NOTICE: Beginning July 10th, 2008, this message board service will no longer be active or available for use.

C Melody Saxophone Forum / C-Tenor (C-Melody) Saxophones / The History of C-Melody Saxophones

Bryan Kendall User ID: 0310794	Mar 13th 7:00 PM I am curious as to who made the the very first C-Melody Saxophone. (I am not refering to the Adolphe Sax C Tenors of the 1870s) Did the unique bore design for the C-Melody come from Conn or Evette-Shaffer? In what year did the C-Melody first appear? Is there a photo of it in INTERNET somewhere? What year was the first Conn C-Melody? What year was the first Evette-Shaffer C-Melody?
WW2 User ID: 8973393	Mar 13th 7:39 PM Alan (UK) any thoughts on this? I was going to say A. Sax, but Bryan preempted that response.
alan (uk) User ID: 8200143	Mar 15th 9:35 AM I honestly don't know, but, as early C-mels were produced in Europe (e.g. with double octave keys) it'd have to be a manufacturer in Europe, probably France. We may even be into a 'chicken and egg' situation, as the later C-Mels has aspects of Eb alto dimensions in them, but the Eb alto didn't exist when the C & F saxes were conceived - just stating the obvious..... Even if I were as old as I look in the pic (below), taken last month when I appeared in a local "Tales of Narnia" production, I wasn't around at the time..... http://cmelodysax.co.uk/personal/santa-lowres.jpg
Captain Muggles User ID: 8945823	Mar 15th 12:07 PM I believe Buffet-Powell were the first to use the double octave on a C melody in the 1890's. I have seen one in my lifetime. I had an alto sax that matched it perfectly.
Captain Muggles User ID: 8945823	Mar 15th 12:15 PM P.S......I did not glean that information off of the web. The horn was shown to me in 1962 by a well known collector in New York city. (I can't recall his name, but it will come to me). He showed it to me because he saw me play my similar alto in a recording session at Mirror Sound Studios in New York. And he wanted to purchase my alto; which I later sold to Rodney Marsh (The owner of Marsh Woodwinds in Raleigh, North Carolina) where it still is on display to this day.
Sam (IE) User ID: 0331974	Mar 15th 12:52 PM I believe ukebert has a link to a very old picture of a marching band with what looks like a c melody, it's probably on the forum somewhere....
WW2 User ID: 8973393	Mar 15th 3:14 PM Do you mean the picture I put on the website of the Cival War era band? I will try to find it...
Sam (ie) User ID: 0331974	Mar 15th 3:18 PM My mistake. Maybe ukebert just gave the link then.
WW2 User ID: 8973393	Mar 15th 5:31 PM Take a look at the sax in the picture. Please remember that this picture is circa 1865 so any comments about the sax need to take that in consideration. Did you notice the other instruments, especially the curved horns on the ground? The picture is here: http://mysite.verizon.net/res8o1o8/1865sax.jpg Did you notice that the musician with the highest rank was the saxophonist?
bryankendall User ID: 8583623	Jun 3rd 9:25 AM WW2 Can you tell me any details about this photo? Do the uniforms indicate what military group these musicians belong to? It is a remarkable photo, WW2. Where did the photo come from? What makes you think it is circa 1865? Could this horn be a Eb Alto or a Bb tenor?
WW2 User ID: 8973393	Jun 4th 12:19 PM One day I was doing research on the Civil War and the Musicians specifically. There are dozens of pictures of various military band from that war. Each band had different uniforms. Most of the instruments were horns of various types, or drums. Many of the drummers were quite young. One example page is at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwmhtml/cwmgallery01.html Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly where I found that picture, but is is dated as 1865 and is part of the many bands of the Civil War. It was the only band that had a saxophone, so I grabbed the picture!
WW2 User ID: 8973393	Jun 4th 12:30 PM Here is another one! http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/cwimages/band/
alan (uk) User ID: 1341734	Jun 4th 1:20 PM Interesting that it is a C-mel that was around in 1865.... Bryan it's not an alto because of the curved neck, and the sax player would probably have to be about seven foot tall for it to have been a Bb tenor sax (even HP) cradled (and looking small) like that. So odds are that it was a C-Mel, and probably a European one at that time. This later picture (from sotw) perfectly shows the relative proportions of (from left to right) Eb Baritone, Bb Tenor, C-Melody/C-Tenor, and Eb Alto. http://www.cmelodysax.co.uk/blogfiles/cmel-in-section-fromsotw.jpg
alan (uk) User ID: 1341734	Jun 4th 1:30 PM Wade, are you sure about 1865 for the picture, the original 'Sax' saxes were only patented in 1846 - were C-Mels standard issue for US military bands less than 20 years later ?
bruce bailey User ID: 9670323	Jun 5th 1:00 AM I didn't look at those photos but I suspect they are from the "American Memory" collection from the library of Congress. A lot of interesting stuff but A BIG LOT.
WW2 User ID: 8973393	Jun 5th 1:33 PM Alan, I am sure of the 1865 date, which was why I grabbed that picture. If I remember saxophone history correctly, the US Military Bands were among the early adopters of the saxophone. This really gave a lot of power to the woodwind sections of the military bands, replacing bass clarinets, bassoons, and oboes eventually. This is also one of the reasons John Philip Sousa's bands were so popular (the Saxophones giving the woodwinds power to stay with the brass instruments).
alan (uk) User ID: 1341734	Jun 5th 2:23 PM Wade - that makes sense, this was obviously before the military bands standardised on the Bb/Eb models..... The other possibility was that the C-Melody shown was 'liberated' from one of the fine old Southern estates, whose rich owners were fond of importing the latest things from Europe.....