king marigaux questions

[Tsax54]

So my Girlfriends dad has been passed away for many years and was a music teacher and local gig'er around here. Well recently we decided to go down and look at her dads old horns because they had saved them all. The interesting horn that caught my eye was a King Marigaux Tenor that looked to be in good condition. All I could find out is that it's a SML Gold Medal stencil.

I was just wondering how do these play and if you were to compare them to any other horn what would be closest to sound? Last what years where these produced?

[JazzGospel]

You have come to the right place. Go back to the SML sub forum and you will find just about everything you may be looking for under FAQs. If you still need more information after going through that volume of information do a search. If that still doesn't work for you, follow up on the thread you started.

The King Marigaux is an excellent horn. IT is after all an SML. IMHO, SMLs have a sound of their own and probably closer to some of the great vintage American horns than French.

[Swingtone]

I feel qualified to jump in here because I owned a King Marigaux tenor for close to two years; in fact, I sold it to fellow member JazzGospel here, who I'm guessing is largely basing his critique on the performance of that horn, which is an excellent example, I might add. In fact, I bought it from the estate of the original owner--a deceased pro in the Denver area who played with no less than Dizzy Gillespie back in the 40's.

So while we do agree that they are great horns, I must part company with my friend here and say that the SML's have a decidedly French core, moreso than the Buffets, which to me do sound just as American as they do French. I think that when people talk about a French saxophone sound, they are basically saying the degree to which the horn sounds like a Selmer, which is the benchmark in this area (i.e., the quintissential French sax sound). So another way of saying it is that SML's are probably the vintage horns that come the closest to sounding like Selmers. (I say vintage because of course there are many modern Japanese Mark VI copies including Yamahas and Yanis that also approximate the Selmer sound.)

Yes, the SML's have a bigger bore than the Selmers and are more spread, but they still maintain that sweetness and focus that you don't find in the American horns, except for perhaps the Bueschers. I guess I have to agree with Gayle Fredenburgh, who described the SML Gold Medal as being closest in sound to a Selmer SBA--sweet, focused, but more spread and not as compact as a Mark VI.

I hope you give it a fair trial before selling; they're extremely rare and hard to replace. I still miss mine!

[hornimus]

Wow, did the planet reverse magnetic poles today? I'm nodding agreement with almost everything ST said....

[Neil Sharpe]

Also, check out saxpics.com for background information.
http://www.saxpics.com/sml/index.htm

http://www.saxpics.com/sml/king_marigaux.htm