As I sit here and write this article it marks a very special moment in time for me. My hunt for a perfect mouthpiece is over.
There should be bunting in the streets, a public holiday - maybe even a live concert in Hyde Park. Y'see, when you pick up a horn for the first time no-one ever tells you about 'mouthpiece misery'. If you're very lucky your first horn will come with a decent piece - like a Yamaha 4C or similar. Something like this will do you very nicely for at least a year or so - or more likely as long as it takes for you to log on to the internet and catch a very nasty dose of FOMO.
Not, in this case, Fear Of Missing Out but rather Fear Of Mouthpiece Oppression - which describes that pervasive and insidious feeling that your mouthpiece isn't quite good enough for the standard of player you think you are...or think you could be. It drags you down with each note you play - that dreadful sense that somewhere out there is a mouthpiece that will make you sound (and play like) Tubby Hayes or John Coltrane...while you're stuck with one that makes you sound like Leonard Cohen coughing up a furball.

And so it begins, that seemingly never-ending search for mouthpiece nirvana.
For those worst-affected by this debilitating condition it means ending up with possibly dozens of pieces - none of which have ever truly satisfied your needs and desires for much longer than it takes to work your way through a box of reeds - or get a quarter of the way through the Charlie Parker Omnibook.
The more fortunate amongst us might adopt a more pragmatic approach and come to terms with the knowledge that there's always going to be a better piece out there - but that the one you have right now is good enough. This approach tends to work very well...as long as you never try out another piece.
And then there are those of who recognise the value of having something that works and sticking with it for a long period time, fully developing its potential down the years.

But there often comes a time when there's a well-defined need to change a mouthpiece. Perhaps you've bought a new horn and your old piece doesn't seem to work so well on it. Or maybe your style of playing has changed. What worked for those Sunday lunchtime jazz sessions down at the local isn't perhaps going to cut the mustard when you sign up with an Earth, Wind And Fire tribute outfit. And then maybe you just get old. Lose a tooth or two, put on a bit of weight, start feeling the effects of a 20-a-day habit...

My own journey was largely dictated my the sort of playing I did at the time. After learning the basics I went straight into big band work - so I needed a piece that blended in with a section and that was versatile yet restrained. From there I went into blues, so I needed to stand out more - and to compete with players for whom the concept of 'balance' was more about how many pints they could knock back before they fell over.
Then came the soul years, and the rock years - and in each case I sought out and found pieces that I felt fitted the genre.
But I got lucky. I only once ever had to go to a shop and play my way through dozens of pieces to find the right one - the rest sort of came my way though my work. And then I got really lucky.
Strolling along a street market one fine Saturday morning I chanced upon a stall selling bric-a-brac; a motley collection of stuff that no-one really wanted such as a glove with three fingers, a box of Whitworth spanners, a kettle with a hole in it and a "Johnny Rotten Sings Nat King Cole" album. And a Dukoff D8 tenor mouthpiece.
I knew exactly what it was because a lot of my clients back then were playing these pieces. I used to mock them. "Look at it! It's made of old pots and pans! What are all these pockmarks?? You've almost bitten the end off the damned thing!"
Compared with something as sleek as a Lawton or as robust as a Berg Larsen the Dukoff was laughable. But I knew what I could sell it for - and with a suitable degree of nonchalance and feigned disinterest I asked "Whaddya want for this thing, Guv?" Five quid. Five whole quid!
And in some ways I suppose that's where my luck ran out because I made the mistake of actually trying it out. And that's when I discovered why so many people were playing these things.
I could never be proud of it - the build quality went against everything I stood for - but it roared on my tenor, for less than half the effort of my old piece and at almost double the volume.

I played that piece for decades, on a Yamaha YTS-23. I could shatter glass at 20 paces, but over the years I grew more and more familiar with the whole setup and managed to dig out all the tonal nooks and crannies. I remember a chap, another sax player, coming up to me after a gig and expressing astonishment that I could get such a big tone out of a 23 and a Dukoff. It's just years of sticking with the same kit. I was a happy man. Content. In a state of blissful harmony.
And then I changed out the 23 for a TJ RAW. I knew instantly that the Dukoff didn't sit well on it. It walked all over the subtleties I'd chosen the horn for. I was moving towards a darker sound, not so brittle - and the Dukoff was out of its depth.
I managed to eke out a little more use from the Dukoff by modifying the tone chamber; deepening the baffle and rounding it down into the bore. But I could only go so far because of the imperfections in the metal. It did the job as a stopgap though, but I knew I needed a new piece.

The perfect opportunity to find that piece came when I attended the Frankfurt Musik Messe, Europe's premier music trade show. Pretty much everyone in the industry would be there and being a trade show there wouldn't be that pressure to buy a piece just because you'd spent half a day trying it out in a shop (sales at the show were forbidden. Ahem.)
Well, I did the lot. Anyone who had a tenor piece on their stand copped a visit from me. For the most part it all went smoothly. I'd ship up with a tenor, try some pieces, have a bit of banter and then move on to the next stand. I only ran into one small problem (and I shall name no names) where my technique of testing mouthpieces was given rather a drubbing.

