Saxophones Unheard of members of the sax family

[Mack]

I would love to have a Conn-o-sax...

 

[Colin the Bear]

View: https://youtu.be/NJU9Rm-KviI

 

[Colin the Bear]

This fellow has a few oddities too.

View: https://youtu.be/v0tFp2_H3R8

 

[nigeld]

The curved sopranino was rather sweet.

 

[spike]

The Aulochrome

View: https://youtu.be/TeaWPNpjtYk

 

[spike]

or here

View: https://youtu.be/T3AaOOzDaHM

 

[Mack]

The Aulochrome strikes me as a great idea which turned out to be pointless and irritating in its execution! A lot of jazz players suffer from a tendency to play too many notes - the Aulochrome doubles the problem...

 

[trimmy]

A tenor on Steriods !

 

[MandyH]

exceptionally large alto!

 

[DartmoorHedgehog]

That trumpet/sax cross (think they called it a Jazzophone or something) at 3:55 in Colin's post is pretty cool. Looks like it's trumpet valves but with a reed - bet that would be freaky to play, but I'd love to have a go on one.

EDIT: Quick web search seems to show those with normal trumpet mouthpieces (so it's just an odd-shaped trumpet), but in that film he definitely seems to have a woodwind mouthpiece on it. So presumably he could play a normal trumpet with a sax mouthpiece... which it seems does happen:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMmjh4qkEZY

 

[Colin the Bear]

at 3:55 in Colin's post

7.35?

 

[Andrew Sanders]

View attachment 6542

exceptionally large alto!

Is that the one in Dinant Mandy?

 

[Tenor Viol]

I would love to have a Conn-o-sax...

Yes, it really did sound like a Cor Anglais - so the shape of the bell is evidently significant.

 

[jonf]

I think there's a reason most of these oddities fell by the wayside....

 

[DartmoorHedgehog]

7.35?

Yes sorry - should have been 7:35

 

[MandyH]

Is that the one in Dinant Mandy?

It is indeed .

 

[jbtsax]

The Autochrome makes no sense to me at all. It is hard enough to play one soprano sax in tune, let alone two at the same time. I love to watch the video posted by @Colin the Bear. I have seen it several times. I wonder if our French and Italian speaking members could translate the exchange with Adolphe Sax at the end. It would be fun to know what they are saying.

 

[6441]

What was it about the 1920's that made the companies put out all these weird saxophones?
Is that why they were called "The Roaring Twenties"?

 

[jbtsax]

What was it about the 1920's that made the companies put out all these weird saxophones?
Is that why they were called "The Roaring Twenties"?

This period was at the peak of the demand for this relatively new and popular instrument. I have read where the C-melody back then was as popular as the guitar was in the 1960's with rock and folk music. It seems that the American musical instrument makers were in a fierce competition with one another to sell saxophones---especially Conn, King, and Buescher. I think this was part of the driving force to come up with new and "novel" models and features.

In the 1920's Rudy Wiedoeft helped to popularize the saxophone with the American public as a "novelty" instrument. A few decades later Sigurd Rascher contributed greatly to the public awareness of the saxophone as a "serious" classical instrument.

 

[6441]

If you listen closely, you can almost hear the strains of "Charleston"

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deCR_MIbnGU

Oh, that's clarinet, here's a sax quartet version:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxNcZNCqQdM