From its earliest days, the saxophone has carried a streak of rebellion. The instrument became so closely tied to dissenting culture that repressive regimes repeatedly tried to silence it. In 1914, the Vatican banned it from churches, likely because of its association with sexually suggestive dances. In 1933, when the Nazis took power in Germany, the saxophone was already a symbol of jazz and African-American culture. It was labeled “degenerate art” and banned. A 1938 propaganda poster showed a caricature of a Black figure wearing a Star of David and playing the saxophone, linking jazz to both race and anti-Semitism. In the Soviet Union during the 1930s, Stalin’s government also banned the saxophone. It was (ironically) seen as the sound of bourgeois American imperialism. As one historian explained, “The saxophone was the embodiment of jazz, which in turn was the embodiment of bourgeois American imperialist culture, so that would be a good enough reason to ban the saxophone.”
"Degenerate Music" (1938)
For those fighting injustice, the saxophone became a voice of liberation. “Jazz is really a black artform,” sax legend Sonny Rollins reflected, noting that the sax is so central to jazz it “almost represents” the music’s spirit. In the 20th century, that spirit found its way into protests across the world. Saxophones have stirred crowds at rallies, carried melodies of resistance on recordings, and given protest songs an unmistakable emotional charge. Below, we explore specific historical moments when the saxophone spoke truth to power.
United States: Saxophones and Civil Rights
In mid-20th-century America, jazz musicians increasingly wove the civil rights struggle into their music. As early as 1958, tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins released Freedom Suite, a bold instrumental suite commenting on racial inequality. Rollins was influenced by civil rights leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois, who urged black artists to use their art to fight injustice. “Any artist who has gotten famous in the United States had a responsibility to speak about the injustices that black people endured… through their art,” Rollins recalled. “So as soon as I got a chance… I composed the Freedom Suite”. He insisted on including an explicit message in the album’s liner notes: “How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America’s culture as its own, is being persecuted and repressed”. Rollins’s outspokenness was controversial at the time. The record label even reissued Freedom Suite under a different title to avoid backlash, but it marked one of the first times a jazz saxophonist directly addressed civil rights in his music.
Around the same time, bassist Charles Mingus (whose ensembles featured saxophones prominently) took aim at segregationists with a biting composition called “Fables of Faubus.” Written in 1959 as “a direct protest” against Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus , infamous for trying to block school integration. It became one of Mingus’s most explicitly political works. Mingus originally penned scathing lyrics (mocking Faubus as “ridiculous” and alluding to the KKK and fascists), though his record company censored the vocals on the first release. Instead, the piece was recorded as an instrumental that relied on sarcastic musical jabs and angry horn interjections to get the point across. When Mingus later performed “Fables of Faubus” live and on independent labels, he reinstated the call-and-response vocals with saxophone riffs and drums amplifying the song’s scornful tone. Critics recognized it as protest jazz at its sharpest . Prominent Jazz critic Don Heckman described the record as “bitingly direct and harshly satiric,” a “deadly rapier-thrust” of musical satire at bigotry.
By the early 1960s, as civil rights protests grew, more jazz saxophonists lent their talents to the cause. In 1960, drummer Max Roach released We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, a powerful civil rights album featuring tenor sax giant Coleman Hawkins alongside younger activists. The suite’s mix of fiery sax solos, gospel-infused vocals by Abbey Lincoln, and African drumming was described as a “torrent of anger and anguish” that mirrored the rising tide of protest. This collaboration bridged generations. Hawkins, who had been one of the first great sax stylists in the 1930s, used his horn in solidarity with the 1960s movement, even as a new wave of avant-garde saxophonists was emerging.
