Musical Notes

Like all clarinets that differ from the bog-standard 17/6 Klose-Boehm clarinet, it landed in the clarinet world with a resounding “plop”. Manufactured by Selmer in their professional, intermediate (Signet) and student (Bundy) lines, Mazzeo instruments enjoyed a very brief surge of interest in the 1960s, only to largely disappear from sight.

These are rare instruments indeed. The Conn-O-Sax is a straight-conical bore instrument in F (one step above the E♭ alto) with a slightly curved neck and spherical bell. The instrument, which combined a saxophone bore and keys with a bell shaped similar to that of a heckelphone, was intended to imitate the timbre of the English horn and was produced only in 1929 and 1930. The instrument had a key range from low A to high G. Fewer than 100 Conn-O-Saxes are in existence, and they are eagerly sought by collectors.