Adolph-Joseph “Adolphe” Sax (1814-1894) was a Belgian musical instrument maker who invented the saxophone around 1840 and patented a whole family of saxophones in 1846. Adolphe Sax created wooden single-reed mouthpieces to match his saxophones, which featured a large and round chamber. Mouthpieces were made by other companies exclusively in his style until the 1930, when jazz musicians experimented with different mouthpiece designs with smaller chambers to be able to compete with louder trumpets, drums, etc in big bands. Only few of his original mouthpieces survived which are part of either private of museum collections.

Adolphe Sax

Four original Adolph Sax saxophones.

(credit: The Cutler Gallery, University of South Dakota)

Original Adolphe Sax soprano saxophone.

(credit: SaxPics)