As I haven’t tried this instrumentation on a gig before, I’ve chosen a long list of standards and about five of my originals to chose from on the night as I suss out what works best. There is everything from Autumn Leaves to a wonky version of When I Fall In Love, my altered blues Lurch and something from my 2010 suite called Augmented Demented (the clue is in the title!). I’ve also set myself the task of playing soprano, alto and tenor during the course of the evening, again something I never do. If I take a second horn at all, I usually restrict myself to soprano and tenor for jazz gigs and alto and tenor for function gigs. I sometimes feel that the alto carries better outside and has quite a cheerful sound on swing and latin standards appropriate for celebrations. My Mark VII alto also has a raucous edge to it which I imagine will come to the fore at Thursday’s gig. I have no idea how the soprano is going to sound sitting up there so far above Marcus’ double bass but we will find out as the evening proceeds.

This is a door money gig so do come along, support the venue where Marcus promotes jazz gigs on a fairly regular basis and see something a bit different as we experiment with the usual jazz combo set up. The music starts at 8.30pm and tickets are £5 on the door.

Anyway getting back to vibes: the nest session of The Bridge Jazz Club on 4th July will feature a five-strong house band including vibes player Graham Pinkney, someone I have been hearing good things about for several years from those who play with him. Graham is also a pianist. I haven’t yet had the pleasure of working with him on either instrument so am looking forward to the session. Thanks to Mack who has agreed the extra sponsorship from Glanville Robinson required to fund five players and thanks to all who attended the last session where we made slightly more than our target on the door and raffle money. There is a rumour that Mack may play some alto at this session because with his broken finger, he has had more time than usual to practise: we just have to find a tune without low C,D or Eb in the melody. The rest of the band will be James Clemas on piano, Mike Thorn on bass, myself on sax and a drummer yet to be determined. Hope to see you all down there again on 4th July to enjoy the music and join in the jam session.

There were musicians queueing up to play in the second half and fitting in all four drummers meant than Marc didn’t touch his kit again until it was time to pack up at the end of the evening. Geoffrey on tenor and Valeria on vocals gave us a couple of swingers; Matt Carter on keys and Charlie Mason on guitar  with Al Swainger on bass and Gary Evans on drums did a great version of Spain; Mike Sayers on alto did Autumn Leaves; Duncan on tenor with Geoff Wilmot on bass and Tom Rosenbloom on drums did Song For My Father; and so it went on until the finale: a four saxophone, guitar, piano, drums and bass rendition of Tenor Madness with utter chaos reigning in the fours!

Thanks are due to Tony Kaye who covered the door for Mack of the broken finger who couldn’t get to the gig, to Glanville Robinson who sponsor the club; and to Bombay Bills who provided the room and put two bottles of wine into the raffle to join the Zubop album donated by Philip Clouts and a Branco Stoysin Trio CD.

The full details of all the tracks played will be on my website at www.petecanter.com a day or so after the show and if you want to listen to the show live, then go to www.phonic.fm at 2pm tomorrow (sorry no listen again facility). If you happen to live in Exeter then fire up the old steam radio on 106.8FM.

Unfortunately club host and sponsor Mack has injured his hand and can’t drive. If anyone is coming to the club this Wednesday from the Ivybridge area and can offer Mack a lift, please get in touch.

Also on Wednesday, I am back in the studio for a transmission of my radio show 200% Proof, the first I have done in two months. I missed two shows while I was away and then was too ill to do the last one in May. I have new tracks from Eric Alexander & Vincent Herring, a new album from Troyka and much more to play on the show. Tune in at 106.8 fm around Exeter or online anywhere at www.phonic.fm between 2pm and 4pm this Wednesday 6th June. 200% Proof is on air every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month and previous playlists can be seen on my website at www.petecanter.com

