Performing Stan Kcnton's Music on the
Original Instrument, or The Mellophonium: 
All the Worst Features of the 
Trumpet and Horn Combined
by Kevin Lindsay

Kevin Lindsay, a born-and-raised Alaskan, was a student of Clyde Miller and 
William Scharnberg at North Texas and worked with L.A. hornists Kurt 
Snyder and Joe Meyer. He lives with his violinist wife Dawn and their three 
children in his hometown of Anchorage, where he teaches music in the public 
schools. He is active in Anchorage's performing arts, playing (occasionally) with the 
symphony, opera, and other performing groups when he has the time (and 
they are desperate). He is, however, the first-call mellophonium player in the 
area. Contact him at: klindsay@alaska.net

First a little history: as a horn student at North Texas State University  
(now University of North Texas) in the early-to-rnid '80s, one of the 
most unique and enjoyable opportunities afforded me in my studies was that of 
performing a number of Stan Kenton's big band arrangements with its excellent 
'Lab' jazz bands. When Kenton passed away in 1979, his will awarded custody
of his  entire music library to NTSU. After cataloging and filing, a process that took 
nearly a year, the music was made available to faculty and students, 
and the directors of the various lab bands wasted no time in taking advantage 
of these arrangements.

When a lab band was working on an arrangement that required horns, 
including many of the Kenton works, the excellent but difficult Rob McConnell 
pieces, or a student project, I was often the first horn player approached to 
play. The reasons for this probably had less to do with my horn-playing skill 
(modest at best) or my ability to swing a little . (still rare among horn players 
- ask any trumpet or trombone player), than with my carefully cultivated 
ability to match many of the jazz musicians beer-for-beer.

The Kenton arrangements, never exactly subtle in their use of powerful 
trombones and screaming trumpets, provide a performance challenge on 
several levels. First, the sheer power of an eight or ten-man trumpet and bone
section creates severe balance problems for a brass player whose instrument 
points the wrong way (I am reminded of a comment by my horn professor, 
r. Scharnberg, after a concert by the NTSU Brass Choir, in which I was playing 
1st horn. When I proudly asked him how he thought the horn section had done, 
he replied, "well, I could see your faces turning red, but I couldn't hear anything 
that you played"). Second, Kenton's arrangers tried to compensate for this by 
writing much of the part above the staff. It is no wonder that many of the most 
successful performances of these pieces at NTSU took place in the campus 
pub (then known as the RBL, or Rock Bottom Lounge) where liquid anesthetic
was readily available. I remember wondering, usually after a brutally lip-crushing 
performance, just what kind of superhuman horn players Kenton had in mind
for this music.

The answer, of course, is that Kenton 
didn't intend for these parts to be played 
on horns. The instrument for which this 
music was written is the mellophonium 
not to be confused with the mellophone, 
an instrument with about as much cachet 
as an alto clarinet), a cross between (or 
perhaps combining the worst features of) 
the horn and trumpet. 

This bell-front instrument was produced by 
C.G. Conn, pitched in F-alto, to Kenton's 
specifications around 1960 (this date is not 
universally accepted). This article is not 
intended to be a history of the mellophonium, 
since several comprehensive accounts, such 
as  Scooter Pirtle's excellent article of its use in the Kenton band can be found when
you return to the Kenton Orchestra Index and click on 'The Kenton Mellophonium 
Section'. But when I was called to play a holiday choral concert with brass choir, 
and found that the "lollipops" part of the program included three of Kenton's 
Christmas carol arrangements for brass, decided to seize the opportunity to try 
something different.

