While driving down a street past a pawn, I saw an alto saxophone in the window with, what I thought, was an underslung octave mechanism. I pulled over to take a look. I saw it was a lacquered Conn, with nickel-plated keys. Since it was a Sunday, the store was closed. First thing Monday morning I took a mouthpiece and reed and play tested the horn.
I was not prepared for what I would hear. It had an incredibly sweet sound, totally different than my Selmer, Hüttl, or Pierret. It sounded like the quintessential jazz alto from the 1950s, and had a nice even scale, and extremely accurate intonation. The horn had been set up really well by a tech. only a few months earlier, so the old 6M was ready to go. Because of the rather cheap-looking engraving and nickel-plated keys, the store must have thought that they had a student model horn.
What they actually had was one of the last Elkhart-made, Artist Model 6Ms, with the traditional Conn bell-to-body brace and wire key guards. The serial number is H2XXXX, which makes it circa. 1965-6. The price on the horn was what one would expect to pay for an old, beat-up student model sax. This is now the horn I use in a small jazz combo I recently started playing with. My rendition of Take 5 never sounded more authentic.
If you are interested in seeing pictures of this horn, check it out here.
