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.
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.
Michael is reported to have played a hard rubber “Slant” on his CD “The Nearness of You: The Ballad Book” which he borrowed from Dino Govoni. 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 Slant Signature tenor mouthpiece that Brecker recorded his “Nearness of You” CD with? Maybe he is testing it out and getting used to it?
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. 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.
I hear the Slant 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.
Lastly, I do not hear as wide a variation in volume on the hard rubber Slant mouthpiece as I do on his usual Guardala tenor saxophone mouthpiece. The Guardala seems to go from volume 1-13 and the hard rubber Otto Link seems to go from 1-8 in my opinion. I also find the Guardala to sound thinner, brighter and edgier up in the altissimo at louder volumes whereas the hard rubber Otto Link Slant mouthpiece seems thicker and fuller to my ear.
Whether this is actually Dino Govoni’s Otto Link Slant Signature saxophone mouthpiece and not another hard rubber saxophone mouthpiece is yet to be proven but since it is around the time that “The Nearness of You” was recorded, it seems likely that it might be. As I am a huge Michael Brecker fan and someone who is obsessed with saxophone mouthpieces, this video is extremely interesting to me. Let me know what you think in the comments below……. Steve
