I'm a tenor player, and iam dying to find out how dow you get that expressive beautiful jazz sound from tenor like kirk whalum, and john coltrane. i've been told it's the reed combination with the mouth piece and i say bull, one day I followed one of my friends around (he's a senior in high school) and he played in concert band and had a really nice classical tone. and the he went to jazz band rehearsal with the same setup which was a selmer series 3 and a c* mouthpiece and had an awesome sound as good as most of the professionals you here today.
so how do you get a tenor sax sound like kirk whalum's if i could figure out the secret, i'd feel like i had died and gone to heaven so someone help,

PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

signed,
a really desperate tenor sax player who wants to sound like the pros

Practice, practice practice

One of the biggest difference between classical playing and jazz playing is vibrato. In band class, you're told "NO VIBRATO" keep the sound even and clear and unified with everyone else. With jazz you want the sound to be as expressive and unique as possible.

Also, the reed will make a big difference. You want a softer reed for jazz, but proabably a different style or brand from what you're using for concert band.

When I play classical, I use a Hemke 3 1/2, but when I'm playing jazz I use Vandoren ZZ 3.

Have you asked your friend what he does? Maybe he'd be willing to give you a few jazz lessons...

Hey thats not true
I use vibrato in concert band
because everyone sucks so much, its like a constant solo ^-^

Is vibrato when the sound is like wowowowowowowowowwooww?

I think I know how to do it...

I don't play vibrato.... I think.....