my love for the sax remained)

 

[ATG]

I grew up in the 50's with Elvis, Fats, all the old rock in roll from that era & into the early sixties when every group nearly had saxophones, some two or three. just hearing them sparked my love of them, no one in particular til much later when I actually started on an old Holton Collegiate relac in the 6th grade (1959) and my early favorites were Boots Randolph & Ace Cannon. I still like old Ace.

 

[jazzsaxman]

I started listening to Junior Walker and the Average White Band in the seventies. Then the JazzFunk became the thing and I was into Mezzoforte. I then moved more into Jazz starting with Stan Getz and his Latin Jazz era with songs like Desafinado and It Might As Well Be Spring. Some of my favourite artists are Getz, Scott Hamilton, Arnett Cobb ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka4qujkzcSA ), Ben Webster, Ken Peplowski who is just awesome on the clarinet, which is what I started on in school. There are so many great players that it is hard to say one is favourite but there is one sax solo that sticks in my mind and that is the sax solo from Will You, played by Wesley McGoogan. I think he captured the feeling of the song perfectly. I almost had a similar accident when cutting wood on my table saw. But I was lucky.

Non sax players that inspire me are George Benson, and Hugh Masekela.

I have to say though my greatest inspiration is my sax tutor, the one and only Mark "DEKE" McGee. What a genius, he has toured and played with some of the best. My good fortune that he lives in the same City.

 

[Saxlicker]

I have to say though my greatest inspiration is my sax tutor, the one and only Mark "DEKE" McGee. What a genius, he has toured and played with some of the best. My good fortune that he lives in the same City.

A great selection of people for inspiration you mention there!

Please say Hi to Deke for me....
He may need a bit of a promt to remember me but....
We had a bit of communication a couple of years ago when I found his website and I asked about a few things.
As I'm about as far away from where you live as you can get without crossing the water, he rang me and gave me a lot of tips.
Now I was really trying not to bother him to that extent but being the kind of guy he is, he insisted!
I'll never forget that kind of gesture from him nor will I forget his advice.
Trevor

 

[jazzsaxman]

Hi Trevor

I will see Mark on Thursday and will tell him you said hello. That sounds like Mark. Very modest guy. Never talks about the things he has achieved unless you pry it out of him and always willing to help. Every year he runs a show so his pupils can perform with a live band, it is a great success and enjoyed by all.

Ricardo.

 

[Araceli]

Steve Gregory! He's definitely my favourite saxophonist, and I've been a fan of him since 1983.

 

[jazzsaxman]

Hey Trevor

I mentioned to Mark that you said hello and he remembered you. He seems to remember you had bought his book. Anyway he said to say hello and hopes his book helped.

Ritchie

 

[oldblower]

Lisa from the Simpsons.

 

[Kingsleyhk]

Jim Horn - in 1956 or so he toured UK with Duane Eddy. Peter Gunn still does it for me! Duane Eddy supposedly inspired a lot of the UK guitarists of that sort of vintage - he was actually a much better player than he seems on his hit records - YouTube him if you want to see some of that better stuff. I saw him on a package tour at Cheltenham Odeon (Gaumont?) in the days when many cinemas in England were forced to close on a Sunday - hence the package tours. Horn was his sax player then - I remember him as an enormous man (I was about 11 or 12, so I may be mistaken) and could he play!

 

[saxanjax]

I was about sixteen or seventeen when I swapped an old guitar for a Jnr. Walker album called These Eyes, and that was it, I was hooked. Years later I saw him at Birmingham Town Hall, He was brilliant, I remember he had a young woman playing never knew her name but she was good.

 

[Riversax]

Looking back, probably tracks like Solid Air by John Martyn, with Tony Coe on Tenor; Poor Boy by Nick Drake with Ray Warleigh on Alto (I still really like these two players) and the brass sections on Van Morrison albums; That lead to discovering jazz - Coleman Hawkins "There's a small hotel", Charlie Parker "I Remember You", Coltrane - "After the Rain" - ones with tunes I could hang onto to start with 🙂.
It was a lot to take in for a then finger picking guitar player!