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New Bill Evans Signature Mouthpiece. Guess How Much!?

55K views 252 replies 69 participants last post by  Nefertiti 
#1 ·
#150 ·
Thanks, Ken, nice to see a post by someone who's actually played one of these. I value your opinion as I know you've played most pieces I've looked at (and some I've owned). I'm curious, is there a ring in the back bore of the Evans piece? How large is the chamber, baffle profile compared to a Studio or MB/MB2? I had an early handmade, unnamed Guardala piece ages ago that someone told me was an MB2, but it still had a ring in the back bore, and sounded darker/fuller than a Studio, wondering if this is similar...
 
#151 ·
Hi,
There's no ring in the backbore. It has a smooth transition into the chamber. The baffle looks perhaps a little longer than an MB (I) but it's also a little lower and not quite as pronounced. It's also smooth and polished. The chamber seems ever so slightly smaller than the MB. There are photos of it in the listing. (Thanks WarrenScottRobinson for posting that.) Could it be your piece was not actually an MB II? I've never seen one of those with a ring like the Studio had. I don't want to jump into too much conjecture about the original Guardalas out of deference to a forum member who I believe was the original designer.
Thanks!
 
#156 ·
I actually hung out with Bill tonight at Birdland and played his exact setup. I play with Mike Stern at 55 Bar occasionally and went down to hear the band with Bill and Dennis Chambers. I had never met Bill and so Mike introduced us. We got to talking and Bill convinced me to give the mouthpiece a spin. Here's the scoop...

The mouthpiece is amazing. I actually expected it to suck, but it completely blew me away. I have owned vintage Guardalas, a Vigilante and even a solid silver Francois Louis. This is better. Also, Bill and I played it back to back. We did not sound the same at all. The piece just had great scale/pitch, ease in the extreme registers and a balanced consistent sound.

I asked Bill about the price. He said that the cost of manufacturing is extremely high due to manual machining involved (5 hours as opposed to 10 minutes on CNC), materials used and prohibitive upfront costs to a manufacturing process established. I honestly don't understand all this, but it made sense at the time at which he explained it to me. Apparently, the pieces cost about $1300-1400 per unit to create.

Also, the piece was originally Mike Brecker's. It was a Guardala prototype that Brecker and Guardala had been working on and was the only completely handmade mouthpiece Guardala ever really produced. Bill convinced Mike to sell it to him in prior to going on tour with Miles as he didn't have a mouthpiece he felt good about on tenor. Mike sold it to him for $1000 (think about how much this was worth in 1983) under the condition that he would sell it back to him if he ever didn't want it. Years later, Mike said it was a mistake to have sold it.

At any rate, it's an amazing piece. Is it worth $1750? I can only speak for my self, but I will likely buy one before the end of the year.
 
#159 ·
I remember hearing Bill Evans on Links. Like Brecker, he sounded great on Links. I have to say I prefer the nuances in thei Link sounds. It just has the resistance that adds something you can't get out of a Guardala.
We all tried those in the Early 80's and I just didn't think they made what you think of as a great tenor sound. It always seemed like a Rock or Pop players sound.
Bill is one of the great sax players and I completely understand the need for the Guardala sound in the settings he plays in.
 
#160 ·
I should add that, for the past 10 years, I have basically played vintage Links (and experimented briefly with the other pieces I mentioned above)... I finally settled on a USA florida Link 7* with a low baffle (Florida link with smaller chamber than no USA but larger than early babbitt). I am not someone who has felt comfortable playing pieces with wedges. But this piece felt like something I could really play. When I went back to my florida Link after playing Bill's piece, my first impression was that my Link sounded cheap.

I actually ended up buying one this morning after sleeping on it last night
 
#162 ·
Couldn't agree more, WSR. I listened to a good portion of that WDR/Steps concert and while Evans certainly has impressive chops/technique at times, I just do NOT dig the sound. Furthermore, the other tenor player (his name escapes me) in my opinion has sounded MUCH better on the other 'pieces I've heard him on. Mind you, just my opinion but there 'tis. ;-)

John
 
#166 ·
If anyone's interested in a tech's opinion and findings: Someone who was here at my shop for refacing yesterday brought one of these over which he was borrowing. When he showed it to me I thought the finish quality looked pretty nice (although the chamber junction wasn't totally finished, still bumpy from machining marks.) However, when he told me the price, I just about fell out of my chair!

I thought to myself I have to measure this, because I was informed that they are made by a machinist who's not a mouthpiece guy. I don't know if that's true, but after measuring it I'd surely believe it.