One of those younger voices was John Coltrane, whose quartet used instrumental jazz to honor the civil rights struggle. Coltrane’s mournful 1963 piece “Alabama” is a stark example: though wordless, it was widely understood as a response to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four African-American girls in Birmingham, Alabama, that year. Coltrane composed “Alabama” in the bombing’s aftermath, reportedly shaping his saxophone lines to echo the cadences of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral speech. Performed with a solemn intensity by his quartet, the piece conveyed grief and resolve in equal measure. Its haunting tenor sax melody and final anguished “scream” on the horn spoke volumes. “Sometimes, you’d rather scream and storm than have to explain anything at all,” as Ismail Muhammad, a music critic from Oakland, Calif., wrote in The Paris Review as part of a retrospective. Decades later, “Alabama” continues to resonate. Amid the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, the song “feels more relevant and urgent than ever,” wrote jazz historian Lewis Porter, pointing out that Coltrane’s instrumental cry for justice still speaks to present struggles.
Beyond these notable recordings, saxophones were literally heard on the front lines of American protests. Jazz benefits and concerts for civil rights causes became common in the 1960s. Legends like Coltrane, Rollins, and Duke Ellington played at rallies or fundraisers, using their music to draw crowds and raise morale (and money) for the movement. When Dr. King marched in Birmingham and elsewhere, local jazz and gospel bands sometimes accompanied the demonstrators. Even if the saxophone’s role was less direct than in jazz club performances, its presence symbolized cultural solidarity. As the civil rights movement scored victories (the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965)), many African-American musicians celebrated with compositions (for example, Albert Ayler’s saxophone improvisations on “Truth Is Marching In” evoke a jubilant gospel procession). At the same time, racial and political turmoil in the late ’60s pushed some artists toward angrier, more avant-garde expressions. Saxophonists like Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders unleashed fiery “free jazz” improvisations that embodied Black frustration and consciousness. Shepp’s 1972 album Attica Blues, for instance, was a passionate musical reaction to a prison uprising. From tuneful elegies like “Alabama” to explosive free-jazz statements, American saxophonists made their music into a vehicle for the civil rights and Black liberation movements.
South Africa: Anti-Apartheid Anthems
Under South Africa’s apartheid regime, music was a crucial form of protest and unity, and the saxophone played a starring role. A landmark example is “Mannenberg”, a 1974 jazz instrumental by pianist Abdullah Ibrahim (then known as Dollar Brand) featuring saxophonists Basil Coetzee and Robbie Jansen. Mannenberg – Is Where It’s Happening was recorded against the backdrop of forced removals of nonwhite families from Cape Town neighborhoods. Ibrahim named the piece after the township of Manenberg, where many evicted people were relocated. The song struck a chord. Its infectious Cape-jazz groove and “haunting tenor saxophone solo by Basil Coetzee” ensnared listeners. Mannenberg became an instant hit and swiftly identified with the valiant struggle against apartheid.
"Mannenberg Cover Art" (1974)
Though purely instrumental (aside from a couple of shouted lines in Afrikaans), “Mannenberg” spoke to the realities of apartheid. The pain of dispossession, but also the resilience of community. The chemistry between Ibrahim’s piano and Coetzee’s tenor sax on the track exudes both sorrow and hope. South Africans across racial lines embraced it, and by the 1980s it was often called the “unofficial national anthem” of the anti-apartheid movement. During protest rallies and community meetings in the townships, local bands would play “Mannenberg” to lift spirits. Saxophonist Basil Coetzee, who earned the nickname “Mannenberg” after his famous solo, became a fixture at these gatherings. “During the struggle years, Coetzee was at the forefront... always prepared to provide music for rallies,” notes jazz historian Gwen Ansell. Ansell observed, the song “became a protest song of note, even an anthem of the popular uprising” in the 1980s.
Musicians like Hugh Masekela (trumpeter) and Dudu Pukwana (saxophonist) similarly crafted instrumentals that cried out against injustice. Masekela’s 1987 song “Bring Him Back Home,” with its joyous sax lines, became an exile’s plea for Nelson Mandela’s release. In the late ’80s, as mass protests, strikes, and international pressure mounted, these songs were the soundtrack of resistance. They also traveled overseas: Ibrahim, Masekela, and others performed anti-apartheid music abroad while in exile, using saxophones and trumpets to “internationalise the struggle” for global audiences.
