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
I remember one summer, right after my second album came out, James Taylor was nice enough to allow us to open for him.
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.
It's tough to be in a relationship with a musician, because it reads sometimes as this ego and self-involvement when it's really just concentration and focus.
But I never had any illusions at that time that it was going to be how I was going to make a living. I thought, well, I'll make a solo record, and it'll be fun.
I sat in with them, and I remember their jaws dropped. I could actually play. I had some degree of sense of time.
My whole contention, and my feeling in general about radio is, not just jazz radio, or smooth jazz radio, or whatever-radio in general is, I would like to see a little more variety within each one station.
Mostly because I don't really feel that I have a methodology.
Maybe I call the shots, but it's not about them and me. It's about me as a part of everything.