© 2023 WFAE
90.7 Charlotte 93.7 Southern Pines 90.3 Hickory 106.1 Laurinburg
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations

Tenors Of Our Time: Five Saxophone Modernists

<em>Folk Art</em> is Joe Lovano's 21st recording for the Blue Note label. He gives a generous nod to Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango on the stand-out track, "Dibango."
Jimmy Katz
/
Courtesy of the artist
Folk Art is Joe Lovano's 21st recording for the Blue Note label. He gives a generous nod to Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango on the stand-out track, "Dibango."

Coleman Hawkins may have helped to thrust the tenor saxophone out of the novelty arena and into the anti-gravity space of jazz improvisation, but even he could not have predicted how the tenor would become so centrally identifiable with jazz.

While you won't find many concertos written with the tenor saxophone in mind, you will find the instrument in a place that matters — at the forefront of modern music. Five of today's leading tenor players have new releases in 2009, each with his own take on the shape of jazz to come.

For more entries in the Take Five series, click here. And don't forget to subscribe to the Jazz Notes newsletter.

Copyright 2009 WBGO

Tags
Josh Jackson
Josh Jackson is the associate general manager for content at WRTI in Philadelphia.