[Dixielandjazz] In Defense of Euphoniums

[Kay Spencer]

Dave,
   
  If you are in doubt that Cell Block 7 were really playing double-bells, you can examine them in the Big Bear Stomp youtube video that Bob Romans just posted.  Cell Block is not playing the instuments in this particular video, but have them all neatly laid out in the foreground ready to go....
   
  Kay in Gilroy
   
  

dhs2 at peoplepc.com wrote:
  Dear Listers:

Tom Wiggins wrote:

That might all well be true, but I heard listmate Bob Romans' band play
a lovely tune today with three of the buggers, and it was indeed very
nice, however they also featured their reed player Pete Main on a
Sarusaphone solo that has to be the gawd auwfullest sounding instrument
I have heard in a long time. Not Pete's playing but the sound of the
instrument which must have been the early prototype for a Bari sax. At
any case it is a good thing it never caught on big :)) Sounded like a
Kazoo on Steroids :))

=========================================

Bob Romans may wish to enlighten us, but I would be willing to bet that his
three players were a) playing regular euphoniums, or b) playing
double-belled euphoniums using the big bells. Careful readers of this list
may recall that I have previously identified the euphonium as a valid jazz
instrument, capable of producing a very pretty sound. I suspect that a good
sound can be produced from the smaller bell of a double-belled euphonium, if
one went to Yamaha, Willson, Besson or one of the other top euphomium
builders and special-ordered a professional-grade horn with a second bell.
A really good euphonium costs $2500 - 6000 as it is, never mind the expense
associated with the additional architecture.

I am not sure my desire for novelty runs that deep. In the meantime, the
older double-belled euphoniums have all of the charm and pitfalls of older
brass instruments. Instrument manufacture has come a long way in the last
50 years, especially in conical brass instruments.

Regards,
Dave Stoddard
Round Rock, TX


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