Anyway, by this time Jim Blomfield and Sol Ahmed, the rest of the trio had arrived so we did a quick sound check on the main stage, assisted by sound man Steve who was also guitarist in “The Lurchers” a jump and jive band on later in the evening. The Lurchers had already sound checked and the stage was set up with drums, 1950s style microphones, banks of guitars and a number of amplifiers. It took us a while to get the onstage monitors right – basically turning them down from 11 to about the 3 we thought might be about right for jazz. By the time we were supposed to start, the woods had filled up nicely, the camp fires were smoking and the smell of burning sausages was drifting through the trees. Jim and Sol sampled some of the exotic real ale on offer in the bar and then we started our set with Bird of Paradise using an arrangement I’d nicked from Jerry Bergonzi and Hal Galper (there’s a Youtube video somewhere). This seemed to go down well so we followed up with a set of good time jazz including Moanin’, Doxy, Home At Last, sneaked in the waltz Saga of Harrison Crabfeathers and ended with Night in Tunisia, job well done.

I’d struck a deal with the organiser Jerry to sell CDs and split the proceeds with the wood fund and left a small pile with mate Pete Tyson. Half way through the set I saw that he was going around from group to group doing the hard sell and by the time we had finished he had managed to sell fifty quid’s worth – good man, thanks Pete! We packed up quickly and I joined my friends for a few tasty morsels from their barbecue and had a bit of a chin wag while a serious looking young man played some nice blues guitar and sang like he was going to wake up with a sore throat. Then it was off down the M5 in lashing rain listening to Radio 3: including a couple of very interesting movements by contemporary music composer Brett Dean.

We immediately got a good sound and I found Jesse’s comping very easy to work with. His soloing was also great to listen to and a good contrast with the tenor. I have learnt from previous occasions at this venue which can have a very bright acoustic, that the soprano doesn’t go down well with the punters eating at the back of the restaurant, so I had only brought the one horn. By the end of the evening, we had gathered an appreciative audience in the bar area. I was called upon to play happy birthday twice: once for a large celebration at one of the tables at the back and then again when a group of very attractive young women came in with their own birthday girl. When they entered we had just started playing Body & Soul and I was so distracted that I launched into my solo even though we had actually only reached the B-section of the melody. Coming to the end of our set shortly afterwards we were very easily persuaded by one of them to do an encore. Jesse and I are back at The Old Bank on Wednesday 13th June.

As part of the overhaul done on my tenor while I was away I had a new cork fitted on the neck and I was struggling during the gig to get the mouthpiece on far enough. This morning I reduced the cork slightly with a strip of fine sandpaper as I have seen my repairer Gill Baker do it and now both the horn and myself are raring to go for my gig at The Clifford Arms in Shaldon tonight with the Pete Canter Quartet. This is a regular Monday evening jazz night which has been going for several years now and landlord Mike Balster puts on a special jazz menu so you can either eat or just have a drink and listen to the music.

I am playing with my local Devon line up of Ian Wright on piano, Andy Tunbridge on bass and Gary Evans on drums and have in mind to play a few of my originals including a couple of new ones: Lurch on tenor and Phase Two on soprano. I will also be revisiting a few old favourites including Dexter Gordon’s Cheesecake and Hank Mobley’s This I Dig of You. I’ve been enjoying playing the waltz Saga of Harrison Crabfeathers on soprano so that will probably get an airing too.

Gill has done a great job: she replaced some pads and discovered that whoever did the last repad (there must have been several since 1964) was pretty stingy with the glue. She uses the traditional method of bedding the pads in shellac and the horn is now sealing perfectly from top to bottom and feels great. Gill has also sorted out the sloppy octave mechanism and the end result is that all the notes from the bottom of the horn up into the altissimo range are really easy to get. I think one of the best tests of how the pads are seating on a sax is whether or not it’s easy to get down to low B and Bb using subtone and since the overhaul this is now a dream.

Today I resolved to resume the serious practise routine on tenor and whipped through a series of diatonic exercises, scales and long notes but had still had enough after just over an hour so it looks like being a gradual process. Hopefully all will be back to normal for the weekend when I have the first of two gigs: I am at Cafe Du Parc, Bideford on Sunday lunchtime (12.30pm start) doing a duo with pianist Ian Wright and on Monday night I am at The Clifford Arms in Shaldon with my quartet (8.30pm start). Now I just have to get a new reed going on alto to teach an absolute beginner this afternoon: good old muscle memory!

