Synopses & Reviews
In the first fully comprehensive study of one of the worlds most iconic musical instruments, Stephen Cottrell examines the saxophones various social, historical, and cultural trajectories, and illustrates how and why this instrument, with its idiosyncratic shape and sound, became important for so many different music-makers around the world.
After considering what led inventor Adolphe Sax to develop this new musical wind instrument, Cottrell explores changes in saxophone design since the 1840s before examining the instrument's role in a variety of contexts: in the military bands that contributed so much to the saxophone's global dissemination during the nineteenth century; as part of the rapid expansion of American popular music around the turn of the twentieth century; in classical and contemporary art music; in world and popular music; and, of course, in jazz, a musical style with which the saxophone has become closely identified.
Review
“Everything you wanted to know about sax – but were afraid to ask.”—The New York
PostReview
Winner of the Bessaraboff Prize given by the American Musical Instrument Society.
About the Author
Stephen Cottrell is a saxophonist and professor of music at City University London.