The public impact of these musical protests was real. The apartheid government sensed the threat in songs that united people, banned certain records and censored or harassed musicians. Ibrahim himself was forced into exile for many years; Mannenberg was never played on state-controlled radio, yet its popularity spread by word of mouth and underground distribution. Even decades later, long after apartheid fell, Mannenberg remains a beloved “anthem of hope, resistance and resilience,” as writer Lindsay Johns of The Spectator described it.
Nigeria: Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat Revolution
In West Africa, one musician took the idea of protest music to an entirely new level and he did it with a saxophone in hand. Fela Anikulapo Kuti of Nigeria was a multi-instrumentalist and bandleader best known as the pioneer of Afrobeat, a genre blending jazz, funk, and traditional West African rhythms. Fela often sang in pidgin English, delivering scathing political critiques in his lyrics. But just as crucially, his searing saxophone solos and horn-driven arrangements carried the emotion of his messages. He famously described his mission: “Music is the weapon. Music is the weapon of the future.” Fela saw music as a tool to fight corruption and authoritarianism, and he wielded his saxophone like a megaphone for the people.
Throughout the 1970s, Fela Kuti released a string of explosive protest albums that rattled Nigeria’s rulers. One of his most famous songs, “Zombie” (1976), features relentless, hypnotic sax riffs and call-and-response vocals mocking the Nigerian military. The song likens soldiers to mindless zombies obeying orders. Audiences loved it; the regime did not. After “Zombie” became popular, the government’s tolerance snapped. In February 1977, about a thousand soldiers attacked Fela’s communal compound (the Kalakuta Republic) in retaliation. The raid was brutal: Fela was severely beaten, and his elderly mother – a revered anti-colonial activist – was thrown from a second-story window, later dying from her injuries. This violent repression only amplified Fela’s stature as a protest icon. He held a mock funeral for his mother and continued to taunt the authorities through songs, even delivering his mother’s coffin to an army barracks in a final act of defiance.
A collage of 1977 Nigerian newspaper headlines captures the violent raid on Fela Kuti’s Kalakuta Republic.
Fela’s live performances were themselves protest events. Night after night at his Lagos club, The Shrine, he and his big band (with Fela on lead sax) would play marathon grooves that doubled as political rallies. He addressed the crowd between songs, condemning government abuses and urging resistance. These shows often drew huge audiences of youth and the poor, effectively becoming safe outlets for public dissent, at least until soldiers showed up to shut them down. Observers noted that Fela’s defiance emboldened his audience. But it also made him vulnerable. He was arrested and jailed multiple times on spurious charges. Yet he refused to back down or leave Nigeria. In one interview during the early ’80s, puffing on his trademark cigar, Fela distilled his philosophy: “Music is the weapon of the future.” He believed deeply that rhythm and truth could outlast any regime.
Afrobeat became the soundtrack of pan-African resistance in the late 20th century. From Ghana to South Africa, bands covered Fela’s songs or modeled their style on his, using horns and percussion to challenge injustice. Even in the United States, artists like Brian Eno and the Talking Heads cited Fela’s music as an inspiration for its political engagement.
Europe: Free Jazz and the Sounds of ’68
Protest music with saxophones was not confined to the U.S. or Africa. In Europe, too, the late 1960s saw the saxophone emerge as an expression of rebellion, and particularly through the avant-garde jazz scene. The year 1968 was a flashpoint across Europe: students flooded the streets of Paris, anti-war demonstrators clashed with authorities, and calls for social change rippled through cities from Prague to Berlin. This revolutionary climate “inevitably exerted an influence on the music”. European jazz musicians, inspired partly by the free jazz movement in America, began pushing their music into radical new territory, reflecting the turmoil and energy of the time.
