Who's the best saxophonist you've ever heard play live?

I guess that would be Branford Marsalis......but it was with Sting.

 

Toss up...
Maceo Parker
Ernie Watts
The late Bobby Keys (on a good night)
The late Charles Neville

 

Sam “Sluggo” Phipps.

 

Nice list, but you forgot MIKE LOVE!

 

The Big Man.

 

Sonny Rollins, Lincoln Center Bandshell

 

Vince Denham

1973 with Don Ellis
1978 with Kenny Loggins

 

Did you see Coltrane play in Britain ? If so it must have been 1961.

 

This guy...Jimmy Hall of Wet Willie, starting at about 1:20 when he takes a break from singing and dancing like a man possessed. That's when he's not taking a break to play his harmonica. The best front man you might not know much about.

 

Sonny Rollins

 

Sonny Rollins
Wayne Shorter
Pharoah Sanders

 

Tossup - Jay Beckenstein fronting Spyro Gyra, opened for Basia's "Broadway' tour in the mid-'90s; or, the two times I got to see Doc Kupka with Tower Of Power. Average White Band opened for them the first time I saw them, but didn't recognize the sax player.

 

Here's a list of saxophone players I have watched/ heard live over the past 40 years...some more than once (with *):

Grover Washington, Jr. *
Bill Evans (John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu / Elements) *
Marty Krystal
Wayne Shorter *
Jay Beckenstein *
Eric Marienthal (Chick Corea's Elektric Band) *
Charles McPherson
Harold Vick
Michael Brecker *
Phil Woods *
David Sanborn *
Marc Russo (Yellowjackets) *
Sam Rivers
Ernie Watts *
Bennie Maupin
Bob Berg *
Scott Hamilton
Jackie McLean
Joshua Redman
Sonny Rollins
Chris Potter *
Ravi Coltrane
Charles Lloyd
Steve Tavaglione (Caldera)
Kenny Garrett*
Ralph Moore
Joe Lovano *
Ronnie Laws
Tom Scott
Mark Colby
Sadao Watanabe
George Adams
Harold Land
Pete Christlieb
Herb Geller
Gerry Mulligan
Bob Mintzer *
Bud Shank
Bill Perkins
Richie Cole
Paquito D'Rivera

They are all good! Some performances I have forgotten over time. But McLean, Rollins, Shorter, Berg, Brecker, and Potter are all high-octane and very memorable.

Saxophonists I wish I saw: Coltrane, Getz, Long Tall Dexter, Booker Ervin, Art Pepper, among many others.

 

Evan Parker, Ronnie Scott, Pharoah Sanders, Wayne Shorter, Alan Skidmore, Charlie Mariano, Jan Garbarek, Ornette Coleman. I wish I'd seen Rollins, Coltrane Getz, Booker, Dolphy & Pepper, 4 out of 5 of 99khan's wishlist.

 

Dickie Landry, who played with Paul Simon and Talking Heads, and was Philip Glass's main saxophone player and was friends with him when he was starting out. I've seen him a number of times, though probably more offstage than on. I recently saw him do something he came up with in the 70s, but doesn't do too often, where he sets up quadrophonic sound and delay. You hear the sax 5 times, where you hear the live sound in all 4 speakers, which are in the corners of the room, and then once in each speaker going around on a 400, 800, 1200, and 1600 millisecond delay, so it swirls around you. He just played for an hour, doing different things with that setup, sometimes melodic, sometimes harmonic, sometimes just sounds. One of the most fascinating and mesmerizing performances I have ever seen.

There's also Ronnie Eades, formerly of the Muscle Shoals Horns, who played with John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Elton John Clarence Carter, Bob Seger, Ronnie Milsap, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, etc. He played on songs like "Patches", "Giving It Up For Your Love", and even "I'd Rather Go Blind" (though uncredited). He is so tasteful, and can find a perfect saxophone line on the spot. One time, I saw him playing on one of those songs about a dog, and he made a perfect dog whining noise in between lines of the last verse.

Both of them are great in completely different ways.

 

Ronnie Cuber

Bob Berg

Michael Brecker

 

Pink Floyd, Momentary Lapse of Reason tour. Don't know who the guy was but he was fantastic.
Los Lobos, love when their sax player pulls out the baritone sax. The batitone just sounds great to me.

 

Ever heard Bob Mintzer play live? I always consider the trio of Berg, Brecker, and Mintzer as the best of that "school" of playing the tenor sax...their sense of time, feel, phrasing, and the beautiful timbre that comes out of their woodwind instruments. Brecker was born in 1949; Berg in '51; and Mintzer in '53. Greats in my book.

 

Too many to remember them all but these spring immediately to mind and mainly from going to Ronnie's in the 80s ...

Arthur Blythe
George Adams
Ornette
John Zorn
Gilad Atzmon
Dewey Redman
Joseph Jarman
John Surman
Bernie Maupin
Branford Marsalis
Roscoe Mitchell
Marshall Allen
John Gilmore
Pat Patrick
Jan Garbarek
Courtney Pine
Dick Heckstall Smith

 

Mette Henriette - she made some amazing, unconventional sounds.

 

Marty Jourard of the Motels......as my Dad always used to say about Plas Johnson....he could make that horn talk!
But he also filled every note with emotion, the perfect counterpoint to the lyrics of Martha Davis!

 

Haha, yeah, the other Bill Evans.

 

Paul Desmond (with Brubeck).
Joe Farrell (with Chick Corea)
John Surman
Sam Rivers: un effing believable.

 

I bet I'll be the only one to list this guy, but in the mid-70's I saw this guy -- Terry Hanck -- totally rip it up in a small club.

About a year ago I'm flying on a plane and am sitting next to a guy who for some reason (I can't remember how) I knew was a musician.

And it turned out to be... Terry Hanck.

I was so impressed that night all those years ago that I still remembered his name!

We talked for the entire one-hour flight... super nice guy.

As the plane was landing he reached into his bag and gave me a copy his most recent CD.

He was the sax player in Elvin Bishop's band for 10 years... and has received several Blues / Rock sax awards in recent years.


Living Blues writer Lee Hildebrand has written that "Hanck is one of the most formidable saxophonists in the blues and soul business. He has a virile tone and attack and an uncanny command of upper-register notes."

Terry Hanck - Wikipedia

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Michael Lington when he played with The Rippingtons last month in Austin . He was filling in for their usual saxophonist who was committed to another engagement. Michael was incredible!