June 2, 2025 • 45 mins
Join us on the Minds of Jazz Musicians podcast as host Dave Schroeder delves into the extraordinary life of legendary saxophonist David Sanborn. In this heartfelt episode, Dave speaks with Sally Sanborn, David's sister, who shares intimate stories about his remarkable career and the challenges he overcame. Discover the man behind the music and gain unique insights into David’s legacy and the impact he had on jazz. Tune in now for this poignant tribute to a true musical icon!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Unknown Speaker 0:04
(00:01):
You're listening to the minds of jazz musicians podcast channel. I'm your host, Dave Schroeder, and today we're going to do something a little different while the legendary saxophonist David Sanborn passed away in 2024
Unknown Speaker 0:20
I recently had an opportunity to sit down with David's sister Sally to talk about David's incredible career in music, while transcending the health issues he's dealt with throughout his life. Through my conversation with Sally, I discovered that there's much more to be learned about David Sanborn through friends and family. So here we go.
Unknown Speaker 0:46
I'd like you to meet Sally Sanborn, and I'm very proud to have met her a few weeks ago. Hello, Sally. Hello there. It's nice to be here. Well, this is where you live,
Unknown Speaker 0:57
and this is where Dave used to live, so it's not a coincidence that Sally is the younger sister of the great saxophonist David Sanborn. I've always wanted to interview David Sanborn, and I never had the opportunity, but I do have the opportunity to speak with you today, and this is exciting, because I believe that there's a lot of information I can learn about how great Dave was by talking to somebody who grew up with him. That's more what I can reflect on not being a musician, but being a music adjacent well, and growing up with that sound forever. When I was researching Dave, he said he was born in Tampa, Florida. Were you guys living in Tampa at the time? No, no. My dad was stationed there. He was in the Air Force,
Unknown Speaker 1:46
but as my mom would say, he flew a desk. He didn't have any active duty, but he Dave was born in in Tampa, and then they moved here. I'm not sure how old Dave was, but he was a baby when they moved to St Louis. St Louis, Was he your father, still in the service at that point?
Unknown Speaker 2:05
Probably not. I think they bought their house on the GI Bill, when all of that was a real lovely thing. So he had retired and moved on, moved on to the advertising business. And so when Dave came around, what year was he born? 4545
Unknown Speaker 2:22
was music part of his life, or early life. Well, when Dave was three, he contracted polio, and he was in an iron lung for a fairly extended period of time. There was the urban legend of years of that. And it's not true. It was more months and months, but he was in an iron lung, which I don't know if you know about those, but they literally breathed for you. And he was this little kid, and when he got out, there's another story with that. The doctor said he should take up a wind instrument to help develop his lungs. So he was three four when he got out of the hospital, and my mom did all of the physical therapy and took him swimming and endless amounts I hear this because my mom would tell me these stories. And when she would tell me these stories, it was as if she was in a trance, because it was very traumatic, because, of course, he almost died. He had three kinds of polio. It was a miracle. What does that mean? Three kinds of polio, shoulder, leg, arm, something like that. I'm kind of making that up, but it was three kinds of polio. I don't know if you ever saw him, but his right arm was very contracted. He couldn't lift his arm up. So if you went to meet him, he wouldn't shake your hand like this, because he couldn't, couldn't do this, which is why he played the saxophone instead of the trumpet, because he couldn't lift his arms. But also one leg, you know, goes in, and many, many people tried to imitate his style, and they would stand in that kind of sideways thing because he made a hip, and that's how the only way he could stand. But he did make it work. That's my memory. Is that when you would go to shake his hand, he couldn't do that. He did a really good job of disguising, no kidding, right? No, he made it a hip stance. So was that also included in the way that he blew into the saxophone, because he always had it tilted way back with his head up that I don't know, but I mean, I think everything had a purpose to how trained he was and how he would breathe. And he moved away from the standard kind of circular breathing. And again, this is stories from Dave. I'm not a musician, but he talked about that, and he worked with this very famous breathing Dr, Carl stroe, I think his name was, and he taught him to breathe a different way. Many, many years after he was David Sanborn, but initially that was his therapy, and he went to St Louis hawks game with my dad, and at that point the Ray Charles band played live at halftime. And.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
