A history of sax appeal

The talk at our March meeting was a novel two-hander, the closest we’ve come to tag-team wrestling at the New Sheridan Club. Laura Winston and Tim Garner gave a presentation originally styled as Sax and Fashion but then expanded to Sexy Sax and Seductive Fashion. For his part, Tim, formerly in the army and now a professional saxophonist, took us through the history of the saxophone, from its invention by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s as an attempt to combine the properties of brass and woodwind instruments, and its initial contemptuous rejection by the musical establishment, to its gradual adoption by classical composers, and then by jazz players, leading it to become one of the key instruments of the 20th century. (Sadly Sax didn’t live to see this triumph, dying in penury and disappointment.) At each stage Tim treated us to a live saxophone rendition of representative tunes of the era in question. Clearly he felt that the instrument went into a bit of a decline from the 1960s (when suddenly everyone wanted to play the guitar) but he nevertheless found some redeeming ditties from the later decades of the century.

Laura, meanwhile took us on a fashion journey from the late 19th-century to the 1990s, specifically examining the way that each decade used clothing to enhance and express female sexuality. It was interesting how varied these strategies were, from the S-curve profile of the 1890s, thrusting out both the derriere and the bust, to the more androgynous silhouette of the 1920s, but with shorter hems, the oddities of the hobble skirt—forerunner to the wiggle dress—which forces the wearer to move with tiny steps that exaggerate the gyration of the hips, to the hourglass shapes of the 1950s and the aggressive ownership of sexuality in the 1980s. In case you’re wondering that the connection is between this and the saxophone, as Laura pointed out, the saxophone is clearly the sexiest of all the instruments. 

Many thanks to Laura and Tim for an innovative and entertaining lecture. You can see a video of the full talk on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/_eQpG7VVauE and you can see more still photos from the evening at https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheridanclub/albums/72177720324286159.