Over the past couple of years I’ve mentioned a few Couesnophones on my blog when I’ve seen them on eBay. The Couesnophone is a French instrument that is also called a Goofus. It was made by Couesnon in the 1920s, and when we see them on eBay nowadays, they’re often in pretty rough condition.
The Goofus is a free reed instrument, and unlike the sax which can only play one note at at time, the Couesnophone is capable of playing multiple notes simultaneously.
The poor Goofus never really grabbed the attention of professional players, and many surely ended up in closets, attics, and toy boxes.
Source: eBay.com
An exception to this no professionals use the Goofus rule, was the Goofus Five, a band that was a smaller subset of the California Ramblers¹. The California Ramblers were of course extremely well known for their bass saxophonist, Adrian Rollini.
In the photo below, Rollini is pictured with guitarist Allen Haulon.
Source: wikipedia.org
Rollini was originally a pianist and xylophonist, but once he introduced his bass saxophone skills on breaks and solos, the California Ramblers had a sound uniquely their own. In the Goofus Five, Rollini played the Goofus.
In the following recording done on June 15, 1927 in New York, the Goofus Five performs Vo-Do-Do-De-O Blues.
Adrian Rollini was a musical genius. He made everything he played appear effortless. Very few people have been able to tame a bass saxophone like he did—and to my knowledge, sax was not even his primary instrument. I’m not even sure when he started to play the sax.
With regards the Goofus, we know that the instrument was patented in 1924, and Rollini started recording with the instrument the same year.² He was obviously one of those people who could just pick up almost anything they want, and start to play.
If you’d like to know more about the Goofus, check out the Couesnophone page on the main portion of my site.
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