Blindfolded and Horny

Clifton must live vicariously through the pleasure others get from going shopping for musical instruments. He always seems enthusiastically down for the pursuit of new and interesting and good sounding instruments. Hell, last year he drove Stefan all the way to Indiana to buy a horn. It was a bass sax and that’s a pretty special and mammoth thing. Today we just went shopping for a trumpet. A proportionally much shorter trip was required.

Clifton called me the other day and sad he had a system for this kind of thing. I was expecting him to have an eBay strategy or maybe he had some contacts that would be helpful. In fact, his strategy required a blindfold and two people. In essence I would be blindfolded and he would just keep handing me horns keeping track of my reactions.

But why did I need a horn in the first place? I have been playng the same model – a Bach Strad – since my dad first bought me a used one to replace my student Holton when I was thirteen. A few years ago, I had some money saved up and went to Sam Ash and tried a whole bunch of horns and settled on the exact same make and model. It just felt right and for the music I was doing at the time it was the right choice.

A few months ago I was at Cassidy’s place and his roommate had an old horn in the corner. I asked to try it and sounded great: warm, huge and it got easier and louder as I started playing the highest notes. Eventually I worked out a trade and I exchanged my back-up Bach (a pro always needs a back-up) for this vintage looking horn. It was so tarnished that it was making my hands black when I picked it up. I polished it and it looked a lot less vintage: gleaming silver, a Connstellation Pro was the model name from the Conn factory. It turns out it was made in the early nineties. Whatever, it sounded great. A one point I did a show with a free jazz orchestra (see here) and this trumpet soared louder and higher than any other trumpet on stage. Now, I’m generally not that guy, but with this Connstellation I was happy to step into that roll for a change. With Tin Pan, the horn had a huge sound for outdoors and was easy to play. It blended a lot better with Stefan’s enormous sound.

I was playing that gem for about three months when I get a call from Cassidy’s roommate saying that the horn needed to come home. The time away had made the roommate become aware just how much sentimental value it had. Of course I resisted at first even offering a whole mess of cash to make the trade complete and final. I even mentioned that according to the market value the horn I had given her was nearly twice that of the Conn. No dice.

That same day I took my good Bach out of its case. Before I put any breath into it I just held it my hands. I pressed the first valve down and the spring inside the valve kicked off a sensual electric hum all throughout the trumpet. That one spring vibrated for a good twenty seconds. This horn just felt great: solid, clean, precise, strong, like a light saber or a laser beam.

All that is well and good and I do love my Bach Strad. But for Tin Pan I was needing that other sound. Darker, rounder, more gravy, dirtier, with a side of pudding. Also thicker and louder with a wallop!

And that’s why I was on the hunt with Clifton sitting in a tiny room with a blindfold on my eyes.

For horn after horn I would stretch out my hand, fumble for the correct alignment and put the horn to my lips and give it a shot. Clifton seemed to be taking some delight in handing me the trumpets in any old way: sometimes with the bell towards me, sometimes upside down. I felt like a marine who has to learn how to assemble his gun by feel alone.

Certain horns were discarded immediately. The feel of the horn in my hands or the feel of the breath through the horn made me immediately aware of poor workmanship or defects in tuning. Of course the valves were a give away. If they were clunky or noisy or slow there was no choice it would make it to the next round. Other horns just felt terrific but were not giving me the rich sound that I wanted. Sometimes I would confer with Clifton, “This one feels great but its too bright sounding. You?” “Yep.”

One horn had these knobby valve keys that felt very slippery on my hands. They were rather small (an indication of an old vintage horn) on my fingers. I blew through it and had an immediate negative reaction. Clifton asked me to check it again. It turned out it was a very old Martin Committee – one of the “Holy Grail” trumpets. I didn’t like it. If this was a great make and a great year it was probably a factory lemon. About thirty horns later he handed me another Martin Committee (I could tell from the feel of the valves) and this one felt a lot better but it still was not my thing.

