David Sanborn

David Sanborn is the Zelig of the saxophone. His R&B-soaked sound pops up everywhere — movie soundtracks, TV shows, classic cuts by rock heroes and jazz giants, and, oh yeah . . . a GRAMMY®-filled, three-and-a-half-decade solo career. Sanborn grew up on the soulful sizzle of Ray Charles, and he salutes his hero on the sassy, bluesy strut "Brother Ray," with fretmeister Derek Trucks tossing in some feisty licks. The saxman wraps his reeds around funky floor-fillers by other R&B titans, too, like Al Green ("Love & Happiness") and Marvin Gaye ("Got to Give It Up"), but he can shift gears in the blink of an eye, slipping smoothly into the slinky mambo moves of "Bang Bang."

In Next Steps, Sanborn blends juicy jazz licks with sweet soul moves.

When David Sanborn breathes into his saxophone, he blows down the borders between pop, jazz, and R&B. One minute, he can take a classic jazz tune like "Harlem Nocturne" and send it skittering over a syncopated, slow-burning R&B groove, and the next, he can rain a summer shower of silky-smooth jazz licks over the Stylistics' Philly soul smash "You Are Everything." And when he gets next to the original Soul Man, Sam Moore, on a searing version of the early Ray Charles hit "I've Got News for You," you can practically see those walls between big-band jazz, uptown blues, and foot-stompin' soul come tumbling down.

In Deep Cuts, Sanborn is the session man supreme on stellar '70s classics.

David Sanborn's solo albums have been shooting up the Jazz, R&B, and Pop charts since the mid-'70s, but all the while he's been a superstar session man, lending his sharpshooting sax to huge hits by the biggest artists around. When Linda Ronstadt's sultry croon made Smokey Robinson's '60s smoothie "Ooh Baby Baby" a hit all over again in 1978, Sanborn's sleek riffs sweetened the deal even further. The sultan of sax channels his inner Junior Walker on David Bowie's soul-powered '75 smash "Young Americans," helping the Thin White Duke score his first American Top 40 hit. But after a while, the rock stars started showing up at Sanborn's sessions, like Sting, who lends his powerful pipes to a moody makeover of Bill Withers' classic lonely-man lament "Ain't No Sunshine."

With jazz skills sharp enough to slice cleanly through the most complex sonic settings and a fiery R&B tone capable of burning down the house, David Sanborn is a saxman for all seasons, a star in orbit high above every stylistic sphere. Whether he's sitting in with Paul Shaffer on Late Night With David Letterman, spinning sax hooks behind rock and pop stars on some of their biggest hits, or serving up his own spoon-licking stew of smooth-but-soulful crossover cuts, Sanborn is a seeker who says "sayonara" to limitations. With a decades-deep catalog that moves all over the musical map and includes work with everyone from James Taylor to Joss Stone, Sanborn is a world unto himself. But we've returned from an exploratory mission with a 75-track guide to the saxophone legend's most important moments — all you have to do is join us on the journey.