Famous multi-instrumentalists in jazz

Might do.

I was wondering, do two saxophones count, bearing in mind that most saxophone players  have at least  two instruments?

If so, then we have Sonny Stitt and James Moody, both of whom regularly played both alto and tenor saxophones equally well. That is a little out of the ordinary, because most alto and tenor players play only one of them normally. Moody was also one of the finest flute players.

When you get into flute, you find that it is mostly played by saxophone players, and so you have a large number of doublers.

Speaking for myself, I have always felt a need to play more than one horn. At first, it was alto saxophone and clarinet, and now (restricting it to saxophones) it's tenor and soprano saxophones.

Here are a few.

Bob Brookmeyer mainly played valve trombone, but he was also an excellent pianist, good enough to record a two-piano album with Bill Evans. Bob recorded on piano with the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band.

Gerry Mulligan was, of course, of course, mainly a baritone saxophone player, but he was also great on the clarinet, on which he had a Lester Young approach. He also recorded on soprano saxophone (and, occasionally, on alto and tenor). But most of us reed players play more than one horn. Gerry was also a fine pianist , and you can hear him on the piano on some of the Concert Jazz Band recordings.

Lester Young played a mean clarinet, too. You will have to hunt a bit to find recordings of that, but there are one or two with the early Basie band, and he played clarinet on a great Commodore session. Benny Goodman gave him that clarinet, and it was one of the rare metal ones. He only stopped playing it because it was stolen.


Edited by Shrdlu - 31 Jul 2014 at 9:35am

Keyboardists Jan Hammer and Chick Corea play drums on a couple of albums.

In fact, at least for the clarinet / sax players i know.. all the clarinet players end up playing pretty well (in a very short time), flute, trumpet and sax.. while the other way around doesnt happen as easily, bt still happen !

Jack DeJohnette is one of the greatest drummers ever, and a very good piano player too.

His sound on the violin is.. weird (weird not as a bad thing here), i really like it, bt i cannot think of anything else similar to that, and i know a lot of violin jazz players (from more traditional to avant garde ones), he plays the violin like somethin else.. it's clearly more about the sound than a melodic approach, i think and i feel that as a violin player, that he doesnt have some skills developed, so instead of a more conventional approach, he just.. grab the violin and make sound coming out of it, and damn, it sounds great, really great.

Abraxas wrote: Ricochet wrote: Hard to catch on their fame just by mentioning them, so plz to specify.  Well, Hermeto Pascoal is definitely one of Brazil's most versatile and innovative musicians. He played on the Montreux Jazz Festival, but really, I'm not sure what do you really mean by 'famous'? I mean, I don't think he sold million of records. No, I mean attested in jazz history. I know very little of Kirk, but I think John can tell you more of him and about what he did in the jazz field. I simply know that this guy inspired many saxophone players to use multiple ones at once, like David Jackson. But he was not  simply a "showman". Eric Dolphy, you must know this guy, don't you? Sure. EDIT: now that I've read your edit, well, Hermeto is clearly known for his keyboard abilities, but his sax among other diverse instruments never were really behind I think. Kirk, like I said, he played various wind instruments, does that count? Maybe. Eric Dolphy as well, well known for his bass clarinet, flute and alto sax.

Ornette coleman, beside the sax, played the violin and trompet ! And damn, he is good.