Part of the payoff from my work this summer in the orchestra pit for Cabrillo Stage's Guys and Dolls will fund a new silver-plated Buescher True Tone tenor. I've been looking for a Buescher New Aristocrat tenor as an upgrade to my existing Buescher True Tone tenor, which I recently restored to its original bare-brass finish. (Before-and-after images are available here. However, New Aristocrat tenors never show up on eBay, and none of the vintage saxophone dealers have them or say they every come across them. As a second choice, I've been looking at silver-plated Buescher True Tone tenors. After the restoration, my horn really sounds beautiful, but since it's the horn I had all through high school, the keywork is rather beat up. Also, I have found recently that silver plating makes a marked difference in the sound, darkening it and focusing it.

After a few months of looking, I decided to buy a silver-plated True Tone tenor offered by Gayle Fredenburgh, from whom I bought my silver-plated True Tone soprano. Gayle still has some work to do to polish and repad the horn, but she's taken a few photos that can be seen here.

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Now finished with the fourth week of a five-week run, this year's Cabrillo Stage summer production, a whip-smart staging of the old musical theater chestnut Guys and Dolls, has turned out to be one of my favorite experiences in the orchestra pit. The music is good--not great, but good--and I'm only playing a rather easy Reed II book (which puts me on alto sax, clarinet, flute and piccolo). Though the orchestra is likewise not-great-but-good, I'm really enjoying spending the summer in company of many of my favorite players. Working with conductor Jon Nordgren is a pleasure. Under his leadership the rehearsal process went very smoothly, and the run has proven to be rather painless--not the usual grind.

Reviews have been solidly favorable (though for the most part written by young reporters who obviously know little of theater). Friends of mine and family who have seen it all say it's very good. I certainly think so. A very talented cast helps, and so does the fast pace of Janie Scott's direction and Jon's musical cues.

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