David Sanborn Quotes

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David Sanborn

Profession : Musician

Birth : July 30, 1945

When you have an acoustic bass in the ensemble it really changes the dynamic of the record because it kind of forces everybody to play with a greater degree of sensitivity and nuance because it just has a different kind of tone and spectrum than the electric bass.

David Sanborn

I have pretty ecumenical tastes. I'm interested in a lot of different kinds of music, so I don't listen with a jaundiced ear to music because it's in a certain category, whether it's country or opera or hip-hop or bebop or whatever it is.

David Sanborn

I kinda always wanted to be a tenor player, but I'm a small guy, and tenor was just too big.

David Sanborn

I became a musician because I love music, and that is what has sustained me; it's not because I thought it was a great way to make a living. Music saved my life.

David Sanborn

I have a certain temperament, a disposition that I think lends itself to not playing outside the lines that much. But I do test the boundaries, certainly, and break one or two of my own. Some people are mystified by it, but not me.

David Sanborn

I look at the artistic process as like experiencing the world, channeling it through your personality and sending it back out there. That's the process.

David Sanborn

While St. Louis is technically regarded as part of the Mid-West, it's actually - geographically and emotionally - more part of the South. I mean, the sensibility of St. Louis is really very much that of a Southern Mississippi river-town.

David Sanborn

It's tough to be in a relationship with a musician, because it reads sometimes as this ego and self-involvement when it's really just concentration and focus.

David Sanborn

I think 'Horace Silver' was actually the first live jazz group I ever heard back when I was a kid in St. Louis. So along with most players of my generation, I have a real affection for the music of 'Horace Silver.'

David Sanborn

In most of the stuff that I've done over the years as a sideman, I wasn't really a session musician, because to me, a session musician is a guy who makes his living in the studio, and I never really did that.

David Sanborn

When I make records, I never listen to stuff after it's done. Ever.

David Sanborn

I tend to play in a way that feels natural to me. To me that's authentic for myself. I play by where I'm led by some sense of where I feel I'm supposed to be.

David Sanborn

If you're playing with somebody from another idiom, you can't react to them in the same way that you react to somebody that is closer to your idiom. You don't fall into the same habits. You find a new way of communicating.

David Sanborn

All the music that I've made in the past I've believed in. I think some of it has been more commercially successful than others, but it wasn't premeditated.

David Sanborn

I didn't try to think what my audience wanted and then make the music accordingly. I made the music and hoped that as many people liked it as possible.

David Sanborn

When you see the same familiar faces, it's nice when you get a chance to play with the same musicians. You start to develop this shorthand so everybody knows where you're at and where you're going, but then again, there are always surprises. But the more people are comfortable with the material, the more free you can be with the music.

David Sanborn

I try to do things that keep me interested. And play music that moves me. I like to move around and play in a lot of different ways.

David Sanborn

My drummer, Gene Lake, is Oliver Lake's son. So I certainly have wide tastes, in not only what I listen to, but what I play as well.

David Sanborn

As a melody instrument player, it's all about getting from one note to the next, and those intervals and how you navigate your way through these vertical structures of chords. You realize that everything's moving forward, and it's all linear.

David Sanborn

I think a valid approach to being a musician is to take all of the experience of your life and filter it through your personality and send it back out there, and that's what art is.

David Sanborn