The Father Of Our Iconic Instruments
The Father Of Our Iconic Instruments

The Father Of Our Iconic Instruments

Today marks the 196th year since Adolphe Sax’s birth. If he were alive today, I would like to think that he would be happy to see how popular his saxophones had become, and as Mal-2 pointed out in his comment from a couple of days ago, how recognizable they still are—even to the untrained eye.

While trying to find something that would properly mark this day, I happened to find an interesting photo of the stained glass above his former residence in Dinant, Belgium. It is a close-up of what can be seen on the right of this shot, from my post of last November 6.

  Stained Glass Over Maison Adolphe Sax Entry Door

     Photography by: Royston Rascals   Source: Flickr

Phoenix, Arizona has a fairly new museum dedicated to musical instruments. Among its collection, the Musical Instrument Museum features what appears to be a set (S, A, T, B, B) of Adolphe Sax original saxophones.

  Lots of Saxophones

     Photography by: TadDonaghe  Source: Flickr

It is hard to tell for sure if these horns are all indeed Sax originals however, since one would have to be able to read what the text says. Unfortunately the original of the photo is too small to do that. What makes me a tad curious, is that the bass appears to be in remarkable condition.

Saxophone historian Pete Hales, the man formerly known as Saxpics, lives just outside Phoenix. He has plans to go to the museum at some point in the future. Work however, keeps interfering with his plans to do so. When he does get the chance to go though, we will get a full report on exactly who built these antique instruments.

One comment

  1. Hai. I just came across this today, looking for things A. Sax.

    I’ve shot some 130 pics of the stuff in the MIM. It’s on my blog and mentioned elsewhere, here.

    I’ll attempt to remember the horns, L to R:

    The half of a horn, peeking out of the side is a Conn-O-Sax. It has a very coppery look. I don’t know why.

    The horns you can see all of in the above pic:
    Eb sopranino from Evette-Schaeffer (Buffet).
    Bb soprano from Adolphe Sax.
    Eb alto from Adolphe Sax.
    Bb tenor from Adolphe-Edouard Sax (i.e. the inventor’s son).
    Eb bari from Dolnet.
    Bb bass from WA Stowasser.

    This also reminds me that I have to tell the MIM that their Conn-O-Sax wasn’t patented in 1914.

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