Onde Nasceu Adolph Sax?
Lucky for the world he did, because the Looney Tunes-esque clumsy boy would become the man to forever change the face of music, from the blues joints of New Orleans to the jazz clubs of Paris and the music of Kenny G: the inventor of the saxophone.
Clubs formed against him. The press produced unflattering articles. Sax’s avid litigiousness caught up with him and drained his coffers. Sax declared bankrupt three times in 1852, 1873 and 1877.
Archives
There were other instrument makers who constructed Sax style instruments in New York City. C.A. Zoebisch and Sons were one such manufacturer. Harvey Dodworth from New York also has his name imprinted on some over the shoulder instruments. These were not actually manufactured by the Dodworth family, but by John F. Stratton another New York City instrument maker. Harvey’s endorsement was as much required to save the family name, as it was to earn a little extra money. Instrument manufacturers at the time were claiming to produce instruments endorsed by the Dodworths. Many of these endorsed instruments were of poor construction. Therefore, the H.B. Dodworth seal on John F. Stratton’s instruments had a great deal of meaning when it came to quality.
Although over the shoulder saxhorns were very popular during the Civil War, they began to fall out of favor by 1870. The 24 member brass marching band lost its popularity as grand concert bands with mixed winds received the most critical acclaim. With the exception of the baritone, saxhorns are no longer used in most American bands. However, to this day in England, community brass bands still use the saxhorn family. Musical tastes change though. Today in the United States it is painful to watch the attendance of concerts put on by community bands in local parks dwindle in some areas. As fewer and fewer people show up to these community performances, one of the last vestiges of 19th century social life becomes another memory.
The Man Who Invented The Saxophone Sings The Blues
After this look at the man who invented the saxophone, check out more musical history with the story of the troubled lives of America’s blind bluesmen or the stories of musicians whose legacies could face a #MeToo reckoning.
That was an unfeasible proposition for almost any Confederate soldier in that late month of the war. To add insult to injury, the 26th Regimental Band was forced to give most of their battered instruments up to Union Troops in the last days of the war, when they were captured by the Yankee army. Julius Augustus Leinbach wrote of his capture, “We walked up to them and were taken in charge. Our instruments were taken from us and that seemed to be the bitterest experience of all…”
Adolphe Sax had many powerful connections, though, and as a result his competitors were never completely able to keep him down. As a third chance to rebound from his economic woes, a concert was arranged. It was a competition between bands using traditional instrumentation and instruments produced by Sax. The commission and huge audience that was in attendance supported Sax. He believed that his financial problems would finally be over, but this was not the case. Adolphe’s competitor’s bribed his employees to get the plans for his instruments and then promptly sued him saying that Sax had stolen their instruments. As a result, Sax sold the factory for four thousand Francs.
Categories
For instance, he once thought a certain liquid to be milk and actually drank some diluted sulfuric acid. He was hit on the head by a stone, nearly drowned in a river, and poisoned three times by varnish. He also swallowed a needle and fell from a three-story window. There’s little wonder why his mother, nerves likely frayed, bemoaned: “He’s a child condemned to misfortune; he won’t live,” and that his nickname was “little Sax, the ghost”.
Karel Goetghebeur, born in Ostend in 1978, is the founder and creator behind Adolphe Sax & Cie. As a secondary occupation, he established his saxophone business after he received the exclusive distribution rights of a particular saxophone brand for all of Europe. In 2010, he took a leap of faith and decided to work with saxophones full-time.
The Early Notes Of Adolphe Sax’s Life
There was a call for support from King Leopold of Belgium to sponsor the work of Sax. Initially the King was uninterested, but General Rumigny was able to convince him that Sax’s instruments were optimal for military style music. As a result of the King’s new-found interest, stock in the company was made available on the Paris Stock Exchange. Sax’s rivals bought out all of the stock and sold it for half the price. His competition once again succeeded in ruining his business.
The most important champion for the saxophone’s early success was the French military. Adolphe Sax wrote three letters on the state of French military music to important players in the military, resulting in Sax being invited to bring a band representing his new ideas on instrumentation to be compared side-by-side with a band representing the existing instruments before the Ministry of War to determine if Sax’s instruments could best the existing instruments. If they could, the Ministry would reexamine their military band instrumentation. Between issues finding skilled players on his instruments and deliberate sabotage from rival manufacturers, Sax’s band was significantly smaller than the competing band each time the competition was held. Nonetheless, his instruments prevailed, and a special commission was created to determine the future of the French military band.
View All Trips
One manufacturer who learned a great deal from Stratton’s efforts was Henry Distin. Henry, who was a famed member of the Distin family, worked for a brief time in Philadelphia with the J. W. Pepper Company in 1877. After working with them he set up his own factory in Williamsport, Pennsylvania in 1887.
“I shall wait another year before registering this patent,” Sax said fearing plagiarism. “We shall see whether, by then, a maker will have produced a true saxophone!”
Donate to the Collection
However improbably, young Sax did reach adulthood and lit out for Paris in the 1840s with 30 francs in his pocket after studying at the Brussels Conservatory. Les Misérables-era Paris was a heady place under King Louis Philippe. This was after the Revolution and Napoleon’s reign, both bloody, but there was money to be made from the army. “His aim was nothing short of introducing a whole new range of instruments to the French Army, which was, of course, a huge market,” Santy expounded. Sax set out to create an instrument perfect for use in military drills — but this time, for the French army.
In 1842, Sax became acquainted with Romantic composer Hector Berlioz who offered him entré into Paris’ musical circles. The two spoke at length about Sax’s inventions and that very night they met, the enigmatic composer told Sax, “Tomorrow, you will know what I think about the work you have accomplished.” Sax found out in the June 1842 edition of the Journal des Débats.
Sax would come to craft a collection of eponymous saxhorns, including the saxhorn itself, the saxtromba, and the saxtuba. These instruments experimented with the sound of air released into a brass tube and each produced a different timbre. But even before these, Adolphe Sax had already struck his magnum opus: the saxophone.
Recent Posts
The “Adolphe Sax & Cie” story is no one-man show. It is teamwork. It’s a great pleasure to collaborate with and to receive advice from our technical team: all important saxophonists, technicians and researchers.
The man who invented the saxophone is remembered for many things: his confidence, his orneriness, but most of all, by his namesake. The saxophone forever changed music, becoming the enfant terrible of jazz and blues and an unmissable part of orchestras and jazz bands.
Primary Navigation
The journey of the saxophone began when Belgian inventor Adolphe Sax set up a small workshop at Rue Saint-Georges in Paris, France in July of 1843. Sax was already renowned for his accomplishments innovating on existing instruments – particularly the bass clarinet – and for his experiments creating the saxhorn and saxotromba. It would not be long after this move that the saxophone would make its first shaky steps into the world.
Some of the Instruments played by various North Carolina Bands, including an E flat bass over the shoulder saxhorn played by Leinbach in the early part of the war, can be seen publicly. These are in the Wachovia Museum of Old Salem. There are other strong collections of Civil War period instruments on public display throughout the country. The Smithsonian and the Henry Ford Museum both have extensive displays. However, there are no public exhibits of a complete set of 7 saxhorns in the United States.