I played saxophone in school for about 10 years before starting to learn clarinet. It always felt to me like Sax "fixed" a lot of things that were annoying about the clarinet, and I was thankful to him for it.
Ugh; middle-of-the-road 80's easy listening. Better to listen to Rafferty's earlier band Stealers Wheel while watching the " Stuck in the middle with you" scene from "Reservoir Dogs".😳😉
@@bobair2 , Walk on the Wild Side has an edge to it ---- primarily due to the lyrics ---- that Jerry Rafferty's song lacks. I'd suggest Bob Seger's Turn the Page instead. Rafferty was an alcoholic and a bit of a creep by the way; chosen to produce Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights record, he was drinking scotch at 10 AM and trying to put the moves on Linda rather than making any headway at producing a record (which ended up being re-recorded with another producer). If you want to hear some wild sax playing try Thompson's song "Tearstained Letter" from his first solo record Hand of Kindness. I don't recall who plays the saxophone but it's wilder even than Thompson's stellar guitar playing. As it turned out, Saxophones pair quite well with Fender Telecaster guitars (a revolutionary and oft maligned instrument in it's youth), as Danny Gatton's "Pretty Blue" and his cover of "Harlem Nocture" show; and yet again on Arlen Roth's "Laughing At the Blues" where the sax and volume-swept Tele do a call-and-answer that meshes so well it's hard to tell which is which.
@@goodun2974 I did say Baker Street was made in the 1970s not the mid 80s and the unneeded info about Rafferty has zero to do with his music as I hear it.
@@30yearsagotoday This can be the response when an invention (or person) is so profound others feel inferior and threatened. Their solution to that problem was by rubbing it out instead of working to better improve themselves for that new musical paradigm, in a way, that stems from laziness.
Max Raabe's Palast Orchester, which features German and American dance music of the 1920s and 1930s, often employs a contrabass saxophone. Most of these weigh in at 20kg and 1.9m. While in the Clarksville (TN) high school band around 1969, our lead clarinetist discovered a sarrusophone buried in a music storage room. Evidently, Gautrot, a Frenchman, invented it to compete with Saxe. As a EEb instrument, it was the uncontested low register champion for the woodwinds.
@@charlesdudek7713 , Harden my Heart is a bit too middle of the road for me. Turn the Page by Bob Seger might be a better choice. In the 1970s the kings of horn driven R&B and rock were undoubtedly Chicago (Transit Authority), and Blood Sweat and Tears. Rare Earth as well.
@@charlesdudek7713 , if you wanna hear a great sax-driven Rock and Roll song, try "Tear Stained Letter" by guitarist Richard Thompson. The Live in Providence version, which you can find on RUclips, is phenomenal.
@@capt.bart.roberts4975 ps, if it opens with a sax, that's not a break, its the main melody! A "break" would be in the *middle* if the song! A song "with a funky break" as Springsteen put it.
I ended up in Dinant earlier this year. It is a lovely city. I was puzzled why there were saxophone statues all over and learned that this was the birth place of the instruments inventor. However, I learned more about him and his invention in this video. It is truly, History That Deserves To Be Remembered
I've always wondered why his middle C key sax, pitched between alto and tenor saxes, did not become more popular. Unique in that same key as piano sheet music.
I agree. Puzzled by its lack of popularity. However some fine sax players Like Frankie Trambauer played it with the great cornet master Bix Beiderbecke. Recommend listening to these artists. (I apologize for my misspelling their names)
Military bands played instruments in Bb and Eb, so there was always a market for instruments and music in these keys. The C instrument was mainly for amateurs.
Before the popularity of radio and the phonograph, families entertained themselves playing sheet music written generally in the key of C. During that time, the C Melody sax was the most popular sax for the average family. Or so I've been told.
@@maryd9331 50/60s big band started to incorporate the sax as well to effect. There is one legendary solo in particular that I would play for Adolphe Sax to show him the good his invention would bring to the world.
I played bassoon back (meaning waaaaay back!) in high school, and I’m reviving that and the contrabassoon now. However, in the meantime, I played all of the saxes (in classical style, BTW). One thing I never fully appreciated about Sax and the Saxophone until rebooting my bassoonery recently: The fact that saxophones are a true family, and especially in that all pitches of saxophone use the same fingerings (other than a few rare nuances), *_was absolutely revolutionary_* ! That became obvious when I finally got a chance to understand the contrabassoon: I promptly discovered that, although the bassoon and contrabassoon have essentially the same key layout, their fingerings are quite different! Apparently William Heckel “didn’t get the memo,” so to speak, until he invented the Heckelphone. I’m glad you made a point to mention Sax having invented the modern bass clarinet, or at least the proverbial “blueprint” for it - the basis for modern bass clarinets at least. That’s a way-too-often overlooked contribution!