Clifton told me later that he secretly had hoped that I would pick a student Holton or a bright red lacquered, cheesy looking Martin (circa Miles Davis Doo-Bop period). He had hoped that I would be like, “That’s my sound!!” and then be delighted or disgusted that it was a jive piece of metal.

Other horns just felt terrific. After about an hour I needed a break and after about an hour and a half I had gone through all the horns in the shop and there we 16 that were possibles. When I walked out of the practice room I noticed them sitting on a bench but Clifton did not let me get too close to see what was there.

The whole experience so far left me with a much deeper sensitivity to feel and sound than I would have had otherwise. I began to be able to distinguish a whole other set of characteristics than I would have been able to had I been using my eyes as well.

After a little break we recommenced but this time out in the bigger display room as some of the horns would sound different in a larger space. It was a good idea. Certain horns, one Conn in particular, sounded great in the small room but were kind of flabby or mushy in a larger room where the reflections of the walls were not so immediate. At this stage I was holding the valve part of the horn up to my ears and pressing the valves to hear the hum of the springs inside the valve casing. There is a subtle and exciting whirr to a very well made horn that feels like live electricity, a pulsating potential of energy latent inside the horn.

Eventually there were just four horns left and then finally Clifton let me take the blindfold off and see what I was dealing with. The four horns came in two pairs: A vintage Conn not so different than the one that this girl had lent me for the last few months and the modern Conn that was a redo of that vintage one. Also there was a Bach Mt. Vernon (another sought after horn) and the modern replica of the old one. From looking at them, the new Bach was the most delightful on the eyes and the Mt. Vernon just looked like a dog. It had a horrible yellowish, thick re-lacquer on it. I never would have picked it with my eyes but there it was.

The old Conn was good too but in this case the new Conn played slightly better. I knew that I was going to trade in my back-up Silver Bach for whatever new horn I was going to purchase but Clifton suggested that I trade in both of my Bachs for the new Conn and the older Mt. Vernon. I didn’t think this was such a good idea but Clifton went back out to the car and brought in my wonderful silver Bach. I picked up for a second and knew immediately that getting rid of it was a big mistake.

The moment of truth… I went for the vintage Bach Mt. Vernon. An ugly mutt of a horn to look at. Some replacement parts had been poorly soldered to it over the years. The horn itself was very sound and played great. I knew that all I had to do was get the lacquer taken off and eventually the natural brass look of it would be acceptable. At one point, I was waffling about the newer Bach because it just looked so damn cool. There was an old timer Cornet player in the room with us at that moment and he told me that I would be an idiot to base my decision on how the horn looked. He gave me a look that was so demeaning to that line of thought! “Are you a fool?!”

And there you have it. Bach Mt. Vernon #22652 circa 1962. I’ve been playing it for about three weeks. I wanted to schedule an appointment with Josh Landress over at Sam Ash to strip the lacquer off the thing right away. Frustratingly, they had just moved buildings and I would have to wait three weeks for his new shop to be set up. Regardless, the horn sounds great on the street. It is similar to my silver Bach in the way it handles and feels but its tone is richer, darker and has a rougher textrure some how. It just feels older and more unique. It’s got a character and a sound that it is all its own. The silver Bach I have certainly sounds like me when I play it, but its got a versatility that would make it useful for classical or latin as well. This Mt. Vernon just feels right for Tin Pan music.

I finally made it over to Josh’s workshop today and he stripped the lacquer off the horn. I was expecting it to look immediately old and awesome. In fact, it looks even worse; more yellow and more shiny! The actual color of raw brass. I was assured, however, that because there is no lacquer or any kind of protection on it, it would begin to soften and darken in color and become more and more “antique” looking. Josh even suggested that if I ate more meat it would make my sweat more acidic and the result would be a darker horn. Whatever, I’m just going to my thing and see how it progresses. Here’s a picture of the horn the way it looks today. In a few weeks I will post another photo to show how it is changing over time. Even though I was a little disappointed when I picked it up from the shop today I am excited by the process part of this – how the look will change and develop over time.