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 have a certain temperament, a disposition that I think lends itself to not playing outside the lines that much. But I do test the boundaries, certainly, and break one or two of my own. Some people are mystified by it, but not me.
I did full demos of all the songs at home, and then I took the demos into the studio and played them for everybody, and we then went ahead and did live versions.
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 just saying that the basic concept of creative freedom and growth creatively is a continuous process.
I remember one summer, right after my second album came out, James Taylor was nice enough to allow us to open for him.
I know guys that live in New York, but I never see them play because they're always out on the road. I run into them in Europe.
I do this because I love it, and at the end of the day, the fact that I can make a living at all doing this, I'm grateful for.
I don't see any way out of that because I think the audience as a whole is not being served and isn't getting excited about going out an buying CD's, and for that matter, going out and going to concerts.
I basically played the music that I felt all my life, and whatever label people put on it is kind of really none of my business.
I'm one of those people that wants to bring a lot of disparate elements together.
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 Norah Jones is a perfect example. Here's somebody who was playing the music she wanted to play and did it with some conviction, and it happened to be at a moment in time when there was a highly receptive audience for that kind of music.
If you're playing with somebody from another idiom, you can't react to them in the same way that you react to somebody that is closer to your idiom. You don't fall into the same habits. You find a new way of communicating.
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.