A couple of weeks ago I purchased a Slade saxophone from Amazon.  Amazon is notorious for selling tons of junky Chinese saxophones in garish colors for low prices.  These horns are often barely worth the brass and cork they’re made from, but parents looking for affordable horns for their kids buy them without knowing any better.  The result is typically frustration with the instrument.

Yours portly desperately needed a reliable saxophone for some upcoming gigs, and repairs to my existing saxes (one alto and two tenors) are prohibitively expensive at the moment.  Also, my repair guy is a cantankerous old Northern guy who lives way far out, and the combination of expense, inconvenience, and a Yankee tongue-lashing for not maintaining my horns adequately had yours portly running to the arms of our Chinese overlords.

Well, Slade makes a surprisingly good sax for $230.  Typically these Chinese horns have all sorts of problems:  leaky keys, pads that don’t seal properly, etc.  Horror stories abound of purchases paying the equivalent of the horn’s price (or more!) to get it setup properly.

I decided to bite the bullet and try it after watching a video from Better Sax on YouTube, in which he compared one of the saxes to to his gorgeous (and $4000) Yanagisawa alto:

I ordered the cheapest possible sax, even though I could have spent another $40 or $50 for some cool colors.  When the sax arrive last Tuesday night, I was pleasantly surprised to see they’d sent me the wrong sax—their blue model!  It is an absolutely gorgeous instrument.

Check out that beauty!  Such a beautiful instrument, of course, demands to be played, so I did just that.

I took this video of an improvised sax piece I call “Moody Noodling.”  I wanted to test the quality of some jazzier notes, and came up with this little impromptu:

The only negative with the sax was the mouthpiece.  The included mouthpiece is, quite frankly, garbage.  Fortunately, I have an alto mouthpiece from my other horn, and it works quite well.

Otherwise, I’m thrilled with this sax, and would recommend it to new players if they invest a little extra in a proper mouthpiece.

Happy Listening!

—TPP

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Other Editions of Open Mic Adventures:

• “Open Mic Adventures I: Oingo Boingo’s ‘Just Another Day’“
• “Open Mic Adventures II: Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’“
• “Open Mic Adventures III: Joanie Sommers’s ‘Johnny Get Angry’“
• “Open Mic Adventures IV: KISS’s ‘I Still Love You’“
• “Open Mic Adventures V: ‘There’s a Light (Over at the Frankenstein Place)’“
• “Open Mic Adventures VI: Journey’s ‘Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’“
• “Open Mic Adventures VII: ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’“
• “Open Mic Adventures VIII: Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound of Silence’“
• “Open Mic Adventures IX: Journey’s ‘Faithfully’“
• “Open Mic Adventures X: ‘Time Warp’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XI: Spooktacular Supergroup Covers ‘Monster Mash’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XII: ‘Ghostly’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XIII: The Penguins’ ‘Earth Angel’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XIV: ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XV: ‘O Holy Night’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XVI: ‘Please Come Home for Christmas’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XVII: ‘L’il Divertimento in C major’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XVIII: ‘Satiean Motion’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XIX: ‘Two-Day Minuet for Left Hand’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XX: ‘Sleepy Student’s Serenade’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXI: Styx’s ‘Come Sail Away’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXII: ‘Blessed Assurance’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXIII: ‘Gabbi’s Gavotte’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXIV: ‘Softly and Tenderly’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXV: ‘Venite, exultemus Domino’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXVI: ‘Sonatina’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXVII: ‘Heavenly Sunlight’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXVIII: ‘Song of the Bigfoot’”
• “Open Mic Adventures XXIX: ‘Lavender’s Blue’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXX: ‘Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXXI: ‘Carousel’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXXII: Hymn Medley“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXXIII: ‘Spore Song (Mushroom Dance)’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXXIV: ‘Chase’s Dilemma’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXXV: ‘The Rings of Saturn’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXXVI: ‘The Rings of Saturn’ LIVE!“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXXVII: ‘Private Lessons (Goth Chick)’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXXVIII: ‘Quasi-Date’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XXXIX: ‘(I’m in the) Business of Love)’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XL: ‘Parada’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XLI: ‘Serenade for a Sleepy Student No. 2’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XLII: ‘1001 Arabian Nights’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XLIII: ‘Greek Fair’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XLIV: ‘Skeleton Dance No. 1’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XLV: ‘Skeleton Dance No. 1’ – BASS“
• “Open Mic Adventures XLVI: ‘Canon Event’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XLVIII: ‘Skeleton Dance No. 2’“
• “Open Mic Adventures XLIX: Sloppy ‘Hipster Girl Next Door’ Medley“
• “Open Mic Adventures L: ‘Lament of the Lizardman’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LI: ‘Bigfoot Boogie’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LII: ‘Minuet for a New Moon’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LIII: ‘Andante in D major’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LIV: ‘I Need Thee Every Hour’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LV: ‘”Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LVI: ‘Orange Roll’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LVII: ‘Firefly Dance’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LVIII: ‘Kartofelsalat’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LIX: ‘Listless Chorale’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LX: ‘Silent Night’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LXI: ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LXII: ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LXIII: ‘FRANTIC!!’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LXIV: ‘Snowfall’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LXV: ‘Uninspired Étude in E major’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LXVI: ‘Scribblings I: Post-Christmas Concert Scribbling’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LXVII: ‘Ode Napoléon’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LXVIII: ‘Cook’s Brief Bourrée in E minor’“
• “Open Mic Adventures LXIX: ‘Triumphant Processional’“