@@rwesenberg , and yet, from the 1920's to the 1950's, Paris was thrilled by jazz music (except during the Vichy occupational government) that was often saxophone-driven.
@@goodun2974 I have played saxophone for nearly 60 years. I own a 50 year old Buffet SDA and it is to me the most valuable thing I own. Sax benefitted me, but his genuis got him a beating.
My uncle is an accomplished saxophone player, he was once invited to play with Steely Dan. I'm going to share this with him, I think he'd appreciate the history 😀💙
@ not really, in my day it was kind of a subdued place had a couple pianos in it. It was all about relax and chill 😁 we gave it the nickname” jazz bar “when talking with our Belgian friends
There are a number of Saxophone solos in music. I know of several bands that feature the saxophone. My favorite marching bands is a high school band from Japan and it will be in this coming Rose Parade in Pasadena.
I first learned about Adolphe Sax when i saw the Belgian banknote commemorating him and his instrument. It's was amazing to me that sommany people hated him and his instrument without even knowing him or having heard the saxophone. My favorite story is when he agreed to play his sa. In competition with another musician, but when his competitor took the stage, he had to admit he didn't know how to play the instrument. Such amazing efforts by so many to discredit the man for no real reason other than to be mean. Thanks for the video!
I confess that I am a sax player...so take this with a grain of sax. ;-) I think some of the motivation for making the saxophone is that it can be considerably louder than a clarinet. It is a conical bore instrument as opposed to the more cylindrical bore of the clarinet. Plus being made out of brass, it is more resonant than the clarinet. In a time before PA systems, bands could get a better balance between reeds and brass with fewer players.
The sax and the tuba were both developed at the same time because there wasn't a bass voice strong enough for large ensembles. The Saxophone was the frist instrument that was invented, not developed over time.
Visited the Brussels musical instrument museum (strong recommendation!) where they had an extensive display of - you guessed it! - saxaphones. To their credit, the museum gives an objective view of Adolphe Sax’s career, including his hits and misses.
I confess I found his list of mishaps hilarious. (Brought to mind Sir Henry Evelyn Wood.) Grateful he survived to design this wonderful and richly emotive instrument.
Yeah, they're usually just trotted out for a solo or little feature and then put away, which is a shame because a good classical saxophone tone is wonderful. I was actually thinking about this a few days ago, that I don't think there is anybody who tried to include saxophones as part of the woodwind section, like replacing the two clarinets with two alto saxes.
Sounds like Young Sax, was the very first actual G.O.A.T. I am very much the musician I am today because of his work. (Or suffering)? What a fitting tribute, thank you!
Thank you for this informative history. As a fan of both classical and pop music I have always been aware of schism in the music cannon that is rooted in the orchestra and foreswears the saxophone as an instrument of the devil. This gives shape and clarity to what the saxophone means to music. Sax was clearly a humunclous of imperial aristocracy. His music and the instruments that music was played on were all a contrivance of aristocratic benefactors and anonymous family "loans." Sax was truly an innovator of the highest order who was elevated by a movement that hoped to created a new French pattern for the orchestra of the future, even if they had to invent new instruments to play it on.
Along similar lines, you might be interested to do a history/biography of Theobald Boehm. Not nearly as controversial, but he really revolutionized how instrument makers think about musical-instrument design.
Thanks I've been curious about Sax since playing Baritone Saxhorn In junior high. Some Salvation Army bands use a set of Saxhorns in various pitches for a beautiful blend.
Excellent topic and video! I’d only heard a few of these crazy stories of reactions to Sax’s instruments. Bonkers! 12:04 - BTW, I’m pretty sure that the final “cleide” syllable of “ophicleide” is rhymes with “bride.” The ophicleide is only a predecessor of the tuba in its typical usage in orchestras - it was used as a low brass in orchestras, for the most part, before the tuba proved itself a considerably more-capable instrument. However, the ophicleide is a completely different instrument: A brass, lip-buzz mouthpiece on a characteristically woodwind body, notably using tone holes rather than valves to change the vibrating wavelength of the sound. The tuba, on the other hand, is pure-brass instrument, specifically a conical-brass instrument. In the hands of a skilled player, I find the ophicleide an intriguing-sounding instrument, but its low register can sound very dead and “lippy” in the hands of a less-skilled performer.