Coleman Hawkins, that be the horn player for him probably would have been Hank Crawford, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I always do that. So the electricity went out in the middle of the show, half Gun Show, and the horn player kept going. And Dave was like, that's what I want to do. And he was maybe 11 at that point. And to my parents credit, they went out and bought that horn because they wanted to do anything for him, but they certainly didn't want him to be a professional musician, because that felt like more pain. And why would you want more pain? In spite of that attitude, they supported his gift. What point was the polio under control? So that I don't think it ever is. I remember endless tendon release surgeries where they would literally go in and release the constricted tendons. I just remember that as a little kid going to visit him in the hospital, and I was pretty little, but that was part of it, and the physical therapy part really, never really stops. You know, you have to just kind of keep it moving. There's a great story. I'm sure you know Howard Johnson, he was a great friend of Dave's and a great friend of mine. He wasn't living there, but a mutual friend was. And when Dave was first kind of playing, he had this shoulder pad that he would wear to kind of make his shoulders more even, and he didn't need it. It just was a visual and a confidence thing. You know, it's like one of those things that kept kind of moving out of place. And Howard Johnson pulled no punches, and he went to Dave, you know, you're sucking your thumb, holding on to that thing. Let it go. Let it go. Dave, let it go. And that was a great moment. But, you know, in the 80s, the sports coach with those pads. Pads were very popular, his idea of heaven at that point. But this was in addition to that, because this was really very affected part of his body, the shoulder and, you know, and he I really do know that it was right arm, because I would watch him swim. So Swimming was major physical activity for him, and a love of both of ours, our whole family, actually. But one of the last things he was asking about when he was at the end, which I was thought would be, was all I want to do is play my horn and swim. You know. Both didn't get to happen, which is the first time in my life with him that he wasn't playing that horn 13 hours, 14 hours a day, you know. And so that was worse than anything. Well, let's talk about that. Because how much did he practice when I was a kid, it was just constant. And he'd have records on and he'd play along with the record. I said this in my speech at the funeral. I said I've given two speeches for Dave in my life. One was for a star on the Walk of Fame in St Louis, and the other was when I was in second grade, and I talked about seeing Dave come on stage with Bill Bay. Do you know who Mel Bay is? Music book? Oh, so Bill Bay. They lived right down the street from us. They went to the same high school, Kirkwood High School. Bill Bay was a fan. He probably still is, trumpet player, and he and Dave walked on stage. I'd never seen Dave on stage, and they played take five. I can't hear that without remembering that. And I wrote in this little essay, whatever you write in third grade, or whatever it was, that he just disappeared as a person. To me, it was like the music was just floating around him. And it was so profound. I mean, I'm not a musician, but that affected me
Unknown Speaker 8:20
amazingly. And he'd talk about playing after he got off the stage, how he felt, not with me, but over the years. And he'd say that what he never liked how he played. He'd come off stage and say, I can literally count on one hand the times he went. That was pretty good when, of course, it was like, fucking a Can I say that? Yes, okay, amazing. He was very, incredibly self critical about you know, he was just a perfectionist, and it chose. But the interesting thing listeners would like to know is, how did he get that sound? I work a lot with children in trauma, and Dave was traumatized as a child, and people come out with that trauma in lots of ways. That's where I always go. I don't think Dave would disagree with me if he could. Well, maybe he would.
Unknown Speaker 9:10
But it's so piercing, it's so physical that sound. Marcus said it beautifully at the tribute that the first time he was there, he's like getting his space out. And here comes this guy. And Marcus was like four. He was really young when he met Dave. Young, 18 eight. He said, Dave picked up his horn and hit a note, and he said, every head in the room went, and who's that? Who's that sound? He goes. That's how you know one note. And I can always tell one note. For me, it's that passion and determination and it breathes for him. Well, some people would also say that he worked with Stevie Wonder, the harmonica, yeah, all of it, all Butterfield, yeah, all those things. But this goes way back, right? This is not this is like that moment on that Kirkwood High School stage. You could hear it then you.
