The history of the SAXOPHONE

The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker, Adolphe Sax, during the period 1841-1845, and finally patented in 1846. Sax was born in Dinant, Belgium, in 1814, the son of another instrument maker, Charles Sax, who moved to Brussels with his family soon after Adolphe was born. Having learnt his craft from his father, he moved to Paris in 1841, where he was approached by the French army bands to design a new wind instrument in the bass register with the flexibility of the woodwind and the sonority of the brass. He had already made many experiments with a clarinet type single reed mouthpiece on a conical bore brass tube, which finally became the bass saxophone, first heard in public in 1844.

Over the next two years he realised the potential for a whole family of new instruments, and the 1846 patent lists eight different sizes. The saxophones in use today are the set in Eb and Bb, which Sax intended for military band use. He designed another set in C and F, which having a slightly smaller bore and softer sound, he intended for the orchestra. These never really caught on, except for the C tenor, which was very popular in the USA during the great saxophone craze of the 1920's and 30's, under the name, C melody saxophone. The new instruments were an immediate success in military bands, first in France, and soon in many other countries including the USA and Britain in the 1850's.

There are two main reasons why the saxophone never became a regular part of the symphony orchestra; firstly, it came just a bit too late for the standardisation of the woodwind line-up in the Beethoven type orchestra dating from the turn of the century around 1800. But even worse was the fact that, although Adolph Sax was appointed Professor of Saxophone at the Paris Conservatoire in 1857, his class was discontinued in 1870, due to economies caused by the Franco-Prussian war, and not reinstated for 72 years, when Marcel Mule was appointed in 1942! When the jazz age started in America with the New Orleans Trad style bands, during the early years of the 20th. century, the front line consisted of cornet, clarinet and trombone; the saxophone was not considered suitable for jazz at first, rather as an instrument for military bands and Ragtíme novelty orchestras.

It was not until after the first world war that saxophones began to be heard in jazz, but during the twenties they became indispensable to the bigger jazz bands, until the thirties saw the introduction of the five sax section; 2 altos, 2 tenors and baritone, which became the standard line up for the swing Big Bands. At the same time, in the straight music world, the saxophone was being developed in France by Marcel Mule (1901-2001) who commissioned many works by French composers and also formed the first famous Saxophone Quartet, standardising the straight line up of soprano, alto, tenor and baritone. Similar work was being done in the USA by Cecil Leeson, Larry Teal and Sigurd Rascher, who were among the first players to teach saxophone at American Universities.

After the second world war, many more jazz soloists came to prominence, the most important being, of course, Charlie Parker, who virtually invented the modern jazz style, or bebop as it was known at the time. This period was the start of a great expansion in saxophone education, at first mainly in France and the USA, but later in Japan and Great Britain. The World Saxophone Congress, formed in Chicago in 1968 was a culmination of this process, while in England the founding of the London Saxophone Quartet in 1969 started the development of serious saxophone activity here.