In Sicily there is clearly an appreciation of jazz, though I saw no evidence of it being played live: walking into breakfast at our B&B in Catania on the first morning I was greeted by Coltrane’s solo from Kind of Blue and in Syracusa we ate our lunch in a bar while they played an entire Charlie Parker album at full volume. A scan of the internet suggests that there is a jazz club or two in Firenze and that for some reason soprano and baritone saxes seem to be particularly popular in that city, but there was nothing of interest on during the three days we were there.

Arriving in Torino some two weeks into the holiday it came as a pleasant surprise to find that we had arrived at the tail end of the Torino Jazz Festival and what’s more that all the events were free. Despite the dire economic situation in Italy, Torino still seems to be able to find money from local businesses and from the city to promote cultural events like the festival. In this and in so many other respects the Italian outlook is so refreshing compared to that in the U.K. The debate is wider too: on Liberation day, a public holiday, we were amazed to find the streets of central Torino packed not only with Union banners protesting about unemployment, welfare benefits and tax but also a fully fledged march by several hundred red flag bearing communists. As I say the political spectrum is wider than here where choice seems to extend only to which shade of public schoolboy you prefer.

But coming back to the jazz, billed to appear in the main square on the evening of our arrival was Carla Bley’s Torino Project with guests Andy Shepperd and Steve Swallow along with a host of local horn players. At the appointed time we took our place under the eaves of the covered walkway surrounding the square: after two weeks of glorious Italian sunshine further South, the sky here was grey and threatening. Sure enough after the first tune, a typical quirky Bley piece: through composed with periodic baleful trombone soli; the skies opened, the wind swirled and it teemed down. Music stands tipped; music were blown streaming across the stage; musicians ran for cover as stage hands rushed forward with tarps and technicians manning lights, mixing desks and cameras for the large outside screen desperately struggled to cover equipment and get down from exposed scaffolding. The crowd of several hundred umbrella toting jazz fans ran for the covered walkways with its overflowing gutters and coughing drains to pack the cafes and fight for a dry space.

Some 15 or 20 minutes later after the storm had subsided somewhat, a bedraggled and slightly reduced band filed back onto the stage: Andy Shepperd had done a bunk and Carla Bley and Steve Swallow were reduced to a playing a series of dreary blues and rhythm changes tunes in what had become a jam session. The following night we caught the very fine CFM Quartet led by superb local flugelhorn player Fulvio Chiara and I particularly liked the playing of pianist Fabio Gorlier.

We had one further jazz experience in Torino: while enjoying a donkey kick of a pre-dinner gin and tonic sat outside a bar, we heard the sound of a tenor sax nearby. I had seen a poster just down the street saying something about a temporary arts cafe and jazz but assumed it was too early at 7pm for anything to be happening yet. Throwing back the gins a little more quickly than is perhaps wise on an empty stomach, we went to investigate and found a small crowd of smartly dressed people milling about outside, on the steps and inside a small ground floor room where I could see pasta being served from a huge pan and bottles of red wine lined up on a table facing the door. We could hear live jazz: hammond organ, drums and tenor sax but couldn’t see who was producing it so, without asking, walked in. The trio were very good and the tenor player, who was playing a silver plated 1930s Conn with no low Bb, sounded great. Trying to look nonchalent, I approached the table and was served with a plate of spaghetti alla pomadoro and I helped myself to a plastic cup of red wine. My wife Rachel was a little less brazen but seeing that I had got away with it, also availed herself of the hospitality. She commented that perhaps I should start giving out free pasta at my jazz gigs: it might improve audiences. This was overheard by a woman standing near to us and she smiled. She had the mark of a musician’s wife or girlfriend i.e. being alone at the gig and nodding encouragingly at the band while everyone else was talking nineteen to the dozen and shovelling pasta down their necks, so I asked her if she spoke English and what was going on. Apparently it was a birthday party for an elderly chap in a wheelchair who had been the main promoter of jazz in Torino for the last 20 or 30 years. The walls were covered in photos of him with various local and international stars including, I noticed, Charles Mingus. I got introduced to the tenor player in the break and we had a pleasant chat. If I’d had my horn, I’m sure I would have got a blow. As their break seemed to be of indefinite length and we were ready for our secondi, we slipped out unchallenged as the gate crashers we were. I did pause to shake the hand of the chap in the wheelchair and, in English, to wish him happy birthday. He nodded but said nothing: just looked at me in bewilderment!