What's the difference between a saxophone and a chainsaw? You can tune a chainsaw. My brother told me he made a saxophone out of trout. Sounded fishy to me.
A sax player, returning from a gig, stopped to eat at a seedy diner. Another customer warned him that thieves operated on the car park, breaking into the cars and stealing any valuables they found. Realizing that he'd left his saxophone in full view on the back seat, the musician rushed out of the diner to check his car; but it was too late: someone had smashed the rear window and thrown an extra couple of saxophones inside.
Nope. Not funny. I read this a few times and even read it aloud. Just not funny at all. This " joke " suggests that the Saxophone is unliked so much that it is just thrown away. There are so many people that do enjoy the Saxophone that this " joke" just isn't funny. Maybe an inside thing with those that play it. Maybe you could explain why it's supposed to be funny remembering that if you have to explain a joke it's still not going to be funny.
@@accountnamewithheld Ahh, now THAT makes sense. Although it just occurred to me that Ukuleles would be the best choice of all for that joke. What a God awful instrument.
My first hearing of a saxophone was when I was a young teen in the mid-70's and discovered the musical group: Supertramp. I thought (and still do) believe they were the most talented modern pop group of the time due to their wide body of instruments compared to the many simplistic rock groups that relied on so few instruments. I might just have to listen to them on the way to work today. 🙂
Hey History Guy, are you calling my dad a liar?? He told me the saxophone was invented by Steve Sax - and that Darryl Strawberry invented strawberry shortcake, Jim Rice invented Rice-a-Roni, Will Clark invented the Clark bar, and Roger Clemens invented Mark Twain. On an unrelated note, does anybody know what a Mattinglyharp is?
@@onliwankannoli , Although I'm not really a fan of Joe Bonnamassa because I consider his particular blend of Blues and Blues Rock to be somewhat bland, there's a live concert from Vienna where he plays mostly acoustic guitar with other musicians including a guy on nyckelharpa, and it's quite good.
12:26 - I believe that the phrase "[given] the Order Of The Oak, crowned by the Belgian King" must be a misreading of the script's "[given] the Order Of The Oak Crown by the Belgian King", for two reasons. First, I can't find any information on any "Order Of The Oak" in any country. Second, while someone like Sax could get a title of nobility that would come with a "coronet", a "crown" goes only to Monarchs (typically Kings, Emperors, Grand Dukes where "Grand Duke" is the highest rank), i.e. persons not outranked in their country by anyone else. (The Prince of Wales has no crown but his coronet is frequently called a crown by those who make the distinction based on the presence or absence of arches, Wales's having one arch i.e. two half-arches in the same plane).
There's also the problem that the Order Of The Oak Crown isn't Belgian, but Lexembourgish. I frequently find that a Comment won't stick if I mention certain sites, so I alter them here. All of the sources I can find that Sax was a member of an Order with that name, all trace back (so far) to a single page of W'i'k'i-Media (hereinafter, "W-Media") that may be a hoax. Of every name on that page who is a person listed in W'i'k'i-Pedia (hereinafter, "W-Pedia"), the W-pedia page doesn't mention them having this Order. And (though I did not use an exhaustive comparison) I'm not seeing any names listed on this W-Media page that are also listed on the W-Pedia page for Luxembourg's Order Of The Oak Crown (which is the only Order Of The Oak Crown that W-Pedia has any knowledge of). Likewise I'm not seeing any names listed on the W-Pedia page that are also listed on the W-Media page. Further, the W-Pedia page on "Orders, decorations, and medals of Belgium" doesn't contain the text "Oak" or "Oaken" anywhere, and it does mention Belgian Orders of Chivalry that are now defunct. However, none of this definitively refutes the assertion that Sax received a Belgian Order Of The Oak Crown (although almost certainly not "crowned" with some Order Of The Oak). If presented with reliable sources from sites hopefully under the ultimate control of Belgian government entities, I could believe both (a) that Belgium has or had an Order Of The Oak Crown, and (b) that Adolphe Sax received this Order. But so far, I find it doubtful. When I check on the likelihood that Sax received the Order Of The Crown (no "oak") from some country that has one, I find a lot of contradictions.
If Sax's rivals spent just half as much time improving their own instruments as they did trying to take Sax down, they probably would have not had to resort to such nefarious activities like attempted assassinations. Envy: a very deadly sin.
What if all the accidents Sax had as a kid weren’t accidents? What if his enemies hated him so much, they invented a Time Machine to go back in time and kill him when he was a child? It really makes you think.
