Olds Super + an Original Tenor by Claude Lakey

Well my Olds Super has a new mouthpiece that allows me to not only play in tune over the horn’s entire range, but allows me to use ANY kind of reed—yes, including my favourite Légère Signature Series.

What am I using? A Claude Lakey Original Tenor 5*3, along with the Rovner lig that I ordered with it. Now before all you haters start rolling your eyes, I think you need to stop for a few minutes and finish reading this article.

I play in a big band called The Moonliters. The 1st chair tenor player is without a doubt the finest tenor player I have ever had the pleasure to sit beside.

Mark Kowalenko is a recently retired music teacher and professional musician. While teaching, his bands won more awards in festivals than all others combined—and also regularly beat out the big American bands who came to perform in Canada.

Mark’s playing is remarkable in many regards. His improvisation is inspirational; his volume is insanely huge when he pushes it; and the lush, rich subtones emanating from his Mark VI are very much what I get with my Dukoffs. The mouthpiece that he uses to achieve all of this is none other than an Original Tenor mouthpiece by Claude Lakey that he has had since the 1970s.

An accidental pairing unlocked the mouthpiece code of the Olds Super

After I got the Olds back from its restoration, I brought it to a rehearsal, and both Mark and Colin—the other tenor player who also happens to play an Original Tenor Lakey MP—tried my horn. I mentioned to Mark while he was putting the Olds together: “Good luck getting it to play in tune, I haven’t cracked the mouthpiece code yet.” (By this point I had already tried 20+ mouthpieces on the sax, but none worked 100% correctly.)

From the minute Mark put his Lakey MP on the Olds, the horn played beautifully for him. The horn played evenly across its entire range; the intonation was within acceptable saxophone limits; the tone was beautiful; and the volume, it was vibrated everything in our rehearsal space when pushed. Mark loved the horn so much, he ended up playing the sax for half the rehearsal.

Colin then played it for the second hour of The Moonliters rehearsal with similar results. Both men had not intonation issues, and the horn played amazingly for them.

But why do Claude Lakey mouthpieces work on the Olds?

The quest was now on for me. I did some research into Lakey mouthpieces to discover what it was about these pieces that made them play so nicely with the Olds. After reading a bunch of crap about them on places like SOTW—Seriously, who are you people, and what kind of skills do you actually have under your belt that gives you such a voice of “authority”? Just saying.—I went to the company’s website, and found the likely answer on their Legacy page.

Claude Lakey was a multi-instrumentalist who played in many of the big bands of the day. Among the orchestras he performed with, he worked with Glenn Miller and Harry James. After a stint in the military, and attendance at North Texas State University to pursue more music education, Lakey and his wife started a music store in the early 1950s. Then in 1955, Claude Lakey began working on the concept for the Original Claude Lakey Mouthpiece.

As a player himself, Claude knew what he wanted out of the ideal mouthpiece, he just needed to create it. At the beginning of this process, he purchased blanks from a variety of manufacturers, tested different facings, chamber sizes, but wasn’t completely satisfied with the sound. So he created his own moulds. During this period, Claude made dozens of prototypes. Testing out different sizing, and tinkering with a piece while honing his skills and learning what a difference in sound each refinement created. The music industry was abuzz with new genres of music taking over the scene.

Rock n’ Roll bands and pop music had taken over airwaves, and as these distant derivatives of jazz became prevalent, and the rise of hippie and counterculture youth created the demand for it, saxophones began to be used in a different context. Rock bands featured saxophone blaring above the noise of amplified instruments, powerful solos bridging the new era of music with its swinging predecessor. Claude recognized the way the industry was changing, and in crafting his Original mouthpiece, knew that working musicians needed complete diversity in genre to suit any gig they might play.

Marking his confidence and commitment to the crafting of his ideal piece, Claude sold C&D Music Company to make more time for his new venture. He opened his first mouthpiece shop in the corner of the C&D music store. As professional musicians wandered through C&D for gear, Claude would ask them to try out his mouthpiece. As more and more musicians fell in love with his Original Mouthpiece, word spread quickly through the music community.