Obviously, my first move was to acquire an instrument. I searched e-bay.com 
and, within a few days, found several candidates. The production 
version of the mellophonium was available in two finishes: silver plate or the 
more common traditional brass lacquer. I found two silver mellophoniums for 
sale, but one had been fully restored and was priced at over $1000, and the other 
looked like it had been literally run over by a truck. I opted for a brass 
mello that had apparently been used as a marching band horn at the University
of  North Carolina. It was fully functional, although it had the rather crinkled 
look so common to marching horns, and I was able to get it for the much more 
approachable price of 80 bucks. It arrived at my home in Anchorage, Alaska in 
about two weeks. My wife commented that I was like a little kid when I unboxed 
my new toy and, after loosening the piston valves, I grabbed a handy horn 
mouthpiece, put it in the mouthpiece receiver, and tried a few notes.
My first impressions were: the horn mouthpiece rattles in the receiver, 
but I expected this, knowing that the instrument was designed to use a 
mellophone mouthpiece. The long-awaited sound, on first try, was reminiscent of a 
marching French horn, or perhaps a bad high school horn player, just converted 
from trumpet and still resistant to the idea of placing the hand in the 
bell: raucous and blatty would be properly descriptive terms. There was no need to 
find my electronic tuner; it was clear that both the valve combinations and the 
harmonic series was out of whack. The first solution that came to mind 
(other than, of course, mounting it on a wall as a decoration) was to take it out 
into my garage, remove its mouthpipe with a torch, and replace it with a spare 
pipe that I had taken off of an old Schmidt B-flat horn. This, I felt, would 
allowe me to use a horn mouthpiece without an adapter (which cause venturi 
problems of their own) and, hopefully, improve the harmonic series. This solution 
was dashed by the fact that the mello leadpipe is both half the length of a 
horn leadpipe and much larger in bore. In a moment of inspiration, I cut the 
Schmidt pipe mouthpiece receiver and about two inches of the pipe with a 
plumbing pipe cutter, used the torch to remove the mello mouthpiece receiver, 
and tapped the Schmidt piece into the niello leadpipe with a mallet. Voila! The mello 
now accepted a horn mouthpiece with a much smoother taper transition than a 
mouthpiece adapter would have allowed. I put in a horn mouthpiece and prepared
to assess the mello's playing "qualities."

Okay, this thing has absolutely no resistance. Think of it as a 
bell-front descant horn with a bore of .500 (same as the average small-bore 
trombone), and you'll get some idea of the free-blowing nature of the instrument. 
The pitch centers above top-space g" are almost non-existent. The effect is 
similar to that of playing an F horn from g" to high c'" without the hand in the 
bell-more of a glissando than a defined scale. This puzzled me since, on the 
mello, this range fell between the 6th and 8th harmonics, rather than the 12th and 
16th.

The hand position for playing it is surprisingly comfortable: the  piston valves 
take a little getting used to but the finger hook fits my hand just fine. 
The overall balance isn't bad either, despite the long bell, due to Conn's 
foresight in putting a trombone counterweight at the rear of the instrument.

Choosing a mouthpiece for my customized mello was a little more 
problematic than I had anticipated. Now, my regular playing equipment is pretty 
standard, especially when compared to the cutting-edge pro world (I am 
currently in a phase of my playing career where different horns pretty much play 
the same for me-I find that I can miss notes with equal consistency on just about 
any instrument). My main axe is a beat-up old M-series 8D (truly the Ford 
F-250 pickup truck of the horn world) and I have a fabulous-sounding but extremely 
treacherous pre-WWII Schmidt Bb horn with a modern Engelbert Schmid 
leadpipe for graduation gift from Dr. Scharnberg, replacing the terrible OEM pipe 
and eventually used to modify the mello). I have three Atkinson cups, a Cl 
(supposedly a copy of DeRosa's old Giardinelli Cl mouth-piece), a H(Horner) 8, 
and a D(Dellosa)12.I use a thin rim and choose the cup depending on the 
playing situation (Cl for low horn, H8 for big, heroic playing, and the D12 after 
quickly realizing that I am way too out-of-shape to even think about playing the 
H8). I also have an old Giardinelli S14 that is great for small ensembles. My plan for 
the mello was to ameliorate the harsh tone by using a big, deep horn 
mouth-piece, such as the H8. What a bad idea. The larger horn mouthpiece cups 
did indeed allow for a fuller, more horn-like sound, but their free-blowing 
characteristics, combined with the almost total lack of resistance of the mello 
left me with very little endurance and virtually no high range. Not for the last time 
in this endeavor did it cross my rnind that the guys in the Kenton band who 
played these things must have been beasts. Sure, the cup-shaped mellophone or 
cornet mouth-pieces that they used would have helped range and endurance, but 
I still stand in awe of their brute strength.

