In town for a gig, Tim Warfield stopped by the shop to have his soprano adjusted. Ben Reece was thrilled to work on his horn.

It was great to hang with St. Louis native, David Sanborn for a brief time before his performance for the Hot Jazz, Cool Nights Gala fund raiser for Jazz St. Louis. We’re grateful for all that jazz St. Louis does for our community. I brought out a leak light to ensure Dave’s horn was in perfect regulation for his gig and talked mouthpieces for a bit. Always a pleasure to welcome Dave back to play for his hometown.

If you need renewed faith that the Grammys do indeed reward creativity and artistry, check out the group Eighth Blackbird! One of Elke’s grad school roommates, Lisa Kaplan, is the pianist and they chalked up two wins for “Meanwhile” on Cedille Records. They won Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance and Best Contemporary Composition for Steven Hartke’s “Incidental Music to Imaginary Puppet Plays” on the same recording.

Saxquest’s Zac Minor blowin’ down the house along side legendary saxman Jerry Greene at The Highway 61 Roadhouse in Webster Groves with Sarah Jane and the Blue Notes.

JEN this year was in Atlanta. We had a blast as always. Saxquest sent Derick Tramel, Zac Minor, and Ben Reece. Ran into Jeff Coffin, Al Maniscalco, Arthur White, among others. We have a bunch of photos posted on our facebook page, here are a few.

Hope all are doing well! We are keeping busy. In the last month we’ve been to the Midwest Clinic, the JEN Conference, and now we have a small break until MMEA. If you are going to be there, please stop by the booth and say hi! We’ll also be sending Mark to NAMM. We’ll all sleep better when February rolls around.

If you are in the market for a good vintage mouthpiece, please check our site. I just finished posting about 25 items in our Vintage Mouthpieces and Modern Mouthpieces sections. We have also posted a couple great tenors recently overhauled in our shop, a 34xxx and a 53xxx. Both are killer!

Just got back from the Midwest Clinic in Chicago. Saxquest sent Mark Overton, Jon Huff, and Derick Tramel this year. Heard some great music, and ran into some killer players including Terell Stafford and Greg Fishman. This show is well worth a visit if you’ve never been, it is huge!

We had a great hang with Chris Potter on December 15th at the Saxquest shop. His Super Balanced Action tenor needed some tweaking and while that work was underway in the shop (adjusted by Ben Reece), Chris enjoyed some time in the museum playing a variety of instruments.

We have a video posted on facebook of Chris playing an Adolphe Sax, you have got to check that out!

It was a great hang and Chris’s gig at Jazz at the Bistro was one for the ages. Check out our YouTube channel for other short videos of Chris exploring other interesting and rare saxophones in the Saxquest museum.

Here is a set of original wood art deco dealer display stands for woodwind instruments. These were made to precisely fit the “new” Conn 6M and 10M or Connqueror instruments that were introduced by C.G. Conn in 1934. If you go to the CG Conn factory film from 1934 posted on saxophone.org you can see some brass stands as they were used back in the day. Talk about style mixed with craftsmanship. These stands along with their instruments are a lasting testiment to a time when quality really was the moniker of the day. Thanks to Mark Metzler of Elkhart, IN for offering these stands for sale to the Saxquest saxophone museum.