Your Top 5 Sax Players?

Frogman,
It's obvious that you like some great stuff and i'd be hard pressed to disagree wit ya most of the time, but this thread is about looking back not forward, (it's also about whose playing you like most, not who was most influential). If you listen to the records and check out the dates on em' the fact that Sanborn was not almost singlehandedly responsible for the prevalence of the saxaphone in pop music beginning in the early 70's is pretty irrefutable. I'm not really a big fan of Paul Desmond but he was a guy who steered the instrument toward a whitebread sensibility that's at the core of the dreaded smooth jazz saxaphone. Hey at least we both spelled hordes wrong.

I'm glad that Kenny G is excepted from everyone's lists.

Yeah Kenny G, that begs the question if an artist finds a niche and crosses over to the mainstream selling audience ala Chuck Mangione,John Klemmer,George Benson is it still jazz. I dug John Klemmer and included him on my list because he put out some pretty trippy stuff in the late 70's but it wasn't traditional jazz. Hey I dig Paul Desmond and play his Mosiac box set every now and then and say what you will about the guy but he could rip with the best of them.Nuff said.

Desmond and Klemmer blow me away. Klemmer's "Eruptions" record (1970) is an amazing brain scorcher w/ tons of depraved guitar work, "Constant Throb" and "Intensity" are also excellent.

Duanegoosen, point well taken; almost. As I see it, Edinanm3 asks for two different things, really. ALL TIME GREAT has to mean most influential. By the same token, those five may not necessarily be one's favorites. So, using your interpretation of this thread's original calling, my top five are:

"Lockjaw" Davis
Johnny Hodges
Hank Mobley
Joe Henderson
Wayne Shorter

Why, because they "really get to (my) heart and soul the most"

I have to respectfully and strongly disagree with you about both Desmond and Sanborn. Desmond's sophistication of swing and sound, and subtlety of phrasing are extremely respected by most players. The "whitebread" sensibility you talk about is an unfair characterization of his artistry. Just because he doesn't swing "hard" in the obvious sense, or because he had the courage (like others such as Mulligan, or Konitz) to play without sounding like his horn was going to split at the seams all the time, does not mean that he was not playing at an extremely high level.

As far as Sanborn goes, my comments had nothing to do chronology. Yes, there were others playing in a pop/jazz bag before he did; although there is plenty of work by him as a sideman before he recorded as a leader. Check out some of his work with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, or the Gil Evans Orchestra. If that doesn't qualify him as a great and highly individualistic saxophone player, I don't know what does. Anyway, the vast majority (and I mean VAST) of contemporary alto players playing our pet-peave-genre "smooth jazz", owe their sound to Sanborn, and they would be the first to admit it. That was my point.

Three more for the list:

Joe Farrell
Eddie Harris
Georege Coleman

BTW, a friendly aside: If you want to really bug a saxophone player, call it a saxAphone.

All the best.