This style of trumpet was first developed by the Henri Selmer Paris company in 1933 for Louis Armstrong, and was also famously used by Harry James,[1] who preferred the configuration because of his long arms.
The layout solved long-standing deficiencies in those mechanisms and all modern saxophones have left hand key tables derived from this arrangement.
Drawbacks and compromises were inherent in the old layout with the long hinges running down the lower left side of the instrument.
[5] That layout mitigated the cross-push issue considerably and compared favorably to those of competitors King, Buescher, Martin, and, at its introduction, Selmer.
[6] That was a good ergonomic solution with action in the strong direction of the finger, but the mechanism was complex, costly to produce, and required extra adjustment.
With the arc of the action reversed, the table keys were pushed downwards towards the body tube in the strong direction of the finger.
The Balanced Action gained prestige through its use by the jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, who made a splash with his return from France to the US and recording of Body and Soul in 1939.
With Selmer's next model, the Super Action introduced in 1948 with offset right and left hand key stacks, the basic layout of the modern saxophone was established.
Further ergonomic improvements were offered with the Mark VI introduced in 1953, which became the most widely used professional class saxophone produced in the mid twentieth century.