I have had the pleasure of trying out Phil’s Tribute model metal tenor mouthpiece recently and would like to share a few thoughts.
As background, I am a working professional musician and educator. I play many styles in many contexts and teach instrumental music at a public middle school and am a saxophone studio teacher at a local university.
My main tenor mouthpiece is an Early Babbitt Otto Link Tone Edge 8. I have tried many of the mouthpieces available on the market, modern and vintage, because I find it enjoyable. However, I use my Early Babbitt HR for all of my tenor playing except classical.
Here’s my review of the Phil-Tone Tribute!
The Tribute has a beautifully finished facing, which is the important part, but the piece as a whole looks fantastic. I didn’t know at first, if I would like the sandblast finish. However, it looks great and is not gaudy or strange looking at all. The collaboration between Phil and Theo was definitely a home run in how this piece turned out from both a visual/aesthetic and playing/response perspective.
All of Phil’s pieces have a very fast and accurate response. Articulation is clean and even up and down the horn. It took me almost no time to adjust to the response of the piece. I could have taken it out on a gig within 10 minutes of warming up on it. Incidentally, It worked beautifully for my big band gig where I play lead tenor. It had great response, as I mentioned, and it had a full, fat sound with enough sizzle to satisfy me, or any lead tenor player that enjoys a Florida Link STM style piece.
Describing tone in words is always difficult. All I’ll say is that the Tribute is right there with any of the best mouthpieces I’ve played, modern or vintage, that are STM or STM styled pieces. I could play very dark to medium bright, just with embouchure and air stream adjustments. The Tribute is slightly darker than my Early Babbitt STM 7* (not my main piece), but is much more flexible. This mouthpiece is very versatile and I could use it for virtually any style. The Tribute covers a lot of territory! If you have been looking for one mouthpiece to do it all, this might be it.
I can highly recommend the Phil-Tone Tribute to anyone looking for a hand-finished, metal mouthpiece that is in the same sound/eq spectrum as that of the best Vintage Florida Links. This is not a “Link on Steroids”, which I think is fantastic. The piece has a great look, excellent response and a design that allows the player to worry about making music without the mouthpiece getting in the way.
Again, Phil and Theo knocked it out of the park on this one!
Feel free to PM if you have any specific questions about my experience with the Tribute.