If you look back at photos of yourself from the 80s & 90s—or 70s or 60s depending on your age—one thing you can say with 100% certainty: fashions change. If you’re a musician, nowhere are those old fashions more indelibly preserved than on album covers. Case in point, the album Diversions, by the all-female saxophone quartet, The Fairer Sax.
I look at this album cover and ask myself: What were they thinking??? They look like they were going to a ball in one of those southern states like Georgia. However, from the very limited information I have been able to glean, the group seems to originate from the UK.
According to last.fm, the group is made of the following members:
The Fairer Sax is a saxophone quartet consisting of Anne-Louise Lane on soprano, Gabrielle Lane on alto, Karen Street on tenor and Julia Mills on baritone.
A little further digging, and Discogs turns up the following on tenor player Karen Street:
Karen Street is an accordionist, saxophonist and composer from the UK.
Now according to this same Discogs page, Diversions was released in 1987. For those of us who were old enough to have dressed ourselves in the 80s, we know how we looked. That said, I can tell you with total certainty that I never dressed like I was going to a southern ball. 😉
For those of you who were too young in the 80s to dress yourselves—or weren’t even born yet—or are just curious what women’s fashions looked like back then, I offer up the following Google search results for your viewing pleasure. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya… 
BTW, notice that even under the “formal” button along the top of the search results, nothing like what The Fairer Sax was wearing is shown. Just saying….
Alrighty then, now that our trashing of 80s fashions is over….
Times have changed, but image captures last forever
The Fairer Sax: Even the name is one that would likely not be chosen by an all-female group today. Times have changed.
Be that as it may, both the group name, and their questionable choice in clothing, are products of the time, and need to be seen through that lens. Sadly, that’s what happens when you put out an enduring product, which then finds further fame online. What happens in the 80s, no longer stays in the 80s.
I don’t think our young YouTube stars of today give that any thought. Do they really think that two or three decades from now people are not going to be laughing at their hair and clothing choices? Just saying…
OK, so The Fairer Sax is dated, but how do they sound? Could they play sax?
They sounded quite good, and yes, they certainly knew their way around a saxophone.
As far as I can tell, The Fairer Sax released four albums and one EP. A bit of YouTubing turned up a surprising number of their recordings. Although not a huge fan of sax quartets, I actually found I enjoyed quite a bit of their non-classical repertoire.
Maybe it’s because I play this with my own jazz band, but perhaps my favourite is their arrangement of It Don’t Mean A Thing, from Blowing Hot And Cold.
Well Julia is my cousin. Yes we are very definitely from England, and she certainly knows how to play saxophone.
Karen Street has published a number of sax-related pieces.
A series of quartets for developing players are a great resource for group teaching.
Helen, I think their costume may have been what we older folks called a put-on.