TromboneChat

Doing some research and am trying to figure out the gear Glenn Miller played on. After a bit of research I am fairly confident he mainly if not exclusively played a NY Bach 6 VII. a couple questions not a bach guy so wondering what VII means is this a reference to the 7 inch bell? Also does anyone know what mouthpiece he used? I assume it was a Bach but don't know the specs.

DakoJack wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 1:18 am Doing some research and am trying to figure out the gear Glenn Miller played on. After a bit of research I am fairly confident he mainly if not exclusively played a NY Bach 6 VII. a couple questions not a bach guy so wondering what VII means is this a reference to the 7 inch bell? Also does anyone know what mouthpiece he used? I assume it was a Bach but don't know the specs.

VII is a reference to one of seven variants that would be built under the "model 6" designation. Kinda weird, but that's what they did.

Lots of info here from "Peppy": For extra fun, you can see one of Miller's horns at the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Base in Dayton OH.

Cheers,
Andy

It's said that GM played an Al Almont mouthpiece (sterling silver), but the only one with an up-close picture seems to show brass underneath the plating. I'm sure he used different mouthpieces over the years, like many of us.
The mouthpiece with the horn in Dayton has no rim. Glenn carried the rim in his pocket, so I'm guessing it ended up in the English Channel.

I'll be playing with the GMO at the Glenn Miller Festival next month. Hoping to see this horn again (for the first time in 20 years.)
https://rosevillebigband.org/personnel/ ... mbone.html

I have played his Bach 6 that is at the museum in Dayton, when I was in the Airmen of Note. Played Too Little Time on the concert on that horn. I played my own Bach 6 on the rest of that concert.

I have seen versions II, IV, and VII but I don't know what the differences were. Different bell mandrels maybe.

Nice playing with you guys last Thursday.

The IV is a little thinner than a VII and a different mandrel may have been used. The IV gets barky quicker and
May be more prone to cracking. I think my IV has a patch on the bell. There is a YouTube video of Bryant Beyers playing a Bach IV. See “Bach IV Tenor.”

VII does not refer to a 7 inch bell. I have been remiss in not measuring the bell size on the ones I have or have had. They seem to be around 7 inches. VII was the next configuration Bach defined which may be less screwy than Shires’ but not much. Bryant knows the crook and bell numbers on his and shows them in the video.

This page on “Bach Loyalist” may be of interest:

https://bachloyalist.com/bach-trombones ... heet-1957/

I wonder if anyone has looked to see if they can find the shop card on Miller's horn. I've been browsing the Bones Malone collection, and his 1934 Model 6 has a 411 Mouthpipe, 415 Bell "mandril", 421 Tuning Slide Bow, 421 Gooseneck.

I didn't make a note of the serial number.
Well maybe I did at the time but it's been almost 30 years.

tbonesullivan wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 2:49 pm I wonder if anyone has looked to see if they can find the shop card on Miller's horn. I've been browsing the Bones Malone collection, and his 1934 Model 6 has a 411 Mouthpipe, 415 Bell "mandril", 421 Tuning Slide Bow, 421 Gooseneck.

FWIW, they will generally only pull shop cards for horns you own, not ones you are just curious about. As they were just noting on a trumpet thread, lots of folks want to them to pull cards for Herseth's horn, for example.

Cheers,
Andy

That seems like information the museum might want to have to display, no? Has anyone mentioned it to the museum?