Unknown Speaker 10:00
Know, take five. I mean, I listen to that take five record forever, because I grew up here. He played it, he went to Northwestern, and then he followed his music teacher to Iowa that was reading online. Yeah, he said he studied with this classical saxophonist named Fred hampke, and at Northwestern. But then there was another guy that left there and went to Iowa and but that's not the name, and I'm from Iowa, but Oh, you are so he Yeah, he went there. Did he enjoy it? Did he Yeah? University of Iowa? Is that the one in Iowa City? Yeah. I just think he was really playing with people his level. I don't mean that to sound pretentious, but that was tricky for him. But in St Louis to just go back a little when he is this young, white kid in St Louis, suburban St Louis, he would go down to Gaslight Square and East St Louis. My parents didn't know that. They thought he was at teen town in Kirkwood, which is like right out of a Dick Van Dyke Show. But he was in some pretty serious clubs, and he was holding on at 15 years old. Do you remember any of the records besides brew Beck that he was listening to? That one just stands up so much. Miles Davis. Gil Evans,
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Unknown Speaker 11:14
I do remember Miles Davis a lot. So were you saying the sound that he ended up with that we all know is Dave Sanborn, he had that same sound at that early age, really young, very distinctive. And of course, it got honed by all these amazing artists he played with, but he brought it wasn't like they taught him that, in my opinion. So he didn't sound like Charlie Parker or any of these bebop guys he I mean, he adored them, yeah, but he had his own sound. And Dave bargeron talked to me about that a lot. He said, you know, other people could play technique around Dave, like, no tomorrow, but he brought it home. So could you hear Dave practicing? Well, we lived in a pretty small house in Kirkwood, Missouri, and my room was right down the hall. My sister and I Dave, my mom and dad, like, literally even at that young age. No, he was playing, playing, playing all the time, and he had this great friend and Teddy Stewart, who was a great drummer. Probably, I don't know where Teddy is, but Teddy's parents were deaf, so heaven for a drummer and all. They'd always play at his house. But every so often, Teddy would come to our house and they would play. I was actually talking about here because he lived next door to you. Oh, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 12:26
Well, no, I didn't live here then, but I could hear him. He put in soundproof windows because people were not complain. Well, I guess they were complaining because he didn't pick his hours about when he was going to play. But this is a building of tons of musicians, and they celebrate each other. We hear violin, we piano. Dave's the only horn player, I think that was in this building. But yes, he would just play. He didn't care.
Unknown Speaker 12:52
Do you remember any of the stories that he would tell about experiencing different artists that he'd worked with? His discography is incredible. Yes. Well, you know, when he was at Iowa, he might have even met Philip Wilson in St Louis. I don't remember, because I feel like I've known Philip since I was a little kid. And Phillip was a drummer, and he called Dave, and he goes, You got to come out to San Francisco and sit him at this Butterfield band, because Philip was playing with Butterfield then, and that was Dave's summer before his senior year in college, and he never looked back, never finished college. No no. And my parents are like,
Unknown Speaker 13:29
was he studying music in college? Oh, yes, yeah. He went to Stan Kenton music camp as a kid. I've interviewed a lot of musicians who were at that camp. It was like people like Keith Jarrett, yes, Peter Erskine, yes. So many, yeah. Lou Marini, yeah. Oh god. Lou, uh huh, yeah. So I forgot that they knew each other from there too. That's funny, because there's so many, so many. But Philip is who really launched David Butterfield, because he was really the first kind of horn player in that band. And then there were several Steve Madeo, I don't remember who else. And how did Dave like playing the blues? Oh, he did. No. I mean, it was, that's where we think he may have gotten a lot of his conception playing in a blues band rather than playing in a jazz group, right? Yeah. I mean, I think both in St Louis. What was that name? Terry Thompson. Terry Thompson orchestra. So he played a lot of that kind of orchestral stuff. This was the first time I'd heard him play that kind of music blues.
