thanks for the clarification, John,
here is a similar clip ya ~

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Is that Thom Gimbel, or maybe Billy Joels regular sax player Mark Rivera?
What do you think?

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From Sax on the Web,

‘Mick Jones was another englishman who had grown up revering Jr. Walker from afar. “Junior was very highly respected in music circles. A lot of guitar players would steal his sax riffs. You can ask Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, any of those people. They’d happily admit to being inspired by Junior’s sax playing.”

By 1981, Jones’ British-American band Foreigner was a multi-platinum monster. During sessions in New York for their fourth album, they had recorded a track they agreed might benefit by a saxophone part “like Jr. Walker might play it.” Flipping through the pages of the Village Voices, Jones was shocked to discover that Walker was in town to play the Lone Star Cafe that very evening.

“It was just a wild hunch,” Jones says now. “I went down and sat through three sets, something I would have done with great pleasure in any event. Then I went backstage–downstairs, actually–to meet him.

“Junior walks in and says, ‘I hear somebody wants to cut a record.’ And I kind of lost it. The real fan in me comes out, and I start stutterin ‘ah ah ah…you don’t know how much your music has meant to me….’ I just completely lost it. His son is standing behind me making signs like, ‘Dad! This guy’s in a big group,’ because Junior had no idea who we were. That first meeting was very comical.

“He came down to the studio to listen to the track, and said, ‘Where’s the band?’ At first, he felt a bit strange about overdubbing. I guess in his heyday, he’d almost always cut live.

“He was sitting down out there in the studio all by himself, looking quite forlorn. We ran the track down several times, and he was playing in a very mellow style. But in my head, I’m hearing the high, screaming, blasting notes. He said, ‘Man, I don’t do that any more. I’m in a new bag now.’ Finally at the end, he stood up and ripped through a couple of incredible takes will all the old stuff in there.

“We knew we had a great performance in there somewhere. It took producer Matt Lange and I about two days of constant editing and splicing little things together to make the classic, spectacular Jr. Walker solo that we wanted to hear. It’s all him playing, but it’s from multiple performances.”

The classic Jr. Walker solo they grafted onto “Urgent” made the song a runaway hit, and helped Foreigner achieve their first #1 album.

“The funny thing is that when he played a few dates with us–Chicago, Madison Square Garden in New York–he walked out on stage and played the solo note for note. Like he’d heard it on the record or the radio and learned it from there. He played our edits note for note! We were floored.

“He’s a wonderful guy, and we had a lot of fun. I hope we’ll be able to reunite somewhere along the line.”

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Guys, if you arte inclined to follow the links on John’s JF Premium Membership being in the Major Improvisation Course as shared earlier, above, you will certainly find a very comprehensive take on another delightful Jr Walker air, ‘What does it Take’.

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Says John,
“What Does It Take Saxophone Music
This was a huge hit from the Motown label in the late 1960’s. Recorded by Jr Walker & the Allstars, it was his 2nd number one hit, the other being Shotgun.

Jr Walker was a rare Motown artist who fronted his band as a singer and a saxophonist as well. He had several hits and also played on other people’s records, most notably with Foreigner on their huge 1980’s hit “Urgent”.

Many artists have recorded What Does It Take but this backing track is similar to the Jr Walker original recorded version.

Our version here is transcribed in the same key as recorded by Jr Walker which is F major. This means G major for tenors and D major for altos.”

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🙂