Classical music
Adolphe Sax
Adolphe Sax (1814-1894) never set foot in Montreux: he died seventy-three years before the festival’s first edition. It was his invention that brought him there. This Belgian instrument maker, born in Dinant, patented the saxophone family in 1846, an instrument meant for military bands that became the emblem of jazz. Montreux paid tribute to him in 2014, for the bicentenary of his birth, with a giant saxophone in psychedelic patterns set on the quays, a few steps from the busts of Miles Davis and Richard Strauss.
Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone
From Dinant to the music of the world
The son of an instrument maker, Adolphe Sax was born in Dinant, Belgium, in 1814. Settled in Paris, he invented and patented the saxophone in 1846, a metal reed instrument first conceived for military bands. His career was marked by lawsuits with rival makers and serious financial difficulties, despite his inventive genius.
It was in the twentieth century, in jazz, that his instrument found its full glory, from Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker to John Coltrane. The saxophone thus became one of the emblematic voices of the century’s music, and one of the symbols of the Montreux Jazz Festival.