JAZZ TENOR SAXOPHONE

To many people the tenor saxophone is synonymous with jazz. If it hadn’t been for jazz, would the saxophone have survived? It was invented by a Belgian in 1841, and it never really caught on as a symphony instrument, possibly due to the unpopularity of Mr. Sax amongst the right circles. The saxophone featured very little in early jazz, strangely enough the first significant jazz saxophonists did not play the what are today’ most popular size instrumets, the alto or tenor: one of it’s first outings was as a bass instrument in the Goofus Five - played by Adrian Rollini (one of whose instruments is currently five feet away from me as I write this), the other is Sidney Bechet who played soprano saxophone.

The range of the soprano naturally provided an alternative to the role played by the clarinet in dixieland jazz, but very soon there arrived on the scene a tenor player whose enormous sound and dexterity is still held in awe by saxophonists today: Coleman Hawkins. the rest is,as they say, history. After Hawkins, there have been several other innovative saxophone players of note: Lester Young, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy. Since the 1960s, although there have been some amazing breakthroughs in technique by players such as Michael Brecker, it is hard to name a truly innovative mainstream jazz saxophone player stylistically, although if you include jazz fusion, funk and smooth jazz, perhaps the names Wayne Shorter, Jan Garbarek and King Curtis should be added.