Adam Niewood – From Sax Pro to Refacing Mouthpieces for Living Legends

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Introduction

When searching for a new mouthpiece, there are quite a few options to consider. One main question that comes to mind is: “Do I buy a new mouthpiece or consider getting my current mouthpiece or backup refaced?” As there are more mouthpieces on the market than ever before, there has also been more buzz around getting a mouthpiece refaced. One refacer who has grown in popularity is Adam Niewood. Besides being a mouthpiece refacer, Adam is also an accomplished player, which I believe factors into the quality and consistency of his mouthpiece work from client to client. Today, I had the chance to sit down with Adam and learn more about his story and how he got into this line of work. For those of you who haven’t checked out Adam, see a quick bio below.

Adam Niewood Bio

  • Adam Niewood is a saxophonist, composer, drummer, and craftsman involved in various creative projects over the past 30 years, primarily in the New York metropolitan area.
  • He comes from what some refer to as “a family of jazz royalty.” His father, Gerry Niewood, was a world-renowned jazz artist best known for his long association with Chuck Mangione.
  • Saxophone studies began at age 3, and by age 5, Adam was traveling on the road with artists like Simon & Garfunkel and Liza Minnelli.
  • While in high school, he played tenor and toured in big bands including Lew Soloff, Don Menza, and Steve Gadd.
  • After early studies with his dad and a two-year stint in Boston at Berklee, he earned a Bachelor’s Degree from William Paterson University under the tutelage of David Demsey.
  • Upon graduation, he was recommended for a professorship at Montclair State University, where he instructed saxophone, jazz history, and small ensemble.
  • Continued his education with a full scholarship at Manhattan School of Music and became one of the first attendees of the jazz program at Juilliard, earning an Artist Diploma in 2010.
  • Has been a guest lecturer at multiple institutions and workshops, and has taught Drum Set at Lafayette College.
  • Played with a wide range of accomplished musicians, including Phil Woods, Jeff “Tain” Watts, David Liebman, Gene Perla, among others.
  • Released several recordings as a leader, notably on Steeplechase Records featuring jazz greats John Scofield, John Patitucci, and Jack DeJohnette.
  • Worked in various bands including David Liebman’s “Elvin Jones Live at the Lighthouse” Band and the Pat Martino Quintet.
  • His work as a craftsman on mouthpieces, inspired by the late Jon Van Wie, has been recognized globally. He apprenticed with Ted Klum and has refaced mouthpieces for many top musicians.

Interview

ZS: What interested you in picking up the saxophone, and when did you start to become interested in refacing mouthpieces?

AN: My dad was a professional saxophonist who played jingles, recording sessions, and did freelance work. Hearing music in the house played by my father got me inspired to “do it” and that it was possible “to do it.” My mother is a classical pianist and clarinetist, so there was music on both sides of the family. The first floor, my mom would teach as many as forty piano students a week. From beat one, it was possible to have a life and earn a living involved in music. As a kid, I was interested in the same stuff as other kids like Voltron and Transformers, but when I was in middle school (4th or 5th grade), I started to play in band. My first instrument was clarinet, and then after playing clarinet for a year, I wanted to transition to saxophone, so I got an alto. I played alto saxophone throughout middle school and high school, and then when it was time to go to college, I wanted to go to music school, so I went to Berklee for a couple of years. From Berklee, I transferred to William Paterson and did the whole jazz academia route and got my bachelor’s degree at William Paterson, master’s degree at Manhattan School of Music, and then the artist diploma at Juilliard. While going to school for jazz saxophone, I was doing mechanic work at bike shops in New Jersey, Boston, and New York. On my mom’s side, my grandfather was a carpenter, builder, and craftsman, so I think I had an interest in tools and fixing things. My grandfather was the kind of guy that when my grandmother said, “Bud, the way that the sun rises in the morning, I wish there was a window in this wall,” the next day my grandfather would cut a hole in the wall and put in a window. As a bike mechanic, I would work starting at 10:00 AM or 11:00 AM, and the musician vibe and mechanic work integrated well with one another; as no gig was going to be at the same time as bike shop hours. I would work for eight hours, then get cleaned up/change clothes and head to a gig.

