Alessophone???

[josephyorio]

Does anyone have any information on this? Not much on the R&C site. The neck looks similar to a Keilwerth straight alto neck- I played one for about 8 years. Great horn; hard to do commercial or doubling work with. I had to sell it. I've been playing on a Keilwerth dark lacquer alto now. I ordered a straight alto neck from Keilwerth 2 years ago and waiting. Before I sold my straight alto, I tried my current alto with its neck. You wouldn't believe how much tonal character is in the neck!

Thanks!
Joe

[Pete]

You might want to contact http://www.alessi.com/index.jsp

Looks like it's essentially a standard sax with interesting cosmetics.

[Dave Dolson]

Joe: I too once owned a straight JK alto. But for the life of me, I can't recall much shape or cosmetic differences with either neck that came with the JK and any other alto neck.

I recall one JK neck was marked "9" and the other "9.5" (if memory serves me), but they were both curved like all other alto necks I've had and/or seen. True, every neck has its unique qualities and I remember preferring one JK neck over the other. DAVE

[Super 20 Player]

A while back I emailed Mathew Aaron at www.saxforte.com about the Alessophone. Here is his reply:

"Here is more information on the Rampone & Cazzani Alessophone.

It is a limited edition alto sax only. Only offered in graphite black plating with some gold inlay (on the neck key) and gold plating on the bell and body with a clear lacquer.
Possibly only 50 pieces to be produced (not confirmed).
It is the first colaboration with a design firm Alessi, the Italian design firm (www.alessi.com) who produce mainly furniture.

Many unique designs and mechanisms:
Steeper neck angle
Bigger bell
Low B and Bb on the left side of bell
Unique left little finger keys (table keys)
Low C# playable with the palm of the left hand to facilitate C#-B and C#-Bb trills.
No pearls on the keys. Keys are ergonomically shaped to the fingers.
High F# and F# trill keys located between the right hand keys.

Approx. 90 Day delivery time"

[cwhiley]

cost?

when did Matt give you this information?

[cwhiley]

Yea, I found out a while back that it costs nearly $6,000. It's a BEAUTIFUL instrument, but you're paying more for the collecter's value (limited run of only 50!) than it's utility as a horn.

[tensopbass]

I have a modern straight JK alto. The neck is the same as the bent horn. I would love to get a steeper angle, but failed in the attempt. (the sterling one sounds great, tho.) Can you give a link to the Alesso pics?
nicko

[cwhiley]

I can't find the old picture but I liked it better. This "new" alessophone design appears to have cheapened the appearance somewhat due to the huge lightning bolt on the bell.

Just had a thought, wouldn't it look great with black 'roo pads?!

http://www.rockstationantiques.com/alessofono_big.jpg

[JMac]

Or Jim Schmidt's Gold Foil pads... :dontknow:

[DeanoTheSaxman]

Hello, have only just seen this on here, and it has only been a week since I have realised the below facts. I have both the straight and curved Keilwerth SX90R Alto sax's, the necks are identical in every way and should be interchangeable, my curved neck fits perfectly on to the straight alto and visa versa, there is no difference in overall length of this neck and the tenon joint should be identical. I'm also told by Keilwerth that the main body of the straight version is that of the curved version up to the point where the curved version goes round. All the upper key work is the same also, when you think about it, it would make more sense economically for keilwerth to make parts that are universal to both styles of sax's, this saves on manufacture and tooling to produce these parts. Hope this helps, all be it a bit late!:cry:

Regards Dean’o

[Stan]

Does anyone have any information on this? Not much on the R&C site. The neck looks similar to a Keilwerth straight alto neck- I played one for about 8 years. Great horn; hard to do commercial or doubling work with. I had to sell it. I've been playing on a Keilwerth dark lacquer alto now. I ordered a straight alto neck from Keilwerth 2 years ago and waiting. Before I sold my straight alto, I tried my current alto with its neck. You wouldn't believe how much tonal character is in the neck!

Thanks!
Joe

I will publish something of interesting (I hope) about "Alessofono" on my personal web site soon.

Stan

[Stan]

Finally the web pages are here, unfortunately only in Italian at least for now...

http://www.hobbysax.com/L'alessofono.html

There is also a short movie in which I tried to play the saxophone. I played it only for few minutes but IMHO it requires a bit more time to be completely under control... probably some week, so be patient with me :)

You can also find a movie on half curved soprano here:

http://www.hobbysax.com/Soprano_Semicurvo.html

Both require a fast internet connection.
I will translate these pages as soon I can.
All the best,

Stan

[Dr_sax]

Movie doesn´t load for me. Does this work for anybody else?

[Stan]

It requires Quicktime plugin and a quite fast internet connection (about two minutes if you have 2Mb/s). Videos are about 5/6 MB. They work for sure with IE 6.x. Are the Active-X controls activated :) in your browser?
If you still have problems I can send them to you directly. Let me know your e-mail address in pvt.
Please try again and let me know if it works or not.
Thanks,

Stan

[milandro]

great clip (Bravo Stan!) and great review of this very interesting sax. I've seen the sax hanging (the sax there has been damaged and is not possible to ask the people in the shop to see the sax close by) in the Milanese showroom of the Alessi company (Alessi doesn't produce on a regular base any furniture although they are certainly at the forefront of the Design in the world, they are a company which started a production of metal implements for the kitchen such as pots, pans and cutlery already in the 20ties...). It is a pity that the article hasn't more detailed pictures to show some closeup views of this rather revolutionary sax which has achieved much without really ever getting into the pubblic view. Great Design by Alessandro Mendini and by the Rampone e Cazzani company, much innovation I don't know if it was aborted because it was just a project to keep the company going during a difficult phase of this ancient instrument maker.

[saxboy]

When I asked the RC guys about it they seemed surprised I had found it from there site. They made it sound like it was a friends thing and it was not really available. This was 2 years ago.

[Stan]

great clip (Bravo Stan!) and great review of this very interesting sax. I've seen the sax hanging (the sax there has been damaged and is not possible to ask the people in the shop to see the sax close by) in the Milanese showroom of the Alessi company (Alessi doesn't produce on a regular base any furniture although they are certainly at the forefront of the Design in the world, they are a company which started a production of metal implements for the kitchen such as pots, pans and cutlery already in the 20ties...). It is a pity that the article hasn't more detailed pictures to show some closeup views of this rather revolutionary sax which has achieved much without really ever getting into the pubblic view. Great Design by Alessandro Mendini and by the Rampone e Cazzani company, much innovation I don't know if it was aborted because it was just a project to keep the company going during a difficult phase of this ancient instrument maker.

It was not aborted, it is still available to my knoledge.
Probably I have more pictures, please contact me if you are interested.
All the best,

Stan