Left: Cars burn in front of a police station in the Latin Quarter, place du Pantheon, in Paris. (AFP/Getty Images) (1968)
Right: Riots police lining the streets in the Latin Quarter of Paris during the riots in France. (Photo by Reg Lancaster/Express/Getty Images) (1968)
A standout example is Peter Brötzmann’s album Machine Gun, recorded in 1968 in West Germany. Brötzmann, a fiery saxophonist and painter, gathered a group of like-minded European players – including fellow saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Han Bennink – for an onslaught of collective improvisation. The result was an “ear-splittingly intense and impassioned” session that one critic famously dubbed a “furious, flamethrowing” brand of proto-punk jazz. The album’s very title, Machine Gun, evoked the sound of battle and revolution
At first, many in the jazz establishment dismissed Machine Gun as noise. But to young avant-garde musicians and leftist artists in Europe, it was a revelation. Here was a new musical language for protest: chaotic yet purposeful, rejecting the old rules much as the student protesters rejected old authorities. The album was self-produced in a limited run (only 300 copies initially), which added to its underground mystique. Over time, its legend grew. Musicians recognized it as a “trailblazing piece of free jazz” arriving in the revolutionary year of 1968, a sonic snapshot of an era defined by upheaval. In subsequent years, Brötzmann and his contemporaries played at alternative festivals, squats, and political events, aligning their art with Europe’s counterculture. Free jazz ensembles performed at anti-Vietnam War rallies and in support of causes like nuclear disarmament. The saxophone, often pushed to its tonal extremes, became emblematic of freedom (and sometimes frustration) in these settings.
It wasn’t only the avant-garde that linked saxophones to European protest. In the UK, for example, the late 1970s saw rock and ska bands use horn sections to confront racism and unemployment. The Special AKA’s hit song “Free Nelson Mandela” (1984), a plea to free the imprisoned South African leader. The song became an international protest anthem, blaring from radio stations and demonstrations alike, its catchy horn lines carrying a serious message .
Even under authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe, jazz and saxophone music served as a quiet form of defiance. In Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the USSR, forbidden jazz records were copied on X-ray film (“bone records”) and traded secretly among youth. Simply owning a saxophone or playing jazz in a Soviet city during the 1950s was a subversive act, one Russian saxophonist joked that his instrument was “basically considered a weapon” by the authorities. While much of this resistance was underground, it helped keep the spirit of free expression alive until more open times. When the Iron Curtain began to lift in the late ’80s, jazz and rock concerts (with plenty of saxophones) were among the first mass gatherings to celebrate newfound freedom.
A hands x-ray recording. (Photo by Paul Heartfield)
Latin America: Saxophones and Songs of Liberation
Across the Atlantic, Latin America developed its own rich tradition of protest music and the saxophone found a place there as well. In the 1960s and ’70s, many Latin American countries were in political upheaval, facing dictatorships or social unrest. Folk singers with guitars (like Chile’s Víctor Jara and Argentina’s Mercedes Sosa) often led the Nueva Canción movement of socially conscious songs. But there were also jazz and rock fusion artists who used horns to add power to protest music.
One pioneering figure was Argentine tenor saxophonist Leandro “Gato” Barbieri. In the early 1970s, Barbieri fused the avant-garde jazz ethos with Latin American folk themes and revolutionary politics. He released a series of albums on Impulse! Records including Chapter One: Latin America (1973), Chapter Two: Hasta Siempre (1973), and Viva Emiliano Zapata (1974), that explicitly embraced Latin American struggles. Barbieri “gave voice (sometimes literally) to a powerful, revolutionary vision of Latin America” through these works. He blended indigenous rhythms, tango and Andean melodies, and even the famed Cuban revolutionary song “Hasta Siempre” into a jazz context, with his raw, crying tenor sax tying it all together. Critics note that Barbieri engaged with the “highly politicized free jazz movement” of the era and “articulated Latin-ness as an irreducible part” of protest jazz.
