Clarification/Follow-up by tutorjb on 04/01/03 5:49 pm:
Dear STONY,
You must be more obsevant of credits than even myself. I wondered for years who the great sax man I as hearing in The Tonight Show Band was. I was especially curious when he played soprano or harmonica.

You didn't ask, but gave me a fine rating which I appreciate, so here's the URL with info. about Ernie Watts for you. I said it was a long one and think you'll agree. It seems Ernie played some with Billy Taylor and that's quite a pedigree.

http://www.npr.org/programs/btaylor/pastprograms/ewatts.html.

Thank you for using AnswerWay.com and please ask again. I have a jazz profile page where you can ask me questions directly. There's a great sax man who's now teaching at Oberlin, Ohio, on Matt Kendrick's CD, Bass City, and Matt's an incredible bassist. Matt's site is at http://www.geocities.com/artjazz1. I think the two CDs of Matt's you'd most enjoy are Bass City and Unity&Alienation. Bass City is an update of the John Coltrane acoustic jazz style and Unity&Alienation is more electric with the best guitarist I've ever heard. It also features a trumpet player playing a flugelhorn fitted with rotary French horn valves. I'd listen to those two before trying any of Matt's others.



Yours,


Jefferson ;-)

Clarification/Follow-up by tutorjb on 04/02/03 1:31 pm:
Dear Tony,
After reading Mark5's answer to your question, I have to tell you that I agree 100
percent. I've played in big and small jazz bands all my life and the primary function of the solo tenor saz player is to sound flashy to get the audience excited. They, and Ernie Watts is among them, primarily play fast chromatic runs and arpeggios with little consideration to actual improvisation.
If you enjoy Ernie Watts, you're bound to like the sax players with Spyro Gyra. They're another group of technically superior musicians whose solos sound very familiar because they are based upon previously invented improvisations from a number of sources, including John Coltrane andcthose who followed him.
The sax man on Matt Kendrick's Bass City CD, Jack Wilkins, is techynically superior and knows all the famous fiffs, but invents new ones of his own and improvisation is the heart of jazz. Ernie Watts doesn't truly improvise most of what he plays as is typical in big bands such as The Tonight Show band.
During Basie and Ellington's time, there wasn't a great deal of musical literature built up so those saz players had to invent their own.
I think you would be well-served to broaden your horizons by listening to sax players, other than pop saxophonists, who have their own bands or play for composers like Miles Davis.

Yours,
JB