John Coltrane's ... Yamaha?

pete

pete

Brassica Oleracea
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I peripherally mentioned Coltrane's horns at auction in 2005 in this thread. I've proven that the music world is cyclical, by eBay selling one of those horns from that 2005 auction. Here's the link. It's listed at $115,000. (Hey, I think I have the 2005 auction PDF around, someplace, too.)

For me, I couldn't possibly care less who played a horn -- except if someone's wanting to use the previous owner's name to increase the horn's value. I'm more interested in the horns, themselves. This one is a Yamaha YAS-1 prototype. Cosmetically, it looks an awful lot like a YAS-61, which was introduced in 1971. So, kewl horn. Nice engraving.

Of course, John Coltrane is not exactly famous for playing Yamahas: he played Selmers. While the pictures on the auction page are craptacular, it does look like he's playing a Yamaha in them, which is nice.
 
I always got the impression (from clarinet endorsements) that any artist would play any instrument that they got a publicity spif for, and would change to another company at the drop of a hat.
 
I had to do some research.

* Here's a selection from the 2005 Guernsey auction website, courtesy of The Internet Wayback Machine. It's got things like pix of Gerry Mulligan's baris that were also in this auction.
* You can still buy the original catalog for $60 at Guernsey's website. (It's called "Jazz." Dated February 20, 2005.)
* Attached is the PDF addendum to the auction I found on my computer. It's pretty kewl, but doesn't have the Yamaha in it.
* Here's a thread that was on SOTW at the time. It mentions the YAS-1.
* Dr. Rick (yes, the guy that's been trying to sell a lot of horns in a $155-$320K package for about 6 years on eBay) copied the full catalog entry for Coltrane's Mark VI soprano and tenor.
* Here's a BBC News article from 2005 listing some of the items sold and for how much.
* You can listen to the NPR radio program about this auction.

At the very least, the above is extremely interesting reading/seeing/listening.

In any event, Coltrane's Mark VI soprano sold for $70,800. That's around $82K, adjusted for inflation. I am not a Coltrane biographer, but I do know that Coltrane is known -- even by some non-sax folks -- for "My Favorite Things" and I know he recorded at least a couple records with soprano, possibly the horn in the auction. A Yamaha that was used on tour and on one album? $115K might be kinda high. Admittedly, in that original auction in 2005, that Yamaha was competing against a lot of horns from a lot of famous players.

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I don't know if it's necessarily at a drop of the hat, Terry.

I've seen, for instance, the Amherst Sax Quartet live and in person. I've seen a variety of their albums with Yamahas pictured. They only played Selmers on the many occasions I saw them (Amherst = Amherst, NY, specifically The State University College at Buffalo, a.k.a. UB, where I went to college for awhile and also worked at -- and their bari player was the one I played for during All-State band tryouts. Yah, heap on that extra bit of nervousness. I got a B. Yes, it was a zillion years ago. What's your point?). I've seen other folks, like Eugene Rousseau play whatever horns wherever, depending on who he was endorsing. Charlie Parker, of course, played the Grafton because it was cheap ... so he'd have enough money for *ahem* other pursuits. Coleman Hawkins played Selmers in the US and SMLs in Europe, because of his endorsement deals. While Sigurd Rascher played just about anything, he was very fond of Bueschers and even designed mouthpieces very similar to them. I know that Santy Runyon endorsed Conn Constellations because he really thought they were superior horns.

So, YMMV.
 

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Ah.... Must be that twin thingy again between us Pete. I wrote about this same eBay auction yesterday on my blog. I just mention a slightly different use for the horn though. ;) :D

Interesting that you point out his primary horns sold for a lot less. Here's what I don't get: Coltrane played on this horn for a grand total of 2 weeks ostensibly while in Japan. OK, big deal. Who cares. He play-tested a horn for the Yamaha company. How does that make this a valuable collectible? It's not like it was the horn he recorded his most famous album with, or was photographed on his most famous album cover with.

