Frank McKinney Hubbard (1868 – 1930) was an American humorist, cartoonist, and journalist, who was known by the pen name Kin Hubbard. Hubbard was the creator of the long-running cartoon, Abe Martin of Brown County, which ran in US papers from 1904 until his death in 1930.¹
Although, surprisingly, many of his cartoons have not made it onto the Internet yet, a lot of his political quips have. One quote of his which is on topic for this website, is the one comparing saxophone playing to child rearing. See for yourself…
The worst waste of breath, next to playing a saxophone, is advising a son
Source: thinkexist.com
Gee, I wonder what kind of advise Hubbard would dish out about a dad getting a saxophone for his son? 😈
Source: SenjiBleu on eBay.com
Over the last few months I have come across a number of articles from the 20s & 30s that show there was a push back. While the 1920s might have been sax-happy, not everyone was happy about it. (If you’re interested, you can check out the following dates for articles: Sept. 16, Nov. 29, Dec. 9, Jan. 21, Mar. 3, Mar. 22.)
In some ways it is surprising that the saxophone caught on the way that it did, and managed to maintain its popularity over the decades. Today it likely remains the most popular of the acoustic instruments. (I’d have to do some research to actually confirm these suspicions.)
It would be interesting to explore why the sax is such a popular instrument. Its very malleable tone and incredible flexibility—which allow it to fit into almost any musical setting—are just two of the reasons I suspect our instrument of choice has managed to stay at the top of the instrument sales charts.
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