One Change Killed American Saxophone Manufacturing

This is an American-made Buescher Aristocrat tenor saxophone. It was built in 1946 in Elkhart, Indiana. This is a great playing saxophone, it looks very cool, plays incredibly well in tune, and has a beautiful tone. There was a time when the best saxophones in the world were made in the USA. But it has been over 20 years since any saxophones have been produced in America. I wanted to make this blog post to clear up confusion about where saxophones are made today and the history of where they have been made in the past.

The Golden Era of American Saxophones

At the time this saxophone was made, there was a lot of innovation going on in the saxophone world. Companies were trying different gimmicks and mechanical configurations in an attempt to win market share from competitors. On this particular saxophone the Buescher company had these special gold plated Norton springs that screw into place. They also had these unique snap-in resonators. Neither one of those things caught on though, as no modern saxophones use them today.

Another US saxophone maker, Conn, had a patented tuning mechanism on their horns and offered rolled tone-holes. The Martin Band Instrument Company sold saxophones that had soldered-on tone-holes, and saxophones made by King featured these socket necks. With the exception of a recent revival of rolled tone-holes on a small number of saxophones, none of those gimmicks survived.

Selmer’s Innovation and the Shift in Saxophone Design

Around the same time in France, the Selmer company came up with a simple idea for improving the ergonomics of their saxophones. Previously, all saxophones had their tone holes in a straight line along the body tube. With the introduction of Selmer’s Super Action model (commonly referred to as the Super Balanced Action), they rotated the placement of the right-hand tone holes. This made it more comfortable to play by allowing your hands to be in a more natural position, especially if you played the horn out in front, the way jazz soloists were doing more and more.

Pretty much every modern saxophone designed since uses this offset key configuration. It has been adopted as the default. This wasn’t the only thing Selmer saxophones had going for them. The key layout was widely considered more comfortable and ergonomic, and the mechanics were just better. So naturally, the French-made Selmer saxophones became very popular while the American-made saxophones began to seem outdated.

The Difference Between Selmer Paris and Selmer USA

Now, instead of trying to compete with Selmer Paris and build an even better saxophone, something very different happened. And this is where the story gets a bit confusing, so we have to back up about 60 years.

In the late 1800s, two brothers from France, Henri and Alexandre Selmer, started a company selling clarinets and reeds in Paris. Henri stayed in Paris, and his brother moved to New York, where he opened a store selling their instruments. Years later, they sold the American division of their company, which became Selmer USA. Selmer USA was a completely separate entity from Selmer Paris, which makes the saxophones. But to make things confusing, Selmer USA was the distributor for Selmer Paris. That means they would import the instruments from France and sell them to the US and Canadian markets.

Around the same time that Selmer Paris saxophones were becoming extremely popular and taking away market share from American saxophone manufacturers, Selmer USA began buying out their local competitors. In 1963, they acquired Buescher and used the facilities to focus on lower-cost student-level instruments, which were selling well and were more profitable. Since they were the distributors for the now professional gold standard Selmer Mark VI, they didn’t try to compete with it. Instead, they put their efforts into marketing the French saxophones and selling more and more of them.

Why American Makers Shifted to Student Horns

The Conn company was also suffering declining sales. Rather than attempt to innovate their pro saxophone line to compete with Selmer Paris, they too shifted focus to manufacturing student-level instruments. In the 1960s, Japanese saxophone manufacturers started to produce high-quality instruments at competitive prices. Stencil Saxophones branded as King, Conn, Martin, and Leblanc were made by Yamaha and Yanagisawa in Japan before those companies eventually emerged as renowned saxophone makers on their own.

In a relatively short amount of time, the American tradition of great saxophone production shifted to only producing student and intermediate horns. Professional saxophones now came exclusively from Europe, Japan, and later Taiwan and China. Selmer USA continued to make their student-level saxophones in the US up until the early 2000s, but those instruments were widely considered to be inferior to their Asian competition.

The State of the American Saxophone Business Today

Around this same time, after a series of mergers, Selmer USA became Conn-Selmer, which now owns a whole series of legacy brand names like Conn, King, Buescher, Armstrong, Leblanc, Bach, Bundy, and many more. Conn-Selmer still distributes Selmer Paris and Yanagisawa saxophones in North America.

As you can see, the whole American sax business is a bit messy and has a lot of overlap. Of course, the answer to the question, Why aren’t saxophones made in the USA is more complicated than Selmer shifting the right-hand keys over a bit. There were a lot of economic factors at play. Not least of which is the high cost of making saxophones. In the end, better-made and less expensive instruments won out.

While I love the idea of making saxophones in America again, everything I know about the saxophone industry tells me that this is very unlikely to ever happen. But who knows? The factory where Selmer has been making saxophones in Paris for over 100 years is still going strong, though. So read this article to come with me on a tour to see how these legendary instruments are made.

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