Last week the local drug dealer aka vintage instrument seller stopped by my desk a work with a little ‘something’ for me to look at. It was a gorgeous Conn F-mezzo soprano sax from the late 1920’s. Darn the temptation, but this time I went for it.

I immediately made an offer on the instrument, some what lower than what he was asking. Knowing full well that he could sell if for more, we haggled and he gave in about halfway between our best prices. Heck, I have purchased more than a couple of instruments from Matt. I then pinged Merlin who was penning ‘Santa Baby’ as a quartet for me to ask if he could include a sop replacement copy for the f-mezzo.

For those of you wanting to know more about the Conn f-mezzo soprano saxes start here. You can also view a truly well-preserved copy of an original Conn full page ad for this instrument.

Playing this I found the intonation to be very good except on the palm keys. Suzy noted the key heights were way off and something that one of my fav techs could handle rather quickly. When she held the key down to a normal key height, the intonation was immediately better. So after a minor annoyance to take it to a tech we will see how it sounds in ensemble with the rest of the sax quartet. Even more interesting will be how many people will notice it is something special. I’d be surprised if 1 person out of a thousand would think it was something other than an alto sax.