Najee is one of contemporary jazz’s true pioneers. Creating a fresh and pulsating “rhythm and jazz” dynamic in the early days of the smooth jazz format, the versatile saxophonist—whose first two recordings, 1986’s Grammy nominated Najee’s Theme and 1988’s Day By Day, went platinum—inspired the whole urban vibe that took over the instrumental world throughout the ’90s. Mixing up his trademark soulful soprano with dynamic touches of flute and alto, Najee makes a dramatic return to the scene with his highly anticipated Heads Up debut, My Point of View, due August 23, 2005.

A native of Jamaica, Queens, New York, Najee shared all of his musical dreams—and later, many professional gigs—with his brother Fareed, a guitarist who was a year younger. Their father passed away when they were very young, but their mother encouraged a deep exposure to jazz via recordings by artists as diverse as the Miles Davis Quintet, Junior Walker and Mongo Santamaria. Najee showed an early interest in the sax but a grammar school teacher steered him towards clarinet when there were no sax chairs available in the school band.

“My life and career have been shaped by what I like to call ‘life defining moments,’” he says, “and the first of these came when I took a tenor sax solo in my jazz band at August Martin High School and realized that suddenly, all the girls knew my name! Fareed and I started playing professional gigs together at 15, and had a mutual support system going.”

Najee began studying under the direction of Jimmy Heath, Frank Foster and Billy Taylor at Jazzmobile in Harlem, and he also studied flute with Harold Jones at the Manhattan School of Music. “Later,” he adds,” Fareed and I spent a year in the music department at Bronx Community College, then auditioned and got into the New England Conservatory of Music, with me majoring as a woodwind and composition major and Fareed focused on guitar and composition. Musically, I really loved everything, from Kool & The Gang to Grover to Sanborn to Maceo Parker. I also couldn’t get enough when one of my teacher’s played Charlie Parker for me when I was 14.”

Najee left the Conservatory after three years and moved back to New York, where he immersed himself in the club scene. One night when he was out playing straight ahead jazz, Lesette Wilson, keyboardist and musical director for Chaka Khan—who was hot at the time with her trademark hit “Ain’t Nobody”—came in and loved what she heard. She called him to audition for the singer’s upcoming tour, and in no time Najee found himself on the road for a year with the legendary diva, playing alto sax and flute. Najee’s good fortune transferred to Fareed’s career as well when Chaka’s longtime guitarist Tony Maiden failed to show up for a rehearsal. Fareed plugged in and was hired to play alongside Maiden for the tour.

Najee became friends with Mel’isa Morgan, Chaka’s backup singer who later asked the saxman to play on her debut album Do You Still Love Me? Through her, he met Charles Huggins of Hush Entertainment, who invited Najee to record his debut album through his production company, in association with EMI. “I brought him some demos that I called ‘R&B with a saxophone,’ having no idea of their commercial potential,” Najee says. “He also liked what he heard when he came to see me play in New York with the group Change. Jazz had taken a dive in the early ’80s, but there was a resurgence taking place and suddenly there was a big market for the music I was making. Charles did brilliant things in bringing me to the R&B audience.”

The debut album Najee’s Theme—on which the saxman found his trademark voice on the soprano—was an instant phenomenon, selling gold immediately on the road to eventual platinum on the strength of the radio hits “Sweet Love” and “Betcha Don’t Know.” Najee toured as the opening act for popular R&B singer Freddie Jackson and, with the release of the equally successful Day By Day in 1988, became a bonafide celebrity. After touring as a support act for artists like Hiroshima and Bob James, Najee became a headliner in his own right. In addition to the U.S., over the years he has toured throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

His subsequent releases, Tokyo Blue (1991) and Just an Illusion (1992), went gold and earned him Soul Train Music Awards for Best Jazz Artist in 1991 and 1993. Following Share My World in 1994, Najee paid brilliant homage to another one of his favorite R&B influences, Stevie Wonder, on 1995’s Najee Plays Songs From the Key of Life: A Tribute to Stevie Wonder. He also stretched his straight-ahead jazz muscles on a tour and follow-up live recording (Live at the Greek Theatre, 1994) with a superband featuring Stanley Clarke, Larry Carlton and Billy Cobham. He later signed to Verve for one album, 1998’s Morning Tenderness, which went to #1 on the contemporary jazz charts.

For Najee, the late ’90s were marked by extraordinary international experiences, from performing at Nelson Mandela’s birthday celebration in South Africa to playing as a special guest of President Clinton at the White House at an event honoring President Jerry Rawlings of the Republic of Ghana. Over the years, Najee has worked with numerous pop legends, from Quincy Jones to Patti Labelle and Lionel Richie, but creatively and artistically, no other career highlight has quite matched his incredible association with Prince, with whom he recorded and toured for three years at the beginning of the current decade.

“I went to one of his shows at Madison Square Garden and got word that he wanted me to come to his after party,” recalls Najee. “Turns out, he was a fan of my music, and two weeks later, he called me to come to visit Minneapolis. I thought I’d be there just a few days, but I wound up staying two weeks recording on his Rainbow Children album. He hired me to do a six week U.S. tour, which turned into three years and five more tours! He’s such an incredible icon, but I saw that he really looks for fresh inspiration from other people and feeds off their energies. He’s worked with some great sax players, from Maceo to Candy Dulfer, and it was a great experience for me. I learned so much from him as a performer. He’s a master psychologist with his audience. He really gets to the core of people through what he does.”

Najee later returned to the recording studio in 2003 to record Embrace, which featured two other longtime heroes, vibist Roy Ayers and gospel legend BeBe Winans. “Every experience brings something new out of me,” he says. “The most rewarding thing is being able to live my dreams and achieve so many things beyond my wildest expectations. And I’m so blessed that my fans have stuck with me for the long haul. The missing link over the past few years has been having a great label that loves what they do, and I’m so excited to have a fresh new start on Heads Up. I’m ready to get out there and have fun again, sharing music from My Point of View.”