Gary Windo

Gary Windo (November 7, 1941, Brighton, England – July 25, 1992, New York City) was a jazz tenor saxophonist. He came from a musical family in England. By age six he took up drums and accordion, then guitar at twelve and saxophone at seventeen. He lived in the United States during the 1960s but returned to England in 1969. In the early 1970s, his career grew as he founded the Gary Windo Quartet and worked with Carla Bley, Brotherhood of Breath, Centipede, Matching Mole, The Running Man, and Nick Mason Sonny Stitt heard Windo play at the Berlin Jazz Festival and asked him to join the band, which he declined. He worked outside jazz, with the Psychedelic Furs, Robert Wyatt, NRBQ, and for the comedy television show Saturday Night Live. He taught music lessons with his friend Eric Peralli. Windo could play any reed instrument, including soprano sax and bass clarinet. His time in America exposed him to all types of jazz, and he was at home in any idiom. He used harmonics often and could split a note into its components using his prodigious technique and a metal mouthpiece with a wide lay and a hard reed. He suffered from asthma and died of an asthma attack in 1992.