I am lucky enough to work with and see many beautiful and rare saxophones, and these days it takes something rather special to make my jaw truly drop. This past week, completely unexpectedly, a saxophone came through my shop which is about as rare and as beautiful as any saxophone out there, and I am …
This is a 1928 Conn F Mezzo-soprano saxophone, freshly overhauled by me. These saxophones in the unusual key of F were introduced months before the market crash of 1928, and only a few were sold- to those rare customers who were both saxophone crazy and had disposable income during the Great Depression. The unsold horns- …
I have always found the saxophone to be a beautiful physical object. I have often wondered as I work, what it is about the appearance of the saxophone that makes it so beautiful to me? Why, when its main purpose is to produce sound, does it look beautiful? The sound of the saxophone is …
I recently overhauled a 18xxx serial Selmer Super with the geared octave mechanism. It was totally thrashed- three times relacquered, all sorts of problems, resolders, broken keys, repair shortcuts layered over jerry-rig upon patch job. You get the picture. It took about twice as long as normal to rebuild the mechanics. It was the …
“Jazz simply needs to continue doing what made it great in the first place: engage with popular culture in an intelligent, nuanced and sophisticated manner, as some successful groups are doing today. If there is any hope of audience building, this is where it lies. It must be organic, visceral and culturally relevant, qualities …
This 2008 article has been reprinted in whole with the permission of its author, Dennis Gazarek. The opinions in this article are the author’s and I reprint it here without any edits. -Matt AMATI Saxophone A Short History by Dennis Gazarek The history of saxophones and other instruments produced by the predecessors of Amati-Denak is …
Saxophone Adjustment Materials by Matt Stohrer Everybody knows about pads, everyone has an opinion on resonators or whether plating makes you sound better, and you can google your way through most of a simple DIY saxophone overhaul or at least with enough time spent begin to understand why your horn does what it …
This is an all-original survivor, a rarity among Martins from this period whose notoriously delicate lacquer has survived nearly completely intact after 74 years. Most often when you see nickel keywork on a lacquered body, you think student intstrument. But it was not always so- indeed the nickel (or sometimes plated silver) keywork against lacquer …