Spirit of St. Louis: David Sanborn savors the sounds of home

Courtesy of Greenwhich Times - March 14, 2002

David Sanborn first began studying alto saxophone, in part, because his parents thought it would provide goof therapy for childhood polio. It’s no stretch to say that he went on to become the most influential reed player of the last 20 years by combining an easily recognizable style with his jazz-influenced brand of instrumental pop.

But Sanborn, who plays with pianist Joe Sample at the Palace Theatre on Friday, started out just wanting to sound like his heroes: Hank Crawford, Lou Donaldson, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, Gene Ammons and Phil Woods. “It was new something I was aware of doing,” he says of creating a singular voice on the instrument. “I think you just go after the sound that you hear in your head, a peculiar combination of your physical makeup, your emotional makeup and what you’re listening to. To me, I am a product of my influences.”

For a pop instrumentalist, Sanborn’s numbers are stunning: He’s sold more than 6 million albums and another six hitting the gold mark. “I’m not the strict definition of what you’d call a jazz player,” Sanborn says.

But it was jazz, along with blues, that served as one of the main ingredients in his musical makeup. He was born in Tampa, Fla.; in 1945 but grew up in St. Louis. The city’s music left its mark on the young musician. “ St. Louis is a very unique town,” Sanborn says. ”It’s on the Mississippi River and there was a lot of traffic along the river that brought up music from New Orleans and Memphis. In that there was kind of a mixture of jazz and blues. It was a rural extension of the South but also an urban area. There was always that strong overlay of blues over everything.”

He played with blues greats like Albert Kind while in St. Louis and joined the Paul Butterfield Blues Bands for four years (including the prestigious Woodstock gig). Sanborn made a huge splash in the 1970s playing on other people’s records by David Bowie, James Brown, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Cat Stevens and Bruce Springsteen. Throughout this period, he never considered himself a session player. “It wasn’t really fulfilling and I never really did a lot of it,” he says. “A session musician is someone who does two or three jobs a day. I would do three or four mouth. I would play solos on people’s records who I was working with. The longer you’re around, hopefully the more friends you have. It ended up being unrewarding.”

Sanborn launched his solo career in 1975 with Taking Off but it was the 1979 album, Hideaway, that earned him runaway success. He won his first Grammy Award for the 1980 disc Voyeur. While he largely stays planted in the instrumental pop realm, Sanborn sometimes surprises listeners like he did in 1991 with Another Hand, the most straightforward jazz album of his career.

“I love it when people say ‘I love your first album and you have 15 of them,” he says. “How do you respond to that other than with a thank you? People like what they’re going to like. The motivation is doing something that you hopefully love doing.”

For most of his career, Sanborn has released an album every 12 to 18 months. He’s currently off that schedule with his last being 1999’s Inside. He’s aware that with the consolidation of record companies and downloadable music available on the Web a lot has changed in the industry. He recently switched from his longtime Elektra label to the smaller Verve imprint.

“You have to make music for the right reasons; you have want to make music that means something and not to make a lot of money,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong making a lot of money if you’re doing what you want to do.”