David Sanborn

Bangkok, Thailand -- 1996

Giddy as a teenage girl is how I felt when I met my sax hero, David Sanborn, for the first time. Backstage after his show at the Golden Jubilee International Jazz Festival in Bangkok, I found him with his head buried deep in a giant briefcase filled with sax repair gadgets. When I was introduced to David, he turned on the charm and was as warm and gracious as could be.

Lotus Blossom, the beautiful ballad from his Heart To Heart album was the first song that pierced my heart and from then on, I was enamored with David Sanborn's music. In the early years of developing my own saxophone sound, I emulated his passion and style by transcribing solo after solo and playing along with his recordings. My original composition, Green Eyes, from my Tigress CD is a tribute to Sanborn's Lotus Blossom.

Arriving in Bangkok to perform for the King of Thailand, you can imagine how ecstatic and humbled I was to find my promotional photo prominently displayed right next to David Sanborn's at the top of the Jazz Festival poster!

For more about David Sanborn, go to www.davidsanborn.com.