Most of us have heard the expression: The saxophone is an easy instrument to learn to play, badly. However, an article that I happened to come across from the February 13, 1939 edition of the Milwaukee Journal, takes this concept to a whole new level.
The year is 1939, and the then Deputy Mayor of New York City, Henry H. Curran, received a letter from a saxophone student by the name of Herbert Cohen. Cohen wrote the Mayor’s office because he was having problems with his neighbours. It seems the neighbours threatened to call the police on this Bronx musician, because he was practicing his saxophone.
If Cohen thought that his letter would fall on sympathetic ears, his would be sadly mistaken. Deputy Mayor Curran offered up the following thoughts and suggestions:
There is something about a saxophone that makes people either burst into tears or cheerfully do murder.
It is a dangerous instrument, especially when you blow on it for two hours and a half. Now here is my recommendation. If you would like to take up the cello I will chip in the first $5 to buy a good cello. There we have a beautiful, mellow, seasoned instrument that everybody loves.
But, if you must stick to the saxophone, then ask the secretary of war to give you permission to go up in the Statue of Liberty and blow on it there.
Now those of us who are teachers can probably think of at least a couple of students whose playing was so awful, that we were glad when their lesson time was over. (You can’t help but feel for the parents of those kids.)
There is something about a saxophone that makes people either burst into tears or cheerfully do murder.
And yes, maybe some of us sucked so badly when we first started, that our parents should have been given some kind of award for listening to us in the beginning. However, I do believe that this ersatz His Honor went a bit overboard with his predictions of joyful killings due to sounds of beginning saxophone students filling the Bronx air.
Although I haven’t researched the crime rate in the USA during the sax-happy 20s, I don’t remember reading anything about “cheerful” murders being committed en mass, because every 2nd or 3rd household had a C melody saxophone in their closet. Furthermore, I don’t remember hearing about world-wide murder and mayhem shortly after Adolphe Sax’s invention started catching on. Because let’s face it, even the pros had to start somewhere.
No, it seems to me that good ol’ Deputy Mayor Curran was grand-standing. He reminds me a bit of a little kid left in charge of the house while his parents are away. Dire predictions with not a shred of evidence to back them up…. Hmmm… 
Reminds me of our politicians of today. 😀
i can relate to this,my bulldog boz will really howl when i practice.mabe he has perfect pitch,but has never had a thought to do me in,that i know of.thank you HELEN for your great site .are you doing okay?i am still here and hope to keep drawing my retirement checks,ho ho ho.your sax bud
sam
Hi there Sam.
I’m doing well. Good to hear that you’re hanging in as well. Yes, by all means keep drawing those retirement checks!
Don’t let Boz intimidate you. Perhaps he’s just enjoying it. One of my borzoi used to howl whenever Patti LaBelle’s song New Attitude came on. He loved that wail she did whenever she sang “new attitude”. He wailed in perfect pitch to it whenever it came in the song. The breeder thought it was so funny that she video taped it and sent it off to Patti LaBelle’s managment company. Guess what: We never got a call to do a duet. Oh well, them’s the breaks I guess. 😈