Sanborn Played Most of his Life on Road

Courtesy of South Florida Sun-Sentinel - Dec. 24, 2004

Saxophonist David Sanborn’s resume reads like a Who’s Who of prestige recording artists: He’s played on hits by everyone from David Bowie, Billy Joel and the Eagles to James Brown and the Temptations. He’s on great jazz albums by Bob James, Marcus Miller and Jaco Pastorius.

Yet for all his disc-making legend, Sanborn, who appears in concert Tuesday at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, has never considered himself just a studio guy. “I was a sideman for years,” the 59-year-old Sanborn says. “I was always a road musician. So most of the people whose records I played on were people I was working with on the road, or friend of theirs or their producer’s.

“I think of a studio musician are someone who makes their living in a recording studio, and I never did that.”

Sanborn began his solo career in the mid-‘70s, although he didn’t stop his sideman duties – and outside recordings – for a couple of years. “I wish I could say that I had some kind of grand plan, but it was pretty much trying to do the next right thing,” he says. “Whatever that happened to be. And take advantage of whatever opportunities presented themselves in terms of what was fulfilling musically. And also a way that I could make a living at the same time.”

Born in Tampa, where his father was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base, Sanborn grew up in St. Louis, and became smitten with the city’s rhythm’n’blues at an early age. He joined the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1967 – he played Woodstock with the group – and gigged with Stevie Wonder’s band, Wonderlover for its 1972 tour with the Rolling Stones. The next year, he alternated road jobs with David Bowie (the legendary “Diamond Dogs” tour) and jazz pianist and bandleader Gil Evans.

“In 1975, I had an opportunity to make a solo record,” Sanborn recalls. “It was at a time when Warner Bros. was signing a lot of instrumental artists. I made a couple of albums, they were moderately successful, and things just gradually grew.

“The motivation for me was always the music – if it was the money or the success or whatever, I certainly wouldn’t have,” he says. “What were the odds, back in 1963 when I graduated from high school, that I could be making a living as an alto saxophone player? It wasn’t exactly a high school dream.

“But I loved the music,” he adds. “And I didn’t really think much beyond ‘I want to be in the music world.”

During a late ’70s tour as a member of James Taylor’s band, Sanborn was given the opportunity to open the concerts, with his own, jazz-flavored group. “And on the days I wasn’t working with James, on our days off, we would go out and play gigs in clubs. And then we’d hook up with James again.

“I was able to build an audience, and get around the country, and have it be affordable. Because we mere making money by opening for James.”

Eventually, however, Sanborn was faced with a choice. “I just decided ‘I’ve got to do one thing or the other,’” he says. “I was kind of pulling myself in two directions, and I really didn’t really feel I wanted to be a sideman anymore. I wanted to mae my own musical decisions. I wanted to have some control over my circumstances a little more.

“I was thinking that way rather than economically – because I certainly took a big hit economically by having my own band,” he says.

Eclectic as ever, Sanborn’s latest album, timeagain, includes the undulating soft jazz he’s best known for, alongside instrumental covers of “Tequila” and “Isn’t She Lovely.”

Purists don’t consider Sanborn’s music serious jazz, because of its overt R&B overtones. “I don’t think in those terms, although I’m sure there are people who do,” he says. “Because you are who you are. You can’t deny your influences, however they come out in your playing.”

- Bill DeYoung