Sax Guy Excels on Classic and High-Tech Instruments

By Chris Manson May 15, 2008 Issue

Due to a day job that finds him traveling frequently, saxophonist and keyboard player Randy Sherwood isn’t able to commit to a regular band gig. But when he is in town, the software test engineer plays as many conventions and private parties as he can, armed with his horns—he is proficient on tenor, alto and soprano saxes—and a musical device I was not familiar with, a Yamaha Wind Controller.

“You can get any sound out of it,” says Sherwood of the clarinet-sized electronic instrument that is played through a mouthpiece. “Brass, strings, slap bass, electric bass, all the synthesizer sounds, whistles, flutes. There’s really no limit what you can do with it. You can hit a button and go from a saxophone to a guitar.”

Sherwood likes the versatility the newfangled instrument gives him. “The sounds are so ‘perfect’,” he says. “You take it into a band situation, and it sounds like you’re in the studio with all the balance just right. A lot of musicians don’t like having them around.”

He pulls out the controller for a few songs during the recent Mississippi Bankers Association convention, an event that draws over 60 exhibitors to Sandestin’s Village of Baytowne Wharf. But Sherwood sticks mainly to the Kessler Custom Deluxe tenor saxophone he recently grabbed off eBay. He appears to have broken in the horn, as evidenced by his vigorous renditions of “The Girl from Ipanema,” “Moondance,” and “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.”

The latter was popularized by sax great Cannonball Adderley, who once held a clinic at Sherwood’s alma mater, Frostburg State University in western Maryland. As a music major, Sherwood also got to meet and learn from jazz luminaries like Maynard Ferguson and Charlie Byrd.

At the banker’s convention, Sherwood plays to piano and rhythm tracks he recorded on his Yamaha Tyros 2 keyboard. He is skilled on many other instruments, but the saxophone remains his first love. Sherwood first picked up the horn in grade school and eventually joined the United States Air Force Band. After a falling out with his director—over a Miles Davis arrangement of “A Child Is Born” Sherwood wanted to play during the band’s Christmas concert—Sherwood left the band for computer programming school.

He worked as a computer analyst for the Air Force until 1996, but continued to play whenever he could. While stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, Sherwood performed with a jazz quartet at Grayton Beach’s Red Bar. His current travel schedule allows him to play only six to eight gigs a month, usually solo.

Sherwood says the sax player is often the “icing on the cake” in a band situation. “With the modern fiscal reality of how bands are being booked, they often cut the icing off the cake,” he says. “I don’t mind working by myself. It works out pretty well. But I enjoy playing with other musicians.”

As a freshman in college, Sherwood listened to alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson and tenor Eddie Harris. His favorites range from Stanley Turrentine and Dexter Gordon to modern cats like Kirk Whalum and Gerald Albright. Visitors to Sherwood’s Web site www.saxyguy.com can listen to extensive examples of how all of these players have influenced his style.

Johnny Cash Tributes of the Month:
Snoop Dogg, “My Medicine” (from Ego Trippin’, Geffen/Snoopadelic); George Strait and Patty Loveless, “House of Cash” (from Troubadour, MCA Nashville).

The Beat’s Record Roundup:
- David Murray: Shakill’s Warrior (www.emusic.com). Mind-blowing sax-and-organ album is one of many of Murray’s 1990s albums exclusively available at my download site of choice. Many consider this to be one of the artist’s best; I hope I live long enough to check out some of the others.

- Carlene Carter: Stronger (Eleven Thirty). Following the death of her sister, mom, and stepfather, Carter bounces back with the finest album of her career. The title track builds on a cliché—“What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”—that you’d swear Carter originated.

- American Beat Records (www.myspace.com/americanbeat). The coolest reissue site in the world, especially for ‘80s kids. Recent releases include once-and-current New York Doll David Johansen’s excellent solo output (his eponymous debut, Here Comes the Night, and the great concert disc Live It Up), as well as twofers from Billy Squier’s forgotten ‘70s bubble-gum hard rock band Piper and power poppers the Romantics.

- Filter: Anthems for the Damned (Pulse/Fontana). Richard Patrick and his band take the war personally and create some of the most forceful hard rock of the year. Highlight is the beautiful but potent “Cold (Anthem for the Damned).”

- Soulja Boy: Souljaboytellem.com (Interscope). “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” is a great nonsense single in the tradition of “Duke of Earl” and countless others. And his ridiculous devotion to repetition makes him the heir apparent to James Brown.

- Sarah McLachlan: Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff, Volume 2 (Arista). Gorgeous-voiced singers are seldom this adventurous, as McLachlan’s collaboration with rapper DMC, “Just Like Me,” proves. Elsewhere, the Lilith Fair founder offers near-definitive versions of Randy Newman, Joni Mitchell, and Kermit the Frog tunes and actually finds something new and interesting to do with “Unchained Melody.”

- Sudden Impact: The Original Score by Lalo Schifrin (Aleph). Relive the Clintessential 1983 Dirty Harry movie with jazzy-scary tracks like “Murder by the Sea,” “Hot Shot Cop,” and “Unicorn’s Head.” Sure, it’s cheaper to buy the movie, and Schiffrin’s no Ennio Morricone (or Bernard Herrmann, for that matter), but the main title theme could pass for a lost blaxploitation classic.

- DVD: Saturday Night Live—The Complete Third Season (Universal). The 1977-78 collection has its share of lame musical guests (Meat Loaf, Eddie Money, the Blues Brothers), but there’s also Paul Simon, Randy Newman, Willie Nelson, and Sun Ra, along with inspired sketches like “Josh Ramsey, V.D. Caseworker” and the greatest Elvis impersonator of them all, Andy Kaufman. Especially worth discovering is the episode hosted by Ray Charles, heavy on soulful performances by the genius including a throwdown medley with still-vital sax man David “Fathead” Newman.

- Autistic Daughters: Uneasy Flowers (Kranky). With that band name, I expected raucous young punks, but got artsy-experiment twaddlers. A couple of songs on this overrated concept album aren’t bad, but after four listens I still have no idea what it’s “about.” Get Radiohead instead.

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