This Swanee ‘Slide’ Saxophone was featured at SaxoFest as part of the Saxophone Family display, but it was not in playable condition. I took it home to see what could be done with a bit of TLC.
Through some online research I was able to determine that these were made in the UK, probably in the late 1920’s (Samuel Bowley Barnes filed the patent in 1927) when the saxophone patents had expired and the saxophone was enjoying a wave of popularity and innovation that everyone wanted to tap into.
This one is the smallest of the three UK models, labelled “B”, but confusingly reaches down to Bb. These were made cheaply and it shows. However, that also meant it was trivial to take apart – held together with just one screw on the back! With only one real moving part it really is quite a simple little thing.
The actual working parts are just the central “box”, the slider, and the mouthpiece. The outer cone and cap are just for show – they don’t really affect how it plays. Other than being very dirty, the main problems were the missing neck cork and a missing cork “bung” at the top of the tube. Both easy enough to fix. I spent most of my time cleaning and polishing to get rid of years of dried up grease and tarnish, I used standard 1mm neck cork to be able to fit a soprano mouthpiece and used high density champagne cork for the bung – cheers!
I also used my little vice to straighten the kink in the bell, although I couldn’t manage to get it smooth without scratching it. After applying a lot of cork grease to the slide it was finally sealing. It’s not perfect but it was playable for the first time in over half a century! It also seemed very fussy about the mouthpiece, for example it wouldn’t really work with my Selmer Concept but it worked fine with the unbranded plastic mouthpiece that came free with my old soprano.
Is it a saxophone? Not really – the sound chamber is not conical so it sounds more like a metal clarinet. Is it a good instrument? No – super fussy and leaks at the merest hint of movement. Is it silly and fun? Absolutely.
Now time to pack it back into its shoebox to return to its rightful owner. I look forward to hearing what a real pro can do with it. Thank you Rob for trusting me with your obscure piece of saxophone history!
What song would you like to hear played on this swanee saxophone? Let us know in the comments below.
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