Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3380 - David Sanborn RIP and a music mix - Music Monday for 2405.20
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3380 - David Sanborn RIP and a music mix - Music Monday for 2405.20
Though I have notifications on my phone, subscribe to newspapers, watch TV news, and see trending items on Twitter (still and always called Twitter), I missed that David Sanborn had passed away until I saw a new item in my Open Culture feed, which I have set up in an isolated place so that I see it daily.
Moreover, he dies from complications from Prostate Cancer (which I had): he was only 78 -- 11 years younger than my Dad who also has Prostate Cancer.
That cancer is slow growing and treatable, but it can and will kill you. It also killed Robbie Robertson.
Now, I know that what is commonly considered "soft" jazz is often compared to Muzak. Artists like Kenny G are punchlines for jokes.
But these "soft" jazz or "smooth" jazz artists are masters of fusion, creating a contemporary jazz sound that blends instruments, elements of R&B, and sometimes vocals. Though the term "easy listening" is often used derogatorily, and it's true of Sanborn or artists like Spyro Gyra (who I already had on work ahead lists to feature in a post very soon) are Grammy award winning hit makers.
I never understood why "easy listening" was such a nasty, curse word for some snobbish music fans. Why shouldn't music be easy to listen to? Is music that is hard to listen to better somehow? Pretty music that makes us happy is a good thing. Some "music fans" need a reality check and a gratitude adjustment.
A friend introduced me to David Sanborn, and I quickly bought up close to a dozen of his albums and made a mix -- "Camel Island" -- in the days of cassettes and later burning CDs, eventually iTunes, and not I have recreated the mix in You Tube. These are my favorite Sanborn tracks with one, twice, book ending the mix, with a live version and a studio version.
The links on his name go to Wikipedia for more reading on his illustrious career and a LONG list of people with whom he has recorded and performed.
I will miss his groove.
Here's the mix followed by the obit from NPR, and then the Open Culture piece with his co-hosting of Night Music.
Saxophonist David Sanborn, 6-time Grammy winner, has died at age 78
by Nate Chinen
David Sanborn, seen here performing in New York City in 2011.
David Sanborn, whose keening cry on alto saxophone was as bright and steadfast as a lighthouse beacon during a career that spanned nearly 60 years and included collaborations with everyone from David Bowie to Stevie Wonder, died on Sunday (May 12th) in Tarrytown, N.Y. He was 78.
According to an official statement, the cause was complications of prostate cancer, which he had been battling since 2018.
With a string of crossover hits in the 1970s and '80s, Sanborn set a sturdy template for the radio format known as smooth jazz, though he himself never warmed to the term. He had more than a dozen albums break into the Billboard 200, and won six Grammy awards — four of them in consecutive years during the mid-to-late '80s. Two of those winning albums — Straight to the Heart, a solo effort, and Double Vision, a collaboration with pianist Bob James — are cornerstones of the commercial genre often labeled contemporary jazz.
The key to Sanborn's success was his sound, which ran sweet-tart with a bracing bite, like the wedge of lime on a salt-rimmed cocktail glass. He'd adapted that tone from his childhood hero, Hank Crawford, a former music director with Ray Charles — but he made it as personal as his speaking voice, and carried it into a dazzling range of settings. Sanborn performed at Woodstock as a member of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, with whom he logged his earliest recording credits. He can be heard amiably wailing on "Tuesday Heartbreak," from Wonder's Talking Book album, and James Taylor's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)." His sax famously delivers the opening salvo on Bowie's "Young Americans," as well as a running commentary throughout the song.
Born in Tampa, Fla., on July 30, 1945, David William Sanborn spent his childhood in Kirkwood, Mo. A difficult bout with polio at age 3 — the virus attacked his lungs, an arm and a leg — led to the saxophone as a therapeutic treatment. Enchanted by Crawford and others, he found an obsession; by his early teens, he was sitting in with blues legend Albert King. He joined the Butterfield band after moving to Los Angeles, just out of college.
The versatility that Sanborn brought to his musical career would also become a trademark on network television. He was briefly a member of the Saturday Night Live band in the early 1980s, and became a regular guest with Paul Shaffer's band on Late Night with David Letterman. The experience led to a short-lived but fondly remembered late-night music variety show called Night Music, which he co-hosted with Jools Holland at the close of the '80s. In the show, which was produced by Hal Willner, Sanborn both bantered and performed with the guest lineup, which was radically eclectic; one episode had saxophonist Sonny Rollins, troubadour Leonard Cohen, pianist George Duke, spoken-word artist Ken Nordine, and the avant-pop band Was (Not Was). Over the last year, Sanborn rekindled some of this energy on an interview podcast called As We Speak, from WBGO.
Through every phase of his career, Sanborn maintained an insistent if inconstant connection with the jazz tradition. In 2013, he reunited with Bob James to make Quartette Humaine, a straight-ahead album that evoked the spirit of the classic Dave Brubeck Quartet. The following year, he released Enjoy the View, a surefooted soul-jazz outing featuring Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone, Joey DeFrancesco on a Hammond B-3 organ and Billy Hart on drums.