Now zooming back, even though I played alto in middle school and high school, I switched to tenor when my high school band director, Stan Jackson, wanted an even number of altos and tenors, so he had me switch to tenor in marching band. I remember the first tenor I played was a school King Zephyr, and it was awesome. I remember once I got used to the tenor sax, I really enjoyed not carrying an instrument case, and I would just bring my mouthpiece in my backpack so I had a saxophone at school and a saxophone at home (this is how I travel today, which I try to hook-up a tenor before the gig and just bring my mouthpiece and my neck strap). When I graduated undergrad at William Paterson, David Dempsey (who is such a saint) hooked me up with a teaching gig as an adjunct professor at Montclair State University. Fresh out of undergrad, I was teaching at Montclair State University. Living outside of NYC in the late 90’s in West Orange, New Jersey, I had a little apartment, and I would commute in and out. I would go into NYC to Auggie’s and see Joe Farnsworth, Harold Mabern, and Eric Alexander, then to sessions at Smalls, or Craig Bailey ran a session out in Brooklyn. I would dart around NY at night, working during the daytime in NJ, before moving into Manhattan full-time in 2000.

Now, how I got into mouthpieces was being curious about mouthpieces and wanting to try different stuff. Looking at album covers and getting into how different players sounded different. Luckily, my father had a nice collection at home. When I would ask my father, “What does Joe Henderson play?” (for example, since his sound is so different) my dad would run upstairs and hand me an original Selmer E, to try (I acknowledge, I am very privileged to have that kind of thing growing up). I would ask, “What did Brecker play on ‘Straphagin’?” he would immediately answer, “It was a Silverite Dukoff,” and he would run upstairs, get the mouthpiece, and put it in my hands to try it out. That was the connection at first. Having access to dad’s collection was very important.

Another interesting and integral facet, where I went to school in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, was very close proximity to the late Bob Ackerman. What was pretty cool was that Bob Ackerman would come and visit my public high school. I remember he had the jewelers’ magnifying glasses and would come to measure the mouthpieces for the clarinet and saxophone sections.

My band director would let us know, “If you want to get a step-up mouthpiece, stop by the band room,” and Bob would be sitting there with a briefcase full of mouthpieces for us to try; looking back on it, that was pretty cool.

When I went to Berklee in Boston for two years, what I noticed was that while I was developing these music relationships, these players were leaving Boston. Players would come to Berklee, sound really great for a semester or two, and then ditch out and move to New York. I was making all these friends and then missing them.

So, I spoke to my dad about this phenomenon, and he told me to apply to William Paterson. He said if I got in, I would be in commutable distance in and out of NYC, which is exactly what I did. While at William Paterson in Wayne, New Jersey, I luckily had a car. To amuse myself, I would go to Bob Ackerman’s house, USA Horn, Joe’s Sax, and all the local saxophone shops.

In the late ’90s, I met this guy named Jon Van Wie, and he was working at Bob Ackerman’s place. Up until meeting Jon, I was told, “Don’t let these guys work on your mouthpieces.” At first, I was a little hesitant to let someone start tweaking my mouthpiece, but what I noticed consistently was that every mouthpiece that Jon had worked on played hands down better than anything else.

It had all the characteristics that my dad told me to look out for, which are: table seal, paying attention to intonation, especially between certain intervals when play testing, and when you exhale in the mouthpiece, do you hear a hiccup, clicks, or gaps before the sound begins? As the son of a professional musician, I knew if I was going to bring a mouthpiece home, I needed to meet these standards or I would have to return it.

As a kid, I remember taking the bus to Manhattan and going to 48th and 46th streets, visiting Manny’s, Sam Ash, Rod Baltimore, and Roberto’s. I would walk between these music stores and try out different horns and mouthpieces. If I liked one, and it met those standards, I would consider picking it up. There was always the opportunity to trade something in and leave with something different and new.