Unknown Speaker 14:33
And that was a very big moment in his career. Yeah, when he moved so they were living on the road, he'd married Susan, who we met at Iowa, and Jonathan was born, and so they were on the road Jonathan's first three years of life. And this isn't like the kind of road Dave ultimately lived on, fancy, fancy. This was like dirt bag hotels and whatever he was playing with. Butterfield. Butterfield, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 15:00
They toured for a while, and then Paul was living in Woodstock, and then the band pretty much moved to Woodstock, including Dave, and they played the Woodstock. Yeah, yeah, they did. And what was great is Albert Grossman was the manager of Butterfield, Janice, the band, Bob Dylan, and they all lived in Woodstock, and they would practice at this place called Peter Pan farm, and that was fun. And I was going up there a lot because I was really close with his first wife and subsequent wives, but that was my first and I was very close with them, so I was going to Woodstock a lot, and I was a teenager, so that was some heady times, but you were living here as a teenager St Louis. I came to visit from St Louis to Woodstock, which was fascinating. When I moved to New York in the 80s, I started meeting all these guys who were in the studio scene. And if you were a sax player, and you'd see the music and it says solo, would say solo. Alan Sanborn, it would always be, copy him. What did he think about that? But like, I'm the saxophone player. Okay, I'm looking at my part. Then it says, sax solo. Oh, play it. Dave Sanborn,
Unknown Speaker 16:14
that was common. That was, Oh, I know it was very common. And I mean that just never stopped. More, what did he think about these guys that COVID him? I mean, he's like, it's, you know, pretty much of a compliment to, you know, imitation, whatever that quote is, as long as they weren't better.
Unknown Speaker 16:33
And I don't think that didn't happen, that didn't happen, but, you know, for me, it was right down to how they would stand. But that's the problem. It's like Dave Sanborn was the innovator, yeah, and then everybody jumped on his bandwagon, just like they did with Coltrane, with Miles Davis, with Charlie Parker, with whoever. And it's hard to break through that, yeah, he did it. He did it. You know, again, he was so distinctive, so young. But, I mean, I'm kind of biased. I'm not even kind of biased. I was blown away by his music at a very, very young age. Yeah. I mean, it's all I heard but, but when I heard him really play, instead of around a set of scales, which was my whole childhood, was scales, and then to see him play a full song. Take five. I mean, I can't listen to that song without crying. Do you think he ever met Paul Desmond? I do, but I can't finish that story. Other than I do. I was always surprised. I'd say, well, but you've met him? He goes, No, I haven't.
Unknown Speaker 17:38
You've met you know, Desmond Tutu, right?
Unknown Speaker 17:43
He just was such a charismatic guy, Dave, and also he moved in those circles. So I always just assumed that he'd met all these people. I mean, when he's the host of The Late Night Show, he met everybody, yeah, even though it wasn't always the center, he was sound was always there,
Unknown Speaker 18:01
(00:43):
and he was very eloquent in introducing everyone. So what else can you tell me about the private side? Did Dave have? Was he concerned with his physical issues? He was, he was, I don't think you can grow up with a disability and not be self conscious about it, and you just are. It was just part of him. And obviously he compensated magnificently. But you don't lose that stuff. You know, the body keeps score, as the famous book goes about trauma, and it stays in your body, and it literally stayed in his body. But you know what it's like when two worlds collide perfectly? He found music. What would he have done without music? Well, I I'm not sure, because he couldn't do sports in the same way. You know, we were very athletic family, and he couldn't do that stuff, like be on the swim team. He swam, but, you know, he was very self conscious, so he didn't swim like openly all the time. I mean, it did as an adult. But even that was, like, very different for him to do that with confidence. You know, you aren't confident when you feel disabled. In that disabled feeling, did he have a lot of friends growing up? Yeah, because he was president of his class. I mean, he was a very powerful personality and extraordinarily good looking guy. There was never a lack of friends and girlfriends. He's just a powerful presence. Always this little guy, you know, and that is always amazing, you know, he's this little guy, and he'd get up on stage just play like he's 40 feet tall. In my opinion, he was just bigger than life. I think we'll always have David Sanborn in the world. Yeah. Thank God. Thank God, and thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 19:50
Great to meet you. Nice to meet you too.
