I FINALLY ( Thanks to SOTW!! yeh harri!! ) found the C Melody I've been looking for!!!
A VITO....Made in the LATE 60's by Beaugnier for LeBlanc. The story is that 120 had been produced, but only 18-22 were sold.
I had my tech Roberto overhaul it...he thinks the keys are SML which is a great thing mechanically. I use a C melody piece reface by Soprano Planet and I'm ready to roll.
I originally saw a friend's C MELODY back in my student days at Berklee- who picked one up while on a gig in Maine at a shop.
His was of course brand new then...But the pitch and action stuck in my mind all these years!!! ( a few decades to be exact!! lol)
My friend played saxes and uke and keys- - later to become a key member in " THE CARS".....Anyhow this C MELODY is a player.
I recorded using a alto mouthpiece on it- that was a mistake, and the C pieces do the trick nicely.
I have a Buescher overhauled by Joe Kingston up in Maine (he's the best); plays beautifully, and I picked up a Bill Street mouthpiece, with which I am now using a Fibracell 3. Love this thing, and love not having to transpose; about to use it on a session with Matt Shipp, also have things coming up with Nels Cline and Hamiet Bluiett that I plan to play it on. The Street gives it a nice, deep, tenor-ish sound.
I regularly play a Wiedoeft model Holton in performances in the vintage jazz field. I have even played Be-Bop and Progressive jazz. The 1920s-30s Goldbeck mouthpiece gives it excellent intonation and a slight edgy sound. Most of the great players on alto and C melody from the 20s to mid 30s used Goldbecks. The only disadvantage to the C is that it is quieter due to the bore structure, being less conical then an alto or tenor, hence lacking some projection. A microphone overcomes this; otherwise play loudly withoput losing tone or tune. I really wish that the modern C melody makers had changes the bore so it would sound like the other saxopohones.
I'm interested in the c melody sax as I find the tenor requires quite a bit of air. When you're very good on the tenor it's probably OK as you have your phrases better planned etc., but I figure that the c sax would require quite a bit less air as it is disproportionately small. In images it looks practically the size of an alto in e flat though it shouldn't be much smaller than the tenor in b flat deeming from its pitch. What supports my theory is the statements that it has/had a wimpy tone. Well, wimpy or weak tone has long seized to be a shortcoming since the ubiquity of electric amplification. Just look at the electric guitar.
It is not the volume of the sound that turns most people off as it is the duck-like stuffy sound. It will never be a rock horn! (I always own one however!)
You KNOW on this forum, anytime you make an ultimatum, someone will come along and disprove. I play my overhauled bare Buescher TT at bar gigs with a R&R band. With a Quantum and a plasticover, its plenty rock. At a practice session:
It isn't as loud as my tenors. But its a trip to rip in C, G, D, A, and E instead of the accidental-laden Bb or Eb territory for those same concert keys!
Does it require significantly less air than a tenor? Perhaps my tenor sax needs more air than other tenors as it appears rather wide. It's a Selmer mark VII (7) and I believe it's rather bassy but I haven't tried any other tenors in a long while.
A few more from Scott Robison and his Conn C-melody:
His CD Melody from the Sky is a good buy.
He plays it with an approach that is closer to an Alto sax, while Dan Higgins and his Buescher (see previous posting) are more "tenorish".
I am going for the second approach myself, but I like both a lot.
And here is a bonus track from Chad Smith on a 1923 Gold Plated Conn with a modified Ralph Morgan mouthpiece. Vandoren 3.5 tenor sax reeds:
There's no reason to believe the c melody sax has any specific deficiencies just because it's tuned in c. I believe now, that any reservations people might have toward the c sax is based solely on prejudice. I like the idea of it as it may weigh less than a Bb tenor. These instruments were just one of the many sizes manufacturers made available in the 20s, built with the same quality standards one must assume, and nothing exotic at all. I've been in contact with a factory in China, Binzhou Xingyue, but they're vague about reporting the weight of it to me. They may have been the builder (one of them?) for Aquila sax in New Zealand. They say so themselves. A proficient saxist from Germany originally, Michael Ausserbauer, has a modern tone as he nicely performs quite a number of standards on YouTube.
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