Now, consistently, every mouthpiece that Jon Van Wie worked on “passed” all of the boxes, so that was the first time I learned to trust implicitly a mouthpiece maker.

I remember next, dropping my mouthpiece in a practice room at William Paterson, and I called Bob Ackerman in a panic: “I dropped my mouthpiece, it doesn’t work anymore, what do I do?” Bob told me to stop by, and he could fix it.

The long end of the story is that without Jon fixing it, it didn’t work out. So, the next thing was to track down Jon, and I found out that Jon lived out in Waverly, NY. Next, I drove out to Jon to personally meet him at his house, and he set my mind at ease, letting me know he could fix it. As he put the mouthpiece back, it actually played better than it was before.

The first time he made the mouthpiece, I had just found it at Ackerman’s. But the second time, I watched him through the entire process; how he worked the table, filed the baffle, cut the curve, and all the intuitive and insightful questions he asked me about my needs.

That kind of got me hooked, and I started looking around, shopping, buying pieces, and driving to Jon Van Wie’s. I repeated this process over and over and watched him work, which went on for about three years. I don’t think I would be working on mouthpieces at all, and would just have continued driving to meet Jon if he hadn’t gotten sick and passed away.

With Jon gone, at that point, I lost my friend and someone I admired and respected. It dawned on me that when I tried other people’s work, it didn’t really play or work for me, but when I tried Jon’s work, it was hands down so much better than anyone else’s.

I wanted to chase down this information, finding out what that quantifiable difference was even though I didn’t know if I would have “the hands” for refacing. I didn’t want this information to die along with Jon. From my research, I found out that Jon studied with this guy Ted Klum.

My friend Mike Eberhardt was a horn repair guy and put me in touch with Ted. I remember the first time I called Ted, he was slightly apprehensive; I wanted to find out if he could work on an alto mouthpiece for me. I met Ted, and this was a completely different experience with him than it was with Jon. Ted had a different vibe.

It was a doctor consultation where I brought Ted a Tonemaster for alto, and Ted had me first play through a couple of his mouthpieces. Ted asked me which one I liked the best and was very interested in which one I preferred. Seemingly, my preferences, or which one I liked the best, factored into how he was going to approach the job and prepare mine. Then, Ted said, “Great, I’ll let you know when it is ready,” and showed me to the door. He wasn’t going to let me watch him work; I had to come back.

This was different from working with Jon, where my interaction with Ted was more serious and professional, and I felt a sense of where the boundaries were. But when I went back two weeks later to pick up the mouthpiece, it was absolutely amazing, and I still have it in my collection today.

Where Jon was immediately friendly, I had to slowly develop a relationship with Ted. When I had first asked Ted if he would teach me how to reface mouthpieces, he told me, “No man, I’m not interested in taking on any students.” So, I guess I forgot about it or gave up the idea since I was told “no.”

Several months later, Bob Ackerman and his wife Pam were having jam sessions at his house in Irvington, and my father Gerry and I were invited over to his house to play. At the jam, in walks Ted, and he has his horn, and it was a great hang. That was the needed ice breaker, to be able to casually play music in a relaxed environment.

I remember my father and Ted played “Barbados” dueling altos, and they sounded great together. After that session, I got this call from Ted, and he jokingly said, “Hey man, you didn’t tell me you can play like that.”

So, after hanging out at the Ackermans, Ted called and asked me to come over to his place. Once past that initial threshold, I slowly started visiting Ted’s place more and more often, where he introduced me to the work, “showing me the ropes,” more or less, and had me perform preliminary tasks to test my aptitude. Ted thought I showed promise, and I went back more frequently.

Back at this point in time, Ted Klum had not launched “Ted Klum Mouthpieces LLC.” Mouthpieces were one of many things he was involved in. Ted had a record label, All Tribe Records, running a home studio out of his house, playing gigs, and doing mouthpiece refacing. Ted was doing mouthpieces for the select players that he had vetted himself that he wanted as clients and did some work for Bob Ackerman.