Then from the Original Tenor page

The Original Tenor showcases the classic Lakey bright sound. Handcrafted for quality, this staple member of our Originals collection was designed by Claude himself to help players reach new highs and lows on their Tenor. The innovation poured into this piece pioneered a better Jazz mouthpiece that can give you a great range with lots of freedom.

While traditionally Lakey pieces have been known for their work in Jazz ensembles, [emphasis added] that’s not the only genre where you can find this piece useful. The Original Tenor sounds great in rock, funk, or house music settings as well. The bright, crisp sound can be heard cutting through an ensemble, or blending in to a small section. The versatility and control you have with the Original Tenor is astounding, [emphasis added] and you will soon find it is your favorite piece to play in multiple settings.

The way I read this, coming from a big band background where section work was paramount, Claude Lakey designed a mouthpiece that combined together all the elements that players might need: the ability to blend; project; have an edge to their tone when necessary; and yes, even the ability to produce a rich, lush subtone.

Original Tenor MP by Claude Lakey Source: claudelakey.com

Original Tenor MP by Claude Lakey and Rovner dark ligature Source: claudelakey.com

These Lakey MPs take a while to get used to. This is especially true when it comes to producing the rich, lush subtone like those that I get from my Dukoff.

However, when I started playing my Dukoff, IIRC, it took me a few months to truly understand the piece and get the most out of it. These Lakeys are no different. They are a complex piece of saxophone equipment that have a learning curve. I suspect this is why people who don’t know what the pieces can actually do, and haven’t put the time into them, trash talk them. These are not a slap them on the horn and play kind of piece.

Getting back to the Olds Super

There is something that is fundamentally different about the Claude Lakey pieces that allows them to play “nice” on the Olds Super. But what is it?

Why does this piece work, when 20+ others don’t?

Now I suck at physics, but it strikes me that the answer has to lay in the MP’s chamber, and the way (shape?) the column of air takes on as it is forced from it through the throat and into the large bore, and finally into the saxophone itself.

Despite me being a physics moron, I am going to attempt to understand what it is about the Lakey MPs that work. In order to do that, I have reached out to the Claude Lakey company, and plan to write an article about their mouthpieces in the coming weeks. I am interested in what they have—or don’t—that makes them different from other saxophone mouthpieces.

Combined with reeds, saxophone mouthpieces are the most personal aspect of your sound. We all know—or should at least—that just because so and so plays mouthpiece X and sounded like A, if we buy the same mouthpiece we might very well sound nothing like A.

Our personal sound begins with our own anatomy, and is shaped by the MP & reed, neck, and finally horn choices—in that order. This is a message I instill in my students from the get.

That said, it is true that certain horns prefer certain kinds of mouthpieces and/or reeds. I figure that by researching the Lakey pieces, perhaps I will gain a wee bit of understanding of this phenomena.

The other thing that might be influencing my mouthpiece options on the Olds Super is my resonator choice. I went with oversized sterling silver Reso-Tech resos for all the keys. When the keys are closed, there is no leather absorbing any sound. The sound wave is entirely deflected by metal. Especially in the bow area this could potentially be problematic for some horns perhaps?

In any event, like I said, I am a physics moron, so this is way above my pay grade. And sadly, since there are so few Olds Super tenors out there—and even fewer in gig-worthy condition—it’s not something my tech or I could discuss with many people. We did our research, but in the end it came down to best guesses and trial and error.

A massive paradigm shift in the way I perceive my tenor sound

I have put a grand total of about 15 to 20 hours into the Claude Lakey piece, and yesterday afternoon I did notice I was coming very close to that rich subtone that I hear from Mark all the time. This is a really good thing, because I have a really important jazz performance with my own jazz group—actually it will be only a grand piano and tenor sax—on April 17 at a museum that I would like to use the Olds for.

What better place to première a museum-quality instrument than in a museum? In order to do that though, I want to be 100% sure and comfortable with my tone and intonation.

However, as my friend (the sax teacher at a local music school) noted, with the Lakey, the Olds has taken on a real Ben Webster kind of tone. Given that when I was young I was inspired by Gato Barbieri, and tend to sound like a mix of him and Boot Randolph in tone, as you can imagine, suddenly playing a set-up that is such a radical departure is rather shocking to my ears. I don’t think I sound like myself… At least not like the self I’ve work to hard to achieve. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just a massive paradigm shift.