StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Celebrating David Sanborn

This week, our video spotlight shines on alto saxophonist and former St. Louisan David Sanborn, who celebrated his 74th birthday this past Tuesday, July 30 and will be coming back home to perform on Tuesday, August 13 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

The date is part of the "Double Vision Revisited" tour, for which Sanborn is being joined by keyboardist Bob James and bassist Marcus Miller, his two collaborators on the 1986 album of the same name, for a series of gigs performing Double Vision in its entirety. (Drummer Billy Kilson and guest vocalist Larry Braggs will complete the ensemble.)

And so, to celebrate both Sanborn's birthday and his upcoming visit, this post collects live versions of some of the music from Double Vision, starting up above with "Maputo," the Marcus Miller song that leads off the album and has been a staple of Sanborn's live sets ever since.

This version was recorded in 2013 at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Netherlands, when Sanborn and James were touring in support of their Quartette Humaine album with bassist James Genus and drummer Steve Gadd.

After the jump, you can see a version of "More Than Friends," another Marcus Miller tune that's the second track on Double Vision, recorded during another Quartette Humaine show in 2013, with Scott Colley subbing on bass for Genus.

Next, you can see Sanborn and the late Al Jarreau performing the standard "Since I Fell For You," using what's basically the Double Vision arrangement, on an episode of Showtime at the Apollo that looks to be from the mid-80s around the time the album was released.

That's followed by a version of Sanborn's tune "It's You," recorded in the late '80s at the Soul Train Awards Show by an all-star band featuring Sanborn, James, George Duke, and George Benson.

Then it's back to the current century for "You Don't Know Me," the last track on Double Vision, seen here in a version recorded at the 2008 Tokyo Jazz Festival by a band including Sanborn, James, Harvey Mason on drums, Ricky Peterson on keyboards, Larry Carlton on guitarm and Nathan East on bass.

Lastly, since there seem to be no videos of live versions of "Moon Tune" and "Never Enough" - the remaining two tracks on Double Vision - available online, today's sixth and final video is a complete Sanborn show recorded in April, 2015 in Budapest, with a band including Peterson, guitarist Nicky Moroch, bassist Andre Berry, drummer Chris Coleman, and guest saxophonist Jan Prax.

You can hear Sanborn talking about the "Double Vision Revisited" tour in this interview broadcast last week on Los Angeles radio station 94.7 The Wave, and you can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...