World Saxophone Quartet

USA

Formed: 1977

Years Active: 70, 80, 90, 2000

Genres: Jazz, International

Styles: Free Jazz, Post-Bop, Hard Bop, Modal Music, Free Funk, Avant-Garde Jazz, Fusion, World Fusion, Latin Jazz/World Fusion, Latin Jazz/World Fusion, African Jazz

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Probably the first of several saxophone-only ensembles who proliferated in jazz after 1975, the WSQ is unquestionably the most commercially (and, arguably, the most creatively) successful. Of course, commercial success is a relative thing in jazz, especially when one is speaking of an avant-garde group. But unlike most free jazz artists, the WSQ managed to attract an audience of significant size; large enough to have garnered a major-label record deal in the '80s, an almost unheard-of occurrence in that retro-jazz decade. The band did it on mer...

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