Okay, so obviously I finally found a hard case for my ’24 Buescher bass saxophone that I purchased last month. The sax in the picture is not my silver-plated beauty. It came in a gig bag (canvas) complete with a smashed tone hole, leaking key pads, and a munged octave mechanism (as reported earlier in this blog).

I’ve been looking for a case for this beastie and was having no luck at all. The usual suspects don’t make the cases anymore–there just wasn’t enough demand. So imagine my surprise when Lee Mason, a dealer from Oregon and compatriot from the Bass Sax Coop (a Yahoo forum) wrote to say he could get these!

Next week I’m gonna have Paul Woltz add a spit valve, shorten the neck, and tweak the E2 and C note productions. Then in less than a month I should have a SaxRax to hold my bass sax for home and my gigs.

That’s a lot of extra money to tweak, protect, and hold the instrument, but I figure this is a labor of love for an instrument that I will have the rest of my life.

My search for the mouthpiece for this beastie is still on going. I have a very nice Runyon Custom that Paul Coats has tweaked. I also have a new Vandoran and an original plubber (taint just plastic or rubber) piece that is unmarked. But last night after doing more research online I tried a baritone Otto Link Tone Master #5 (metal) and the bass sax is sooo much easier to play, taking less air and eliminating some weak note problems. 

I have a number of sax quintet music arrangements by Paul Coats that call for a bass sax. And the director of the Woodinville Jazz Ensemble sez he has some arrangement for our big band. So I should have some stuff to work on for the foreseeable future. I’ve got to say, it took me over six months to slay the soprano sax, even longer on the tenor sax (I started on alto sax) and the bass sax looks like it will not be as difficult. I should have known as the bari sax transition was a pick it up and love it experience three years ago.