Seeing him play, few would believe that six-time Grammy-winning saxophone player David Sanborn was once barely well enough to pick up an instrument, let alone play one.
Sanborn, who has released 24 albums to date, eight of which are certified gold, one certified platinum, contracted polio when he was three years old and learned how to play the saxophone as a form of therapy. Now he takes the stage at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center at Cal State Long Beach on March 15 to help benefit Rotary International’s End Polio Now campaign.
According to the Carpenter Center, in a 2013 interview, Sanborn said, “I was in the hospital for a couple years as a kid, in an iron lung and paralyzed from the neck down. Gradually I regained my strength, actually picked up the saxophone as therapy… to build up my lungs.”
With measles outbreaks taking up recent headlines, the Carpenter Center is donating proceeds to benefit the campaign, which seeks to eradicate polio by sponsoring immunizations for children in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, three countries where the disease continues to spread.
Single tickets are still available starting at $40. To purchase tickets and for more information, visit the Carpenter Center website here or call (562) 985-7000. This series is made possible in part by Season Media Partner KPCC 89.3 FM.
Photo courtesy of the Carpenter Performing Arts Center.