Great Saxophone Solos

Clarence Clemens - Jungleland on the Born to Run album

You know what now that you mention Clemons on the song Born to Run that's one of all timers right there, no doubt.

If you like jazz solos check out George Benson doing “This Masquerade “ it’s one of my favorites

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GQIxLE9maZ…

First one that popped in my head - not really a solo but big part of the hook:

Glenn Frey - You Belong To The City

I like the saxophone generally. I like Jazz, generally. I like saxophone in Jazz generally. But your original post describing "where all the saxophone players have gone?" Pretty tone deaf. Yes, pun intended. Born before 1955 I'm guessing. That last comment isn't designed to disrespect, just place where I think it comes from. I am prepared for you OG's to smash up my comment. You may begin.

dire straits-your latest trick
pink floyd-money
hall and oates- no can do

I don't know who played the sax on the song but there is a great sax solo in Whitney Houston's "I will always love you."

I'm not a huge jazz fan, but I'll never forget Coltrane's "Your Lady" because my dad always listened to a live album of it as I was growing up. Of course you could probably include any number of Coltrane's songs on this list.

I'm going to skip over better players and greater solos and share this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C1B-EbB…

Tower of Power. Boys from the Bay.

Meant to say ... I shared that one because it cooks!

another one I gotta say is Sting if you love Somebody set them free. That’s an early Branford Marsalis just killing it.

I'll second @rattdog on "Your Latest Trick" by Dire Straits. Hard to top that one...

I'll also add "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty as another gem of a song with great saxophone.

There in 2 different universes but I’d throw Smooth Operator or Giant Steps up there

Youre right about the horns slowly but surely disappearing from popular music. A lot of the old soul and motown bands had great horns sections, too many to name, but anything recorded in muscle shoals (fame studios) is a good place to start looking. Their house band kicked ass. Aretha franklin to the rolling stones all recorded there, with sax prominent.
Seems to me horns are currently and historically more popular in certain regions. New Orleans first and foremost - walk into any club on frenchman st and youll hear some great sax but its still popular there in general. Detroit and chicago historically and nj - e street/clarence clemmons, southside johnny/asbury jukes and you can check out “bleachers” who are newer and have double sax on some songs. Also bruce springsteen did an album of soul covers not too long ago, worth checking out too.

Bad to the Bone

Very short but the opening of the Seger version of Turn the Page (not Metallica but I do like their cover)

I'll take a step back about 70 years:

Jazz on a Summer's Day, 1959: Newport Jazz Festival documentary with scenes of the America's Cup. This documentary created the standard for filming concerts like Woodstock, Shine a Light, and so many more. You'll see a young Sonny Stitt and a real young Gerry Mulligan. I think this may be available on YouTube, and TCM shows it occasionally. The cool thing was Newport Jazz Fest was just so laid-back, not a crazy place, people just enjoying some the greats from that time; Thelonious Monk had a great set.

I like Cool Jazz, BeBop, 1950s/1960s era. I was too young to see these guys. While not a sax guy, I did meet Dizzy Gillespie at The Air Force Academy with my 8-year-old step-son. Dizzy gave him a big bear hug and signed his "Giants of Jazz" book. I had seen Dizzy at college a few times.

Stan Getz's sax solo: "Girl From Ipanema" (sp??), you know the song; actually I like a lot of Stan Getz stuff,. Cannonball Adderley (sp?) did "Autumn Leaves” with Miles Davis and Art Blakey. John Coltrane's “Theme For Ernie”. Sonny Rollins "St Thomas" (you've heard it).

Dick Parry did a great sax on The Pink's "Money".

In high school I really liked Blood, Sweat and Tears, and Chicago, Kool and the Gang, Tower Of Power - lots of brass, I was the odd kid. I didn't care about the "Laurel Canyon" bands.

My choice of music made my wife nuts. It was just too "unorganized" for her.

@assmanjoe: Great memories! A lot don't know the Motown house band, "The Funk Brothers". There is a great documentary called "Standing In The Shadows of Motown".

@Sgrayeff - Tower of Power "What is Hip"

@twentyfive - George Benson, "This Masquerade" great choice. I use to play this as a DJ to slow things down to get a good slow grind going ate of 45 min R&B set.

Rolling Stones saxophonist Bobby Keys: 5 great solos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFa4YaHu…

I am with Motorhead on this. Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band had some really great Sax. RIP Alto Reed.

EastCoaster beat me to it with the reference to Bobby Keys. That YouTube compilation is great, my absolute favorite is Can’t You Hear Me Knockin.

Dave Brubeck - Take Five. First jazz single to sell a million records. Iconic alto sax melody.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmDDOFXS…

(I'll add that people still play jazz on the streets in New Orleans. Although I've heard the SC scene is much more tame than it used to be...)

The corrects answer is Baker Street. The correct Rolling Stones answer is Sonny Rollins in Waiting on a Friend.

“Take Five” is such a great tune.