Barbieri’s music often honored liberation movements. The album Viva Emiliano Zapata paid tribute to the Mexican revolutionary hero, while tracks on Hasta Siempre mourned Che Guevara and the fallen idealists of the 1960s. In 1973, when Chile’s socialist President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a military coup, Barbieri was living in New York and he responded by performing in a series of concerts condemning the coup. His wild, impassioned sax style (influenced by John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders) became a kind of musical rallying cry for Latin American solidarity. In fact, his Impulse! albums were so identified with activism that he came to be “considered a political activist” himself for recording them.
Of course, Latin American protest music also thrived in popular genres like rock, ska, and reggae en Español, where saxophones frequently appear. In 1988, the Mexican rock band Maldita Vecindad released “Pachuco,” a song criticizing social prejudice, driven by a punchy ska horn section including sax. In Chile, during the Pinochet dictatorship, jazz and fusion groups like Orquesta Huambaly and Congreso slipped social commentary into their instrumentals; a well-placed sax solo could hint at freedom in a way censors might overlook. Similarly, Brazil’s late-1960s Tropicália movement saw artists like Gilberto Gil and Os Mutantes incorporate horns (saxophones, trumpets) to spice up their cultural protest songs, though the government crackdown was severe. Notably, in Uruguay, the protest ensemble Los Olimareños added a sax to some arrangements, expanding the folk palette.
By bringing the saxophone into dialogue with Latin folk forms, these musicians created a new hybrid language of protest. Barbieri perhaps said it best through his actions: after years of playing straight jazz, he realized that to have a truly “relevant place in history,” he needed to embrace his own roots. The result was a musical awakening. This approach has echoed in later generations: today one can find Colombian cumbia bands with saxophones leading anti-corruption songs, or Argentine jazz ensembles dedicating pieces to the Madres de Plaza de Mayo (the mothers protesting disappeared children).
Conclusion: Legacy of a Musical Protest Tool
From American jazz clubs to African townships, European festivals to Latin American plazas, the saxophone has time and again proven itself as a powerful tool of protest music.
Many of the historical moments we’ve highlighted had concrete outcomes influenced by the music. Jazz and R&B songs in the U.S. helped galvanize support for civil rights legislation (and also drew the ire of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, as with Billie Holiday’s anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit”). In South Africa, a generation fighting apartheid drew strength from Abdullah Ibrahim’s sax-led anthems, contributing to the sustained popular pressure that eventually ended the system. In Nigeria, Fela Kuti’s saxophone-powered Afrobeat became a populist force that so threatened the authorities, they felt compelled to retaliate with violence. Yet his influence only grew, inspiring democratic activists long after his passing. And across Latin America and Europe, the incorporation of saxophones into protest music gave those songs a transnational appeal. A youth in 1980s Poland could hear something of their own struggle in the notes of an American jazz protest, just as a South African exile in London could identify with the fiery solos of a Gato Barbieri or a Peter Brötzmann.
Quotes from those who lived through these times remind us of the saxophone’s place in protest music. “It confounds a lot of people and they’ve been trying to disgrace it,” Sonny Rollins said of the horn’s controversial history. But far from being disgraced, the saxophone emerged as an instrument of dissent and empowerment. As Rollins learned from Du Bois, and as he proved with Freedom Suite, music could be a vehicle for social change. Basil Coetzee showed the same in Cape Town, turning a jazz tune into a rallying cry. And Fela declared it outright: music is a weapon.
21st Century: the legacy continues
During the 2019 Extinction Rebellion protests in London, street bands with saxophones turned climate marches into powerful public performances. In the United States, Kamasi Washington’s saxophone on the 2020 track “Pig Feet” became part of the Black Lives Matter soundscape. In Nigeria, Seun and Femi Kuti have continued the Afrobeat tradition of protest, using saxophone-led arrangements to challenge state violence and corruption, most visibly during the #EndSARS movement. The saxophone remains a tool for expression in moments when speaking out matters most.
