Let’s talk about sax, baby: How one of music’s most maligned instruments reconquered pop and indie

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Nick Jonas’s new album, Spaceman, is splashed in sax – the emotional crescendo on March’s “This Is Heaven” single furnished by a throaty solo. From Raphael Ravenscroft’s “Baker Street” solo to Steve Gregory on George Michael’s “Careless Whisper”, the sax had come to be associated with a certain late-Seventies pomposity – music’s equivalent of the frosted-tip mullet. That is definitely a reason you are seeing more bands with saxophone.” Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 4 month free trial Sign up Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 4 month free trial Sign up open image in gallery Experimental indie band Black Country, New Road place their saxophonist Lewis Evans centre stage This freedom to rediscover the past has revealed a secret history of the saxophone, spotlighting figures such as James Chance. And more recently there is the example of Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk”: four-and-a-half minutes of bottled exuberance powered by a triple-whammy of sax players, including former Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings mainstay Ian Hendrickson-Smith.