I played clarinet and bass clarinet in school and marched with both instruments. Nice to know who to blame for the bass clarinet! (I was not a robust child)
Some of his youthful near death experiences can surely be placed on parental neglect. Who.leaves glasses of sulphuric acid where a child could get it? I wonder how many siblings died because their adult caretakers were incompetent, perhaps malicious.
Years ago when I was touring the Paris cemeteries I noticed the small tomb of Adolphe Saxe. He's in a samller cemetery than the more famous Pere Lachaise but it's a lovely place and I made a video and even a book on the place. Please take a look; ruclips.net/video/iC7faRT3Mzg/видео.html
As a Jazz saxophone professor, and long time fan of The History Guy, thanks for covering the saxophone.
Thank you for your service.
Buy a Bass Clarinet, the kid sitting behind me in band class played one, it sounded Great.
I played saxophone in school for about 10 years before starting to learn clarinet. It always felt to me like Sax "fixed" a lot of things that were annoying about the clarinet, and I was thankful to him for it.
Sax, drums and Rock and Roll!
Tada boom!
I didn’t get there this morning, perfect!
I think I'll go listen to Baker Street right now.
Ugh; middle-of-the-road 80's easy listening. Better to listen to Rafferty's earlier band Stealers Wheel while watching the " Stuck in the middle with you" scene from "Reservoir Dogs".😳😉
@@goodun2974you are off because Baker Street is a 1970s song and an excellent one at that as is Lou Reed's Walk on the Wildside .
@@bobair2 , Walk on the Wild Side has an edge to it ---- primarily due to the lyrics ---- that Jerry Rafferty's song lacks. I'd suggest Bob Seger's Turn the Page instead. Rafferty was an alcoholic and a bit of a creep by the way; chosen to produce Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights record, he was drinking scotch at 10 AM and trying to put the moves on Linda rather than making any headway at producing a record (which ended up being re-recorded with another producer). If you want to hear some wild sax playing try Thompson's song "Tearstained Letter" from his first solo record Hand of Kindness. I don't recall who plays the saxophone but it's wilder even than Thompson's stellar guitar playing. As it turned out, Saxophones pair quite well with Fender Telecaster guitars (a revolutionary and oft maligned instrument in it's youth), as Danny Gatton's "Pretty Blue" and his cover of "Harlem Nocture" show; and yet again on Arlen Roth's "Laughing At the Blues" where the sax and volume-swept Tele do a call-and-answer that meshes so well it's hard to tell which is which.
Personally, Rafferty's 'Get It Right Next Time's" screamin' sax a rallying cry for my youth💁🏼♀️‼️
@@goodun2974 I did say Baker Street was made in the 1970s not the mid 80s and the unneeded info about Rafferty has zero to do with his music as I hear it.
The sheer pettiness of Sax’s rivals trying to ruin his instruments and reputation... and yet he came out on top. Iconic.
@@30yearsagotoday , in today's tech-bro dominant language, he'd be called a "disruptor", and celebrated for it!
@@30yearsagotoday This can be the response when an invention (or person) is so profound others feel inferior and threatened. Their solution to that problem was by rubbing it out instead of working to better improve themselves for that new musical paradigm, in a way, that stems from laziness.
Max Raabe's Palast Orchester, which features German and American dance music of the 1920s and 1930s, often employs a contrabass saxophone. Most of these weigh in at 20kg and 1.9m.
While in the Clarksville (TN) high school band around 1969, our lead clarinetist discovered a sarrusophone buried in a music storage room. Evidently, Gautrot, a Frenchman, invented it to compete with Saxe. As a EEb instrument, it was the uncontested low register champion for the woodwinds.
Any song that opens with a sax break is one I'll buy!
"Harden My Heart" by Quarterflash comes to mind.
@@charlesdudek7713 , Harden my Heart is a bit too middle of the road for me. Turn the Page by Bob Seger might be a better choice. In the 1970s the kings of horn driven R&B and rock were undoubtedly Chicago (Transit Authority), and Blood Sweat and Tears. Rare Earth as well.
@goodun2974 👍
@@charlesdudek7713 , if you wanna hear a great sax-driven Rock and Roll song, try "Tear Stained Letter" by guitarist Richard Thompson. The Live in Providence version, which you can find on RUclips, is phenomenal.
@@capt.bart.roberts4975 ps, if it opens with a sax, that's not a break, its the main melody! A "break" would be in the *middle* if the song! A song "with a funky break" as Springsteen put it.
Either Sax was the unluckiest person in the world, at least in his youth, or he was the world's biggest klutz.
You could turn that around and say he was one of the luckiest kids alive or he would have been dead at a young age?