Save 10% off the Advertised rice of All Brand New

Dakota Professional Saxophones

Plus Receive

a

$150

Manufacturer’s Rebate

Enter Coupon Code D10 at Checkout

WOW! What a great day!! Face painting, delicious food, great people, and AMAZING music. If you weren’t able to make it today, there’s alway tomorrow to join us for an especially KOOL day of music, good weather, and fun times. Feel free to enjoy some of the spectacular pictures we took today. See you tomorrow! Same KOOL time, same KOOL place(5750 West Glenn Drive Glendale, AZ 85301).

“Mutli-reed wizard Vinny Golia is one of the few artists who have played In The Flow every year since the festival began, and each year he plays with a ferocity that can only be looked at in awe. The Vinny Golia Sextet, along with bandmates Dan Rosenbloom, Alex Noice, Gavin Templeton, Jon Armstrong and Andrew Lessman, play a complex musical kaleidoscope of counterpoint with multiple rhythms and melodies setting the themes for free jazz improvisations. Don’t miss their set.”
-Ross Hammond

“The Vinny Golia Sextet is a superb example of how intricate compositional ideas and tight ensemble playing combine with open-ended interpretation, loose and multi-directional improvisation, and displays of spontaneous and creative virtuosity to make a seamless and fully satisfying musical whole. ” -Alex Cline

Vinny Golia Sextet (Sunday, May 12 at Antiquite Maison Privee, 6pm)

Vinny Golia: woodwinds, compositions
Gavin Templeton: alto saxophone
Daniel Rosenbloom: trumpet
Alex Noice: guitar
Jon Armstrong: electric bass
Andrew Lessman: drums

http://www.vinnygolia.com

http://www.intheflowsacramento.com

I couldn’t work out why Shorter’s tenor looked so massive until during one of the tunes, Stanley Clarke came and stood next to him, and I realised that he really does live up (or should that be down?) to his name. Sid Thomas, a pianist friend of mine who I worked with in Wales used to say that Wayne Shorter was the most deliberately obtuse saxophone player he had ever heard. I know what he means: the lines are always unexpected and there are no cliches so it’s completely unique and there’s obviously a great musical intelligence at work. On this particular gig, I preferred his soprano to his tenor playing. The sound was better though that may well have been down to the recording engineers on the night or the fact that I was watching and listening on the wife’s grandad’s ancient fatline TV.

Clarke was as agile on double bass as on electric and I can’t say I have heard much of his double bass work before: it was bloody good and him and Lenny on drums seemed to be having a great time. Petrucciani was absolutely superb and I could listen to him improvise for hours. His playing is the epitome of cool. Ferrell came on to take outrageous liberties with just one tune: Autumn Leaves. She is one jazz singer I have a lot of time for and I quite often play her stuff on my radio show. I have never seen any footage of her before so her exaggerated body movements and bizarre facial contortions came as something of a surprise. If anything, she was even more obtuse than Shorter…..but in the best possible way.

