The Saxophone Stephen Cottrell

In the first fully comprehensive study of one of the world's most iconic musical instruments, Stephen Cottrell examines the saxophone's full social, historical and cultural trajectory, and considers how and why this instrument, with its idiosyncratic shape and sound, should have become important for so many different music-makers around the world. After considering what led inventor Adolph Sax to develop a new musical wind instrument, Cottrell explores changes in saxophone design over years and examines the instrument's role in a variety of contexts: the military bands that played a crucial role in the saxophone's global dissemination during the nineteenth century; the saxophone craze in American popular music around the turn of the twentieth century; in classical and contemporary art music; in world music; and of course in jazz, a musical style with which the saxophone has become closely identified.

Stephen Cottrell is Professor of Music at City University London. Formerly a professional saxophone player, he is also the author of Professional Music-making in London (2004).