1975 · Album
Taking Off
Recorded 1975 · Warner Bros. Records · Chart Position: No. 19 on Billboard Jazz Albums chart
Sanborn's First Statement: Taking Off
A saxophonist finding his voice at the exact moment the industry was ready to listen.
Taking Off arrives early in Sanborn's career as a genuine debut statement—the album where a young saxophonist steps forward with something to say. Released on Warner Bros., it reached number 19 on the Jazz Albums chart, a respectable placement that announced Sanborn's arrival without overselling it. This was not a peak or a reinvention; it was an introduction, and it worked.
The album captures Sanborn playing with the kind of clarity and directness that would define his approach. He works in a straightforward idiom, letting the alto saxophone speak without unnecessary complexity. The music breathes. There's no sense of strain or overreach—just a player who has absorbed the bebop and post-bop vocabularies and is using them to say something immediate and personal. The record has the feel of a working saxophonist at a point where technique and taste are already in place, before celebrity or formula might calcify either one.
This is a solid place to begin with Sanborn if you want to hear him before his commercial peak arrived. It's direct enough to be accessible but serious enough to reward close listening. The album didn't revolutionize anything, but it did what a debut should do: it made clear that this saxophonist had something worth following.
Who's playing
Will Leebass
Buzz Feitenelectric guitar
Steve Khanguitar
Joe Beckelectric guitar
Michael Breckertenor saxophone
David Sanbornalto saxophone
Randy Breckertrumpet
Tom “Bones” Malonetrombone
Rick Marottadrums
Chris Parkerdrums
Ralph MacDonaldpercussion
Don Grolnickkeyboard
Howard Johnsonwind instruments
John ClarkFrench horn
Peter GordonFrench horn
Where next?
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