At the same time, perhaps as a result of some unhappy encounters with jazz gatekeepers, Sanborn maintained a certain humility about his place in the music. "If push comes to shove," he told NPR's Scott Simon in 2008, "I would describe myself more as coming out of the blues/R&B side of the spectrum. But I mean, if you play the saxophone, you certainly can't escape the influence of jazz. So it's not that I necessarily don't, you know, want to be called a jazz musician. It's just that I — you know, I don't know if that's totally accurate."
We see a lot of episodes online of this terrific music series pairing up diverse artists, but several episodes seem to be missing - never fear, BetaGems has the complete series, as well as sister show Sunday Night, so we'll upload the missing episodes. This "lost" edition from 10-28-89 features Todd Rundgren, Taj Mahal, Pat Metheny, Nanci Griffith, and David Sanborn. The BetaGems channel also has "Longlost Music Video: The Nazz Open My Eyes 1968," "Commander Cody & Todd Rundgren 8-27-82 NYC," "Pete Townshend & Pat Metheny 10-22-90 TV performance," "Pat Metheny and Gary Burton perform on late night TV in 1990," "Pat Metheny & Paul Simon 7-28-88 late night TV performance," and "Peter Yarrow & Taj Mahal October 1987 late night TV performance."
BetaGems are culled from an archive of over 1000 beta video tapes recorded from 1983 into the 1990s. Most feature live music performances broadcast on television in San Diego CA, though there are also rarely seen commercials, comedy clips, and other material that doesn't seem to be anywhere else on Youtube or online. Most of the tapes were recorded on a Sony SL-HFT7 Super Beta Theater Hi-Fi Stereo - the same model was refurbished and is being used for these digital transfers and uploads.
Complete series episode guide with notations RE which are on BetaGems (most other episodes are at CrossCurrentJazz, tho a few others are missing online or only partially available).
It’s late in the evening of Saturday, October 28th, 1989. You flip on the television and the saxophonist David Sanborn appears onscreen, instrument in hand, introducing the eclectic blues icon Taj Mahal, who in turn declares his intent to play a number with “rural humor” and “world proportions.” And so he does, which leads into performances by Todd Rundgren, Nanci Griffith, the Pat Metheny Group, and proto-turntablist Christian Marclay (best known today for his 24-hour montage The Clock). At the end of the show — after a vintage clip of Count Basie from 1956 — everyone gets back onstage for an all-together-now rendition of “Never Mind the Why and Wherefore” from H.M.S. Pinafore.
[Hi-Fi Mono] The late, great, Sun Ra and his Arkestra perform two numbers, live, on this unique USTV program. There is also a spoken word bit, at the end of the clip, featuring Sun Ra, on his own.
One of the many examples of the diversity and excellence this television program presented to its audience, thanks to the efforts of host David Sanborn, and musical director, Hal Willner.
This was a more or less typical episode of Night Music, which aired on NBC from 1988 to 1990, and in that time offered “some of the strangest musical line-ups ever broadcast on network television.” So writes E. Little at In Sheep’s Clothing Hi-Fi, who names just a few of its performers: “Sonic Youth, Miles Davis, the Residents, Charlie Haden and His Liberation Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, Pharoah Sanders, Karen Mantler, Diamanda Galas, John Lurie, and Nana Vasconcelos.”
One especially memorable broadcast featured “a 15-minute interview-performance by Sun Ra’s Arkestra that finds the composer-pianist-Afrofuturist at the peak of his experimental powers, moving from piano to Yamaha DX‑7 and back again while the Arkestra flexes its cosmic muscles.”
“Sanborn hosted the eminently hip TV show,” writes jazz journalist Bill Milkowski in his remembrance of the late saxman, who died last weekend, “not only providing informative introductions but also sitting in with the bands.” One night might see him playing with Al Jarreau, Paul Simon, Marianne Faithfull, Bootsy Collins, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dizzy Gillespie, — or indeed, some unlikely combination of such artists. “The idea of that show was that genres are secondary, an artificial division of music that really isn’t necessary; that musicians have more in common than people expect,” Sanborn told DownBeat in 2018. “We wanted to represent that by having a show where Leonard Cohen could sing a song, Sonny Rollins could play a song, and then they could do something together.”
Having wanted to pursue that idea further since the show’s cancellation — not the easiest task, given his ever-busy schedule of live performances and recording sessions across the musical spectrum — he created the YouTube channel Sanborn Sessions a few years ago, some of whose videos have been re-uploaded in recent weeks. But much also remains to be discovered in the archives of the original Night Music for broad-minded music lovers under the age of about 60 — or indeed, for those over that age who never tuned in back in the late eighties, a time period that’s lately come in for a cultural re-evaluation. Thanks to this YouTube playlist, you can watch more than 40 broadcasts of Night Music (which was at first titled Sunday Night) and listen like it’s 1989.
