Jay Coburn

Sax's victory meant that he had a huge influx of cash and a steady customer.

A standard military band was now required to include his inventions.

No more oboes and bassoons, now there were sax horns and saxophones.

He even made some technical improvements to the other brass instruments and sold his own versions of those as well.

But despite his success, Adolf's hubris and his enemies eventually caught up to him.

He got tied up in expensive lawsuits over the patents for his instruments.

The saxophone patents did hold up, but when France lost the Franco-Prussian War, the military downsized its bands.

Sax took on loans he couldn't afford and went bankrupt three times.

He lost his factory, but perhaps more heartbreaking to him, he lost his music.

That final bankruptcy was in 1877.

He spent the last 17 years of his life scraping by, begging friends and family for money.

After a lifetime of work by Adolph Sax, his instrument was no longer a commercial success.

But he still earned a permanent place in history.

There are statues of him in Dinant, where he was born.

Even as the French military was pulling back funding and saxophone sales in Europe were falling off, the instrument was gaining traction in the United States.

The saxophone's place in the US, however, was not just in the military.

It was marketed as a cheap, fun instrument that was relatively easy to play.

And people loved it.

One of them glides like a slide whistle.

Another is so small it looks absurd to play.