A Conversation with David Sanborn During Which I Don’t Mention His Awesome Sax Break on The James Taylor Classic “You Make It Easy” Even Once – HuffPost 11.8.13

 

Mike Ragogna: David, you’ve been doing this for quite a few years. It’s almost like by this point, this Smooth Jazz Cruise ensemble is a family, isn’t it.

David Sanborn: Well, I think it certainly gets to be that way. When you see the same familiar faces, it’s nice when you get a chance to play with the same musicians. You start to develop this shorthand so everybody knows where you’re at and where you’re going, but then again, there are always surprises. But the more people are comfortable with the material, the more free you can be with the music.

MR: You’ve had relationships with many of these people for many years, for instance your old producer, superbassist Marcus Miller.

DS: Marcus Miller and I, it’s been close to forty years.

MR: And you worked together on many albums. David, while performing, I noticed when you go into a horn solo, that’s a different kind of vibe and a different kind of head than when you need to step back into a horn section, playing whatever the arrangements demand. But it seems like you have as much fun doing that as you do being the soloist or featured artist.

DS: Yeah, because it’s not something that I do very often. I’m very rarely, these days, part of a horn section, but it’s always fun to do though it’s not something that occurs in my life very often.

MR: Mainly, at a setting like this cruise or festivals?

DS: Yeah. There was a situation the other night, specifically with Tower of Power, where we were all stumbling over each other trying to figure out what the hell was going on. But it was great, we kind of felt the situation out.

MR: Something came up the other day that I didn’t really bring up in our previous interview that sort of shocked me, and that was your relationship with Benny Carter. Basically, the sax torch was passed to you, huh.

DS: Well, I don’t know if it was. I certainly think that it was quite an honor that he even knew who I was, let alone said such nice things about me. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with the idea that I’m the standard bearer now, that I would pick up where she left off. I’m hardly at that level, but I appreciate the acknowledgement that I got from her and the support and the encouragement. I think that was very good.

MR: I know you’re a modest person.

DS: I don’t think I’m modest so much as I’m realistic. I know what I can do and what I can’t do. I know what I am and more importantly I know what I’m not. I’m not really a major innovator; I don’t know if I contribute to the language of the saxophone or of jazz. I don’t consider myself an innovator of jazz. I’ve just got a distinctive voice.

MR: I just had a conversation before you with SmoothJazz.com. They have been involved since The Wave format and they’ve also known a lot of the artists in what was designated as “smooth jazz.” To me, I wouldn’t call it “smooth” anymore unless you want to redefine the word “smooth” to include funk and R&B and hip-hop.

DS: Yeah, I never understood why that was the particular marketing. It all seemed to me that we called it smooth so people wouldn’t get scared. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to upset you when we play.” It’s kind of jazz but not enough to hurt you.

MR: Is that sort of the stepchild of something like “easy listening”?

DS: Well, it is in some ways. It is easy listening. The thing is there used to be a radio format that required more. It wasn’t only R&B, there was jazz in there, too. You’ll find cuts of Miles Davis that were ballads. You could make a case that that’s smooth jazz because it’s very contemplative, very introspective, late night moody. In that respect, yeah. But then there comes this evil battle for a certain format. You can’t build a career on just doing that. I think that the fact that most of what they consider “smooth jazz” is really instrumental R&B music. It’s that simple.

MR: All right, but would you then consider folks like Medeski, Martin & Wood, The Bad Plus, Herbie Hancock or Chick Corea, when they’re being innovative, more true to what “jazz” is?

DS: It’s always difficult to define what jazz is or what jazz isn’t. To me, the only definition that I can think of is it’s music where a lot of different elements are played at the same time. The harmonic, the melodic… You’re pushing the boundaries on every level. That could be true of rhythm and blues as well. I’m a musician.

MR: And others are genre-fying.

DS: Yeah, they’re the guardians at the gate.

MR: Where I was going before with SmoothJazz.com, they attribute you as being one of the founders of the format.

DS: I think it’s probably because of stations like The Wave. When it became a radio format, it became a focus for certain artists to say, “Okay, I’m going to make music that’s geared to that specific genre, that market, those people on this radio format.” As an artist, it seems a very limited vision of what they’re doing. If you’re making records specifically for a certain radio format… I make music and then figure out what it is. I’ve never done it any other way. I’ve never been comfortable saying, “Okay, we need something to fit into this format.” I don’t know how to do that. I just write music I enjoy making and someone will fit it into something.

