Yanagisawa Prima Mark VI Copy Soprano w/ Custom 62R-style Neck

Description

This is a beautiful Yanagisawa S-800 Prima (handmade Mark VI copy) soprano in extremely clean condition. It has a fresh overhaul by Matt Stohrer and plays amazingly nicely. This was also the second horn that we did on a custom project to bend a straight, one piece soprano to have the bent neck profile of a Yamaha 62R. Branford Marsalis famously played a silver, bent neck Mark VI soprano that he had modified, and now, for the first time that I know of, there is something very similar available.

The bending process is highly controlled and a bending compound is used inside the bore to allow a smooth internal surface after bending. The horn plays just like it did before, as far as I can tell. I don’t notice any quirks or intonation problems. The big payoff is that the horn is MUCH more comfortable to play now.

I chose this model because these early Yanagisawa sopranos sound virtually the same as a good Mark VI soprano, except they tend to have a bit more consistent intonation than the equivalent Selmers (in general).

This could be a good fit for someone who really likes the Mark VI soprano sound but wants the same thing (also hand made) for less money, and who wants a world class soprano with a bent neck that was also overhauled by one of the best techs around. It took a LOT of work to figure out how to do this safely and with the exact right profile. But the results were better than I hoped, which is exciting for the saxophone geek in me.