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_____BIOGRAPHY Five. One to change the bulb and four to contemplate how David Sanborn would have done it. |
David William Sanborn was born on the 30th of july in 1945 in Tampa, Florida and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. When he was 3 years old, he had polio. At the age of 11, after spending
some time in an iron lung, a doctor advised him to pick up a wind instrument in order to stengthen
his lungs. David chose the alto sax, because he was listening to a lot of sax music in those days
and because it is "the closest way to get to singing without really singing."
Musicans like Hank Crawfort, David Newman, Jackie McLean and Charly Parker influenced him.
First, he played in a grade school band, but at the age of 14, he backed up Albert King at a
gig in a youth centre and played in local clubs with R&B great Gil Evans. "When I was 17 or 18", David says, "and it was time to figure out what to do with my life. I realized that I didn't enjoy anything as much as I enjoyed playing music. I felt that I had no choice, that I HAD to become a musician. Either that or stealing cars."
So he studied music from 1963 till 1964 at the Northwestern University, at that time one of the few universities with a
saxophone department, and went to the University of Iowa for additional studies
.In 1967 he moved to San Francisco, where he met drummer Phillip Wilson, who brought him into
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band , with whom he also performed at Woodstock. He recorded and played with them untill 1971, when he moved
to Woodstock, N.Y. and lived there for a year. In '72, David rejoined the Butterfield Band. In the following years he played with various artists: Stevie Wonder (1972/73 on the album "Talking Book"), Gil Evans (from 1972 on), the Rolling Stones, The Brecker Brothers, Al Jarreau and he also toured with David Bowie in '74. "Bowie was great to tour with, because he gave us a lot of freedom. We were able to play long solos and he didn't seem to mind."
And it was David's solos on Bowies album "Young Americans" that attracted a record company. In 1975, David went solo with his own band and album Taking Off, followed by Promise Me The Moon, Heart To Heart and his breakthrough album Hideaway (in january '80), which was nominated for a Grammy for Best R&B Peformance. During the recording of Hideaway David met Marus Miller and was impressed by his way to play. He asked Miller to join his band and the two have been working together ever since. They also recorded gold Voyeur, David's Grammy winning album of 1981. Both albums were heavily R&B influenced.
His next album was As We Speak, released in 1982 and nominated for the Contemporary Jazz Grammy Award. In early 1983, David travelled to Italy in order to score the soundtrack for an Italian movie called "Stelle Sulla Citta" ("Stars Above The City"), in which he also starred in his first acting-role. In october, David released his seventh album Backstreet, that remained at the top of the jazz charts for one year.
Together with Bob James, David won his second Grammy for platinum "Double Vision" in 1988. The album also won
the Contemporary Jazz Grammy Award, after the live album Straight To the Heart had already earned him one. The late 80s, David was dead busy: with Squeeze-keyboarder Jools Holland he hosted the NBC show Night Music, that had an enormous critically sucess. The show brought artists rarely seen on TV on the screen. The houseband - the Sunday Night Band - consisted of Marcus Miller, Philippe Saisse (with whom David had worked before e.g.on his album Change Of The Heart released in 1987), Omar Hakim and Hiram Bullock (who can be heard e.g. on Promise Me The Moon). Guests of an unusual high calibre like Miles Davis, Sun Ra, Al Jarreau, Hank Ballard, Pops Staples, Al Green, John Zorn, Pharoah Sanders, Todd Rundgren, Rufus Thomas, Lou Reed, Joe Cocker, Sting and many, many more. "I was like a child in a candy store. Every night playing with these great musicans, you never knew what would happen." David remenbers. At the same time, he had frequent appearances on the "Tonight Show with David Lettermann" with Paul Shaffer's "The World's Most Dangerous Jazz Band". Also, David hosted a radio programme called The Jazz Show. In addition to that, he did not only score the soundtrack for the hit movie "Soul Man", but also had a short appearance in the movie "Scrooged". Together with Miles Davis, Larry Carlton and Paul Shaffer he played in a group of "starving musicans". He also found the time to record Close-Up in 1988 and the 90s started a chnge of lables Another Hand was his Elektra debut.
In this period of time, David naturally became know to a wider audience and inspired many
young saxophonists, who wanted to sound exactly like him. Very soon you could listen to copys of David's style on the radio.