The curve ended unevenly at 19mm on the left side and 20mm on the right side. Even for an alto mouthpiece, that's a short facing. For tenor, nobody on earth would ever use a facing that short. The normal range for tenor is about 23mm on the short side to 25mm on the long side and you can even get away with 26mm and 27mm on some huge tip sizes if you really need to loosen the resistance. I use 26mm routinely on tips over 9*.

The facing was also very uneven just about all the way up the facing. I'm not saying tiny asymmetrical spots here and there, I mean it was off by like half a mm side-to-side in some places. Not a good facing on paper at all.

I didn't get a chance to play it because it was also really tight on my neck cork. My neck cork is set up perfectly for my pieces so I didn't want to mess it up. However, I've played hundreds of pieces with facings too short like that during my work just to test different attributes along the way, and you never want a facing that short on tenor that's crazy!

I was sad to see something so poorly faced being marketed as a Ferrari. Maybe it plays well, I don't know, but those facing specs are not what I or any other competent mouthpiece tech would ever recommend for a tenor mouthpiece.
 
#167 ·
If anyone's interested in a tech's opinion and findings: Someone who was here at my shop for refacing yesterday brought one of these over which he was borrowing. When he showed it to me I thought the finish quality looked pretty nice (although the chamber junction wasn't totally finished, still bumpy from machining marks.) However, when he told me the price, I just about fell out of my chair!

I thought to myself I have to measure this, because I was informed that they are made by a machinist who's not a mouthpiece guy. I don't know if that's true, but after measuring it I'd surely believe it.

The curve ended unevenly at 19mm on the left side and 20mm on the right side. Even for an alto mouthpiece, that's a short facing. For tenor, nobody on earth would ever use a facing that short. The normal range for tenor is about 23mm on the short side to 25mm on the long side and you can even get away with 26mm and 27mm on some huge tip sizes if you really need to loosen the resistance. I use 26mm routinely on tips over 9*.

The facing was also very uneven just about all the way up the facing. I'm not saying tiny asymmetrical spots here and there, I mean it was off by like half a mm side-to-side in some places. Not a good facing on paper at all.

I didn't get a chance to play it because it was also really tight on my neck cork. My neck cork is set up perfectly for my pieces so I didn't want to mess it up. However, I've played hundreds of pieces with facings too short like that during my work just to test different attributes along the way, and you never want a facing that short on tenor that's crazy!

I was sad to see something so poorly faced being marketed as a Ferrari. Maybe it plays well, I don't know, but those facing specs are not what I or any other competent mouthpiece tech would ever recommend for a tenor mouthpiece.
I was just about to write in caps UNBELIEVABLE, but then I thought, no that's not at all UNBELIEVABLE.

It is TOTALLY BELIEVABLE.

And it all ways gets back to that one little nasty word that has created so much suffering here on planet earth.

GREED!

ps

so sad! :(
 
#168 ·
I dunno, some people like that kind of thing in a mouthpiece. I had a Lebayle that was all frigged up and real resistant, I had to put a softer reed on it, but I still didn't really like it. I had Mojo straighten it out, because I didn't feel right about selling it. It played much better and with my normal strength reed and still had the same dark character. He did a beautiful job. When I went to sell it I had a couple guys that didn't want it because it wasn't the usual whacky Lebayle piece and had been corrected. Go figure. Maybe Bill likes that kind of thing since he's been playing it for decades.

Or well maybe it is greed and it's all bs
 
#171 ·
Your right. It might be that the original mouthpiece has this facing and Bill loves it so they copied it exactly. I tried measuring the Legends Chris Potter mouthpiece and the measurements were totally different from rail to rail but it's an exact copy and that is what Potter loves so.........
 
#169 ·
I would not necessarily say the $1695 price is greedy. Most here have over $1695 in mouthpieces. Some have the $$$$ to buy one and some don't. Some people drive Bentleys, Aston-Martins, Rolls-Royces and some don't. IMO, it sounds like it's just another Brecker copy that's grossly over priced. Although there are much cheaper copies on the market, cats will still buy this piece for the exclusivity of having one.
 
#176 ·
Good information birdlives. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

As a player I need all the help I can get so I've tended to go for the more refined pieces with well measured facings in recent years. I don't really like messing with reeds, the expense and time etc.


I like an efficient mouthpiece but I understand the other thing as well. The price of the Evans piece is pretty wacky even if it does play well after finding the right reed.
 
