I’ve had a few living musical heroes in my life. Mostly for different reasons. There have been some, like Elton John, who I had the pleasure of playing with and meeting. Others, like Reggie Workman and Ralph Bowen, who mentored me and who I had the privilege of learning from while studying in school. Peers, like Chris Potter, who sat in practice rooms next to me, and close friends, like Steve Ganz who went from club to club with me listening to giants like Art Blakey. When I was 17, I had two saxophone heroes. Michael Brecker and Dave Sanborn. These two masters of their craft were pretty much on every recording in their genre. Because I played the Alto, I studied every Dave Sanborn album. Every week I would run down to Rocky Street records and rent his albums. I insisted our band play every one of his songs in the clubs in Johannesburg. I used the same mouthpiece (a metal Dukoff), played the same horn (Selmer Mark VI) and memorized every solo he ever played.
The first week I landed in New York, I ran up to 48th Street to see all of the woodwind stores. There weren’t any stores like this in South Africa, so when I made my way into Alex’s Woodwinds, I was like a kid in a candy store. Alex had a small store two flights up some rickety stairs in an old tenement building. He had the best selection of horns I had ever seen. I was blinded by the selection of gold and brass. The store was empty, except for me and one other customer who was trying out a horn. As I was browsing, I heard one note from the other customer and was instantly blown away. I knew that sound. I knew that sound even better than my own. His playing enveloped me, his timbre and his spirit transcended 48th Street and took me to another place. It was Dave Sanborn. I knew it had to be. Mind you, this was pre-Google and I just arrived from South Africa – a pretty closed country at that time. I had never seen the man, but I knew that sound.
Dumbfounded, I walked over to him and said “Holy shit. You must be David Sanborn?” After twenty minutes of conversation, I found myself in Dave’s car heading Uptown to his apartment to discuss practice methods, the New York music scene, saxophones, mouthpieces, and my aspirations. A week later, I was in the studio with him watching him rehearse for his upcoming world tour, with musical greats like Marcus Miller and Hiram Bullock. A year later, he invited me into the studio to sit in the control room and watch while he recorded and album with Charlie Haden and Don Alias. This was beyond gold to an aspiring jazz musician.
Dave is one of the most giving, generous people I’ve ever met, It is a quality shared by most jazz musicians. To this day, I don’t think he knows the positive impact he had in my life. He was a mentor before we ever met, and a dear friend for over thirty years – and it all started by just saying hello.
I’ve adopted the attitude that nobody is beyond approaching, and it’s worth taking the initiative to step out of your comfort zone to connect with someone you admire. That split second decision for me to engage with him brought a wealth of experience into my life. Some of my greatest personal and professional relationships started this way. You just have to take the first step.
Let’s do this!
-Shaun