This morning’s random object was a saxophone, long, shiny, complicated, and somehow both elegant and absurd.
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We talked about how the sax, despite being made of brass, is a woodwind because it uses a single reed like a clarinet. It was invented in the 1840s in France by a Belgian man named Adolphe Sax. Who could have imagined the coincidence of having the name Sax and also inventing the Sax. Anyway, he built it to bridge the gap between the soft smoothness of a clarinet and the power of a trumpet.
The saxophone wasn’t welcomed with open arms by orchestras, but the French military band saw its potential. They literally won a “Battle of the Bands” with it, cementing the sax as a marching-band weapon of choice. But it didn’t go mainstream until American soldiers in World War I brought surplus saxophones back home. They were cheap, easy to pick up, hard to master, and perfect for the jazz and rock era that followed.
From there we slid into pop culture: Tequila hit #1 with one word and a looped sax riff. Yakety Sax made Benny Hill’s running in circles hilarious. Henry Mancini’s Pink Panther made sneaky cool. George Michael’s Careless Whisper gave us a sax riff that was super sexy, but it was wasted on a breakup song. We even listed a few non-musician famous sax players: Bill Clinton, Jennifer Garner, Dana Carvey, Condoleezza Rice, and Metallica’s Kirk Hammett. While Hammmett IS a musician, he’s not really known for his sax skills.
Turns out about 150,000 school kids pick up a sax each year, which sounds like a lot until you realize it’s barely a ripple in a country of 350 million. That’s probably a good thing. Otherwise every street corner might have a sax busker in a velvet coat and wayfarers.