Please Help Identify This Instrument

dkingston

Greetings

Over at another music forum, we are having a fairly passionate discussion about the identification of the wind instrument that can be heard in the intro of a record, and during a solo at the 1:23 mark.
Someone suggested that this forum would be a good place to get what may be as close as possible to a definitive answer. Below is the link.
Can you please weigh in on what you believe it to be, and your level of certainty. Thanks in advance!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFfszi5ZwLk&hd=1
 
Mmm... Interesting puzzle.... I'm torn been between a couple of choices. One being a boring one, and another being slightly more exotic... I'm going to try and do some more research before committing. BTW, in case anyone is interested, this is as far as I got on the research of it.

Oh, and welcome to the Woodwind Forum dkingston.
 
Well, that was an interesting 20 minutes.

Sir Collins did a bunch of collaborations with a bunch of different groups, so it's more than a little difficult to get a list of musicians on any one album he did. I did, however, find a nice, large pic of the record that "Africa" is on:

CS496413-01B-BIG.jpg

(Click to embiggen.)

I did a cursory search of the folks in the "thanks to" line and didn't find anything especially interesting. You can check further, if you'd like. Also, as of 2009, Sir Collins was still in the music biz, so you might be able to find an e-mail address or something.

Anyhow, to me, the "woodwind" sounds like it's heavily processed or it's actually electronic. It's also very possible it's an African instrument.
 
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Ah yes Pete... Here's that twin thingy between us again. ;-)


pete said:
Well, that was an interesting 20 minutes.
Click to expand...

Yup, that's roughly what I spent as well yesterday.

pete said:
Sir Collins did a bunch of collaborations with a bunch of different groups, so it's more than a little difficult to get a list of musicians on any one album he did. ....
I did a cursory search of the folks in the "thanks to" line and didn't find anything especially interesting.
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Pretty much the same thing that I found yesterday--about his multiple collaborations I mean. I never did find the album to see if the woodwind player was given credit, but given the era of the recording, I wasn't holding out a lot of hope that he/she was going to be.

pete said:
Anyhow, to me, the "woodwind" sounds like it's heavily processed or it's actually electronic. It's also very possible it's an African instrument.
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That's what I thought as well. I thought it sounded like a processed clarinet sound, or maybe an African instrument that we're not familiar with.
 
I did a bit of research on African single reed and double reed instruments and none sounded even remotely like the one on the recording.
 
I've heard sounds similar to this produced with an instrument similar to the Xaphoon, although I agree that this has been processed.
 
Tony Fairbridge said:
I've heard sounds similar to this produced with an instrument similar to the Xaphoon, although I agree that this has been processed.
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Are you talking about the Chalumeau?
 
The Xaphoon. I've considered getting one, on occasion, primarily to annoy my 11 year old when my wife takes us somewhere in the car. (Yes, she drives us; she prefers to drive when she has the choice and I'd rather her get lost than me.)

On one of the occasions that I was wandering around the Musical Instruments Museum in Scottsdale, I did hear a few instruments that would approximate the mystery instrument. Those were traditional Asian instruments, though, not African. Also, and I'm not exactly an ethnomusicologist, I didn't find any African reed (not "made out of reed," but "reed" in the sense of a clarinet, oboe, etc.) instruments. Lots of percussion. Some flute-like instruments. No reeds.

The chalumeau (essentially the forerunner of the clarinet) isn't a bad choice -- or, for that matter, any recorder-like instrument. It's just that some of the sliding between notes sounds a lot more electronic than analog. Again, it could just be heavily processed. There's also a bit of choppiness in some of the notes, which is a trait of some electronic instruments/instrument controllers.
 
Helen said:
Ah yes Pete... Here's that twin thingy between us again. ;-)
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Speaking of, my sister's birthday is coming up. Facebook sent me an e-mail to remind me, so I went to her Facebook page and posted something like, "Hey! I heard it was your birthday! Happy 60th!" It took her a couple weeks to notice. Anyhow, if I disappear from this website, you now know why :D.
 
Tony Fairbridge said:
No, the Xaphoon is a similar instrument, but not exactly the same. Google Xaphoon and you'll see what I mean.
Tony F.
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Actually I know what a Xaphoon is. I have played one. However, you wrote:

Tony Fairbridge said:
I've heard sounds similar to this produced with an instrument similar to the Xaphoon,.....
Click to expand...

By writing "similar", that left me trying to come up with an instrument something like a Xaphoon, hence me throwing out the idea of the Chalumeau.

The Xaphoon I played was a wooden one, and belonged to a friend of mine. It was a number of years ago, but I don't recall it sounding anything like the recording... Also not when he played it--and he was much more proficient at it than I was. To me the recording sounded much more like a Chalumeau--although the processing made it difficult to determine what it really was anyway. :D
 
Helen said:
Actually I know what a Xaphoon is. I have played one. However, you wrote:



By writing "similar", that left me trying to come up with an instrument something like a Xaphoon, hence me throwing out the idea of the Chalumeau.

The Xaphoon I played was a wooden one, and belonged to a friend of mine. It was a number of years ago, but I don't recall it sounding anything like the recording... Also not when he played it--and he was much more proficient at it than I was. To me the recording sounded much more like a Chalumeau--although the processing made it difficult to determine what it really was anyway. :D
Click to expand...

Ah, a small breakdown in communications. This is what I had in mind, I picked it up as a curiosity at a Chinese trade show a few years back. It's quite elegantly turned from what looks like birch and uses a mouthpiece slightly larger than an Eb and slightly smaller than a C. It sounds quite like the recording, although that may well be a chalameau.DSCN1391.JPGDSCN1390.JPGDSCN1389.JPG

Tony F.
 
Also, I guess you have to wonder how likely it is that an African jazz group would use a chalameau, which is essentially a long superseded European instrument, now rarely seen.
 
I agree that it could be a xaphoon or a similar instrument. I play one (Plastic Maui Pocket Sax) using a synthetic reed, and the tone quality does sound very much like what I'm hearing. It is definitely a reed instrument. The alteration of tone could possibly be due to the use of a synth reed. To me, they sound less woody than cane reeds.
 
Sounds like a processed clarinet to me.
 
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