Posted by Art on August 19, 2000 at 09:36:51:
In Reply to: Re: Bill Bell tuba-flute jazz duet posted by Gus Pratt on August 19, 2000 at 07:28:44:
Bill Bell did most of his solo work on a four-valve King Eb sousaphone. He told me personally that almost all of his Crest solo LP was done on it, except for "In the Hall of the Mountain King", which he did with a BBb tuba. (This was after I had spent years on my BBb imitating his Eb-tuba sound.) The photo on the album cover showed him holding a shiny new Martin, and on the back in fine print it says "Mr. Bell uses King tubas". The story I heard about that (indirectly) was that he called Harvey Phillips and asked him to bring his tuba down to the photo studio, and Harvey hopped onto the subway immediately with two tubas because he wasn't sure which one Bill wanted to use. When he came out to Riverhead to solo with the Monday Night Band he didn't bother to carry a tuba because he knew of a three-valve York BBb that my father had arranged for a student to buy. He said "I'll just use Tom's tuba".