He sounds to me like he was fabulously lucky. Every time he had a life-threatening disaster someone leapt to his rescue.
Death must reluctantly defer to Destiny in the stream of time. So it has always been.
"Most of his siblings died young." I think he just had bad parents.
I ended up in Dinant earlier this year. It is a lovely city. I was puzzled why there were saxophone statues all over and learned that this was the birth place of the instruments inventor. However, I learned more about him and his invention in this video. It is truly, History That Deserves To Be Remembered
I've always wondered why his middle C key sax, pitched between alto and tenor saxes, did not become more popular. Unique in that same key as piano sheet music.
I agree. Puzzled by its lack of popularity. However some fine sax players Like Frankie Trambauer played it with the great cornet master Bix Beiderbecke. Recommend listening to these artists. (I apologize for my misspelling their names)
Military bands played instruments in Bb and Eb, so there was always a market for instruments and music in these keys. The C instrument was mainly for amateurs.
Before the popularity of radio and the phonograph, families entertained themselves playing sheet music written generally in the key of C. During that time, the C Melody sax was the most popular sax for the average family. Or so I've been told.
I've always like saxophone music. So much good stuff in the '40s and '50s, in both pop and rock 'n roll music.
@@maryd9331 50/60s big band started to incorporate the sax as well to effect. There is one legendary solo in particular that I would play for Adolphe Sax to show him the good his invention would bring to the world.
@excrono I agree! I include big band in American pop music. 😊
@@maryd9331 , jazz, Dixieland, swing, blues, R&B, rock, pop.....the saxophone has found a place in all of them.
I played bassoon back (meaning waaaaay back!) in high school, and I’m reviving that and the contrabassoon now. However, in the meantime, I played all of the saxes (in classical style, BTW).
One thing I never fully appreciated about Sax and the Saxophone until rebooting my bassoonery recently: The fact that saxophones are a true family, and especially in that all pitches of saxophone use the same fingerings (other than a few rare nuances), *_was absolutely revolutionary_* ! That became obvious when I finally got a chance to understand the contrabassoon: I promptly discovered that, although the bassoon and contrabassoon have essentially the same key layout, their fingerings are quite different! Apparently William Heckel “didn’t get the memo,” so to speak, until he invented the Heckelphone.
I’m glad you made a point to mention Sax having invented the modern bass clarinet, or at least the proverbial “blueprint” for it - the basis for modern bass clarinets at least. That’s a way-too-often overlooked contribution!
An excellent video. So often, genius is a blessing to all but the genius.
@@rwesenberg , and yet, from the 1920's to the 1950's, Paris was thrilled by jazz music (except during the Vichy occupational government) that was often saxophone-driven.
@@goodun2974 I have played saxophone for nearly 60 years. I own a 50 year old Buffet SDA and it is to me the most valuable thing I own. Sax benefitted me, but his genuis got him a beating.
Well said
You can say that again
It's hard to imagine modern music without the saxophone.
Always good to start the day off with the History Guy!
My uncle is an accomplished saxophone player, he was once invited to play with Steely Dan. I'm going to share this with him, I think he'd appreciate the history 😀💙
I was stationed in Belgium in 1984-85 and saxes Home was converted into a bar.
I'll bet that place was really *honking* at midnight!
@ not really, in my day it was kind of a subdued place had a couple pianos in it. It was all about relax and chill 😁 we gave it the nickname” jazz bar “when talking with our Belgian friends
@124marsh , I was making a joke that the place should have been honking like a loud baritone sax!
ok👍😁
Thanks for your service...
There are a number of Saxophone solos in music. I know of several bands that feature the saxophone. My favorite marching bands is a high school band from Japan and it will be in this coming Rose Parade in Pasadena.
It could be said that Adolphe Sax was an indirect inspiration for a song by Jimmy Buffett. That song is called "If We Had Saxophones."
I first learned about Adolphe Sax when i saw the Belgian banknote commemorating him and his instrument. It's was amazing to me that sommany people hated him and his instrument without even knowing him or having heard the saxophone. My favorite story is when he agreed to play his sa. In competition with another musician, but when his competitor took the stage, he had to admit he didn't know how to play the instrument. Such amazing efforts by so many to discredit the man for no real reason other than to be mean. Thanks for the video!
"You can recognize when a true genius appears, as all of the dunces will be in a confederacy against him."
I confess that I am a sax player...so take this with a grain of sax. ;-)
I think some of the motivation for making the saxophone is that it can be considerably louder than a clarinet. It is a conical bore instrument as opposed to the more cylindrical bore of the clarinet. Plus being made out of brass, it is more resonant than the clarinet. In a time before PA systems, bands could get a better balance between reeds and brass with fewer players.
