Well, I had it coming, I didn’t explain my link well…
If you click on the link to www.contrabass.com and go to the encyclopedia, you will see in the list “Subcontrabass saxophone(?)”. Their stance is that while Adolphe Sax drew up plans for a sax one lower than contrabass, there is only speculation that it was ever produced. They also show a few rather large saxophones that are really altos with thyroid problems rather than true subcontrabass saxes. I think, however, I saw a site where a man built a subcontrabass out of PVC pipe; it looked rather like a radiator, whatever it was.
Exactly. They were very popular in the 1920s, when EVERYBODY wanted a saxophone, and they mostly ended up in the backs of closets. You see old ones occasionally in music shops, and the salespeople shake their heads and roll their eyes if you express any interest in them.
With a C sax, you could stand behind the piano player and read the melody line over his shoulder.
Frankie Trumbauer managed the trick of sounding pretty good on a C-Melody sax…he held his own onstage with Bix Beiderbecke (also a pretty good trick) and his smooth, cool approach influenced tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who in turn influenced about half the top jazz saxophonists from 1940 on.
UGHH! Someone mentioned Kenny G. Now I must listen to Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” to wash the bad taste out of my mouth. 