2014 Schedule: February

The year 2014 is shaping up to be fairly busy. So far I have booked the following performances in the month of February. Hope to see you at a few of them!

• February 2, 2014: The Mission Gold Jazz Band is the featured band at the Santa Rosa Trad JASS Society. 1-5 PM at Ellington Hall, Santa Rosa, California.
• February 13, 2014: (PRIVATE EVENT) The Mission Gold Jazz Band is playing for the annual Carlton Plaza Valentine’s Day luncheon. 1:30-2:30 PM at Carlton Plaza, San Leandro, California.
• February 14, 2014: The Kevin Brunetti Trio is opening for Supermule’s Super Awesome Love Show at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. We play 7-8:30 PM.
• February 16, 2014: The Fog City Stompers will perform at the annual New Orleans Jazz Club of Northern California Showcase of Bands. We play 1-1:50 PM.
• February 16, 2014: Mission Gold Jazz Band will perform at the annual New Orleans Jazz Club of Northern California Showcase of Bands. We play 3-3:50 PM.
• February 20, 2014: The East Bay Stompers will play at Bronco Billy’s Pizza Palace, 41200 Blacow Road, Fremont California. from 7-9 PM.
• February 23, 2014: Pat Dutrow’s Jazzmeisters will perform at the South Bay Traditional Jazz Society. 1-5 PM at the Sunnyvale Elks Lodge, Sunnyvale, California.

For more details, please visit my website or my Facebook artist page.

Stencils & Brands

I have been running across some instrument brands that are unfamiliar to me. I am acquainted with such brands as American Standard (made by H.N. White) and some of the other more familiar ones, but many are completely foreign. For instance, I saw a ‘Grand Rapids Band Instrument Co’-branded horn the other day and got to wondering who actually made it.

This led me to a term I had heard many times before, which is ‘stencil horn’. But what is a stencil horn? Fortunately, the Internet gives us a great deal of ability to find the answers to these kinds of questions from the privacy of our own homes. On the invaluable Trumpet Herald forums, I ran across this extremely informative post begun by a member named Tom Turner. Mr. Turner wrote an extensive explanation of precisely what a stencil horn is. To summarize, it is a horn made by  manufacturer which is re-branded by the seller and sold under that seller’s name, instead of the actual maker’s. Later in the thread, a member named ‘farbewerk’ included a list of many of the known stencils and brands produced by the major manufacturers.  According to ‘farbewerk’, the list is as follows.

AMERICAN ARTIST: BUESCHER OR MARTIN
ACADEMY: BUESCHER
AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL: CONN
AMERICAN KNIGHT: CONN
AMERICAN STANDARD: H. N. WHITE /KING
GREAT GRETSCH AMERICAN: CONN OR BUESCHER
GRETSCH ARTIST: CONN
DICK STABILE: MARTIN
GRETSCH: CONN, MARTIN
ARTIST: BUESCHER
ARTIST BRAND: CONN
BARONET: BUESCHER?
BRUNO: CONN
BUNDY: CONN, BUESCHER, SELMER
CAPITOL BAND INSTRUMENTS: ?
CARL FISCHER: BUFFET OR BUESCHER
CAVALIER: CONN
CLEVELAND: H. N. WHITE/ KING
COLE AMERICAN: CONN
CLAXTON: CONN
CONTINENTAL: CONN
COLONIAL: CONN (MARTIN ALSO?)
COURTURIER: CONN
GRAND RAPIDS BAND INSTRUMENT COMPANY: YORK
EMBASSY: BUESCHER
KING: H. N. WHITE
HARWOOD PROFESSIONAL, JENKINS MUSIC COMPANY: CONN, BUESCHER
CONCERTONE: MARTIN
ELKHART: BUESCHER
ELKHORN: GETZEN
GLADIATOR: H. N. WHITE COMPANY
HARMONY: BUESCHER?
GRAND OPERA: CONN
INTERLOCHEN: MARTIN
INDIANA: MARTIN
JENKINS: CONN
LAVELLE: BUESCHER
LEFLEUR: CONN
LIBERTY C.K.C.: CONN
OLIVER DITSON: BUESCHER
OLYMPIAN: CONN
ORPHEUM: CONN
ORPHEUM: SUPER CONN
VELVETONE, KEACH & GREEN, PHILADELPHIA, PA: CONN
PAN AMERICAN: CONN
HARRY PEDDLER: MARTIN
SEAR AND ROEBUCK: CONN
SILVERTONE: BUESCHER
WURLITZER: MARTIN, CONN OR BUESCHER

This is undoubtedly not a complete list, but it is a good place to start – especially for some of the older manufacturers such as H.N. White, Conn, Buescher, and so forth. The only element of this original post I would take issue with is the naming of H.N. White as a stencil. In actuality, H.N. White was the company that made a number of brands, including ‘King’, ‘American Standard’, and ‘Cleveland’ so I have corrected the original list to show that.

Today of course, there are many stencils, including such brands as ‘Dillon’, ‘Schiller’, and so forth. Most of these are made by Chinese companies such as Jinbao and marketed to students or players who lack the funds for a professional horn. Some of them are good; some are not.. But the existence of multiple brands by a single manufacturer has a long history, so there is no read that things should be otherwise today. Buyer beware, as always.