If you are in the market for a new, or new to you, bass saxophone, don’t think your choices are limited to only vintage horns, or new European or Asian-made models. There is a South American manufacturer of bass saxophones who offers quite a variety of models for a player to choose from.
J’Élle Stainer is a Brazilian company that has quietly been expanding its bass sax offerings for a number of years. In this, the first in a series of articles about the saxophone offerings of J’Élle Stainer, I’ll examine what the company calls their Vintage Bass—otherwise known as model SAX228F.
Source: J’Élle Stainer Used With Permission
This particular horn seemed like the natural bass saxophone to start with, since it was inspired by the first-ever bass made by Adolphe Sax.
This bass is of course pitched in the key of Bb, and has a range from low B to high Eb, although the option of ordering it keyed to high F# is available—as is the option of having it keyed to low A.
You’ll notice in the photo below it has double bell to body support bracing. This is a very nice feature on an entry level sax.
Source: J’Élle Stainer Used With Permission
According to Gilberto Lopes from J’Élle Stainer, the Vintage Bass was built to be a “band” instrument. It has simple keywork, yet is strong and has a great sound.
The sax has a triple strap ring…
Source: J’Élle Stainer Used With Permission
Note the position of the right thumb rest. Also notice there appears to be a strap ring for a harness just above the bow to body connecting ring.
Source: J’Élle Stainer Used With Permission
At its approximately 51″ in height, this Vintage Bass by J’Élle Stainer is about the same size as the Buescher True Tone, which stood at 52″.
I am curious about the Vintage Sax’s weight. We know the True Tone weighed in at about 18 lbs. Gilberto didn’t give me any weights on the J’Élle Stainer horns, and their website doesn’t provide any either unfortunately.
Source: J’Élle Stainer Used With Permission
So if you’re looking to get into the bass saxophone world, the Adolphe Sax-inspired, Vintage Sax by J’Élle Stainer might be one worth considering. It looks like a promising entry level bass.
If you are interested in finding out more about this, or any of the other saxophones offered by the company, you can reach them through the Contact Us page on company’s website site.
As I noted at the beginning of this article, J’Élle Stainer has a number of bass saxophone offerings. In the next article in the series, I’ll focus on another of their bass sax models.
This horn does seem to be without the F# trill key, alternate Bb side key and alternate C side key. I wonder what the tone is ? The only one I use is the Bb key so the other two wouldn’t matter to me.
Has anyone heard the sound of one of these vintage saxes from J’elle? Would consider one if the price is right as my Old Conn is quite clunky. If it has that rich deep mellow tone of the Conn/Beuscher era I’d definitely get motivated to start saving pennies.
Not sure about the weight of the the ‘vintage’ horn, but the Jinbao bass is 9.2kg with the peg (20lbs) or 8.9kg without (19.5lbs)
I wonder about the J’Élle Stainer-produced horns themselves—of which this is one. Given that this particular model is their entry level, or “band” bass, I would suspect it is lighter in weight than their professional model. This would be especially true if the horn was keyed only to low B.
Thanks for commenting on this particular post. It reminded me that I still need to finish writing this series on the bass saxophones of J’Élle Stainer. There are still a couple left to write about.
I should also touch base with Gilberto again. J’Élle Stainer is like a saxophone laboratory, and they are constantly coming up with new and interesting ideas which may make it into the design phase.