Quotes About Saxophone

I've been working on the soprano saxophone for 40 years, and the possibilities are astounding. It's up to you, the only limit is the imagination.

The only memory I have of playing the saxophone was in a school play. We put on 'Grease,' which is still one of my favorite movies. I played Danny, and I slid out on my knees and played a really out-of-tune 'Blue Moon.'

My father is a real idealist, and he's all about learning. If I asked for a pair of Nikes growing up, it was just a resounding 'No.' But if I asked for a saxophone, one would appear and next day and I'd be signed up for lessons. So anything to do with education or learning, my father would spare no expense.

Bill Justis was a saxophone player, good musician, arranger, and friend of mine who had a big hit called 'Raunchy.'

Any saxophone player will have those influences come through in their music in a very different way. I can listen to the same 10 sax players as someone else for my entire life, and we'll both play completely differently. That's the beauty of being a musician.

When I started saxophone, my dad took me to my uncle's church, and I started playing there, too. At its best, music serves a greater purpose, and that showed me a whole other side to spiritual jazz, one which you can hear in the music - the gospel and blues feel, the soul that's embedded into the more avant-garde records.

I played saxophone, so I was into jazz. I learned from each audience and each teacher that I had. I can't really tell you any rules or anything, but the way I develop my beliefs is really just by personally learning from different situations.

My secret dream has always been to be a jazz musician. I tried the saxophone for a year or two when I was younger, but unfortunately I had to face the fact that I was not really talented!

So I'm looking to the saxophone as a resource which has its own unique set of possibilities. I'm looking to exploit them and develop them and have the fullest range of possibilities of the saxophone be known.

I used to play too with a boy who played a saxophone. We didn't play no blues, we'd play a lot of love songs - 'Stardust', 'Blue Moon', 'Out Cold Again', 'Sophisticated Lady', 'Stars Fell On Alabama', a lot of different stuff.

One of my songs was on a jazz station for awhile. It was a song that I wrote for a jazz sax player friend of mine, and I sang and played the guitar on it.

Music is one of the noblest callings I can think of. It's the highest of all the art forms to me. For example, if my kid said to me, 'I want to give it all up,' whatever it is that they're doing, 'and I want to take my saxophone and go out,' I would say, 'May God go with you. This is a great and noble thing that you're doing.'

My third day playing saxophone, I was in front of a congregation. I still didn't know the names of all the notes. I was playing by ear, following along, but it was such an encouraging environment, I couldn't fail. It was all, 'Yeah baby, you sound real good' no matter what you play. It was a great way to learn.

I decided to play the saxophone because it was the most obvious instrument in my family. There were a lot of saxophone players in my family, and there were extra saxophones, so that was an easy one to pick up. It was fun - it was okay - it just wasn't me. It didn't feel like my instrument, so I never followed through.

The potential for the saxophone is unlimited.

I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.

You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others.

I like what Oliver Lakes does on the saxophone. The saxophone comes pretty close to the sound of the human voice and when Oliver plays with other sax players, it's like a dialogue.

Nobody was playing the soprano saxophone and certainly nobody was trying to do anything with it. So I was all alone. I didn't know that at first.

And I too wanted to be. That is all I wanted; and this is the last word. At the bottom of all these attempts which seemed without bounds, I find the same desire again: to drive existence out of me, to rid the passing moments of their fat, to twist them, dry them, purify myself, harden myself, to give back at last the sharp, precise sound of a saxophone note. That could even make an apologue: there was a poor man who got in the wrong world.

Our band was different. We were still playing rock 'n' roll, but we had an entirely different sound: just one guitar, but an organ and a saxophone.

I had decided to delight the audience by playing my soprano saxophone for their delectation (years later, a music critic would describe my playing at a concert as "excruciating").

I wanted an electric train for Christmas but I got the saxophone instead.

I went to the CD player, choosing some soft and soothing soprano sax, courtesy of the late Art Porter.