<html> Indeed it depends on who's playing, Vince. From my perspective, I'm referring to those who are given 32 bars, "say" everything they know in the first 8 bars, and just blow for the sake of blowing for the other 24. I call this "honking" instead of playing. Of those you mentioned, Paul Desmond was NOT guilty of this... he never "said" the same thing twice. Instead, he built consistent, artistic, musical lines while -still- revealing his prowess on the instrument. Although I'm familiar with the other two, I've never studied their playing styles. Reference: I particularly -like- Bob Mintzer's big band -and- the arrangements... fresh, moody, poignant, but still powerful arrangments, and reminiscent of much larger bands of a bygone era. I'm not sure, but suspect that Mintzer himself is a single-reed player of the persuasion being discussed. If so, the arrangements I've heard have far too many solo sax breaks written into the scores. Within those solo breaks, the fresh, improvisational ideas are not forthcoming fast enough. What starts out really good becomes honking in short order. Jim Harvey, RPT [is that me honking?] At 07:50 PM 8/25/99 -0600, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite cite>Man, I can't believe you guys.  You must be listening to pop artists or something.  Depends on who's playing, right??  Coltrane, Adderly, Desmond, to name a few, were outstanding. At 04:06 PM 8/25/99 -0400, you wrote: >BTW, I don't much care for saxophones either, especially played solo. In >ensemble with tight harmony lines (Glenn Miller band)... well, that's a >different story. > >Jim Harvey, RPT > >At 08:14 AM 8/25/99 -0500, you wrote: >>>He says he can't stand Saxaphones. >>>Michael Wathen Vince <<a href="mailto:vince@byu.edu" eudora="autourl">mailto:vince@byu.edu</a>> </blockquote> </html>