Buescher Promotional Ad featuring Sigurd Rascher

While poking around YouTube I ran across this recently posted promotional film from the Buescher Saxophone company. According to the info on the video page it dates from the 1950's. In addition to Sigurd Rascher, it would appear to feature a very, very young Carina Rasher! It's like seeing his method books come to life. I'm pretty blown away with his quality of tone, and mastery of the altissimo register. The video is broken into 3 parts and totals about 27 minutes. Unfortunately embedding was disabled by the poster so you will just have to click through.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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NASA in Albuquerque

Right now I'm getting ready for day two of the North American Saxophone Alliance, Region II Conference at the University of New Mexico. I'll keep this short since I need to head down to the lobby to grab some of the free breakfast. So far this has been a very successful conference, while the attendance seem a bit low, those who came are attending all the events. Arizona State University is making a very strong showing, and I really enjoyed Tom Lileys lecture on Larry Teal and Cecil Leeson. I'll report back on the rest (and in more detail) when I get back home and have some time. You can find the full schedule and program on this page.

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Something for Sunday

This is one of my favorite YouTube saxophone videos. The more times I watch it the more I realize this is what more "Classical" Saxophonists need to incorporate into their repertoire. Enjoy!

Nobuya Sugawa plays Beauty and the Beast medley.

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Get your free Ricos

I haven't seen any accurate polls of what brand of reeds are used most often, but I would have to guess that by a gigantic margin, Vandoren is the number one brand. Apparently Rico (aka D'ddario) trying to do something to change that by giving away a free box for some of your old reeds. They say that they will take "new or used" reeds, but really... who in their right mind is going to send brand new reeds? I've tried different brands of reeds over the years and nothing comes close to a Vandoren in my opinion. There is just something about the cane that isn't matched by others. That being said I've already headed over to maketheswitch.com and printed out the form to get my free Box! You have to print out your code before April 6, and mail it in before April 16th so get movin!

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