Well if you’re anything like me, you’ll likely want one of both. 💡 It just seems to me that having both a low A and a low Bb baritone saxophone makes logical sense…OK, so you can really see that I’m not a minimalist in any way, right? 😯
My low Bb Mark VI is a great old horn. What it lacks for in cosmetics (it suffers from a rather ugly relac job), it more than makes up for in sound. I have heard a lot of Mark VI baris, and few have had the sound quality that this bad boy has. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a relac (but that’s a discussion for another day), because of the horn itself, the set up, or perhaps a combination of all of the above, but whatever it is, this horn can hold it’s own against any of the vintage baris (Conn, Martin, King, etc) that we hear about, that ostensibly are able to blow the VIs away with their power, tone, edge, brilliance, etc.
A few years ago I was playing baritone in a sax quintet. A number of our arrangements had the occasional low A peppered throughout the score. I talked to my friend Paul Coats about it, because he had told me that he had experimented with making a low A extension for low Bb baris. He sent me the directions, and I made one that solved all my low A woes. This 6″ piece of plastic pipe worked great ❗ Paul gave me permission to publish his directions on my website, and over the years I’ve received a number of emails from players, some very famous, some not at all, who have used this cheap fix to allow them to keep playing their cherished baris.
If you’re a SOTW reader, you’re familiar with the acronym “GAS” that was coined there. GAS stands for gear acquisition syndrome, and refers to the (sometimes) irrational need for musicians to acquire more and more gear. Sort of the musician’s equivalent of “whoever dies with the most toys wins”. Well, in 2004, GAS took hold of me (while I was doing a stint playing bari in an R&B band), and I decided that I should get a low A bari as a back-up horn. Because this was going to be a back-up horn only, I really couldn’t justify buying another Selmer VI, low A flavored this time, as a “back up”.
Because I love vintage horns, my choices for low A horns was fairly limited. The Martin Magna (rare as hen’s teeth) would be the one I might have been the most interested in, but the chances of finding one would have been slim. And since I would really have wanted to try it before I bought it, the chances would have gone down from slim to none. So, knowing that I would most likely have to move out of my vintage saxophone comfort zone into the realm of the unknown (to me anyway) modern pro or maybe intermediate horn, I started doing research into the modern pro and intermediate brands.
I read, and I read, and then I read some more about the different brands A trough Z. Then I went to a couple of the big stores in Vancouver and tried some of those A through Z brands and thought: Wow…I wouldn’t give my low Bb Mark VI up for any of them. I purposely didn’t look at prices, because I didn’t want the price to affect the way I “heard” the horn. When I did eventually look at prices, I was shocked. What kind of working bari player can pay this kind of money for a horn? Most of the pro bari players I know are barely working, and some of these guys are monster players. Who the f!$* are these horns being sold to ❓ … That was my question…But I digress, and that’s a rant for another day….
One brand and specific model that I had read very favorable reviews about on SOTW, but was not at either of the Vancouver stores, was B&S’s pro model Medusa. Long & McQuade told me that their Langley store did have one in stock, so I went there to play test it. When I arrived at the Langley store, they dug the Medusa bari out of storage and, low and behold, found out that it didn’t have a neck. Long story short, it turns out some dummy working there sold the neck to someone who came in looking to buy a bari neck. Now they had to order a whole new horn from their warehouse in Toronto. A few days later it had arrived, and they called me to come in and play test the horns.
Now it turns out I had a choice. If I wanted to buy a Medusa, I could either buy the one that just arrived from Toronto (for full price), or they could sell me the one they had originally had in stock, with the neck from newly arrived horn, provided that the neck worked with it of course (which it did flawlessly). This 2nd option would save me considerable $.
When I started playing the 2 Medusa baris I noticed something about them: they had a complexity to their tone that was lacking in virtually all the other modern pro horns I had already play tested, including the Selmer Series II. Of the 2 B&S baris, I ended up getting the first one, not because it was cheaper, but because it was so full of overtones, that it was much “edgier” sounding than the 2nd. For many musicians this would have been a real turnoff, but for me, and the style of music that I play, (R&B, rock, & blues) the more edge the better. (Just as an aside, this particular horn would have been a school’s nightmare. Untamed, it would have sounded like a chainsaw going off in the 2nd row.)
If you did a survey of bari players out there, you would find that they are pretty divided about their preferences regarding low A or low Bb horns. If the person you’re asking prefers modern horns, they will naturally most likely be a low A player, since of all the current saxophone manufacturers, only Keilwerth recently made pro model low Bb horns. (A practice that I believe they stopped in the last couple of years.) If, however, the bari player you’re asking is a vintage horn player, the preference of horns is almost a 50/50 split.
Low A baritones have definite advantages. Modern jazz band and concert band, as well sax ensemble scores almost all assume the baritone sax playing the part has a low A key. However low A baris do have their drawbacks as well. They are considerably heavier than their low Bb cousins…Hell, those extra 6″ of brass alloy do provide some added weight to an aleady not-so-light instrument. Some people make the argument (and this is a fairly contentious point in the sax playing world) that low A horns just sound different than low Bb ones, and that low Bb ones have better projection. I used to believe this to be true…That is until I played the Medusa from B&S. (I notice no projection issues in the Medusa baritones I haved played.)
I like my low Bb horn. I do not need it to have a low A key. (And I’m quite happy not to have that extra weight around my neck as well!) I have my low A extension that I have used very successfully for 8 years now. I do like the versatility in its sound, so I use it as my primary horn. I especially like the sound it has for jazz…Which is a common comment heard from jazz baritone players: they prefer low Bb horns for jazz. Because it is a Mark VI, and very similar in layout to my tenor VI, it feels very similar to my tenor when I play it. So even if I haven’t played bari in a while, I can pick up my low Bb horn, and in a matter of a couple of minutes I’m comfortable with my axe again.
I also really like my low A horn. I prefer the sound of it for rock and blues work. Being able to let the Medusa run loose is a lot of fun ❗ There are not many baris that can hold their own in an electric environment when dealing with the distortion effects of guitars. This bad boy can, but he can also be very sweet, with only a little edge.
So in the end, if I had to make the decision again which horn to get, low A or Bb, I’d most likely do the same thing all over again: I’d get one of each. But that’s just me. If you’re looking around, and trying to make the “which flavor bari do I want to get” decision, I’d suggest you play as many as you can. If you have a teacher, talk to him or her. (But that only really works if your sax teacher is a bari player. If they’re a soprano player, for example, they might be able to give you some general info, but might be a bit short on specifics gained from first-hand experience.) From a practical perspective, the low A bari may be your best bet. If you’re planning to study sax at university, many schools will require a low A horn, but you should check with the professors at the school where you are interested in attending. For some students, the Paul Coats-designed low A extension has been met with approval by their professors.
