Altogenarian: David Sanborn 80

David Sanborn Octet - Brother Ray

I have returned to close out July with this milestone berfday exercise in the Joy of Sax.

Today's hero de alto left us about 15 months ago, after a career the word eclectic doesn't begin to cover.

Often credited/blamed for being one of the artists the record industry used to smooth Jazz down to a dull, pale reflection of itself in the early 1980s, he really gets a bad rap, and for not a whole lotta good reasons if you ask me.

After all, this is the man who used that very same leverage to curate and mastermind what must surely be one of the craziest and most creatively-minded television programs of all times.

That he was able, for two full seasons, to somehow coerce the NBC network execs to put Sonic Youth and Sun Ra -- and a whole lotta others, often in combinations that would make the most out-there concert promoter scratch their heads -- on prime time TV on Sunday Nights blows my tiny mind even today, 35 years later.

Look, if you can put Bongwater and Bootsy Collins on the same stage opposite Cop Rock or Full House or whatever, you're aces in my encyclopedia no matter what kinda Kenny G those very same corporate suits wanna turn you to.

All that said, I dig David Sanborn -- born this very day in 1945 and who woulda been 80 today -- because he can play. And when he did, it was with a totally identifiable-in-one-note tone, and often than not in the company of some of the finest musicians on Earth.

Grainy-toned honkers are a common sound on alto since a pioneering Big Jay McNeely first slid across the front of a stage on his back wailing upon one, but when you listen to these concerts -- which have nothing to do with Elevator Jazz and a lot to do with Soul Jazz in the vein of, say, Maceo Parker -- it's instantly obvious who has got the horn in their mouth, just from a minimum of sonic information.

One of those players that effortlessly had the entire history of Jazz in his genes and at his fingertips, all you have to do is check how he goes from St. Louis Blues to funkatized Fusion to Tin Tin Deo to Soul Serenade in the span of a single set to understand we're talking about a truly underrated and tasteful character here.

He passed away in May of 2024 from prostate cancer, but like I said he'd have been octo 80 today, so I brewed up a couple of very representative shows to mark the occasion.

David Sanborn Sextet

"JVC Jazz At Newport"

Newport Jazz Festival

Newport, Rhode Island USA

8.16.1998

01 introduction

02 Savanna

03 Benny

04 Spooky

05 Full House

06 Rikke/percussion solo

07 Snakes

08 Chicago Song

09 outro

Total time: 1:14:35

David Sanborn - alto saxophone

Don Alias - percussion 

Ricky Peterson - keyboards & vocals

Dean Brown - guitar

Rocky Bryant - drums

Richard Patterson - bass

320/48k audio streamed from Wolfgang's Vault

spectral analysis is lossless to 20 kHz, making this essentially equivalent to a preFM source

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, retracked, edited and remastered by EN, July 2025
455 MB FLAC/direct link below

David Sanborn Octet

Estival Jazz 2009

Piazza della Riforma

Lugano, Switzerland 

7.3.2009

01 Full House

02 Brother Ray

03 St. Louis Blues

04 Please Send Me Someone to Love

05 Tin Tin Deo

06 Smile

07 Basin Street Blues

08 Soul Serenade

09 I've Got News for You

Total time: 1:13:09

David Sanborn - alto saxophone

Gene Lake - drums

Nicky Moroch - guitar

Ricky Peterson - keyboards & vocals

Mike Pope - bass

Nicolas Gardel - trumpet

Martin Jacobsen - saxophones

Lionel Segui - trombone

448/48k audio from a lossless TS file of a European satellite TV broadcast

extracted, converted to 16/44 CD Audio, tracked, edited & remastered by EN, July 2025
475 MB FLAC/direct link to both shows

That will do it for July from me, hope you enjoyed it. I'm already working on August, because honestly doing this stuff helps take my mind off the idea that the world seems poised to slide into irrevocable, cartoon fascism at any moment. For the time I'm engaged in mixing up the magic, anyways. 

Hopefully a few magic moments with the birthday boy David Sanborn and his high potency alto saxophone will help whoever is reading this with whatever puts them on the edge of the ledge as well. You know I'll always do what little I can to make you crack a Smile!--J.

7.30.1945 - 5.12.2024