Vintage Otto Link Master Link Tenor Mouthpiece 5 – Very Rare
This is one of a set of 15 vintage tenor mouthpieces from the collection of the late Chas Burchell (1925-1986) - a very distinguished but relatively obscure British tenor saxophonist, who worked with most of the . They have been kept by the widow of a pianist with whom he worked a lot since 1986 (my neighbour). Since I play tenor, she gave them to me. Because I prefer none of them to the mouthpiece I have used for the last 35 years (a Lawton 7, in case you are curious) - although a few ran it close - I have decided to sell them all and donate the proceeds to the Musicians Benevolent Fund. The complete set is: a Master Link, two Four Star Link, a Tone Master Link, a hard rubber Berg Larsen, A Brilhart Ebolin 7, a Brihart Special, a Wolfe Tayne hard rubber, a Selmer S80, and old Van Doren medium hard rubber, 3 Consoles of various lays and two unidentified hard rubber pieces. The reason that the listing shows only 80% going to charity is that I want to be able to offer returns, and I am sure it would get a bit complicated trying to revoke donations: if anyone is not happy with a mouthpiece bought from one of these auctions I will take it back and refund the cost (minus P&P) from my own funds. When all the mouthpieces have found a happy new home I will work out my final total "profit" and pass it on to the MBF. Please visit this flickr page for many further images of all the mouthpieces. I am no expert on vintage mouthpieces, but will try to describe each as well as I can, give a bit of historical background where I know anything (but this will not be much - Google is your friend in this respect!), and give my opinion of how each mouthpiece sounds and plays. You are welcome to inspect/play any mouthpiece at my home in West London (Chiswick) by arrangement, but I will not send them out for trial. Please note that MY OPINIONS ARE ONLY THAT, AND YOU SHOULD PROBABLY ATTACH LITTLE, IF ANY, WEIGHT TO THEM. That said, I will be completely honest in my evaluations - for instance the Tone Master squeaks when pushed, and I will say so (although it also has a truly distinctive core tone, which I will do my best to describe). I have been playing tenor since 1974, professionally in pop/rock in the 80s, semi-pro in small-medium sized jazz groups in the 90s, a decade off in the 00's, and as an amateur in a big band more recently. I have had the same set-up since 1976 - a Mk6 and a Lawton 7 with Rico Royal 3s (£200 all in from Rose Morris on Shaftesbury Avenue, which may ring a few bells amongst the decrepit!). I have tried a few mouthpieces over the years, but never found one that seemed to offer any real advantages over the Lawton. My general view has been that equipment does not make that much difference, and most of the time people spend trying different combinations of reeds, mouthpieces and horns would be better spent on some long note practice! Playing all these mouthpieces has altered my perceptions - a bit. The majority of them seem to me to give pretty much the same tone when I play them - but two (the Master Link and the Tone Master) do seem to me to have a very distinctive and individual sound, and there were some others that offered more nuanced differences. Playability is another story, and very hard to pin down or describe meaningfully. I certainly did find some of these mouthpieces, even if they sounded pretty similar, were more comfortable for me to play than others and seemed more responsive. I will note my opinions in each listing, but repeat my warning that you probably should not take too much notice of them. I have allowed for UK postage via Special Delivery. If you live in another country or want me to use a different UK postal service, please let me know after you have won, and we can agree which service to use - the £20 Airsure price quoted in the listing is just a stab in the dark. I will charge it at cost plus £1 for packing. Please do not ask about postage costs prior to winning: I am sure you can find out for yourself or make a sensible guess about the cost to your location from the UK, and at the risk of seeming rude I will not answer any questions that are about shipping costs from prospective bidders, only the eventual winner of each auction. With all that said, on to the particular Mouthpiece.........! To quote from the very useful www.mouthpiecemuseum.com "The first mouthpiece Otto Link made in the early 1930s was the MASTER LINK. It had cut out ridges beside/under the table, allowing the ligature to slide on. Later models replaced the slide on ligature came with the same band ligature as the FOUR**** MODELS (see below). These mouthpieces have a very low baffle, a huge chamber and typically a very small tip opening (usually a 3 or 4) with a long, deep facing. Hence, they had a very warm, dark, sound. A version of this mouthpiece was made for Coleman Hawkins and was named the HAWKINS SPECIAL." This particular mouthpiece is a 5, so unusually open for a Master Link. It come without the original slide-on ligature or cap. It is one of the very few pieces from the collection that in my opinion has a really distinctive sound - very warm and naturally rather "breathy" putting me more mind of Ben Webster than Hawkins. It is not the easiest blow in the world - not exceptionally challenging either, but there is definitely a bit of resistance when blowing. Personally, I would not gig with it, but I am sure some people would. It seems to me to be in very good condition considering its great age, with only light wear on the bite plate, and the tip (much thinner than any of the later Links) and rails looking crisp. Please see the photos on Flickr for cosmetic condition - they do really highlight the superficial dark marks to the surface, and it actually looks pretty good to the naked eye. I have not attempted any sort of cleaning, but suspect it would probably scrub-up very well. All in all, a very rare and distinctive mouthpiece - especially with a 5 lay - probably not to everyone's taste, but it really does have a sound like no other I have tried. If you are a serious collector or a player looking for an unusual ultra-warm sound, this may be what you are looking for.
