Always more projects than time, we went to see Paul Woltz at Kennelly Keys again. This time he shortened the bass sax neck 3/4ths of an inch, put a shim in to reduce the inside diameter of the neck to the original size, and recorked the neck. The horn is no longer terminally flat and I have an inch of cork to work with if I need to get seriously sharper than normal.

Then he turned to the missing spit valve and put an Amati trumpet valve on the horn. He drilled the hole, wired it on, and then soldered it on. There is no lip inside the neck and I can with one finger, press the valve while playing if necessary. It is very nice.

In the picture you can see he picked a silver one to match my horn’s finish. It now looks like it has always been there. And it would take a major whap to break it off and it is very repairable if necessary. I do need to remember to oil it with 30 weight, non detergent motor oil on occasion and make sure the inside is kept relatively clean to keep this action working.

Finally, today my shaped bass sax traveling case came.  This would only be used to take the sax to places where the instrument might be on a bus or plane. Lee Mason, aka licorice-stick on eBay, owner of a custom music store based in Oregon, found it for me and I am very happy, as is my cat Thelonius.

I would recommend packing extra padding if this case will be handled by others and I’m going to stencil the outside on both sides to say, "The Bis Key Quartet" and then in small letters, "Fragile". A friend of mine says that protection offered by the warning assumes that people know how to read which isn’t always true. What do you think? Should I do the stencil in bright yellow paint? At least it would then be very visible. I really don’t want anyone to mistake the case for a park bench because it is about that big!

I was going to start a new post extolling the virtues of the Conn Eagle bass sax mouthpiece, but I decided just to add to this one. When I got my bass sax it came with a Runyon 88 that had been reworked by Paul Coats with a baffle added. At first that was my favorite piece.

But after reading a little on the Bass Coop, I tried a bari sax Otto Link Super Tone Master that I was happy with for a few weeks. Both of these pieces needed the high D palm key to get the D2 to speak.

The second mouthpiece that came with the horn was a vintage piece that said ‘Slick Anderson’ on it. Turns out it is an exact copy of the Conn Eagle pickle barrel mouthpiece. Both of these pieces play the best for me now. And I no longer need to do alternate fingering to get the full scale to speak. Even the notorously stuffy Eb2 and E2 are fine.

If you are trying to find a great bass sax mouthpiece, I’d recommend the Conn Eagle with a Fibercell medium soft reed.