Well, I've let this thread go past a couple of times but I guess I have something that probably can be mentioned and add a bit of history and interest.

Note that the guy grabs his saxophone and not something else. Why is that?

The tune was written as noted in part by Wayne King "The Waltz King" who featured the most syrupy sax section on the planet at that time although they may have been overtaken by Guy Lombardo's "Royal Canadians" with their even more jaw dropping, incessant, and annoying vibrato. Combined with the sickeningly sweet sound, suffice it to say that none of those guys were Charlie Parker although they certainly made a good living and rarely died at 34 like the Bird did. But that's only part of the reason that sax was picked.

The 30's were the time of the C Melody Tenor, a saxophone anyone could play badly and many folks did. It was far more prolific than guitars or pianos in average households, cheap to buy and in C which meant no transposing to play along with pianos, guitars and the like. Most were of very poor quality and I have never played one that wasn't "stuffy" and out of tune in the lower and upper registers.

The C Melody Tenor was slightly smaller than a B-flat Tenor and larger than an E-flat Alto, used it's own mouthpiece, but Tenor reeds. Almost all were a burnished silver finish. You still see them around in junk stores and pawn shops but there are none of them worth more than 50 bucks and that's being damn generous. If you run across one in a closet, even in new condition, don't get too excited.

Because sax requires less embouchure than clarinet and Tenor less than Alto, you could generally get some (bad) sounds of it and the fingering pattern isn't hard to learn, also shared with very little modification by Flute and upper register Clarinet (Boehm System). Sax became billed as the instrument anyone could learn to play. Probably true in some respects, but you need to add "badly" to most claims like that as well. It was popular though and folks had a lot of fun in their parlors with the things. Sadly, quite a few decided they were in a league with Ben Webster or something and played in public to the chagrin of many listeners. They eventually went the way of other nutball ideas and leave us a legacy of old folks saying how well "Uncle So-And-So" played.........yeah, right.

Anyway, there's my 2 cent addition.

Spaw