So distinctive was the soaring, heart-piercing sound of David Sanborn’s alto saxophone, and yet so comprehensive in its instant evocation of the spirit of a certain essence of US popular music, that it became familiar to many millions who knew nothing of the jazz world from which it had emerged.
Sanborn, who has died aged 78, penetrated the broader consciousness when called on to add his musical signature to David Bowie’s Young Americans in 1974, and later found success with his own funk-influenced instrumental albums, including Voyeur, Straight to the Heart and Double Vision.
