Originally Posted by
adrian_quince
There's also a school of saxophonists who forsake modern equipment (with tuning improvements) for certain classic models, like the Selmer Mark VI.
Ah, the Selmer Mark VI. I switched from alto to tenor when I was 15 -- definitely one of the worst mistakes in my musical life, but the tenor was the sexy jazz horn and seemed more versatile and in demand at the time. At that point my parents had scraped together enough money to buy a new horn for me to replace the old used alto I'd started with as a rental and then bought.
The Mark VI was the top of the line. How I wanted a Mark VI!! But the Mark VI was $625 at the time (yeah, I still remember the price). Too rich for us. The Conn (Artist model, also referred to as the 10M) was $475. The Selmer was, by every measure, clearly superior. I've seen it said of the 10M that "This seems like the horn everyone who wasn't playing a VI at the time were most often playing on." Paul Desmond played a Selmer VI (as did John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins). Of course, Sigurd Rascher (my teacher's professor at Eastman) played on a (gold plated) Buescher New Aristocrat, which was regarded as a better horn for "classical" work.
Among the players in a saxophone section, the bari players are often the best musicians. Partly I think it's something about that horn and the parts written for it (and the fact that you can by an easy trick play bass clef parts such as bassoon, euphonium, tuba, etc.). And partly it's because the bari players are often converted bassoon players. In middle or high school, if you needed a bari player for pep band, big band, etc., you could turn a bassoon player into a reasonable bari sax player in a few days. And the bassoon player tended to know a lot about tone and pitch control.
Gary Merrill
Wessex EEb Bass tuba (DW 3XL or 2XL)
Mack Brass Compensating Euph (DE N106, Euph J, J9 euph)
Amati Oval Euph (DE 104, Euph J, J6 euph)
1924 Buescher 3-valve Eb tuba (with std US receiver), Kelly 25
Schiller American Heritage 7B clone bass trombone (DE LB K/K10/112/14 Lexan, Brass Ark MV50R)
1947 Olds "Standard" trombone (Olds #3)