Though - or maybe because - these up and coming saxophonists never really reached the same level of emotional playing
like their idol, David got into a paradox situation: playing his own licks would remind him of the badly played copys.
Consequetly, he tried to find a new way and the result was Upfront ("It's a good place to start"
says David, in case you do not know any of his CDs yet). "I just loved the experience of making this record. We made that album in about four or five days. It doesn't always happen that way so with this date, it was a really party atmosphere.". In 1994, David published Hearsay. Both Upfront and Hearsay were produced and influenced by Marcus Miller, what made them funkier. In the Billie Crystal film "Forget Paris", David had another short appareance playing himself or - to be more precisely - he played the national anthem. On Pearls he featured a 60 piece orchestra, an extraordenary experience for David: "On this album I found a new way to rehearse these songs. When you have a 60 piece orchestra to consider you just can`t find a place and say 'let's rehearse'". Recording the album, David worked together with Jonny Mandle. "One of the greate things abouts Johnny's charts is they develop and envolve, allowing me to to play through a song more lyrically. I don't have to go back and re-cap. I can just flow. It made me a much more inspired player. Playing this material with these orchestras would be a dream for any musican." David can also be heard in the '97 release of "The Songs Of Disney's Cinderella". In that year he also contributed a few songs to the soundtrack of the movie "The Mirror Has Two Faces" with Barbra Streisand. In 1997 at the Montreux Festival and on other big festivals, David appeared as a member of a band called The Legends. It consisted of Eric Clapton, Joe Sample, Marcus Miller and Steve Gadd.
His 14th solo album is Songs From The Night Before, named after a book David was reading
at the time of recording. "The last few albums have had more to do with bands. There was much more of a
personal feeling to this one. The colour and shape and direction in a sense, were all developed
in the sessions with Ricky [Peterson] and myself - kind of a two-man operation."
David sees his roots in R&B music and with Songs From The Night Before he returned to his roots.
"I've been listening to more R&B pop recently. I love what has happened rhythmically in the 90s. It's interesting how some of it goes back to the 70s stuff I grew up around" Recently, David has been sitting in with Paul Shaeffer in the "Tonight Show" again and hosted the ABC's After New Years Eve on january the 1st in 1998, a music show featuring Dr. John, Ricky Peterson, Marcus Miller, Lou Reed, Isaac Hayes and Boz Scaggs. In early 1998 he toured with Maria Schneider and is currently appearing with Don Alias (Percussion), Sonny Emory (Drums), Dean Brown (Guitar), Richard Patterson (Bass) and Ricky Peterson (Keyboard). On January 1st 1999, he - again - hosted After New Years Eve with Eric Clapton, Marcus Miller, Gang Starr, D'Angelo and Cassandra Wilson, who is also singing on David`s newest CD Inside. "The feeling of that song," he says referring to Daydreaming with Cassandra on vocals," the laid back riffs - caught that effortless kind of feel I wanted for the whole album. It’s a more offhanded sound for me. I wanted to capture the moment. The good side to this record was that I wasn’t feeling the anxiety and pressure of being in the studio. I recorded a lot of it at home." The reason why David called the album "Inside" is that the atmosphere is so intimate. On top of all that, David even desinged a mouthpiece for saxophones called "SaxWorks", which is not being produced anymore. David is widely regarded as one of the most sophisticated, consistent and innovative musicans working today. He seems to feel home in R&B, jazz, blues as well as in bebob, pop, fusion and funk. "I think emotion is the cornerstone of everything I've done." he explains, "I think good music, any style of music, reaches people in a direct, heartfeld way." Many young saxophonists e.g. Candy Dulfer want to sound like David (How many alto sax players does it take to change a lightbulb?). He appreciates that, but hopes that they also listen to the masters of saxophones like Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley, Phil Woods and Ornette Colemann, musicans, who also infuenced himself.
David does not only play alto, but also tenor sax, soprano sax and the flute. When playing sax,
he usually plays Selmer, except for about one year in the 70s,
when he played Yamaha and he still plays the Yamaha tenor sax, today.
David is married to Rikke Sanborn, who is of Danish origin, and has a son, Jonathan, who plays bass. He recorded two CDs with
the Karen Mantler Group ("My Cat Arnold" 1986/87, "Karen Mantler
And Her Cat Get The Flu" 1990 and with Sue Foley "Ten Days In November" 1998).
"I'm lucky enough to really love what I do." David says. BACK |