{"id":98924,"date":"2020-06-05T09:24:04","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T13:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/?p=98924"},"modified":"2023-08-16T22:35:26","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T02:35:26","slug":"whoa-michael-brecker-performing-on-a-hard-rubber-tenor-saxophone-mouthpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/whoa-michael-brecker-performing-on-a-hard-rubber-tenor-saxophone-mouthpiece\/","title":{"rendered":"Whoa!! Michael Brecker Performing on a Hard Rubber Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece!!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I wanted to share this interesting video I found on Facebook this morning that was shared by Louis Gerrits who runs the website <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelbreckerliverecordings.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">michaelbreckerliverecordings.com<\/a> which is a website dedicated to the great tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker who passed away in 2007. <em>*Louis was also kind enough to share the Michael Brecker photos in this article with me.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There are thousands of Michael Brecker videos floating around the internet but what makes this one so interesting to me is that it is the only one I have seen of Michael Brecker playing a hard rubber tenor sax mouthpiece during a live performance.<\/p>\n<p>Michael is reported to have played a hard rubber &#8220;Early Babbitt&#8221; 8* Otto Link refaced by Frank Wells on his CD &#8220;The Nearness of You: The Ballad Book&#8221; which he borrowed from Dino Govoni in 2000.\u00a0 The Nearness of You was recorded in December of 2000 and this video is from July of 2000 so I wonder if this is the same Otto Link 8* Early Babbitt tenor mouthpiece that Brecker recorded his &#8220;Nearness of You&#8221; CD with?\u00a0 Maybe he is testing it out and getting used to it?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2020\/BreckerLink3.jpg\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2020\/BreckerLink3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Michael Brecker Playing Hard Rubber Mouthpiece (Nice, France 2000)-Does anyone else see two lines on the shank of this mouthpiece when looking at it closeup?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>*After I posted this article, Dino let me know that Michael borrowed his Early Babbitt 8* Link refaced by Frank Wells in 2000 sometime and had it for about six years.\u00a0 He told Dino he used it on the Ballads album and even thanked Dino Govoni in the liner notes (he accidentally misspelled his last name).\u00a0 He returned the mouthpiece to Dino 11 days before he passed away&#8230;&#8230;..<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yweB7NNnn7Y\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As I am a person that is quite interested in sax mouthpieces (as you can tell from this website), I am very interested in this video.\u00a0 To my ear, there is an obvious difference in sound between this live video of Michael Brecker playing a hard rubber tenor sax mouthpiece and his sound and tone on his usual Guardala tenor saxophone mouthpiece.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2020\/BreckerLInk4.jpg\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2020\/BreckerLInk4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Michael Brecker with Pat Metheny (Photo from Youtube Concert)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I hear the Early Babbitt as having a darker tone that seems to boost the mid frequencies more than his brighter Guardala tenor sax mouthpiece. The tone also sounds warmer, fatter and more spread than the more focused Guardala mouthpiece tone usually does.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, I do not hear as wide a variation in volume on the hard rubber Early Babbitt mouthpiece as I do on his usual Guardala tenor saxophone mouthpiece.\u00a0 The Guardala seems to go from volume 1-13 and the hard rubber Otto Link seems to go from 1-8 in my opinion.\u00a0 I also find the Guardala to sound thinner, brighter and edgier up in the altissimo at louder volumes whereas the hard rubber Otto Link Early Babbitt mouthpiece seems thicker and fuller to my ear.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2020\/BreckerLink5.jpg\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2020\/BreckerLink5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Michael Brecker Playing Hard Rubber Mouthpiece (Nice, France 2000)-Does anyone else see two lines on the shank of this mouthpiece when looking at it closeup?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2020\/Brecker-TwoLines.png\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2020\/Brecker-TwoLines.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Closeup of Michael Brecker Playing Hard Rubber Mouthpiece (Nice, France 2000)-Does anyone else see two lines on the shank of this mouthpiece when looking at it closeup?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Whether this is actually Dino Govoni&#8217;s Otto Link 8* Early Babbitt saxophone mouthpiece and not another hard rubber saxophone mouthpiece is yet to be proven but since it is around the time that &#8220;The Nearness of You&#8221; was recorded,\u00a0 it seems likely that it might be.\u00a0 \u00a0As I am a huge Michael Brecker fan and someone who is obsessed with saxophone mouthpieces, this video is extremely interesting to me.\u00a0 Let me know what you think in the comments below&#8230;&#8230;.\u00a0 \u00a0 Steve<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wanted to share this interesting video I found on Facebook this morning that was shared by Louis Gerrits who runs the website michaelbreckerliverecordings.com which is a website dedicated to the great tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker who passed away in 2007. *Louis was also kind enough to share the Michael Brecker photos in this article [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":98928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[244,50],"tags":[335,129,35,156,239,155,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-98924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jazz-videos","8":"category-saxophone-stuff","9":"tag-guardala","10":"tag-hard-rubber","11":"tag-michael-brecker","12":"tag-otto-link","13":"tag-saxophone-mouthpiece","14":"tag-slant-signature","15":"tag-tenor-sax","16":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}