"I was really inspired be Hank Crawford, when he was playing with the Ray Charles band, because Ray Charles was kind of the head of music when I was 11 years old. That was the pop music of the day. It is R&B music and Rock'n'Roll, which in the early days was almost interchangeable. In a way it was pop music and Ray Charles to me was gosple, jazz and R&B and all that music rolled into one.
And the saxophone players in that band were Hank Crawford and David Fathead Newman and between them, they really covered everything for me. The were the instumental foils for what Ray was doing. There was a real kind of elegance, but also earthyness to both of their playing. They were very much blues influenced players and I think that was what I related to in their playing.
There was a certain quality in his playing that made it easy for me to pick up, a very vocal, human quality like singing and there was an album of his called From The Heart that had a song called Don't Cry Baby and it was really slow.. I think that was the first thing I learned
I think what formed my attitude about music was..the guys that I hung out with had a very ecumenical approach to music. They were very non-judgemental about the forms of music. There was a spirit of - like if it's good music, it's good music that I really appreciate.
Summer of 1967, I went to San Francisco and visited a friends of mine - a drummer - who's just joined a band and got out there and you know, summer of love, did everything we were supposed to to back then - and happened to run into Philip Wilson from St. Louis in a street in San Francicco and he said: I'm playing in the Paul Butterfield Band, don't you want to come and check it out? - so I went and checked it out, kind of followed the band to LA and weaseled my way into a session when the band was recording. I got the gig with the Butterfield Band and that was it - I was in.
I spend about a year doing studio stuff in New York. I never did very much, certainly far less than what most people think - and most of the studio stuff I did in New York or anywhere for that matter was the result of people I was on the road with, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, James Brown. And I did a session, someone said: Play it like Dave Sanborn. And I though: Okay, it's time to stop doing sessions.
[As to immitators:] I mean, I was trying to sound like Hank Crawford - and Phil Woods and Jackie McLean. So, I'm the product of my influences.
In the old day, you couldn't just be a musican, you had to be a performer. When jazz music ceased to be the pop music of the day, musicans said: well, okay, I have to play. You take care of the rest.
[As to improvising:] First thing as an improvisor, you have to react, you have to be a reactor. It's like playing basketball: when you are on the basketball court and you are looking around, aou are reaction to what this guy is doing over there. You are functioning as a unit, but also operating as...you are reacting to every little nuance of activity that is going on the floor that changes all the time within a certain limit."