My pupils today were two teenagers and two slightly more mature chaps in their sixties. Despite this wide age range, the interest in jazz and the love of the saxophone is the same and this I guess augers well for the future of the music. The range of abilities among my pupils is also very wide from absolute beginners to quite advanced players who can improvise convincingly on jazz standards and hold a melody as well as anyone. There is not necessarily a correlation between age and ability though and many of my new pupils are mature people taking up the instrument in their fifties or sixties and who come to me as absolute beginners. I often joke that taking up the saxophone is a response to mid-life crisis though safer than buying a motorcycle! I don’t mean that in an insulting way: if I did I would be deriding myself as I didn’t start playing myself until my early thirties and took up the drums in my late fifties. I like to think that learning can be life long and that it’s a cause for celebration when someone takes on a new challenge no matter what their age.

I like to get people improvising as quickly as possible and it can be quite a challenge to devise ways of getting someone with very little technique to start making up music on the spot. I had some success today with a beginner who was working on Sunny: a single pentatonic scale works across the entire form but when your reading is limited and you don’t know any pentatonic scales, even this is a challenge. By using simple numerical cells (132, 121, etc) to describe simple phrase shapes, moving them up or down the scale, writing out the note names for a couple of these to make it crystal clear, and playing along with the pupil to a backing track, we were able to get into that area where the most simple basic building blocks start to sound really good. At the same time, without really noticing it, the pupils learns the scale and becomes familiar with the sound of the chord sequence. I also end up reminding myself that simple is often better than complicated when it comes to improvising.

Because teaching involves being really clear about what it is that I am trying to get across and understanding exactly what steps are required in order to be able able to play convincingly on a particular tune, I sometimes think I learn as much from teaching as the pupils do…..though don’t tell them that.

Martin Handcraft Master “Typewriter” vs. Remington typewriter. Spot the difference.

Soo thanks to either something I ate, or a mild case of the flu (still undecided) I was up most of the night/early morning forming an everlasting bond of friendship with my toilet bowl. Sheila and I had quite a night. Yep, that’s the kind of bond we now have. I’ve named her Sheila. I’m sure you don’t want to know the particulars, so I’ll just say that this morning I was both exhausted and still feeling fairly nauseous, so I did not go to work.

Normally staying at home and watching too much TV is the only good part of being sick. But today it just made it worse. It’s my co-worker’s 30th birthday, and since our office was closing at 2pm for Good Friday, we were free to go enjoy ourselves in an early happy hour. It has been gorgeously (almost tauntingly) sunny all day, and they’re all up on a rooftop getting tipsy in honor of all things Greg, while I’m stuck at home.

Damn you, Sheila.

I’m sorry, Shelia. It’s not your fault. I didn’t mean to blow up like that. Thank you for being there for me in my time of need.

Anyhoo, since I’m stuck at home, I decided to cross some things off of my Netflix Instant Queue that I know the Hubbster won’t like. First pick: Mystic Pizza. Yes, I know, you can’t believe I haven’t seen Mystic Pizza before. It’s just one of those movies that has slipped through the cracks over these 24 years of living and watching other important things (like Space Jam). Here are my thoughts:

1) I love Jo. Love love love her. I know they put Julia Roberts on the DVD cover because she is now more famous than the other two, but c’mon. I would’ve watched a movie all about Jo. She cracks my shit.

2) Hiding cans of Miller Lite off the side of your boat does not make you a “god.” Hiding cans of Heineken does.

3) Why doesn’t every movie soundtrack over-do it on the saxophone solos these days? We should bring that back.

4) Were condoms not ubiquitous in the 80s? Or was Kat just really that naive? Something to ponder.

5) Kudos to you Julia for finding a guy who didn’t break up with you after dumping 2 barrels of fish stink into his Porsche. They can be very touchy about their cars.

6) Bill is so sweet. Like he’s just a sweet guy. And I don’t know why Jo got mad when he changed his boat name to Nympho. I thought it was hilarious.

7) Well hello, Matt Damon!!! Seriously, I had no idea he was in this! And he was funny. Kind of stole the scene. Though I can’t decide if it’s because he’s just that talented or because I kept going “Holy crap, that’s Matt Damon!” in my head.

8) I like movies that drop multiple f-bombs. It feels more realistic to life. At least my life, because I swear like a sailor.