#179 ·
I'm going to chime in here and report that I have played one of these pieces a few weeks ago. It belonged to a very high profile UK player who I re-met in Sax.co.uk and who was kind enough to let me try his piece.
I entirely concur that the facing must be very short. I didn't have much time and I only had a few reeds on me, some Lupifaro 3s and some D'Addario Select Jazz 2Hs. I found those reeds massively too hard to play on the 1AO, whereas they would normally be absolutely right, or even a little soft, for me on a 7* (mind you, Select Jazz have been a bit strange for me lately).
The player whose piece it was sounded massive on the 1AO, but he is an incredible player. But, he also sounded massive on a Navarro BopBoy 8* which I understand he also bought whilst he was there!
I was in a rush to get home and didn't bother to try and find a softer reed, but I would agree with Steve that a Java 2.5 - normally far too soft for me - would probably have been OK.
I have played short facing tenor pieces before, and for me they can be useful if I am playing a lot of soprano, which Bill Evans does, simply because the differences between the feel of the two horns become smaller. Both Bill and my friend seemed to be able to get a good sub-tone which can be a problem area IMO with short facings.
Sax.co in London have said they will probably get one of these in stock; if they do, I will definitely give it another whirl, just for curiosity. I can't really see myself spending that sort of money on a mouthpiece though.
 
#184 ·
So are we to believe that every one of these mouthpieces have the same un-even rails, flat spots, humps, short facing, etc in the same spots on each piece? That's tough to believe. It would be much harder to maintain consistency on a wacky curve like that vs something logical and symmetrical I would imagine. It would be very interesting to get measurements on at least 4 or 5 of these to see how consistent they are.
 
#187 ·
Today at the Jamey Aebersold Workshop, Jamey brought one out and had Chris Potter play it. Jamey feared it was going to strip the cork, but Chris was more worried it'd bend the neck so he removed the neck to put the piece on. It was VERY bright and he seemed to like it, but TOTALLY preferred his Link.
 
#190 ·
Yes, it would be real interesting to see if they are consistently wonky.

It just goes to show that as long as you can get a reed to seal on a piece it can have the potential to sound pretty good regardless of a wonky facing (within reason I suppose). Unlike the Macsax Aura (3-D printed) that I sent back to Musician's friend a few months back. I could not get even the softest reed to seal on that thing what so ever. That is probably the first mouthpiece I could not even get sound out of. But for $80 with a return policy, I can't complain. I should try another one. Maybe that one skipped the hand finish by accident.
 
#191 ·
Yes, it would be real interesting to see if they are consistently wonky.

It just goes to show that as long as you can get a reed to seal on a piece it can have the potential to sound pretty good regardless of a wonky facing (within reason I suppose). Unlike the Macsax Aura (3-D printed) that I sent back to Musician's friend a few months back. I could not get even the softest reed to seal on that thing what so ever. That is probably the first mouthpiece I could not even get sound out of. But for $80 with a return policy, I can't complain. I should try another one. Maybe that one skipped the hand finish by accident.
Hell, the 3-D Printed era is totally upon us, look out, take cover! L:0 L
 
#194 ·
Not sure if this was posted but here's another video of Bill Evan's playing his piece live. the person who sent it said he's playing one of his new pieces here. Looks like the tenor player in the big band is also judging from the red mouthpiece cap.............pretty good concert to if you like the old Steps Ahead stuff...........(I still miss Brecker though......)

http://concert.arte.tv/de/steps-ahead-wdr-big-band
 
#199 ·
Paul Heller is the tenor player of WDR Big Band you are talking about. After Bill Evans played a concert with WDR Big Band, he had a gig with Paul in Cologne the following night. I have just come back from talking to Paul because I was curious myself. I remember Paul telling me about five years ago he doesn't like Guardalas because they push your sound into a certain direction. Today he eplained he had a chance to try Bill's Guardala a couple of years ago, found it a great piece and not Guardala-like at all. Seems Bill's prototype Guardala is really something else.
His comment on the new Bill Evans Signature is in his own words that he likes the BE signature even better than Bill's original Guardala, and, as I said, he has actually played it himself.
I love Paul's playing and his tone, so I felt I had to ask him and provide the information first-hand.
 
#204 ·
It really depends on what kind of sound you want for yourself too. I can appreciate different sounds even though I wouldn't want them for myself. Everyone is different, if you can get the sound you are looking for out of a mouthpiece and it's comfortable for you it doesn't matter if it's a Link, Guardala or something that costs 2 years worth of local jazz gigs. :)
 
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