Unknown Speaker 19:54
Thanks for listening to the minds of jazz musicians podcast series to learn more about the series.
Unknown Speaker 20:00
Visit from the minds of jazz musicians.org, you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Unknown Speaker 0:04
(00:01):
You're listening to the minds of jazz musicians podcast channel. I'm your host, Dave Schroeder, and today we're going to do something a little different while the legendary saxophonist David Sanborn passed away in 2024
Unknown Speaker 0:20
I recently had an opportunity to sit down with David's sister Sally to talk about David's incredible career in music, while transcending the health issues he's dealt with throughout his life. Through my conversation with Sally, I discovered that there's much more to be learned about David Sanborn through friends and family. So here we go.
Unknown Speaker 0:46
I'd like you to meet Sally Sanborn, and I'm very proud to have met her a few weeks ago. Hello, Sally. Hello there. It's nice to be here. Well, this is where you live,
Unknown Speaker 0:57
and this is where Dave used to live, so it's not a coincidence that Sally is the younger sister of the great saxophonist David Sanborn. I've always wanted to interview David Sanborn, and I never had the opportunity, but I do have the opportunity to speak with you today, and this is exciting, because I believe that there's a lot of information I can learn about how great Dave was by talking to somebody who grew up with him. That's more what I can reflect on not being a musician, but being a music adjacent well, and growing up with that sound forever. When I was researching Dave, he said he was born in Tampa, Florida. Were you guys living in Tampa at the time? No, no. My dad was stationed there. He was in the Air Force,
Unknown Speaker 1:46
but as my mom would say, he flew a desk. He didn't have any active duty, but he Dave was born in in Tampa, and then they moved here. I'm not sure how old Dave was, but he was a baby when they moved to St Louis. St Louis, Was he your father, still in the service at that point?
Unknown Speaker 2:05
Probably not. I think they bought their house on the GI Bill, when all of that was a real lovely thing. So he had retired and moved on, moved on to the advertising business. And so when Dave came around, what year was he born? 4545
Unknown Speaker 2:22
was music part of his life, or early life. Well, when Dave was three, he contracted polio, and he was in an iron lung for a fairly extended period of time. There was the urban legend of years of that. And it's not true. It was more months and months, but he was in an iron lung, which I don't know if you know about those, but they literally breathed for you. And he was this little kid, and when he got out, there's another story with that. The doctor said he should take up a wind instrument to help develop his lungs. So he was three four when he got out of the hospital, and my mom did all of the physical therapy and took him swimming and endless amounts I hear this because my mom would tell me these stories. And when she would tell me these stories, it was as if she was in a trance, because it was very traumatic, because, of course, he almost died. He had three kinds of polio. It was a miracle. What does that mean? Three kinds of polio, shoulder, leg, arm, something like that. I'm kind of making that up, but it was three kinds of polio. I don't know if you ever saw him, but his right arm was very contracted. He couldn't lift his arm up. So if you went to meet him, he wouldn't shake your hand like this, because he couldn't, couldn't do this, which is why he played the saxophone instead of the trumpet, because he couldn't lift his arms. But also one leg, you know, goes in, and many, many people tried to imitate his style, and they would stand in that kind of sideways thing because he made a hip, and that's how the only way he could stand. But he did make it work. That's my memory. Is that when you would go to shake his hand, he couldn't do that. He did a really good job of disguising, no kidding, right? No, he made it a hip stance. So was that also included in the way that he blew into the saxophone, because he always had it tilted way back with his head up that I don't know, but I mean, I think everything had a purpose to how trained he was and how he would breathe. And he moved away from the standard kind of circular breathing. And again, this is stories from Dave. I'm not a musician, but he talked about that, and he worked with this very famous breathing Dr, Carl stroe, I think his name was, and he taught him to breathe a different way. Many, many years after he was David Sanborn, but initially that was his therapy, and he went to St Louis hawks game with my dad, and at that point the Ray Charles band played live at halftime. And.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
