This morning, while looking for something totally unrelated, I happened across an interesting blog article written by Marc Myers, for his blog JazzWax.
In Sonny Stitt: Varitone Redux, Myers notes the 13, yes, you read that right, 13 albums on which Sonny Stitt used a Selmer Varitone. However, in introducing the Selmer Varitone saxophone, Myers isn’t all that kind to Selmer’s electrification of Adolph Sax’s most famous invention.
Myers writes:
[T]he Varitone’s sound wasn’t that electric sounding nor was it anything like the electronic hookups that would be attached to trumpets in later years to make them sound like piercing guitars. Instead, the Varitone merely made the saxophone sound as if it had swallowed a kazoo.
Source: tcgakki.com
A kazoo? Really? I guess he hadn’t heard this demonstration video of a 1965 Selmer Varitone, by Kunikazu Tanaka.
Now this particular Mark VI Varitone is located in Japan. If you can read Japanese, you’ll have no trouble with the following pages. However, if you’re like me, you’ll have to rely on Google translate, or some other translation program to find out what they’re talking about. 😉
You’ll notice that at the very end of second page there is a rehearsal song as well. (The demo song is the same as the embedded YouTube video above.) In some ways this rehearsal is more interesting than the actual demonstration track.
Although I’m not hearing too many kazoo-type sounds, I am hearing a great many interesting effects that are very warm-sounding, compared to what today’s effects units will produce.
In any event, if you are a fan of the Varitone, or are just interested in exploring some early, electronic effect-infused saxophone sounds, then Marc Myers’ Sonny Stitt: Varitone Redux, is definitely worth a read.