I’m pretty damn old but not old enough to remember it as the theme song for the Today Show

And I really always loved that old school Phil Donahue theme song. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ckHRq7BDJE…

Money by Pink Floyd is the best. Obviously. Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty a close second.

Also the start of Harden my Heart by Quarterflash is pretty badass.

@Motorhead: "Take Five" Dave Brubeck Quartet written by Paul Desmond! "Time Out" is a magnificent album. How did I MISS THIS ONE! "Take Five" in 5/4 time is what I've heard made it special. I'm not a musician and don't understand what this is, I just know it was radical at the time and is one of the all time top sellers in the Jazz world. Also, "Blue Rondo A la Turk" was great with Paul Desmond's sax; I have no idea where that title came from.

Thank you! I should have added this - DUH!

^ I also love the "Time Out" Modern album jacket. I would have loved to have heard all this at the Blue Note or Michael's Pub.

nothing like great sax.

Baker street's one of my favorites.

And I forgot to say one of the best ones is Men At Work-Who can it be now? Awesome stuff.

Yakety-yak - The Coasters

here's a real underrated one: long as i can see the light-ccr

^great underrated song.

I can't believe I didn't think of this one sooner - "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)" by Jr. Walker & The All Stars.

Maybe someone else already mentioned this one and I just didn't catch it, though. Some incredible music in this thread...

^ Thanks for bringing up Jr. Walker, a great sax player. Muddy mentioned Foreigner's "Urgent" in his original post and said it was Mark Rivera on sax. I know that Rivera played with Foreigner, but I always thought it was Jr. Walker on that cut. Here's the story I remember hearing, copied and pasted from saxontheweb.net:

Junior Walker Urgent Story

Mick Jones was another englishman who had grown up revering Jr. Walker from afar. "Junior was very highly respected in music circles. A lot of guitar players would steal his sax riffs. You can ask Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, any of those people. They'd happily admit to being inspired by Junior's sax playing."

By 1981, Jones' British-American band Foreigner was a multi-platinum monster. During sessions in New York for their fourth album, they had recorded a track they agreed might benefit by a saxophone part "like Jr. Walker might play it." Flipping through the pages of the Village Voices, Jones was shocked to discover that Walker was in town to play the Lone Star Cafe that very evening.

"It was just a wild hunch," Jones says now. "I went down and sat through three sets, something I would have done with great pleasure in any event. Then I went backstage--downstairs, actually--to meet him.

"Junior walks in and says, 'I hear somebody wants to cut a record.' And I kind of lost it. The real fan in me comes out, and I start stutterin 'ah ah ah...you don't know how much your music has meant to me....' I just completely lost it. His son is standing behind me making signs like, 'Dad! This guy's in a big group,' because Junior had no idea who we were. That first meeting was very comical.

"He came down to the studio to listen to the track, and said, 'Where's the band?' At first, he felt a bit strange about overdubbing. I guess in his heyday, he'd almost always cut live.

"He was sitting down out there in the studio all by himself, looking quite forlorn. We ran the track down several times, and he was playing in a very mellow style. But in my head, I'm hearing the high, screaming, blasting notes. He said, 'Man, I don't do that any more. I'm in a new bag now.' Finally at the end, he stood up and ripped through a couple of incredible takes will all the old stuff in there.

"We knew we had a great performance in there somewhere. It took producer Matt Lange and I about two days of constant editing and splicing little things together to make the classic, spectacular Jr. Walker solo that we wanted to hear. It's all him playing, but it's from multiple performances."

The classic Jr. Walker solo they grafted onto "Urgent" made the song a runaway hit, and helped Foreigner achieve their first #1 album.

"The funny thing is that when he played a few dates with us--Chicago, Madison Square Garden in New York--he walked out on stage and played the solo note for note. Like he'd heard it on the record or the radio and learned it from there. He played our edits note for note! We were floored.

"He's a wonderful guy, and we had a lot of fun. I hope we'll be able to reunite somewhere along the line."

@EastCoaster

Thanks for sharing this! I knew Jr. Walker was the sax player on "Urgent", but I'd never read any details about how they put together the finished song. Very cool story, and I'll recall it every time I hear the song from now on...

Yakety Sax? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNBL5OMe…

:-)

This thread reminded me of new wave bands I used to like that made sax players permanent band members like Romeo Void and Morphine.

“Turn the Page” - Bob Seger with Alto Reed.

Bobby Keys on “Brown Sugar”

Tim Cappello, "I still believe" from the Lost Boys soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmbt1RjP…

If tuscl were to put our a vote for best saxophone solo, my guess is it would be between these two songs…
“the Wanderer”-Dion (1961) about 2 minutes into the song is the solo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rXqWCeB8Vt…

Or “Ainr That a Shame”- Fats Domino (1956) with a great sax accompanying piano.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2FDYyf8Kqr…

The Doobie Brothers single "Takin' It To The Streets" (1976), with The Memphis Horns.

I like 75 percent of the suggestions. I am also a huge fan of Gerry Rafferty, but Baker Street is not Top 2 in the category (imo).

Kudo's to Muddy for the topic!