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletterBooks on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
Night Music EP GUIDE
SUNDAY NIGHT
10-2-88: Ivan Neville, George Duke, Ruth Brown (only partially available online)
10-9-88: Randy Newman, Mark Knopfler, Slim Gallard, Take 6
10-16-88: Paul Simon, Phoebe Snow, Yomo Toro, Eddie Palmieri
10-23-88: James Taylor, Nano Vasconcelos, Don Grolnick, Lani Groves (only partially available online)
11-13-88: Marianne Faithful, Aaron Neville, John Zorn, NRBQ
11-20-88: Dizzy Gillespie, Diane Reeves, David Peaston
11-27-88: Joe Cocker, Judy Mowatt, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, David Fathead Newman
12-4-88: Jack Bruce, Joe Walsh, Al Green, Highway 101
12-11-88: Al Jarreau, Darlene Love, Johnny Clegg & Savuka
12-18-88: Earl Klugh, Patti Austin, Joe Sample, Donald Fagen, Sister Carol
12-25-88: Dr. John, Jeff Healy, Mavis Staples
1-8-89: Al Jarreau, Johnny Clagg & Savuka, Darlene Love (only partially available online)
1-15-89: Curtis Mayfield, David Lindley, Shinehead, Taylor Dane, George Duke
1-22-89: Squeeze, Sam Moore, Stanley Turrentine, Ashford and Simpson
1-29-89: Youssou N’Dour, Ambitious Lovers, Phillip Bailey, Habib Faye, Marcus Roberts, George Duke (BETAGEMS)
2-5-89: Carlos Santana, Wayne Shorter, Fontella Bass, Lyle Lovett
2-12-89: Sonny Rollins, Leonard Cohen, Was (Not Was), final George Duke episode
2-19-89: Gospel edition with Claude Jeter, Shirley Ceasar, Take Six, Dixie Hummingbirds
2-26-89: Lou Reed, John Cale, Harry Connick Jr, Kate Webster, Paul Schaffer covers for Jools Holland
3-5-89: Robert Cray, John Hiatt, Nat King Cole, Tracy Nelson, World Saxophone Quartet
3-12-89: Willie Dixon, Betty Carter, John Sebastian, Branford Marsalis (BETAGEMS)
3-19-89: The Roches, Little Milton Campbell, John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards
3-26-89: Deleted/unaired clips - Robert Cray, John Hiatt, Squeeze, Youssou N’Dour (BETAGEMS)
4-2-89: Boz Scaggs, Betty Wright, Anson Funderburgh, Lou Marini (BETAGEMS)
4-9-89: Deleted/unaired clips – Aaron Neville, Joe Cocker, Al Green, Boz Scaggs, Dizzy Gillespie
NIGHT MUSIC (Saturdays)
9-30-89: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Pharoah Sanders, Van Dyke Parks, Maria McKee
10-7-89: Nona Hendryx, Adrian Belew, Pop Staples, Martha Davis, Elliott Sharp
10-14-89: Bob Weir, Rob Wasserman, Artis, John Lurie, Nano Vasconcelos, Bongwater
10-21-89: Bootsy Collins, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, Her Cat Arnold, Alan Toussaint, Pretty Fat
10-28-89: Taj Mahal, Todd Rundgren, Nanci Griffith, Pat Metheny (BETAGEMS)
11-4-89: Rufus Thomas, Sting, Fareed Haque, Bill Frisell, Mary Margaret O’Hara
11-11-89: Hank Ballard, Miles Davis, Phranc
11-18-89: Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, Papa Wemba, Dan Hicks, Julee Cruise
11-25-89: Diamanda Galas, Indigo Girls, Daniel Lanois, Sonic Youth
12-2-89: Chuck Jackson, Jean Luc Ponty, Ray Manzarek, Michael McClure (BETAGEMS)
12-9-89: Rev. Al Green, Pixies, Syd Straw, Sun Ra (BETAGEMS)
12-16-89: Pere Ubu, Debbie Harry, Louden Wainwright III, David Sanborn, Jools Holland (only partially available online)
1-13-90: Bob Weir, Rob Wasserman, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Warren Zevon (only partially available online)
1-20-90: Kronos Quartet, the Residents, Conway Twitty, Aster Awek
2-3-90: NRBQ, Phil Woods, Graham Parker, Abbey Lincoln
2-17-90: Richard Thompson, Joe L. Sonya, Shawn Colvin, John Cale (BETAGEMS)
2-24-90: Hank Crawford, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Miles Davis, Abby Lincoln, outtakes
3-3-90: Deleted/unaired clips – Warren Zevon, Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, Charlie Haden (BETAGEMS)
3-10-90: Deleted/unaired clips – Abbey Lincoln, NRBQ, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pharaoh Sanders (does not appear to be online)
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2405.20 - 10:10
- Days ago = 3244 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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