Bill Saxton

William Edward "Bill" Saxton (born June 28, 1946 in New York City ) is an American jazz saxophonist (tenor, soprano) and composer.

Saxton studied clarinet, composition and arrangement at the New England Conservatory in Boston (among others with Gunther Schuller , bachelor's degree in 1973). a. played with Pharoah Sanders , Jackie McLean and Bennie Maupin . His style of play is influenced by John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter . For almost 10 years he played with his own quartet in “St. Nick's Pub”. In the late 1970s he played with Dannie Richmond , was then in the big band of Charlie Persip and played with Errol Parker . His first album was released in 1984 under his own name “Beneath the Surface”, followed by “Live at the Henkelmann Jazz Club” in 1991 and “Atymony” in 1993. In the 1980s he toured a lot (with the support of the US State Department) in West Africa, Japan and Europe. He also played with Frank Foster , Clark Terry , Carmen McRae , Nancy Wilson , Tito Puente , Mongo Santamaría , Roy Ayers , Bobby Watson and Roy Haynes . Saxton taught a. a. at the New School in New York, the New England Conservatory and the University of Massachusetts . Since 2006 he has been running his own jazz club "Bill's Place" in Harlem at 148th West, 133rd Street (in the 1920s there was a speakeasy where Willie The Lion Smith played, among others ).

Lexical entries

Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 2: M – Z (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16513). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16513-9 .