9) I’m glad Kat didn’t take that money from Tim. What a tool. Though she was pretty dumb to sleep with him, I gotta say it.

10) I think I need to watch this movie with Emma. And a bottle of wine. I think there could be a drinking game hidden in there somewhere…

Both were pretty much there already but the first, Phase Two, written for soprano sax, was sounding a bit square and the bridge was impossible to play without some sort of circular breathing magic. The breathing issue was sorted out by re-writing the first bar of each 4-bar phrase in the bridge: basically replacing some relentless triplets with slower and more flowing lines which have the added bonus of giving each section a little push. The A-sections were sorted out by working in some pick-up notes without altering the basic melody. The harmony in this section is really simple to give the soprano loads of space for long notes.

The other tune I was working on, Chimes, is a medium ballad built on a chromatically descending chord sequence but I wanted to stretch the harmonic rhythm for the solos and also to change the feel. I had already tried extending each chord to 4 bars and had written a bass line and corresponding chord rhythm that gave a latin feel. Today I reduced this to 2 bars per chord so that it moves more. The bars alternate 4/4 and 5/4, which no doubt the band will moan about: why didn’t I just write it in 9/4 as the chords don’t change within the 9 beats? Well partly because to me it looks easier to follow and also because changing time signatures in Sibelius when you already have complicated chords and bass lines written in causes total havoc!! The solo sequence goes back to one chord per bar for the last 8 bars and I wanted it to swing for this section. To make the transition less abrupt I inserted a couple of extra descending chords to set up the 4/4 walk and I think that is going to work really well.

Overall, I am feeling pleased with both tunes though there is always a way to improve a piece. At some point you just have to say lets play it and see what happens. Phase Two may well get a try out at The Brass Pig in Bristol on 8th April where I am playing with what is largley the intended recording band: Jim Blomfield on piano, Sol Ahmed on bass and Dave Sheen on drums. I now have eight tunes more or less finished and a couple more well on the way.

After starting on tenor with Stella by Starlight and feeling that it got lost as a sort of low rumble somewhere in the general hubub, I gave the soprano a go on that beautiful modal waltz The Saga of Harrison Crabfeathers. This is the one with the tricky bit about two thirds through where the melody goes into minims over the underlying chord changes in 3/4. James, being the rhythmically aware player he is, made this easy for me by placing the chords accordingly. The soprano sounded sweet and I was by no means playing loudly but apparently it was slightly too loud for one of the punters eating just around the corner. Why is it that as soon as people have a knife and fork in their hands they think that they have the right to control every single aspect of the environment around them? If you don’t want to hear live music, don’t book a table on jazz night: simples! I did another on soprano, Little Sunflower, and took the volume down as low as I could but apparently this was still not good enough, so it was back to tenor for the rest of the evening. We worked through a mixed bag of standards ranging from Body and Soul to Donna Lee, on the way taking in Estate, Moanin’ and Dexter Gordon’s Cheesecake. I also had another go at Lurch, an altered blues of mine which I have just started to play on gigs. Those of you who follow this blog will recall that I have previously had difficulties getting the tempo just right to accommodate all the triplet quavers in the melody (see post entitled Altoitis). This time, the melody was very comfortable, perhaps too comfortable and somehow the tune slowed during the solos, turning the final melody into a bit of a ballad, but keep the faith, it will be good.

Most of our efforts were greeted with, to quote Ronny Scott, “a spontaneous outburst of general indifference” until the last half hour or so when a gathering of late evening drinkers gathered around the bar started to actually listen to us. We had been aiming for an early finish, but encouraged by a hearty audience response and requests for encores, we ended up running over time.

