In the post-Coltrane era, Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter emerged as major instrumental stylists and composers of the ’60s—Henderson, whose melodic and rhythm approach synthesized Coltrane’s recent innovations but derived fundamentally from the Lester Young lineage, and Wayne Shorter as initially a Coltrane imitator who quickly transcended that label by developing an idiosyncratically mysterious and nonconventional approach to composition that broke traditional expectations for harmony and form.

Michael Brecker & Joe Lovano

In the ’50s, a generation of predominantly white saxophonists influenced by Coltrane and Rollins was born. Michael Brecker, who pushed the technical bounds of range and velocity, was one major pole of influence with his bright, laser-focused sound (Bob Mintzer and Bob Berg are two sonically sympathetic peers). Joe Lovano is perhaps the other most visible saxophonist of that generation; his harmonic language is just as sophisticated as Brecker’s, but he presents this information in a way that more explicitly synthesized these technical innovations with an aesthetic recalling the pre-WWII tenorists. Rich Perry, Dave Liebman, Jerry Bergonzi, and George Garzone are peers who each developed highly idiosyncratic styles.

’80s-’90s

In the ’60s, saxophonists who would come of age in the Young Lion era of the ’80s, were born. The Young Lion era was the era of a neo-traditional revival represented by Wynton Marsalis, which was really just a return to the mainstream acoustic aesthetic of the ’50s and early ’60s, prior to innovative projects in the late ’60s and ’70s that incorporated electric instruments, rock and other emerging American music, and non-Western musical influences. In my mind, alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett and tenor saxophonists Mark Turner and Chris Potter have been the most influential to saxophonists of my generation and the generation before.

’00s-’10s

A new generation of saxophonists born in the ’70s has begun to displace the otherwise overwhelming mainstream influence of Mark Turner, Chris Potter, and Kenny Garrett. I’d count Miguel Zenon, Ben Wendel, and Walter Smith III as three of the most visible today—again, an altoist and two tenorists—but other innovative saxophonists like Rudresh Mahanthappa, born the same year as Potter, are only lately receiving their due from the mainstream jazz press.

This problem of delayed recognition greatly complicates any reasonable approximation of saxophonic influence; for instance, even though Mark Turner is now one of the most widely imitated saxophonists for his dry, stoic sound and harmonic ingenuity, he only became well-known in the late ’90s—long after Garrett, Joshua Redman '91, and others had been important figures on the mainstream jazz scene.

—Columnist Kevin Sun can be reached at ksun@college.harvard.edu.