A member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra since the 1990s, Walter Blanding carves out a saxophone sound like no other. Born into a musical family (both parents played in the house band at New York’s Village Gate jazz club), he started playing professionally at age 16—and it was around that age that the dreadlocked youngster was first heard by Wynton Marsalis, who says, simply, “I always loved him and his playing. He plays with deep blues feeling, harmonic sophistication and directness.”