Invented in the early 1840s, the saxophone was a relative latecomer to music—and to jazz. But starting in the mid-1920s, with the rise of the big bands, the instrument slowly but steadily evolved from ...

The man on the stand looks like a portable museum of musical instru ments. Dangling from his neck is a manzello, a quasi saxophone that forgot to grow up, and a stritch, which resembles a dented ...