Woodwind Resource Guide

Saxophone is an anecdotal and at times personal history of the instrument. Blending research, cultural criticism, and personal narrative about her saxophonist father, who lived on the margins until his unexpected death, Mollie Hawkins explores more than just the history of this expressive instrument.

In The Devil's Horn, Michael Segell traces the 160-year history of the saxophone-a horn that created a sound never before heard in nature, and that from the moment it debuted has aroused both positive and negative passions among all who hear it.

This is the first illustrated history of the horns that have defined jazz since the 1920s and enhanced more recent pop and rock music with their distinctive, classy sounds. Offering superb, specially commissioned photography and inviting descriptive text, The Sax and Brass Book tells the unique 70-year story of these instruments.

Also available online.
This is a comprehensive study of one of the world's most iconic musical instruments, the saxophone. Cottrell examines the saxophone's full social, historical, and cultural trajectory and considers how and why this instrument, with its idiosyncratic shape and sound, should have become important for so many different music-makers around the world.

This resource is a biography of the Belgian inventor and musician Adolphe Sax, who created the saxophone in in the early 1940's and patented it in 1846.

This collection of essays, written by mainly female saxophonists/scholars, re-evaluates Elise Hall's legacy beyond a discrete history, updating the narrative by highlighting the ways in which her identity and the saxophone itself have influenced historical accounts.

This resource is a film on the life of legendary jazz musician Charlie "Yardbird" Parker, directed and produced by Clint Eastwood. The film uses actual recordings by Parker with the backgrounds removed, and accompaniment by modern musicians attuned to his improvisations.

Bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker, affectionately known as "Bird" because of his melodic flights of imagination, led a famous quintet along with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie in the late '40s. This comprehensive look at this musical legend includes three never-before-published interviews with Parker and a complete discography.

This resource is the first-ever biography of the famed jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins, written with his full cooperation. The book reassesses his career and documents his musical innovations and influence on modern jazz.

This resource is a reference guide on the recordings by the jazz saxophonist John Coltrane and his professional career. The guide details all of his professional recordings along with over thirty live recording sessions that have not previously been listed.

This resource is a doctoral dissertation written with the purpose of establishing the tenor saxophonist Stan Getz as a primary disseminator of the bebop style. The dissertation does this by documenting his improvisational vocabulary and comparing it to recordings of his contemporaries.

The Saxophone Journal was a bimonthly journal focusing on technical information and news on the improvement of saxophone playing. Each issue contains a saxophone play-along or masterclass compact disc, as well as regular columns on such things as jazz improvisation, playing techniques, tips on doubling, career management, and new publications. The library has all issues of the journal from 1985 to the end of its publication in 2013 and all of the accompanying CDs from 1993 to 1997.

The Saxophone Symposium is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal published by the North American Saxophone Alliance devoted solely to the saxophone, covering such topics as its history, literature, pedagogy, jazz studies, contemporary practices, and interdisciplinary areas. The library currently has all publications from this journal from the foundation of the organization back in 1976 to the present.