I am quite sure that a DeRosa, Myers, Thatcher, etc. would have no problem 
but I was going to need more of a real-world solution. I dug into the 
box that serves as my mouthpiece graveyard and soon found what I was looking 
for: an Alexander 4 mouthpiece. The Alex 4, according to Toru Ikeno's excellent 
mouthpiece comparison <www2s.biglobe. ne.jp/-t_ikeno/mpc_chart.html>, 
is the smallest production horn mouthpiece made (sort of the Schilke 6a4a of 
the horn world). I have no idea why I own one of these, but probably acquired it 
as part of a grab bag purchase. Anyway, the Alex pretty much solved my range 
and endurance problems but at the cost of tone quality. I practiced for a few days 
on both horn and mello, then it was off to the first rehearsal.

The looks on the faces of my brass colleagues when I casually took the 
mello out of its case and began warming up were priceless. Their comments 
were varied but all essentially boiled down to "what in hell is that?" All 
pleasantries ceased, however, when we began to rehearse the Kenton pieces. 
First of all, even with practice, my intonation was less than perfect. Strangely, 
when I checked it with a tuner, most of the open partials in the range that I 
was playing in were pretty close to where they should be. All of the valve 
combi-nations, however, were flat, even 1st and 2nd valve notes were very 
difficult to get up to pitch. All mellophoniums came from Conn with a tuning slide 
extension to put them. into Eb-alto, so perhaps the valve slide lengths were a 
com-promise between the two different pitches. Whatever the case, it was nigh 
impossible to play in tune with any other instrument. After a discouraging first 
rehearsal, I began to wonder if perhaps I should give up on my experiment and 
return to rny 8D (I was already using it for the non-Kenton portions of the 
concert).  Luckily, the choir conductor (himself a fine trumpet player) was 
fascinated by the mello and encouraged me to persevere. So the next day I 
returned to my garage and, using a Dremel tool, cut approximately half an inch 
off of each valve slide. Problem solved! The mello was now playable in an ensemble.

The next rehearsal went much better, at least from my point of view. 
The other brass players, however, were still not very happy. Chief among 
their complaints was balance. Did I mention that the mello is loud? Really, 
really loud? Playing the rnello after the 8D was, I imagine, rather like the 
difference between driving the aforementioned Ford pickup, and then getting 
behind the wheel of a Dodge Viper: no subtlety, but enormous power. I wasted 
no time in indulging myself in a fantasy that all horn players have at one time or 
another: finally I had an instrument whose bell pointed the right way! Thirty 
years worth of balance frustrations, of being covered by trumpets and trombones 
in the band and orchestra, of having to work twice as hard to be heard in a brass 
quintet, all melted away in a matter of a single phrase of jazzy Christmas 
music, after which, while surrounded by eight of Alaska's best professional 
trumpet, trombone and tuba players, I was asked by the conductor to back off, as 
I was overbalancing them! I have waited all my life to hear this from a 
conductor. We did two performances of our program, one of which was less than 
satisfactory (for all of us) and one that was quite good (I even nailed 
the high 'd' in "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"- thanks, Alexander). The 
mellophonium was very well received by the audience; the conductor pointed it 
out and spoke briefly about it before we played (he called it a "French horn on 
steroids"). He even told me that if I could get another one that we would use them 
both next year (this was not met by cheers from the rest of the brass).

In closing, the rnello is truly fascinating, but not terribly easy to play. It was
amazing to me how its rough, powerful voice completely changed the 
sound and style of the brass choir. When the Kenton pieces are played using 
horns on those parts, the other brass players are forced to be more civilized 
and tasteful in their playing-but then the effect is really more of a brass 
choir, not a jazz band. The use of the mellophonium, with its ability to match 
trumpet and trombones decibel-for-decibel and its more aggressive sound, 
allows the entire brass section to be unleashed: certainly the sound that Kenton 
originally had in mind. What a blast (literally)!