This is an old Morgan 6J soprano mouthpiece that a student of mine let me borrow. These were made by the legendary Ralph Morgan. Ralph passed away in 2007 and it was a great loss to the saxophone world. I’ve told this story before but one time I had a Morgan mouthpiece that was refaced by Jon Van Wie. I was complaining that I wasn’t really digging it online and the next thing I know I get an email from Ralph asking to talk to me on the phone. I called him up and he talked to me about mouthpieces and the saxophone for what seemed like an hour. He offered to look at the piece and reface it for free if it needed it. It seemed like he knew the answer to every question I had and he really seemed to enjoy talking about the saxophone and mouthpieces. It was a great experience to be able to talk to him like that.
I really enjoyed playing this mouthpiece. The tone has a nice ring to it. From what I have heard the tip opening of this 6J is a .065. It is very easy to play with a Java 2 1/2 reed. This piece is a lot easier to play in the second register than my SS J. It seems like there is less resistance to it than the Super Session. Maybe it’s just the smaller tip opening. I haven’t seen many of these around lately so if you are lucky enough to stumble upon one give it a try. I’m fiddlin’ around with “On the Sunny Side of the Street” on this clip. Let me know what you think. Steve
About Steve
Wow! Sounds better than any of the soprano pieces I’ve heard on this site yet! Ahh, the work of Mr. Morgan…wonder where a student stumbled on a piece so hard to find O_O
BTW, just out of curiosity, what soprano do you use?
I’ve been using a Selmer Super Super Session J for soprano but I liked that Morgan a lot.
What type of soprano sax do you play? What would you recommend and mouth pice size?
I play a Yamaha YSS-62 Soprano. I like mouthpieces in the .065-.070 range for tip openings. Steve
IS THE MPC CALLED “VINTAGE”TYPE(THE ONLY MORGAN SOPRANO MPC ON WWBW)
I’m not really sure. The person who sent it to me just said it was a Morgan 6J. He didn’t say anything about “vintage”.
This is the soprano piece once made by Ralph Morgan from Riffault HR blanks. The production of this piece stopped when Riffault (France) went out of production. If you contact Erik Greiffenhagen (who is the one running the Ralph Morgan production) at http://mouthpieceguys.com/ I’m quite certain he can make you a piece very close to the Morgan 6J as a custom order.
The Morgan Vintage pieces are also quite good, but different and lower priced products.
FWIW, these are once again available. Moreover, Teresa Hoskins (co-owner of the Morgan Mouthpiece Company) told me that these are identical to the Vintage mouthpieces except for the material (i.e., HR for the Jazz vs synthetic blend for the Vintage).
I’ve tried (and owned) many soprano mouthpieces, but I have yet to find anything that gives me a sound and response comparable to what I get from the Morgan Vintage 7.