[Dixielandjazz] Plastic Horns - Was Grafton Sax

[Steve Barbone]

"Edgerton, Paul A" <paul.edgerton at eds.com> wrote

>> Mike Wrote: 
>> Ornette Coleman used to play on a plastic alto, I've heard that
>> Charlie Parker did too.

> Paul Answered
> Yes, the famous Grafton sax.  Very rare and highly collectible.

Yes, he and Diz were in Canada for a gig and Bird had pawned his metal horn
to buy drugs, so the legend goes. They couldn't come up with a substitute
horn except for that Plastic Grafton. Some good music is heard on the record
of that date, coming out of that horn.

There is an ongoing debate about various material used for horns and how
they affect sound. Studies have been done with clarinets, played behind a
screen, for a jury of expert players who were asked to identify the material
used on the horn they were hearing.

None could accurately identify whether wood, metal, plastic or rubber was
the material of the horn they were hearing  with any consistency.

My hero, Kenny Davern played a plastic, bakelite or rubber Conn made about
1929 frequently in his later years. He sounded just perfect on it. He told
me a few years ago that he used it for most gigs because it was not much
affected by temperature or humidity, as opposed to wood which is.

He also said that horn sound is determined by the mouthpiece, the embouchure
and the column of air one sends through the horn, not the material. His
favorite follow-up was that he could take a Van Doren JB5 mouthpiece with a
4 & 1/2 V12 reed, attach it to a garden hose and make it sound like a
clarinet. 

I would not be surprised if most clarinets sold today are material other
than wood, believing that most learner models are some form of plastic.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone