1923 Beuscher True Tone Baritone Saxophone

This is the story of my getting back into playing baritone sax for the third time in my life (the history behind it all is further down this page). The hard part (I thought) was going to be finding a horn, since I had sold my previous one years ago. I didn't want to buy on eBay (heard too many sad tales), and was even a bit leery of just buying from the U.S., what with Customs duties and all that. So I wanted to buy Canadian, and while Googling found the Brass and Woodwind Shop in Victoria, B.C. And on their sax page listings they had one baritone, with about six photos showing it to be in very good shape. It was a 1923 Beuscher Ture Tone, and I knew that was a professional brand for many decades (until they were bought by Selmer in the early '60s). As a matter of fact, the founder, Gus Beuscher, built the very first American saxophones while working for C.G. Conn (the huge U.S musical instrument firm) in the 1880s. He then went on to start his own company, and the horns became highly regarded.

So, there it was, a very nice silver-plated 1923 bari sax, way the heck across Canada (about 4,000 km). I googled for info on the that particular vintage of Beuscher, and found that while the mechanism might be a little outdated, it did go to High F (many early baris only went to Eb), and that the sound should be great, with good intonation (perhaps the best of the early saxes). Key-wise there is high F front key, a lack of rollers on the left-hand pinky keys, and the G# is just a round pearl key (not an articulated wide key). The photo below shows the palm keys (with stubby Eb, though it feels fine), and left finger arrangement (one does have to wrestle a bit with the left finger, but I am getting used to it).

There was something about the horn on that webpage that said "buy me". I don't want to get metaphysical about it, but something told me it would be OK. So I called the store and found out the instrument was on consignment from a guy that was selling off his collection. The horn was completely playable and ready to go, so I bought it and they said they'd pack it well for its long trip via Canada Post. I held my breath waiting, because one always hears stories of perfectly good instruments being destroyed or at least damaged whie in transit. But my horn arrived safely, and the store had indeed done a great packing job (click on thumbnails below to see images from the arrival day).

As it arrived, though I had quickly added some duct tape to the hole in the corner.

Even though I had sold my old horn, I had kept two Selmer mouthpieces (an "E" and an "H") that someone had given me when I still had it (I used to use a big 'n loud Dukoff 9, but sold that to a local player). In a plastic holder I had also kept I found one intact but worn reed, and so it went on the E piece and I gave the bari a toot. But it only squawked out one high note! So I looked around and noticed the High E key was a tad off-centre, creating a rather large leak. I carefully bent it back and then had the full sound of the horn (I was lucky that was all that needed adjusting after the long trip!). And it what a sound! Big, fat, and dark. And I realized that I had a lot of work to do to get back into playing such a beast again and making a decent noise. But I already liked the sound of this thing much better than my previous Yamaha.

I've been able to practice almost every day, and am slowly seeing some improvement. And since the reed was old I realized I had to get back into the ugly game of buying a $40 box of 10 reeds and hope that a few of them were actually playable. I had heard about synthetic reeds, and bought a Fibracell, and while it's a bit bright-sounding it plays very well, and doesn't need any soaking or prepping. If I had been a regular sax player all these years I might have had more issues with making the switch, but since I'm starting fresh there's been no transition at all. I try to stay away from synthetic things as much as possible, but these new reeds solve a lot of headaches and waste. Another brand I may try is a Canadian one called Legere.

One thing that needed attention was the very elderly case! While it was cool that it still sported its dealer plate ("Vancouver Music Company", indicating that perhaps this horn had spent its first 83 years on the West Coast), it had a hole in it and duct tape abounded. It has no padding, and only a leather buckle strap that goes around the bell. The handle was gone, and some of the clasps were not trustworthy. The first thing I did was to add some bubble wrap, and also some blue foam to the very bottom where the bow foot had gradually dug into the wood over the decades. I did not want to add another handle, as the wood might not hold, but the rest of structure seemed sound. So with the finest black duct tape to hold the fuzzy edges together I decided to use some strapping to make a cradle for it that included a handle. Click on the thumbnails below for that.

I also needed a stand to hold the horn when not in use. Commercially-built stands are of course available, but being me I thought I should just make one. I used two pieces of 3/4" electrical conduit (leftovers from my bike trailer-building projects), and the base of a cheap old snare drum stand.

History:

I've always like the sound of low reed instruments. And in high school we had a full music department with all sorts of instruments, so whatever time I spent not playing the drums was spent checking out how the other things worked, mainly the low instruments. I did end up playing bassoon and bass clarinet for a little while (ya wanna get teased on the bus? Tell the other kids that you have a bassoon in the case!). But then I heard a baritone sax, played by Harry Carney with Duke Ellington's orchestra. What a sound! On the top end of the horn he could make it sing like a cello, and at the bottom it could roar and rumble. I had never heard a bari played with that much range of expression, and decided to see if I could accomplish that. I began to like how the bari is both a melodic instrument, but can also reach down and play bass figures with the rhythm section.

I tootled on the school's horn in my spare time, and worked up a reasonable degree of proficiency. By my final year of school I had played drums with the dance band for two years, and was quite bored with it. When the bari player said he wanted to move to tenor sax for his final year I asked to take over the bari chair, and that was granted. I had fun with it, but once school was over I no longer had access to a horn, and was getting into having a professional career as a drummer, so my sax voice lay silent.

Fast-forward to around 1993. I was just getting into the music scene here in Ottawa, and liked the sound of a local band called Mumbo Jumbo Voodoo Combo. Their sax player overdubbed some bari on a few tracks of their first CD, and I thought "hey, I could make that noise!". I was also getting back into music in general, after taking half a year off from the biz during my relocation from Toronto, and just wanted to get some melody happening. So I rented a student horn for a month to see if I could get back into it, then bought a nice Yamaha YBS-61 from a local player. I did end being able to play with the Mumbos for a few years, sitting in on bari and percussion around my usual drumming gigs. I also played in some horn sections for local RnB bands. But eventually I grew tired of always having to play as loud as I could over the drums and amplification (it's much safer behind the drums, not in front of them!). The Mumbos then decided to no longer augment the band and remain as a 4-piece for all of their shows, so I was left just blatting away with the RnB stuff, and decided that was too boring. Also, I wasn't yet proficient enough to delve into playing jazz, and was generally getting irked at sounding mediocre on the sax while being reasonably competent on the drums, so it was time to call the sax experiment off. I sold the horn in early '97, and bought my recumbent bike with some of the money.

Fast-forward again (are you getting dizzy yet?) to early 2006. For a few months the recurring thought of "I should play bari again" started rumbling around my cranium. Not sure why, but there it was, and eventually I had to figure out what I was going to play if I actually had one. I decided I didn't want to get back into making the loud noise. The drums can be loud enough (though I'm doing more quiet gigs with those these days), and I wanted to make a nicer, more singing sound with the sax, perhaps even a bit "classical". So the bari called, and I decided to answer...