The sax and the tuba were both developed at the same time because there wasn't a bass voice strong enough for large ensembles. The Saxophone was the frist instrument that was invented, not developed over time.
Visited the Brussels musical instrument museum (strong recommendation!) where they had an extensive display of - you guessed it! - saxaphones. To their credit, the museum gives an objective view of Adolphe Sax’s career, including his hits and misses.
Love your musical ending😊
It sounds like his mother had taken out a large life insurance on him. And arranged for a series of unfortunate events.
Well, that's me, off to find a book on the saxophone wars, and a biography of Adolphe Sax. I love finding new info to research🎉
I confess I found his list of mishaps hilarious. (Brought to mind Sir Henry Evelyn Wood.) Grateful he survived to design this wonderful and richly emotive instrument.
I did like the treble clef cuff links. Great history lesson.
How did this unlucky guy somehow manage to avoid pirates for his whole life
😂
That my friend, is a question for the history guy!
No doubt they copied his designs... piracy!
It’s still rare to find saxophones in orchestras
Yeah, they're usually just trotted out for a solo or little feature and then put away, which is a shame because a good classical saxophone tone is wonderful. I was actually thinking about this a few days ago, that I don't think there is anybody who tried to include saxophones as part of the woodwind section, like replacing the two clarinets with two alto saxes.
Sounds like Young Sax, was the very first actual G.O.A.T. I am very much the musician I am today because of his work. (Or suffering)? What a fitting tribute, thank you!
Kudos to the musician who played "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" on the sax! Nice job!
Wow, who would think being an instrument designer and builder could be so dangerous!
I only vaguely knew his history. Thank you for this.
Thank you for this informative history. As a fan of both classical and pop music I have always been aware of schism in the music cannon that is rooted in the orchestra and foreswears the saxophone as an instrument of the devil. This gives shape and clarity to what the saxophone means to music. Sax was clearly a humunclous of imperial aristocracy. His music and the instruments that music was played on were all a contrivance of aristocratic benefactors and anonymous family "loans." Sax was truly an innovator of the highest order who was elevated by a movement that hoped to created a new French pattern for the orchestra of the future, even if they had to invent new instruments to play it on.
Sax was king in the 50's in R&R no doubt. I used to introduce our sax player as "Mean Gene, the Sax Machine" and he could play a mean machine.
Thank you, Lance. Sax’s was an amazing and tragic story. I’m impressed by the amount of detail you and your team were able to find and present.
Along similar lines, you might be interested to do a history/biography of Theobald Boehm. Not nearly as controversial, but he really revolutionized how instrument makers think about musical-instrument design.
As a musician and someone who played the sax in his youth, i loved this historical piece!!
Thanks, HG. I would have liked to have seen how the sax became the top instrument of Jazz during the 40's.
My brother was a saxophone player, the eighties was a time when the popularity of the instrument was pretty large.
Great posting! Now, there was also the sousaphone...
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Did you know Sousa sued to keep his name off of the Sousaphone? It was called the wonderphone until after his death
- and the Heckelphone!
Most of his siblings died. When you throw in all of his near misses with death in his youth, you have to wonder about his parent's parenting ability.
Different times. A kid these days wouldn't make 1 year of that life
Thanks
I've been curious about Sax since playing Baritone Saxhorn In junior high. Some Salvation Army bands use a set of Saxhorns in various pitches for a beautiful blend.
You missed a golden opportunity for click bait on this video. You could have termed it "A Real-Life Tale of Sax and Violence."
Great stuff as always. Sad story for the man behind great music.
Excellent topic and video! I’d only heard a few of these crazy stories of reactions to Sax’s instruments. Bonkers!
12:04 - BTW, I’m pretty sure that the final “cleide” syllable of “ophicleide” is rhymes with “bride.” The ophicleide is only a predecessor of the tuba in its typical usage in orchestras - it was used as a low brass in orchestras, for the most part, before the tuba proved itself a considerably more-capable instrument.
However, the ophicleide is a completely different instrument: A brass, lip-buzz mouthpiece on a characteristically woodwind body, notably using tone holes rather than valves to change the vibrating wavelength of the sound. The tuba, on the other hand, is pure-brass instrument, specifically a conical-brass instrument. In the hands of a skilled player, I find the ophicleide an intriguing-sounding instrument, but its low register can sound very dead and “lippy” in the hands of a less-skilled performer.
What's the difference between a saxophone and a chainsaw?
You can tune a chainsaw.
