Best Sax Jazz

Sd ... your comment that jazz is dying. I can only give a personal perspective, and I really have a limited exposure to jazz, but to my ears since the 60s jazz has just sounded more and more like musicians showing off technical prowess, rather than creating music. Almost all modern jazz I've heard turns me off completely ... it's musician's music (hey, and I'm a tenor sax player so I do appreciate the technical brilliance).
Give me Dexter Gordon, Gerry Mulligan, or Sonny Rollins .. to me that was inventive music. Hey, I even like the Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller big band stuff ... so musical, with bands working as a superb team. But more up to date stuff just sounds like Joe Satriani has taken up the sax.

Perhaps it's related to how people are learning jazz now, per your comments, perhaps I'm just a jazz luddite.
You know, I could say the same about classical music ... modern classical just seems to be an exercise in musical mathematics, and has lost the emotion of Beethoven, or Tchaikovsky.

Seandtaylor...
By "modern jazz," do you mean anything "since the 60s?" If so, that would toss out a good bit of John Coltrane, a good bit of Sonny Stitt....

Last time I was in the Village, I went to Small's (you NYC inhabitants will know the place). The young kids playing jazz there on some nights are just incredible. They earn nothing (or next to nothing), but are playing for the love of it. And it is incredibly good music, deeply heartfelt, and as far as I can tell, respectful of the long history of jazz.

After a couple of shows one evening at Small's, I walked over to the Blue Note Cafe....now, that's "corporate" jazz, for lack of a better term, and was all about technique.

CP .... I didn't have a particular date in mind, but probably anything of the late 70s onward, though to me the 50s and 60s was the heyday. As I said I'm not well versed in jazz, but then again nothing I've heard on borrowed CDs or FM has made me want to explore any further .. it just sounds like a blur of notes ... fast for the sake of showing off.

Sonny Rollins, Art Pepper, Stan Getz ..... there are so many great sax players. Each for their own particular style and or skills. I love them all. However, I always find myself returning to Ben Webster. Particularily 'At the Renissance'. This loose, relaxed extremely open recording remains a staple on my playlist. Ben's 'Soulville' is also quite fantasic. A great late night groove is gauranteed.

Then there's also Don Byas. Shame he died so young.