Happy Birthday Adolphe Sax

[Gandalfe]

Happy Birthday Adolphe Sax! You were so sickly and accident prone when young that your nickname in your hometown was "the ghost child". When you grew up, you were so good at what you did your competitors twice tried to assassinate you.

You mysteriously survived lip cancer. You were a virtuoso on multiple instruments. You walked to Paris from Brussels with a bass saxophone on your back. You openly challenged your powerful competitors to public cutting contests and won in front of crowds of thousands. Napoleon III favored you, and personally protected your patents.

You were a singular man, often misunderstood, often set back, never beaten. Your voice lives on in the beautiful instruments you brought to us- which so many people play, that my family is entirely supported by my job of fixing them. I hope one day to put my hands to an instrument that you yourself built. Happy Birthday sir! ~ Matt Stohrer

 

[Gandalfe]

Here is the new Belgian 200 Franc note with a few people you might recognize. Click on the picture to enlarge.

 

[Gandalfe]

Nice celebration video for this birthday from Selmer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufZepJjPX-8&feature=youtu.be

 

[SOTSDO]

And, most important, he perfected the modern bass clarinet...

 

[pete]

First, I'll +1 on the bass clarinet thing. Mr. Sax definitely made the bass clarinet player's life a lot easier.

Second, and Jim mentioned this on the Facewbook page, there's the new Selmer Limited Adolphe Sax model (catalog PDF here). It's very pretty.

EDIT: color pics on the Conn-Selmer Facebook page.

 

[TrueTone]

Well we've rolled around to another of his birthdays.
I'm most definitely thankful for his perfecting the Bass Clarinet, as I've got to play it in orchestra concert in a few hours.

 

[Gandalfe]

Indeed, his 202th birthday. Here's one of my fav quotes about his invention:

Everything we talk about the saxophone, it's always about being on the margin, working its way in from the outside. It's on the margin of the orchestra, on the edge of polite society, on the fringe of serious music. It's a troublemaker and a non-conformist which is why it represents opportunity and freedom to so many people and why it is the soul of nontraditional music. It stands opposed to the institution, just like the man who invented it." ~ JM Londeix