Anonymous Coward writes “I want to cultivate an Earl Bostic sound on the Alto–big and blowsy. (Right now it’s small and lousy.) What equipment did he use to get that unmistakeable Bostic sound?” Thinking that strickly equipment will help you is a flaw. He could have probably used anything and still sounded like Earl Bostic. [Continue]

I have to admit, I have never been one to try out “gear” on sax or any instrument. Partly due to the satisfaction of what I already own, and partly due to not knowing if there is something better out there. Namely, I remember how I ended up with my Selmer Alto was because I [Continue]

“I’m an old guy getting back to playing after 45 years of “silence”. I’ve found my eye’s aren’t seeing the charts like they used to but, my fingers have an amazing amount of “memory” left in them (thanx to the great old Englishman I had as a teacher all those years ago and the foundation [Continue]

Saxy Beast writes “My friend’s dad bought an old silver Conn Chu-Berry alto about 30 years ago. It has “patented 1914″ on the side. I was able to find out that the patent was for the rolled tone holes. The sax has the original (I think) case, mouthpiece, and lyre. The screw that holds the [Continue]

One of my projects this summer (2004) was to redo my music studio. I was inspired by watching a lot of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy episodes. Here are the results! [Continue]

Vintage Sax? Jazz Future Prospect writes “I was wondering what’s the hipe about vintage. Doe sit have a better sound? Quality? Price? I admit to being a relitive newbie to the fine world of jazz and sax’s in general so I’m not to read in the subject. Also (to save the time of making a [Continue]

I was dabbling on the internet today, checking Ebay for vintage Meyer mouthpieces and Selmer saxophones. I remember there was a certain vintage alto ligature I saw once on ebay that was supposedly “the bomb”. This was a while ago (read: years), but it went for something like $400. Anyone know what this was? What [Continue]

Saxy Beast writes “I recently read somewhere that later on in his life, John Coltrane played on an early EWI type of sax. He used it to play two notes at once, kind of like multiphonics. I was just wondering if anyone knew anymore about this instrument, i.e. who made it and if he ever [Continue]

Bopfanatic writes “Can anyone help me decipher this? In his autobiography, ‘Beneath the Underdog’, Mingus recalls a conversation with Lucky Thompson, who tells him that Bird used a “number 30 open lay mouthpiece”. Does anyone know what the “number 30″ means, like what brand used that numbering system, or [Continue]

Bopfanatic writes “Hello! I’m a huge fan of vintage sax styles, and I love the huge sound of people like Coleman Hawkins and Lucky Thompson. The problem is that there are very few resources about what setups these players used (everybody seems to be into Mike Brecker and all that malarkey), and since I’m only [Continue]

adrian writes “What ligatures do you people use? I’ve been using old Rovner ligatures on my tenor and alto ( on Otto Link mouthpieces) and haven’t really kept up with all the new ones that seem to be available but a pupil of mine recently came along with a new BG ligature which really surprised [Continue]

Adrian writes “I’ve been teaching sax for a number of years and a problem I’ve encountered in beginning students has me baffled as to its cause. They can blow a note ok but as soon as they start to try tonguing produce lots of squeals on the start of the note. I can’t figure out [Continue]

BIABfsg writes “Someone was asking about Trane’s horn awhile back. Though I do not have idea where it is, but I do know what happens to Stan Getz’s Tenor Sax. That beautiful horn is now in Berklee College of Music’s Media Center. Though we can not touch that horn, but it looks like a new [Continue]

zibalatz writes “I was looking at the Player Setups page and noticed that Greg Osby‘s setup was lacking so I updated it using the information found on his State of the Art page, where he only reluctantly reveals his setup because “it’s too easy to get caught up in those matters when proper attention should [Continue]

saxophan writes “At my sax lesson today, my teacher told me that my current mpc (vandoren jumbo java A45) is to bright. I play on a yamaha 23 alto with the above mpc and legere reeds. My teacher had a bunch of mouthpieces, and we went through them and found the Bari Richie Cole 6 [Continue]