My brother told me he made a saxophone out of trout.
Sounded fishy to me.
The History Guy, being possessed of a reedy tenor, has the perfect voice to narrate this video. 😉
Congratulations on being a dad!
What's the difference between a saxophone and a dinosaur? Dinosaurs are really big!
Cool cufflinks!
A sax player, returning from a gig, stopped to eat at a seedy diner. Another customer warned him that thieves operated on the car park, breaking into the cars and stealing any valuables they found. Realizing that he'd left his saxophone in full view on the back seat, the musician rushed out of the diner to check his car; but it was too late: someone had smashed the rear window and thrown an extra couple of saxophones inside.
😂
Excuse me, sir. As a sax player I would like to state comments like that are supposed to be reserved for banjos
Nope. Not funny. I read this a few times and even read it aloud. Just not funny at all. This " joke " suggests that the Saxophone is unliked so much that it is just thrown away. There are so many people that do enjoy the Saxophone that this " joke" just isn't funny. Maybe an inside thing with those that play it. Maybe you could explain why it's supposed to be funny remembering that if you have to explain a joke it's still not going to be funny.
Accordions is the traditional joke
@@accountnamewithheld Ahh, now THAT makes sense. Although it just occurred to me that Ukuleles would be the best choice of all for that joke. What a God awful instrument.
My first hearing of a saxophone was when I was a young teen in the mid-70's and discovered the musical group: Supertramp. I thought (and still do) believe they were the most talented modern pop group of the time due to their wide body of instruments compared to the many simplistic rock groups that relied on so few instruments. I might just have to listen to them on the way to work today. 🙂
#2 would be Kansas.
@@ChessIsJustAGame I don't Kansas featuring horns like Supertramp or Chicago
More is not necessarily better, just different.
Hey History Guy, are you calling my dad a liar?? He told me the saxophone was invented by Steve Sax - and that Darryl Strawberry invented strawberry shortcake, Jim Rice invented Rice-a-Roni, Will Clark invented the Clark bar, and Roger Clemens invented Mark Twain.
On an unrelated note, does anybody know what a Mattinglyharp is?
@@onliwankannoli , no, but have you ever seen or heard a Nyckleharpa?
@ I looked up the nyckelharpa, quite impressive!
@@onliwankannoli , Although I'm not really a fan of Joe Bonnamassa because I consider his particular blend of Blues and Blues Rock to be somewhat bland, there's a live concert from Vienna where he plays mostly acoustic guitar with other musicians including a guy on nyckelharpa, and it's quite good.
@@onliwankannoli Super funny!
3:49 -- Yeah, that's what _she_ said!🤣🤣🤣
I did not realize how relatively "young" most of our instruments are. Good topic!
Love the look of the sax tuba.
Do you believe in sax before marriage?
Not without a patent.
Yes, but only with Clarinet. Okay, okay I’ll leave quietly.
Frank Drebin: "Johnny, no sax before a fight."
😂
Its the guitar that all of the older instruments are jealous of
The man who invented that got plenty of lute
Most "real" musicians look down on the guitar because it attracts so many posers and wannabes.
Thanks 👍
What a life ...
The background music on the end cap is so much better now!
Has anyone already done the "Sax and Violence" gag?
Sax, murder and rock and roll.
What do you call someone who breaks a saxophone.
A sax offender.
You beat me to it--eight to the bar...
I think you’re the first. But I am disappointed not to see “Sax on the Beach” (an album by Bleeding Gums Murphy)
12:26 - I believe that the phrase "[given] the Order Of The Oak, crowned by the Belgian King" must be a misreading of the script's "[given] the Order Of The Oak Crown by the Belgian King", for two reasons. First, I can't find any information on any "Order Of The Oak" in any country. Second, while someone like Sax could get a title of nobility that would come with a "coronet", a "crown" goes only to Monarchs (typically Kings, Emperors, Grand Dukes where "Grand Duke" is the highest rank), i.e. persons not outranked in their country by anyone else. (The Prince of Wales has no crown but his coronet is frequently called a crown by those who make the distinction based on the presence or absence of arches, Wales's having one arch i.e. two half-arches in the same plane).
There's also the problem that the Order Of The Oak Crown isn't Belgian, but Lexembourgish. I frequently find that a Comment won't stick if I mention certain sites, so I alter them here.
