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Oh, yeah.

Ben Webster is my favorite tenor. I absolutely love his sound. When I got out of the Navy, I decided to learn to play the sax, and I began listening to all of them.

I love a specific album by John Coltrane: "Ballads". Just beautiful. My favorite album. But a lot of his other stuff didn't appeal to me.

Love Coleman Hawkins.

But I love Ben Webster's sound overall. There is something about it that appeals to me. His nickname was "The Brute".

This is my favorite picture of him:

I heard a story that he said he met Joe Louis (pretty sure it was him) in a bar one time, and told him to punch him as hard as he could, because he could take any punch. Heh, Joe Louis broke his ribs...:)

I can hear two notes and pick out Ben Webster!

I agree with you about a lot. Coleman Hawkins is my favorite tenor, but Ben Webster is right there.

Webster is in the Hawkins school, and he is often, "The Brute," but later career also has that breathy romantic style on ballads.

There are a lot of good bootlegs of him in Europe in the 60's, and Hawkins.

I think Webster mostly lived in Europe until he died. I think by the 60's there was just much more of a market for these jazz guys in Europe than there was in the U.S. Sad.

You might want to check out Ike Quebec’s BLUE & SENTIMENTAL , Gene Ammons’ BOSS TENOR , Arnett Cobb’s BLUES AND BALLADs and Lester Young’s LESTER YOUNG WITH THE OSCAR PETERSON TRIO . I’m a drummer but a huge fan of the tenor sax .