The saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax in the early 1840s; made its public début at the Paris Industrial Exhibition in 1844; and was patented in 1846. The instrument made it public performance début in 1844, when it was featured in Hector Berlioz’s choral work arrangement of Chant Sacre, and at the Paris Conservatory’s performance of Georges Kastner’s opera Last King of Juda. Fast forward nearly 80 years, and the saxophone had found a home in hot jazz.

Given that by the 1920s the saxophone had been around for some 80 years, it is a bit surprising that the judiciary in London, England were uninformed as to the instrument’s existence:

What Is Saxophone? London Jurist Asks

London, Feb. 3 (AP).—Seemingly information concerning things of the outer world is notoriously late in reaching the law courts or the learned judges keep up a fiction that they know nothing of the world’s happenings.

Justice Eve. of the Chancery division of high court, has just discovered the existence of the saxophone. During a case the justice asked counsel, “What is a saxophone?”

“I am told,” counsel replied, “it is an instrument resembling a cornet and is used in what I understood are called jazz bands.”

Source: Feb. 3, 1926 edition of the Reading Eagle

Yes, jazz was starting to gain a foothold in the UK already in the 1920s. Obviously these learned individuals were not the jazz-lovin’ type however. Not only did they not know what saxophones were—cornets my ass—they also were not familiar with the new genre of music.

Is that any different than today? Probably not. Although I’m not sure a judge would have asked a lawyer, “What’s dubstep?” After all, that’s what smart phones are for. 😉