Saxophone History Link

Anyone interested in the history of the individual Saxophone makers may menjoy this website. Not all of the summaries have the same depth. For example, the KING page was suprisingly a bit short on details considering the impact of the King Saxes. But, it is worth a scroll through.


The Vintage Saxophone Gallery

The Gallery highlights brands including:

• Buescher
• Selmer
• Adolphe Sax
• Conn
• Olds
• Marting
• King
• Holton
• Buffet
• Couesnon

And, of course, Yanagisawa

The site offers a decent history of Yanagisawa as a brand. Visitors should note the long history of the manufacturer. Started in 1893, the company is certainly not one of the "new brands."

Also note that Yanagisawa is the inventor of the Sopranino Sax -- 1972. What is really interesting about this is that when some discusses saxophone choirs, you hear "you can't do a choir without a sopranino." This really points to how young our instruments really are.

Also according to this site, Yanagisawa only started engraving their own name on instruments in 1978. It is easy to see why the brand has little visability in our circles compared to Selmer, Conn, and King.

Those looking for a history of Yamaha will find a description from this site. But, don't except a ton of information from this site. It is mostly focused on modern sales and product awareness.