All of the sources I can find that Sax was a member of an Order with that name, all trace back (so far) to a single page of W'i'k'i-Media (hereinafter, "W-Media") that may be a hoax. Of every name on that page who is a person listed in W'i'k'i-Pedia (hereinafter, "W-Pedia"), the W-pedia page doesn't mention them having this Order. And (though I did not use an exhaustive comparison) I'm not seeing any names listed on this W-Media page that are also listed on the W-Pedia page for Luxembourg's Order Of The Oak Crown (which is the only Order Of The Oak Crown that W-Pedia has any knowledge of). Likewise I'm not seeing any names listed on the W-Pedia page that are also listed on the W-Media page.
Further, the W-Pedia page on "Orders, decorations, and medals of Belgium" doesn't contain the text "Oak" or "Oaken" anywhere, and it does mention Belgian Orders of Chivalry that are now defunct.
However, none of this definitively refutes the assertion that Sax received a Belgian Order Of The Oak Crown (although almost certainly not "crowned" with some Order Of The Oak). If presented with reliable sources from sites hopefully under the ultimate control of Belgian government entities, I could believe both (a) that Belgium has or had an Order Of The Oak Crown, and (b) that Adolphe Sax received this Order. But so far, I find it doubtful. When I check on the likelihood that Sax received the Order Of The Crown (no "oak") from some country that has one, I find a lot of contradictions.
Been to Dinant several times, beautiful river town.
I worked many years in the music business. Lots of sax and violins.
I work with musical instrument manufacturers. IMO you have to be a little cra cra to make fine instruments.
“Saxamaphone, sax-a-ma-phoooooonnne:...” -Homer Simpson
D’oh
"Lisa stop playing that stupid--" SAXOPHONE!
Alto or tenor?
Sax and drugs and rock n roll
Is all my brain and body need.
He may have made the base instrument first because the hole placement is more forgiving the lower the pitch.
I learned some of this story from an excellent video about the saxophone on the David Bruce Composer RUclips channel.
I have a violin made in 1861. It's a german copy of the stradavarius. Maybe you can do a video about the history of the violin?
Wow those French competitors were certainly jealous. And were driven to attempting murder.
Absolutely wild
Instructions unclear: Watched The History Guy episode on saxophone alone, and now I'm pregnant. I'm a dude, this is bullshit!
If Sax's rivals spent just half as much time improving their own instruments as they did trying to take Sax down, they probably would have not had to resort to such nefarious activities like attempted assassinations.
Envy: a very deadly sin.
Kazoo? Really? Doubt that quote is historically accurate…….but funny!
What an infuriating story.
What if all the accidents Sax had as a kid weren’t accidents? What if his enemies hated him so much, they invented a Time Machine to go back in time and kill him when he was a child? It really makes you think.
Very cool! Thank you!
Well, is there a more cool instrument than the sax?
The Ill Wind That Nobody Blows Any Good
Would think the developer of that brass tone approximater aka the trombone would be the victim of such a life.
And a Hugh nod to Angelo Moore of the band FISHBONE !
Black musicians can give soul to any musical instruments make it we'll show you how to play it
I thought you were going to say the saxophone, a baritone like instrument that as far as I know very few people play today 0:40
... I thought this was going to be about the clintons
😂
I played clarinet and bass clarinet in school and marched with both instruments. Nice to know who to blame for the bass clarinet! (I was not a robust child)
I read Agaton Sax. LOL.
Sharp cufflinks / you also got a pair of bass clefs I assume
Learn to work the saxophone
(I) I play just what i feel.
Some of his youthful near death experiences can surely be placed on parental neglect. Who.leaves glasses of sulphuric acid where a child could get it? I wonder how many siblings died because their adult caretakers were incompetent, perhaps malicious.
61st, 18 December 2024
👍👍👍
Well I never
Years ago when I was touring the Paris cemeteries I noticed the small tomb of Adolphe Saxe. He's in a samller cemetery than the more famous Pere Lachaise but it's a lovely place and I made a video and even a book on the place. Please take a look; ruclips.net/video/iC7faRT3Mzg/видео.html
Does it have to be a Xmas carol?
what a convoluted mess that was!
Is it pronounced 'Adolf' or 'Adolf?'
Uh-dolf.
Just like it's spelled....
Spoken too quickly for me.
Extremely unlikely he could survive drinking sulfuric acid
Dilluted, very dilluted
Apparently, people were much tougher back then...
@davidcampbell4465 indubitably
Presumably it was diluted and a small amount. But, in reality, sulfuric acid poisoning is rarely fatal.
@TheHistoryGuyChannel love your channel. Good work.
Sounds like he was persecuted harder than Donald Trump is persecuted, except he didn't have money to help fight back. Very strong-willed man.
But Sax was bringing something great to the world whereas the orange jesus is a scumbag criminal that deserves to be punished.