Swing Street Alto

One of my bestloved all time musicians is Edgar Winter. He’s one of a very few alto sax players that inspired my playing as a tenor saxophonist. He’s one of those guys that get’s a genuinely good, big raunchy rock & roll sound on the alto sax. When humans talk in regards to rock & roll sax it’s almost always referring to a tenor player, but Edgar just screams and wails as bad as any rockin’ tenor.

I’ve talked to people that knew of Edgar Winter and didn’t even realize he was a saxophonist. Truth is he’s so multi gifted he doesn’t even need to pick up his horn. The guy sings and plays keyboards just as well. Some of his big hit songs from the 70′s like “Free Ride” and “Just Hangin Around” didn’t even have sax in them so it’s understandable how that could get by the casual fan.

Remember his big hit “Frankenstein”? Didn’t sing in this instrumental but displayed his aweinspiring natural abilities and qualities on the timbale solo, synthesizer solo, and sax division solo. The same year Frankenstein came out Edgar Winter & The White Trash put out a live album called Roadwork. This album is great on so a heap of levels. Besides the band leader on vocals, piano, and alto sax, there was another great singer named Jerry Lacroix who also played sax (tenor) and Jon Smith who played most of the rockin’ tenor sax solos.

While the Frankenstein record was being played on all FM radio stations in North America the Roadwork album came out and was totally different. White Trash played R&B, rootsy rock & roll, gospel, and funk flavored tunes. You couldn’t pigeon hole these guys like you could each other artisan that was on the radio in those days, I guess thats why I like them so much, they in truth were different.

A little later in 1974 The Edgar Winter Group freed “Shocktreatment”, a rockin’ album full of outstanding pop songs. A good example of Edgar’s sax sound is on a great Dan Hartman song “Easy Street”. Hartman was a gifted songwriter and the bass player in this group’s line up. This Edgar Winter alto sax solo is not one thing short of perfect!

Swing Street Alto Picture

Swing Street Alto Pic

Swing Street Alto Picture

Swing Street Alto Picture