Coleman Hawkins, that be the horn player for him probably would have been Hank Crawford, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I always do that. So the electricity went out in the middle of the show, half Gun Show, and the horn player kept going. And Dave was like, that's what I want to do. And he was maybe 11 at that point. And to my parents credit, they went out and bought that horn because they wanted to do anything for him, but they certainly didn't want him to be a professional musician, because that felt like more pain. And why would you want more pain? In spite of that attitude, they supported his gift. What point was the polio under control? So that I don't think it ever is. I remember endless tendon release surgeries where they would literally go in and release the constricted tendons. I just remember that as a little kid going to visit him in the hospital, and I was pretty little, but that was part of it, and the physical therapy part really, never really stops. You know, you have to just kind of keep it moving. There's a great story. I'm sure you know Howard Johnson, he was a great friend of Dave's and a great friend of mine. He wasn't living there, but a mutual friend was. And when Dave was first kind of playing, he had this shoulder pad that he would wear to kind of make his shoulders more even, and he didn't need it. It just was a visual and a confidence thing. You know, it's like one of those things that kept kind of moving out of place. And Howard Johnson pulled no punches, and he went to Dave, you know, you're sucking your thumb, holding on to that thing. Let it go. Let it go. Dave, let it go. And that was a great moment. But, you know, in the 80s, the sports coach with those pads. Pads were very popular, his idea of heaven at that point. But this was in addition to that, because this was really very affected part of his body, the shoulder and, you know, and he I really do know that it was right arm, because I would watch him swim. So Swimming was major physical activity for him, and a love of both of ours, our whole family, actually. But one of the last things he was asking about when he was at the end, which I was thought would be, was all I want to do is play my horn and swim. You know. Both didn't get to happen, which is the first time in my life with him that he wasn't playing that horn 13 hours, 14 hours a day, you know. And so that was worse than anything. Well, let's talk about that. Because how much did he practice when I was a kid, it was just constant. And he'd have records on and he'd play along with the record. I said this in my speech at the funeral. I said I've given two speeches for Dave in my life. One was for a star on the Walk of Fame in St Louis, and the other was when I was in second grade, and I talked about seeing Dave come on stage with Bill Bay. Do you know who Mel Bay is? Music book? Oh, so Bill Bay. They lived right down the street from us. They went to the same high school, Kirkwood High School. Bill Bay was a fan. He probably still is, trumpet player, and he and Dave walked on stage. I'd never seen Dave on stage, and they played take five. I can't hear that without remembering that. And I wrote in this little essay, whatever you write in third grade, or whatever it was, that he just disappeared as a person. To me, it was like the music was just floating around him. And it was so profound. I mean, I'm not a musician, but that affected me
Unknown Speaker 8:20
amazingly. And he'd talk about playing after he got off the stage, how he felt, not with me, but over the years. And he'd say that what he never liked how he played. He'd come off stage and say, I can literally count on one hand the times he went. That was pretty good when, of course, it was like, fucking a Can I say that? Yes, okay, amazing. He was very, incredibly self critical about you know, he was just a perfectionist, and it chose. But the interesting thing listeners would like to know is, how did he get that sound? I work a lot with children in trauma, and Dave was traumatized as a child, and people come out with that trauma in lots of ways. That's where I always go. I don't think Dave would disagree with me if he could. Well, maybe he would.
Unknown Speaker 9:10
But it's so piercing, it's so physical that sound. Marcus said it beautifully at the tribute that the first time he was there, he's like getting his space out. And here comes this guy. And Marcus was like four. He was really young when he met Dave. Young, 18 eight. He said, Dave picked up his horn and hit a note, and he said, every head in the room went, and who's that? Who's that sound? He goes. That's how you know one note. And I can always tell one note. For me, it's that passion and determination and it breathes for him. Well, some people would also say that he worked with Stevie Wonder, the harmonica, yeah, all of it, all Butterfield, yeah, all those things. But this goes way back, right? This is not this is like that moment on that Kirkwood High School stage. You could hear it then you.