MR: Then do you consider yourself jazz?

DS: Once again, I don’t really think about that. I listen to music that is clearly and historically known as “jazz,” Sonny Rollins, stuff that has that kind of feel. You mentioned The Bad Plus and Medeski, Martin & Wood. Is it jazz? Yeah, I would say that it’s jazz. All of these people, whether they’re making funk records or whatever, they use the language of jazz. I think if you incorporate the language into your music and that comes from the jazz tradition, then yeah.

MR: Then what do you call the music that’s being played on this cruise? Is it an amalgam that is yet to be named?

DS: To me, it’s mostly instrumental R&B. People call it “smooth jazz”–and I’m not belittling that title to anybody–but I think most of the artists on board that are making music would agree it’s “instrumental R&B.”

MR: And there are artists like Dave Holland and Gary Burton who have projects that skew towards this “instrumental R&B” but certainly keep their roots in “jazz.” It’s funny, it’s almost like jazz is evolving, now looking at itself, saying, “What the heck am I?”

DS: It’s always done that. When big band swing came along, there were people who said, “This is it!” Then when Miles came on the scene, they said, “That’s not jazz!” They assumed they’d lost their minds. They said, “What is this s**t?” Then Charlie Parker came along and Cab Calloway. It was like, “Don’t put that Chinese music s**t on here.”

MR: With Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring, they went nuts at its debut.

DS: If you think about what we’re doing as an act, then all the limitations you put on it turn into boundaries because, “It doesn’t fit into the definition that I have of myself.” But that’s wrong! You have to follow where creativity leads you and that can lead you into some pretty strange places unless you’re unwilling to follow it. Then you’re just back where it’s safe.

MR: You don’t play it safe, right?

DS: I have a certain temperament, a disposition that I think lends itself to not playing outside the lines that much. But I do test the boundaries, certainly, and break one or two of my own. Some people are mystified by it, but not me.

MR: Are there areas of jazz or any kind of music that you still want to hit or even push boundaries on?

DS: It’s not something I think about. I do pretty much what’s in front of me, I work on pretty much whatever is right in front me. I try to put myself in situations where I have as much creative freedom as possible, which is why I don’t do a lot of sessions for other people.

MR: But it’s always coming from a passionate place, right?

DS: Yeah. You’ve got to maintain that. It’s got to be more than a job.

MR: Do you feel, in some ways, you reached saturation playing on a lot of other artists’ records?

DS: No, I feel that it’s a natural evolution as more things were out there and I figured out more and more ways to do my own stuff. I wasn’t being called to other things, those things kind of fell out of favor. So I played on a Lenny Kravitz record six or seven years ago and Lenny told me he took the records to a radio station and they said, “We won’t play anything if it has a saxophone solo in it.” They wouldn’t even hear it. These are the people who you’re worried about? Do you have time to worry about some arbiter of taste who’s made a pronouncement like that? For a while, there were some radio consultants that were consulting to record companies. They talked to the stations and pretty much cleared the music for the radio stations. They were the arbiters of taste. Pat Metheny told me a story. He said they brought one of his records to a consultant and they did their little field test, whatever they do–they hold it up to electrodes, I guess–and they came back with it and said “Well, we’ll play this record on a station if you edit out the guitar solo.” Okay. It’s a Pat Metheny record that they’ll play as long as you don’t have Pat Metheny on it.

MR: [laughs] What do you think about that? If it was David Sanborn’s choice, what do you tell these guys? Coming back, once again, sorry, how do you feel about that thing called “jazz”? What would you have the meaning be?

DS: Thank God I don’t control it. I think it’s going to follow its own voice. My wish would be that everybody was free of those kinds of self-loathing ways of thinking about how they can’t do something because it’s not “this.” Just do what you’re going to do. Write a polka if that’s what feels right to you. Just write. Just make music that feels right.

MR: That’s beautiful. That also fills a bit for my usual question, “What advice do you have for new artists?”

DS: Follow your instinct, follow your heart.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne