Herb Couf (February 15,1920 – July 8, 2011) was a professional clarinet and saxophone player. He played with many groups including the Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore symphony orchestras.
How H. Couf saxophones came to be
While on tour in 1967 with the Detroit Symphony, Couf stopped at a music store on 48th Street in New York to buy reeds. While there, the shop owner asked Couf to try a particular saxophone. Although he did find the horn quite remarkable, since he wasn’t in the market for a new sax he didn’t follow up on the instrument.
The saxophone in question was a Selmer Bundy tenor that Keilwerth had been providing for Selmer USA since the 1950s. This US-sold student model horn was basically JK’s The New King, which was a joint effort between then-partners D&J and JK. 1
In the mid 1960s, after Herb Couf retired from his performing career, he opened a music store in Royal Oak, Michigan. It didn’t take him long to get frustrated by the ever-worsening quality of American, student model saxophones. He then remembered the Keilwerth-made Bundy that he play-tested in New York.
Couf contacted an intermediary with Keilwerth in Detroit, and was invited to Germany. It was only a few weeks later that Herb Couf became North America’s exclusive importer of German Keilwerth saxophones, which he could sell under any names he chose.
A Keilwerth by any other name, but with mods
While on his initial trip to Germany, Couf already provided several suggestions for modifications to JK saxophones to make them more interesting to the American market. Such modifications as: somewhat different tone holes for the left palm keys, larger key touches, and an alteration to the key guards. The tone holes were made larger for the American market, so students could get accurate intonation in the upper notes with the same applied pressure as they did on the rest of the horn’s range.
Shortly thereafter the first instrument with the Couf logo were released and sent to Royal Oak. The H. Couf saxophone was born.
In August 2005 Herb Couf provided the following information to Warren Weise 2 :
There were three levels of H. Couf saxophones; Superba I, the professional line…. Superba II the intermediate line with many of the same features as the Superba I…and the Royalist, the student line.
Did everyone catch this? Herb Couf considered the Superba II an intermediate model horn. This makes sense, because JK had historically considered The New King a non-pro horn, despite it being identical to the pro model Toneking in every regards sans a high F key.
How the Keilwerth-related horns looked at the time
With the model re-jigging, and changes in their features, the Toneking became JK’s intermediate horn during the 70s and 80s, with the Toneking Special now being considered JK’s pro model. This of course bumped the The New King into the lowly student level spot.3
JK Toneking Special – their pro model
JK Toneking – their intermediate model
JK The New King – their student model
Why you find Superba II saxophones as early as the 1960s
Given all this information, it makes sense you can find Superba II horns as early as the 1960s. Regardless of might you might read in online threads in sax discussion boards, it wasn’t a successor to the I. The two models were built concurrently, and were very similar in many respects.
What were the differences between the Superba I and II?
In the fall of 2018, when I first started researching the H. Couf brand, there was very little research on this Keilwerth stencil available. Most of what was written online was pure conjecture and fiction.
The notable exception was the work of my colleagues Pete Hales and Steve Sklar. Steve in particular—because of his personal connection with both the store, and the the man himself—had been researching Herb Couf saxophones for a while, and had published some of his findings on his own former website.
During my 5+ years of data collection of H. Couf saxophones, I discovered some very interesting differences between the Superba I & II models. However, just how much these two models differed depended on a number of variables including:
- Which type of horn (SATB or BB) is being compared.
- When in the Couf production cycle an individual horn was made.
In the course of my online travels, I came across an undated brochure titled: H. Couf saxophones. The New Standard of Excellence from Soprano to Baritone in three price ranges. This is how Royal Music Products described the Superba I & II:
The simple is fact is this: Even though Herb Couf might have considered the Superba II an “intermediate” model, that does not mean it was inferior, or not up to pro standards.
The Superba II were built to the same level of precision that their Superba I cousins were. All intermediate means in this case, is that a few minor things were different. At its core, a Superba II is still a high-quality, German-made, Keilwerth saxophone. To this day it will hold its own against its French and American contemporaries. Full stop.
Although I have included samples of the various Superba I & II horns in these Couf history pages, each voice of horn has its own dedicated pages where they are compared/contrasted in minute detail, and illustrated in superb colour photos.
Soprano Alto Tenor Baritone Bass
I want to thank Brian at Get A Sax, Paul from PM Woodwind, Roberto from Robertos Winds, Mark from USA Horn, as well as Chadd from World Wide Sax, for allowing me to use their images throughout all these H. Couf saxophone pages. Beautiful images are vital to illustrating the beautiful horns that Herb Couf helped the Julius Keilwerth Company design.
H. Couf saxophones by the numbers
There were approximately 600-700 instruments assembled annually at the JK factory in Germany for H. Couf. A further 300-400 saxophones were sent unassembled in pieces to the US. This procedure was necessary because Keilwerth did not have the capacity to deliver the requested number fully assembled.
The assembly in the US was managed by Mel Webster, who had been enticed over from Selmer.
Between 1966-1987 approximately 1,000 saxophones were imported annually from Keilwerth assembled or in pieces. Therefore if you do the math, 21 years X 1,000 per year = 21,000 H. Couf branded horns (approximately) have been distributed in North America. Of those, approximately 30-35% are altos, 30-35% tenors, 15% sopranos, 15% baritones, as well as a very few bass saxophones. According to Gerhard Keilwerth, these totals represented approximately 60-70% of the total saxophones produced by Keilwerth during those years.4
Saxophones weren’t the only things that H. Couf brought in from Keilwerth
It was circa 1975, that Keilwerth trumpets were imported. I have seen both Superba I and II versions that came from Germany. The Royalist models that I have come across appear to all be American in origin. (I am totally open to being corrected on this. If a trumpet player/owner of a Couf Royalist wants to provide me photos of a German-made Royalist, please send them to me via email. Thanks!)
Superba I trumpet
Superba 2 trumpet
Trombones, Clarinets, & MPs
Couf also sold trombones, clarinets, as well as mouthpieces bearing his name. The few trombones I have seen are all Royalist models and were made in the US. If anyone coming across this page has a Superba I or II trombone, please send me some photos. Thank you.
The only H. Couf clarinets I have seen were Royalist models, had ebonite bodies, and were supposedly made by Artley. Again, if anyone has something of German origin, drop me a note along with photos. Thanks!
MPs
With regards to H. Couf mouthpieces, of the saxophone mouthpieces, most were reportedly made by German mouthpiece manufacturer Zinner. (Runyon made some slimline soprano ones that were almost identical to the Custom.) Presumably the clarinet H. Couf MPs were Zinner products as well.
In November 2018, I reached out to Zinner via email to see if they would be able to confirm that they were indeed the makers of the H. Couf mouthpieces, but unfortunately I received the following reply:
Dear business partners,
after many years being part of the clarinet and saxophone mouthpiece business we decided to close our factory on June 30, 2018.
Thank you for your understanding.
Best regards,
Hans Zinner
Hans Zinner GmbH & Co, KG
Zinner mouthpieces handcrafted in Germany
Isn’t that depressing? However, that’s a whole other website article.
Marketing 101: create a want or desire
Herb Couf’s marketing strategy for selling his horns was very energy intensive—but extremely successful. Remember this was all pre-Internet, and influencers were actual people with skills, not just people with followers.
Herb Couf visited all the big cities in the US and Canada and turned to the top players and sax teachers and had them playtest his horns. During the playtest Couf employed a very specific strategy: First he would hand the player one of his Couf horns to try out. Only after that playtest, would the player be able to try his own instrument in comparison. Most players were no longer satisfied with their own instrument after the playtest. The first step was a success.
The success of the Couf saxophones was therefore largely based on extremely good word of mouth, although supporting ads—such as those in Down Beat Magazine—were also used.
Little by little Couf found endorsers for his horns, who played exclusively with his saxophones. Those included: Grover Washington Jr., Dave Liebman, Ernie Watts, the New York Saxophone Quartet, as well as the sax section of the Stan Kenton Orchestra.
1 As explained on the Dörfler & Jörka page, JK sent their body tubes to D&J who then attached their key work to the horns. The horns were then sent back to JK for final assembly.
2 Saxophone: Ein Kompendium, Uwe Ladwig. Fifth Edition, 2017. p. 66
3 JK-Nauheim page on this website
4 Saxophone: Ein Kompendium, Uwe Ladwig. Fifth Edition, 2017. p. 66
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