Home - Columbia Saxophone Sextette

Early Saxophone Recordings

Sextets and quartets recorded in the early 20th century (1910-1940)

Who Are These Guys?

In 1916, following the groundbreaking success of the Six Brown Brothers on Victor Records and on Broadway, Harry Yerkes organized a saxophone sextet to record for rival Columbia Records. Between 1916 & 1921, the Columbia Saxophone Sextette recorded several dozen sides. Although the group featured several of the best saxophonists of the day (Rudy Wiedoeft, Ross Gorman, Benny Krueger and others), the individual members never received publicity through Columbia’s advertising. Tracking down who actually performed on these sides has been very tricky. The purpose of this site is to share the wonderful music this group created and discuss the info that has been gathered about the group to date.

Boston Saxophone Sextet, 1939

In 2004, Paul Lindemeyer posted an MP3 to the Sax On The Web Forum of a radio program by the Boston Saxophone Sextet from 1939. It was taken from a radio transcription disc. The broadcast was sponsored by the Federal Music Project of the depression-era Works Progress...

About the audio files

Getting good transfers of these tracks has been tricky, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be satisfied. Some of the records are not in great shape. My turntable (I recently replaced my Dual 1229 with an Audio-Technica AT-LP120-USB) and my cartridge (Grado 78C) are OK but...

Wish List

A list of recordings cataloged on the web that I have not found yet. Puritan 11099 (Saxophone Sextette): Wanna (v. Arthur Hall) / Bow Wow Blues (v. Bee Kerwin) Columbia 507D (Clyde Doerr's Saxophone Orchestra: Miami / Someone's Stole My Sweet Sweet Baby Davis...