Then of course there is the separation anxiety of being parted from your horn; if you practise for several hours every day, always have the horn close to hand and spend most of the day engaged in playing, teaching, composing or thinking about music in one way or another, the thought of being without it is worrying: what on earth am I going to do, think, feel all day? Obsessive compulsive behaviour may well be a necessary component of a jazz musicians personality: it’s not just that you like to practise, you bloody well have to! I can dig out those long neglected ear training tracks and load them on the ipod even though I know that I will probably only listen to them for about 10 minutes at the airport and then spend the rest of the time drinking too much coffee, too much vino and stuffing my face with too much pizza and pasta. Couldn’t I get away with taking the soprano? ….on the plane, trains, buses? Isn’t that travelling light?

The other problem is timing: the minute you pin down the dates of a holiday, that is the time you get a string of enquiries about well paid function gigs that fall bang in the middle of your time away, or the ideal gig comes in: a festival gig or the week long residency in a lap dancing club. For this reason, I go through a protracted delaying strategy every year along the lines of “…..can’t we say 10 days within this month and wait to see what comes in, then book something last minute?” The other timing issue is that inevitably you will get a gig the night before you have to get up before you go to bed in order to catch the train for the airport. This definitely does not go down well with the other half! Nor does the fact that I don’t really get my head around packing until all the pre-holiday gigs and lessons are boxed off, the horns are stashed safely away or are left with the repairer for an overhaul, and I finally get my head into holiday gear.

Can’t wait…….

Check it out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW4z26GpZ6M

My mark VI tenor is really singing since it had a tweak from Gill Baker a week or so ago and is sounding the best it has since I bought it from Bradford Woodwind Exchange last August. I took the horn up to Gill’s workshop in Taunton because I had noticed that the spindle on the crook octave arm wasn’t tightening into it’s thread and also because there was a deep notch in the ring where the neck strap attaches. Every now and again the hook on my strap was getting caught in the notch and then, suddenly releasing itself resulting in the mouthpiece jumping about while I was playing.

The previous owner played for The Modernaires, one of Yorkshire’s famous swing bands based in Bradford and he must have used a metal hook on his sling that over the years cut into the ring. Stu’ from Bradford Woodwind Exchange told me the guy had bought the horn new. The serial number suggests it is a 1964 vintage so that’s a lot of grinding of metal hook against metal ring over the years that he sat in that swinging tenor section. Anyway, the solution was elegant. Gill unsoldered the lozenge shaped plate upon which the ring is mounted and resoldered it back on upside down. The notch is now at the bottom of the ring where it doesn’t get caught up anymore and the repair is invisible. Gill fixed the spindle with loctite until she can get hold of or make a new one and also located a few minor leaks in the lower stack and fixed those.

The elimination of the leaks is probably the reason that the horn is sounding so good now though I also went up to John Packers while I was in Taunton and bought a new ligature, a BG Super Revelation. I tried four or five different types before settling on this one; although it was quite pricey even with my teachers discount, it was still much cheaper than the Saxass I was abandoning and compared to the others, really helped the sound to project. The Saxass, which looks like a piece of exotic jewellery also gave a good sound but was forever working loose while the mouthpiece was being adjusted on the neck. The BG is more discreet to look at too.

The horn hasn’t had any serious work done on it since I bought it so I will be leaving it with Gill for a service while I am away for a week or two in the spring. If my previous experience of Gill Baker overhauls is anything to go by, I will be even more impressed with the horn after I get it back.

This is the first tenor I have owned where the altissimo is reasonably easy to get and the action is superb. I have owned two Selmers before, a Super Action II and a Reference 54 and both were pretty stuffy at the extreme top end. The VI doesn’t have a high F# key and I know some players think that the addition of that auxiliary key spoils the sound and balance of modern horns. I do appreciate that the VI is noticeably lighter than most modern horns, an important feature if you practise for several hours every day. It is good to be back with Selmer after a 3 year flirtation with Mauriats. After working hard with my Mauriat 66R and then the unlaquered 66RUL, I finally decided that they lacked the subtlety and tonal palette of a Selmer. So now all my horns are Selmers: the mark VI tenor; a fiery mark VII alto bought on Ebay from Bulgaria (scary!) and a sweet SAII soprano also bought on Ebay from Somerset (not at all scary).