| Sumario: | The article reviews *Saxophone* by Mollie Hawkins, a book that blends memoir, memorial, and instrument history to explore the saxophone’s cultural and personal significance. Part of the Object Lessons series, the book intertwines Hawkins’s relationship with her late father, Greg Hawkins, a lifelong saxophonist, with a historical overview of the instrument’s origins, role in jazz, and presence in religious contexts. While the narrative emphasizes affect, memory, and marginality over technical detail or comprehensive history, it highlights the saxophone’s precarious cultural status and the financial instability faced by many saxophonists. The book’s partial focus on jazz and commercial music, shaped by Hawkins’s familial perspective, limits its engagement with the saxophone’s classical repertoire and institutional history, yet it offers a heartfelt and accessible meditation on the instrument’s social and emotional dimensions.
|
|---|