You can ask anything you want for a collectible. If someone however, actually pays the 115K for it however, then it just proves the point that something is as "valuable" as what the seller and buyer can agree on. That's not to say that anyone else will find the same amount of value in it. I for one don't. But hey, I'm not the world's biggest Coltrane fan. I know, heresy. I'm sure I'm destined to spend part of my afterlife listening to years upon years of Coltrane (Et al) music. :emoji_rage:
 
I remember this horn and many years ago spoke with John's Cousin Mary on this subject.

My cousin and I were very ardent Coltrane fans. Purchased every new Coltrane issue and listened to it until the grooves wore out. We bought his new release which was called "Live In Japan" I think. We took it home, put it on the box and enjoyed. But at one point, John Coltrane and Pharoah Saunders started to get a really different, somewhat strange sound from their horns. It took me a while to realise that they were playing altos! As I listened, I wondered why Trane and Pharoah were blowing these altos, they didn't sound really comfortable with the horns.

So I remember reading the liner notes, and they mentioned that John and Pharoah had been presented with a brand new product, the Yamaha saxophone. This really was a bombshell to me. I was really into motorcycles at that time. I had seen the tuning forks on the gas tank logo on the Yams, but I didn't make the musical connection. So to me, it was like Trane playing a Harley Davison saxophone.

Later, when I became friends with Mary Alexander, John's Cousin Mary, she told me the story. Trane was invited to Japan as more of a cultural mission, to make an artistic statement. She said that Trane, Alice, and the band were kept busy everyday going to cultural events and being guests of honor. One of the events was to go to the Yamaha factory and select horns for John and Pharoah. These horns were then presented to the men that night on the gig, by the top executives of the Yamaha corp. The recording of Trane and Pharoah on these horns ensued.

Trane brough the horn back to the states. If you listen to his studio recording of "Trane Sonic," you'll hear him playing the Yamaha alto. He cooks mightily on that one!

Julian
 
Helen said:
Here's what I don't get: Coltrane played on this horn for a grand total of 2 weeks ostensibly while in Japan. OK, big deal. Who cares. He play-tested a horn for the Yamaha company. How does that make this a valuable collectible? It's not like it was the horn he recorded his most famous album with, or was photographed on his most famous album cover with.
Click to expand...
Well, one tour and one album -- and the album was from the tour. I really don't know the length of time Coltrane toured, but Japan is a very small country. Two weeks could easily be the length of the tour. (If that was mentioned in the auction, just ignore me :))

Tying in with our Collecting the Saxophone thread, I used to be a coin collector. The primary reason why was that my grandfather was also a coin collector. However, after doing that for a couple of years, I had a couple thoughts:

* Why bother collecting more than one of anything? I've got 150 steel pennies and they all look basically the same. Just having one really good example would be good enough to satisfy any desire I had for it on the artistic side.
* While I did try the metal detector thing for a couple years -- hey, I was like 8 and was already a geek, so why not go all the way? -- I found that the best way I could find coins was to buy them. The local Woolworth's had a different selection every couple weeks and every couple weeks I'd take a look. What's the challenge there?
* With the collection I had and the funds that I had, collecting coins was a money-losing operation. By the time I became a musician and found that my parental units didn't have the funds to support buying me horns, I stopped collecting coins. When I decided I might do the music thing for a living, I sold my coin collection and bought a Buffet Dynaction alto ... and eventually traded up for my college horns.

Going back to the first point, that's one of the reasons that I'm more jazzed about doing something like my photoblog than doing research into really minor differences between horns in the same model year. That's just me, tho.

I do think it's probably MORE kewl to buy a horn like the soprano that Coltrane used on "My Favorite Things" and put it in a museum. Heck, that's sorta why we like museums. I, therefore, fully support the idea of Yamaha buying it and putting it into their company museum. Unfortunately, I think it's unlikely that I'll be heading out to Japan to see it.

If I ever win the lottery, one of the things I'd like to do is buy a bunch of interesting horns and let folks come by and play 'em, have some sort of "lending library" thing or have a traveling museum. I just want folks to appreciate the horns!
 
Thank you Julian, for that back-story. As always, you manage to fill in details, and make sense of seemingly nonsensicals.
 
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