Bill Justis was a saxophone player, good musician, arranger, and friend of mine who had a big hit called 'Raunchy.'
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I played in the high school band. I was the one baritone saxophone out of 80 other people. No one could tell whether I was hittin' the right notes or the wrong notes.
When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration.
My all-time favorite rock and roll players were Scotty Moore, Chuck Berry and Franny Beecher, and I listened to the country playing of Merle Travis.
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.'
If there's anybody who knew how to play in a studio, it was Duane Allman.
Rachmaninov has some kind of weird dark edge to his music which I don't think I've heard with any other kind of music before.
I don't know why, but I like the saxophone.
As far as other instrumentalists, I used to love mellow sax players like Paul Desmond. I love piano.
As a horn player, the greatest compliment one can get is when a person comes to you and says, 'I heard this saxophone on the radio the other day and I knew it was you. I don't know the song, but I know it was you on sax.'
I was a born rock n' roll sax player.