David Sanborn
David Sanborn
David Sanbornis an American alto saxophonist. Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album Taking Off in 1975, but has been playing the saxophone since before he was in high school. Sanborn has also worked extensively as a session musician, notably on David Bowie's Young Americans...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSaxophonist
Date of Birth30 July 1945
CityTampa, FL
CountryUnited States of America
As a melody instrument player, it's all about getting from one note to the next, and those intervals and how you navigate your way through these vertical structures of chords. You realize that everything's moving forward, and it's all linear.
Music is just kind of an expression of who I am. It's what I do.
Its all about finding the right note at the right place and knowing when to leave well enough alone. And that's a lifelong quest.
I hope this doesn't sound like false humility, because I don't mean it to, but I'm just a member of the band.
I started out, obviously, as a sideman, and I had some really good gigs as a sideman.
I think with the acoustic bass it allows you to explore the fuller dynamic range.
I think ticket prices are too high, but it costs so bloody much money to get anything together anymore.
They thought there was a market out there for instrumental music. They were trying to broaden their roster of artists. I got in on that.
My recollection of listening to radio was listening to a personality on the radio play music that he was connected with, and having a wide variety of music to play.
I'm moved by a lot of different kinds of music, whether it's pop music or R&B or straight-ahead jazz or free or opera or music from all parts of the world.
I'm trying to kind of keep my mind a blank for a while, and just see what filters in, and be non-specific about what I listen to.
I listen to some things that I've done, and I think they're pretty good, but that's not one of them.
I think the kind of chronology of the whole thing was that I was making records in the 70's and 80's that used pop production values, but instrumental music; like improvising with R&B kinds of song structures, but with improvisation in them, and pop production values.
I didn't try to think what my audience wanted and then make the music accordingly. I made the music and hoped that as many people liked it as possible.