In my judgment (and believe me, I can be judgmental!), sax is almost two instruments.

As I generally hear it, (e.g. in jazz), it is for some reason generally used to produce sounds that I can only characterize as SNUFFLE, RASP, GARGLE, SNEEZE, GROWL, GURGLE, SCRATCH, AWK, AWK, AWK!

But it's possible, with a sensible, sensitive musician, to produce really lovely song-like sounds. For some reason, the French seem to do this best.

Dave Oesterreich