My Jon Van Wie refaced Super Tone Master Link is the tenor sax mouthpiece that I have played the most over the last 10 years. Jon Van Wie was an incredible mouthpiece refacer (sad to say that he died a number of years ago). I had the good fortune to have him work on a few of my mouthpieces before he died. I actually had him work on a metal link 7* that turned out to be too bright for me. I saw this metal Otto Link 8 on Ebay and snatched it up as fast as I could. This 8 plays with the perfect balance of highs and lows. Jon would reface the mouthpiece but then put this magical baffle into it that made a dull dead link come alive. To this day I haven’t met anyone that can make a baffle like Jon did. The magical thing about this mouthpiece is that you can play a jazz standard on it and sound great and immediately go into a “Respect” solo and sound equally as great. Here’s a sax solo on “Respect”and “I’m Coming Out” . It’s a little rough and not the best recording but you get an idea how the JVW metal link handles in those type of “live” situations. This is my go to gig mouthpiece when I have to play a multitude of styles. Check out this blog post where I posted some of Jon Van Wie’s thoughts on his mouthpiece work.
Respect Solo
I’m Coming Out Solo
This is a vintage Florida link, right?
No, this is a modern link that JVW refaced and put a baffle in. I was actually playing it all day yesterday. Great piece.
Hi Steve
I have a question for a profesional sax- player: What kind of mouthpiece i need for playing smooth jazz or pop or rock music?
What do you recomand? There are a lot of them out there.i get connfuse many times. I play tenor sax. Thanks marius
There are many choices. For tenor sax a common on is the Vandoren metal V16 T75,T77 or T95. They are great for the price and can be found pretty easily. The Laser trimmed guardala are pretty good from WWBW also. Also a great choice is the Ponzol M2. I think my favorite of all of those is the Ponzols. Steve
I gotta say i love all the live clips on here! you should add some more like these because i can honestly listen to them over and over without getting bored haha
and its kinda inspiring to hear, since you sound great in several styles, not just jazz. Hearing some of these clips has deffinitely gotten me started on listening to R&B
great tunes steve