Unknown Speaker 10:00
Know, take five. I mean, I listen to that take five record forever, because I grew up here. He played it, he went to Northwestern, and then he followed his music teacher to Iowa that was reading online. Yeah, he said he studied with this classical saxophonist named Fred hampke, and at Northwestern. But then there was another guy that left there and went to Iowa and but that's not the name, and I'm from Iowa, but Oh, you are so he Yeah, he went there. Did he enjoy it? Did he Yeah? University of Iowa? Is that the one in Iowa City? Yeah. I just think he was really playing with people his level. I don't mean that to sound pretentious, but that was tricky for him. But in St Louis to just go back a little when he is this young, white kid in St Louis, suburban St Louis, he would go down to Gaslight Square and East St Louis. My parents didn't know that. They thought he was at teen town in Kirkwood, which is like right out of a Dick Van Dyke Show. But he was in some pretty serious clubs, and he was holding on at 15 years old. Do you remember any of the records besides brew Beck that he was listening to? That one just stands up so much. Miles Davis. Gil Evans,
(00:22):
Unknown Speaker 11:14
I do remember Miles Davis a lot. So were you saying the sound that he ended up with that we all know is Dave Sanborn, he had that same sound at that early age, really young, very distinctive. And of course, it got honed by all these amazing artists he played with, but he brought it wasn't like they taught him that, in my opinion. So he didn't sound like Charlie Parker or any of these bebop guys he I mean, he adored them, yeah, but he had his own sound. And Dave bargeron talked to me about that a lot. He said, you know, other people could play technique around Dave, like, no tomorrow, but he brought it home. So could you hear Dave practicing? Well, we lived in a pretty small house in Kirkwood, Missouri, and my room was right down the hall. My sister and I Dave, my mom and dad, like, literally even at that young age. No, he was playing, playing, playing all the time, and he had this great friend and Teddy Stewart, who was a great drummer. Probably, I don't know where Teddy is, but Teddy's parents were deaf, so heaven for a drummer and all. They'd always play at his house. But every so often, Teddy would come to our house and they would play. I was actually talking about here because he lived next door to you. Oh, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 12:26
Well, no, I didn't live here then, but I could hear him. He put in soundproof windows because people were not complain. Well, I guess they were complaining because he didn't pick his hours about when he was going to play. But this is a building of tons of musicians, and they celebrate each other. We hear violin, we piano. Dave's the only horn player, I think that was in this building. But yes, he would just play. He didn't care.
Unknown Speaker 12:52
Do you remember any of the stories that he would tell about experiencing different artists that he'd worked with? His discography is incredible. Yes. Well, you know, when he was at Iowa, he might have even met Philip Wilson in St Louis. I don't remember, because I feel like I've known Philip since I was a little kid. And Phillip was a drummer, and he called Dave, and he goes, You got to come out to San Francisco and sit him at this Butterfield band, because Philip was playing with Butterfield then, and that was Dave's summer before his senior year in college, and he never looked back, never finished college. No no. And my parents are like,
Unknown Speaker 13:29
was he studying music in college? Oh, yes, yeah. He went to Stan Kenton music camp as a kid. I've interviewed a lot of musicians who were at that camp. It was like people like Keith Jarrett, yes, Peter Erskine, yes. So many, yeah. Lou Marini, yeah. Oh god. Lou, uh huh, yeah. So I forgot that they knew each other from there too. That's funny, because there's so many, so many. But Philip is who really launched David Butterfield, because he was really the first kind of horn player in that band. And then there were several Steve Madeo, I don't remember who else. And how did Dave like playing the blues? Oh, he did. No. I mean, it was, that's where we think he may have gotten a lot of his conception playing in a blues band rather than playing in a jazz group, right? Yeah. I mean, I think both in St Louis. What was that name? Terry Thompson. Terry Thompson orchestra. So he played a lot of that kind of orchestral stuff. This was the first time I'd heard him play that kind of music blues.