Y'see, I always say that you should never buy a horn unless it slaps you in the face when you first blow it. Or, if you prefer, don't buy the horn you like - buy the one you love. It works for mouthpieces too. If you're in the market for, say, a really shouty piece with 'that Brekker thang' going on then it's pretty safe bet that a Yamaha 4C ain't gonna cut the mustard. But you won't know for sure until you try it - and all it takes is one note. Yep, just one note.
It's the same as trying on a pair of shoes that don't fit or sampling a beer that tastes of cat's wee. You don't need to waste any more time than it takes to think "Nope! Not for me!"
Unfortunately this approach didn't go down too well on one stand - and the 'suggestion' was made that perhaps a different reed or ligature might make all the difference. And it might do - but only at the point where something shows promise. My golden rule is 'Change as little as possible'. Same reed, same lig if possible, same horn. Keep the variables down and let the product you're trying show you what it's got. Save the fancy riffs (and your time) for the pieces that make you think "Mmm, this might work!" And then the 'suggestion' was made that I might have better luck on another stand.
Funnily enough I was telling the guy at the next stand I stopped by about my experience and he said "But that's what I do! Play one note, see if it chimes with me...otherwise move on".

Anyway, after much schlepping around I found myself at the Bari stand - trying out a Cyclone piece. Very nice. I wasn't that sold on the silly two-part ligature (far too faffy by half) but the piece had the tone and response I was looking for. Definitely a contender. I even played more than one note on it, even though it looked like something out of a Flash Gordon comic.
Discussions ensued (which was mostly about me asking for a discount "'Cos I is a celebrity, innit") and I left the stand feeling that I might well follow it up. And then I stumbled upon the Brancher stand.
I'd not heard of them, so was very keen to see what they had to offer - and what I particularly liked was the no-nonsense approach. None of that "We leave our blanks out in the Chilean sun for three week to absorb cosmic energy" or "Every time we make a cut with a file we throw it away and pick up a new one". No, it was simply precision design and engineering - and a very reasonable price to match. Plus they look crushingly elegant.
I went through four or five pieces and then tried one that ticked all the boxes. My memory may have failed me but I seem to remember that it was a B29 - which was the model that the maker, Pascal Brancher, played himself. It was easier to blow than the Bari piece, louder and with just a little bit more depth...whilst still having a good deal of cut and punch. I felt in my bones that this was an excellent piece - and was just about to enter into negotiations ("I is famous, innit!") when my then girlfriend hove into view carrying a small box. She'd just bought me the Bari piece as a birthday present.

Well, what's a guy to do?? You can't very well say "Tough shit - this Brancher pisses all over it!", so I did the decent thing and accepted the very generous gift with suitable gratitude.
And to be fair the Bari piece was good - but it always lived in the shadow of my knowing how much nicer the Brancher B29 was.

Skip forward 15 or so years and I'm just finishing up with a client in the workshop. He'd tested his newly-restored horn, put it safely away in its case and set to leaving the workshop. And then he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small box. "Here you go - I don't use this anymore, maybe you can make use of it". It was Brancher tenor piece, a B29.
Lucky old me, again! I dashed home that evening and didn't even bother to take my dirty work boots off. Out came the tenor, on with a reed and away we go. It was like stepping back in time. I felt it when I first blew that Brancher at Frankfurt, the way the piece moved with me, the clarity of it. There it was again, right in front of me. For sure, I did some back and forth with the Bari piece. It was close - it had to be or I wouldn't have liked it in the first place - but there were no two ways about it, the Brancher did everything the Bari did, and then a bit more - and for less effort and with more volume. And as an added bonus I'd no longer have to put up with horn players pointing at the Bari saying "Ye Gods! What the absolute f**k is that thing??" My perfect piece!

Well, it would have been but...
It's just that my rock 'n roll days are fading. It's been great fun but I wouldn't ever say that it's been particularly challenging. When you spend the whole session looking forward to the one or two numbers that aren't a three chord trick it kinda tells you that there's more to life than this. I'd been getting out my fakebooks, running through exercises, trying to unravel the mysteries of chord sequences and thinking about where, musically, I'd like to go next.
And then I had yet another bit of luck. An old friend of mine called me up one day and said a la Blues Brothers stylee "We're getting the band back together". I played with these guys many years ago - a jump-jive outfit. I really enjoyed it because it struck me as being the perfect blend between rock 'n roll and big band. Structured horn section riffs that last for more than a bar - and chord changes that give you the option of having an easy time with a blues approach or stretching yourself with making more of the changes. But there was a problem; my Bari piece was way too blarty for the genre and stuck out within the horn section like a vegan at a hog-roast. And the Brancher was much the same, but louder (two vegans at a hog-roast)! I was, essentially, no better off.

