Saxophone Tall

As a tenor player of 51+ years, Mike sounded nothing like Joe at all: tone, conception, role, vocabulary, nothing. Joe was understandably pissed off that the larger media ignored him. Both brought something new to the table, but Joe could never be said to be "facile but sterile." Mike at times, could. One of Mike's strengths is that this this not always the case. Sure, he was over-recorded with all sorts of pop groups, but his solo shit is off the hook. Both advanced the state of the horn, and nobody has since. The "facile but sterile" crowd seems to grow daily. "You can throw a brick 10 feet and hit 10 tenor players with Brecker chops, but none with taste" (Chritopher Pitts).