Unknown Speaker 14:33
And that was a very big moment in his career. Yeah, when he moved so they were living on the road, he'd married Susan, who we met at Iowa, and Jonathan was born, and so they were on the road Jonathan's first three years of life. And this isn't like the kind of road Dave ultimately lived on, fancy, fancy. This was like dirt bag hotels and whatever he was playing with. Butterfield. Butterfield, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 15:00
They toured for a while, and then Paul was living in Woodstock, and then the band pretty much moved to Woodstock, including Dave, and they played the Woodstock. Yeah, yeah, they did. And what was great is Albert Grossman was the manager of Butterfield, Janice, the band, Bob Dylan, and they all lived in Woodstock, and they would practice at this place called Peter Pan farm, and that was fun. And I was going up there a lot because I was really close with his first wife and subsequent wives, but that was my first and I was very close with them, so I was going to Woodstock a lot, and I was a teenager, so that was some heady times, but you were living here as a teenager St Louis. I came to visit from St Louis to Woodstock, which was fascinating. When I moved to New York in the 80s, I started meeting all these guys who were in the studio scene. And if you were a sax player, and you'd see the music and it says solo, would say solo. Alan Sanborn, it would always be, copy him. What did he think about that? But like, I'm the saxophone player. Okay, I'm looking at my part. Then it says, sax solo. Oh, play it. Dave Sanborn,
Unknown Speaker 16:14
that was common. That was, Oh, I know it was very common. And I mean that just never stopped. More, what did he think about these guys that COVID him? I mean, he's like, it's, you know, pretty much of a compliment to, you know, imitation, whatever that quote is, as long as they weren't better.
Unknown Speaker 16:33
And I don't think that didn't happen, that didn't happen, but, you know, for me, it was right down to how they would stand. But that's the problem. It's like Dave Sanborn was the innovator, yeah, and then everybody jumped on his bandwagon, just like they did with Coltrane, with Miles Davis, with Charlie Parker, with whoever. And it's hard to break through that, yeah, he did it. He did it. You know, again, he was so distinctive, so young. But, I mean, I'm kind of biased. I'm not even kind of biased. I was blown away by his music at a very, very young age. Yeah. I mean, it's all I heard but, but when I heard him really play, instead of around a set of scales, which was my whole childhood, was scales, and then to see him play a full song. Take five. I mean, I can't listen to that song without crying. Do you think he ever met Paul Desmond? I do, but I can't finish that story. Other than I do. I was always surprised. I'd say, well, but you've met him? He goes, No, I haven't.
Unknown Speaker 17:38
You've met you know, Desmond Tutu, right?
Unknown Speaker 17:43
He just was such a charismatic guy, Dave, and also he moved in those circles. So I always just assumed that he'd met all these people. I mean, when he's the host of The Late Night Show, he met everybody, yeah, even though it wasn't always the center, he was sound was always there,
Unknown Speaker 18:01
(00:43):
and he was very eloquent in introducing everyone. So what else can you tell me about the private side? Did Dave have? Was he concerned with his physical issues? He was, he was, I don't think you can grow up with a disability and not be self conscious about it, and you just are. It was just part of him. And obviously he compensated magnificently. But you don't lose that stuff. You know, the body keeps score, as the famous book goes about trauma, and it stays in your body, and it literally stayed in his body. But you know what it's like when two worlds collide perfectly? He found music. What would he have done without music? Well, I I'm not sure, because he couldn't do sports in the same way. You know, we were very athletic family, and he couldn't do that stuff, like be on the swim team. He swam, but, you know, he was very self conscious, so he didn't swim like openly all the time. I mean, it did as an adult. But even that was, like, very different for him to do that with confidence. You know, you aren't confident when you feel disabled. In that disabled feeling, did he have a lot of friends growing up? Yeah, because he was president of his class. I mean, he was a very powerful personality and extraordinarily good looking guy. There was never a lack of friends and girlfriends. He's just a powerful presence. Always this little guy, you know, and that is always amazing, you know, he's this little guy, and he'd get up on stage just play like he's 40 feet tall. In my opinion, he was just bigger than life. I think we'll always have David Sanborn in the world. Yeah. Thank God. Thank God, and thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 19:50
Great to meet you. Nice to meet you too.
Unknown Speaker 19:54
Thanks for listening to the minds of jazz musicians podcast series to learn more about the series.
Unknown Speaker 20:00
Visit from the minds of jazz musicians.org, you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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