So I poured myself a large whisky and tried to steel my nerves against the prospect of having to go try out a ton of mouthpieces.
And then I had this brilliant idea! I really liked the Brancher piece. I liked the way it was made, the way it felt, the way it played and sounded - but obviously they must have other pieces in their range?
A quick search answered my question. They do two more pieces that are more laid back. Was it that simple? Was I being naive? Well why not ask the guy who makes them!
So I did. I dropped Pascal Brancher an email and explained (at some length) what I'd got, where I was going and what I wanted - and the reply came back "The E (Equilibrium) series is your best bet". Sounded good to me - a halfway house between the bright piece and the J (jazz) one. But then I got to thinking that if I was gonna try the E I really ought to try the J piece too...y'know, if only to rule it out. So I ordered both.

I spent the next week or so on tenterhooks. If even one of these pieces worked for me my journey will be over. If neither does then I'm back to square one, with all that it entails.
When the pieces arrived I downed tools and legged it off home to try them out (dirty boots and all). I tried the E piece first and knew with just that one single note that I'd found what I was looking for. A really nice blend of clarity with bags of background. Job done. Sorted.
And then I tried the Jazz piece.
The response of the E had made this exercise somewhat academic, but it turned out to be rather a surprise. Pascal had suggested that it might be a bit too smooth for my tastes after I'd expressed my preference for a free-blowing, slightly bright piece - and yeah, straightaway I got that feeling of there being more need to drive this piece. But...it had something. Something rather nice. I spent a lot of time going back and forth. The E gave me everything on a plate - the J asked a bit more of me and somehow kept wooing me more towards 'the dark side'. But I missed the ease of playing the E.
Another large whisky was poured...and then I had another idea...

Folks who've heard me play their tenors in the workshop often ask me what piece I'm playing. "It's a modified Vandoren T25". Most people seem happy enough with that answer but some ask in what way is it modified - and at this point I have to admit that as grand as it sounds it's actually just a bit of Blu-Tack stuck in the throat to give the piece a bit of a baffle. Just lifts the brightness a tad and makes for an easier blow. I stuck the stuff in there many years ago, fully intending to take it out and replace it with something more permanent. But it's never fallen out and it still works...so why fix what ain't broke?
How about we try the Blu-Tack trick with the J? It ought to work quite well because the rear of the tone chamber on both pieces is much the same - most of the action goes on towards the tip of the pieces.
Now, I'm not a mouthpiece technician - and I'm sure there are tried-and-tested means of determining where such a baffle should go and what profile it should have - but my method is just to squish a lump of goo in the throat and see what happens. Give it a blow, see how it goes, squish it again or move it around. Sooner or later you're going to sneak up on the sweet spot. I haven't found it yet because I simply haven't had the time to sit down and do it methodically - but the results I had were very, very promising indeed. I could pep up the brightness of the J and tweak the blowability while still hanging on to that gorgeous fat tone.
And that's the nice thing about a more open piece - it's really hard to take stuff out of a piece (especially without ruining it) but so much easier to put stuff in. What you end up with is something that's almost entirely customisable. I thought about calling it the EJ series but as it's French I think 'Je' has a nice ring to it.

But here's the thing, I used play a Link 7* way back in the day and I seem to remember that I liked it very much. I tried a few new Links some years ago but didn't get on with them at all - but at some point I must have been comfortable with that style of tone chamber. It's got me to thinking that maybe what will happen is that I'll find I slowly wean myself off those baffles and end up going 'old school'. We'll see.

And it does take time to mod a mouthpiece in this fashion because there are lots of variables to take into account. You might improve one aspect of the performance and ruin another. It might blow easier but the tuning's iffy - or it breaks up down the bottom end. But none of this will be worth doing unless the piece has something you like in the first place.

And so it left me with yet another dilemma. The E is very versatile. It will do very nicely indeed - but the J is very tempting. Another sit-down with a wee dram and I came up with the following solution.
If I needed to do any rock playing the E is way, way better than anything else I have - and it's got enough bootiness to work in the jump-jive genre. It just works. The J sounds so nice that it's worth the time and effort to work with it - and it has the potential to become that one piece that rules them all. It fits squarely into that "Mmm, this might work!" category. It's intriguing, tempting - and yeah, perhaps a bit of a challenge for me...but it sort of sits in its box and seems to say "You know I'm worth it..."
So the logical option is to have both of them. And that's exactly what I've done.

I feel I am now, finally, home. I'll spend the next 25 years or so really getting to know these pieces before deciding that what I really want to be is a classical sax player - but by then I'll likely be six feet under and the whole notion will be entirely moot.
The only dilemma left to face is what to do with the B29 that was so graciously passed on to me - and I'll do what I always do with such things; hang on to it until a client expresses a need for such a thing and then pass it on. That, my friends, is how you make your own luck.
And speaking of which - remember that market stall bargain? The very next week, on an entirely different stall, I found an alto D8. Five quid again. I still use it...but I very much suspect its days are numbered now.

In closing I'd like to express my thanks to Pascal Brancher for his thoughtful advice and patience - and although this isn't a review I do want to say how impressed I am at the build quality of the pieces and the straightforward approach of the company. Definitely worth a try.