At that time, I remember Bob had these mouthpieces under the label “B & N,” and these were made in Brazil by Bove & Norberto. These pieces were either dental resin or brass and bronze castings of vintage pieces no longer made and difficult to find. Ted was finishing a lot of these mouthpieces for Ackerman.

I would go over to Ted’s place for a lesson. He would have me start the job, and then when I got it to the point where I didn’t think I could make it any better, I would bring it over to Ted’s bench for the evaluation and critique. Ted let me know what was good and, more importantly, what needed improvement.

He would critique verbally out loud, and I would watch him fix my work. At the point where he felt it was “perfect,” he would explain why and finalize the job by signing “TK” on it, then put it aside and grab another blank to begin again.

The nature of my apprenticeship in the beginning was finishing these rough castings to the best of my ability and bringing it to Ted for inspection while watching him finish the job. This went on for a while, and then at a certain point, I remember one day bringing a piece to him, and he looked it over, checking and measuring. I was waiting for him to slice me down (as usual), but this time he wasn’t saying anything.

To touch on the lineage of the school from which I come: Ted’s style is an offshoot of Everett Matson. Bob Ackerman brought Ted to hang out with his teacher, Everett Matson. Everett had this intuitive sense about customizing the mouthpiece by listening to the individual’s needs.

He wasn’t the type of refacer where you are stuck with it, saying “this is the way I do it, so you either like it or not.” From speaking with Jon, Ted, and Bob, Everett really wanted the player to play that mouthpiece and not just play it for a week; he wanted them to really stick with it because he made it for them.

Ted taught my friend Jon Van Wie, and funny enough, much in the same vein, one of my best clients ended up becoming a mouthpiece refacer himself, and that is Sebastian Knox. Sebastian was in the Canadian army band, and the first job he sent me was to put epoxy on this mouthpiece with some JB Weld. Once I finished that one, he started sending me so many mouthpieces.

At a certain point, I realized that Sebastian liked the mouthpieces not just for music, but he liked them the way I liked them and would obsess over the details. Sebastian would pick up the details on his own without needing to be told. I remember asking Sebastian, “How many mouthpieces are you going to send me?” because I was starting to wonder if Sebastian enjoyed mouthpiece refacing and dialing in the mouthpieces to his specifications more than he did saxophone playing.

At first, Sebastian did not know the answer because he had not thought about it that way; but the next thing I knew, Sebastian was contemplating leaving Alberta, Canada, quitting the army band, and moving to the United States. So, I ended up introducing Sebastian to Ted, and he became the next apprentice. My friendship with Sebastian grew as I got to know him closely while in Little Falls, NJ, working for Ted, and I was in Manhattan, which is a lot closer than Canada.

ZS: With many mouthpieces on the market today being modified “copies” or influenced by Meyer, Otto Link, Selmer, Guardala’s, and Dukoff’s, why has it been so difficult to make exact copies of these pieces today? With more modern tools and manufacturing processes, why do you think consistency from mouthpiece to mouthpiece is not always present?

AN: I want to preface this by saying that I didn’t “invent the recipe,” and I am not “the founder.” It’s almost as if I was shown the recipe—the steps in order of how to make something. I was shown how to use certain skills and certain concepts in terms of facings, their relationships, and how they coincide.

If you check out an original Meyer, Otto Link, Dukoff, or Brilhart, these subtle details are there. What I see a lot of is people who try to copy the Meyer Bros or Otto Link, and from the onset, the difference is, “Well, I don’t like this one aspect of the design, so it’s ‘just like’ an Otto Link, but the table is completely different because I do it my way.”

That is not a recipe for a recreation. That is a recipe for a modification or offshoot. If you don’t respect the blueprints of the people who invented and made the mouthpiece or make it the exact way it was brand new and original, then it is truly not a recreation. The subtle details of the finish work are being missed (or not appreciated), and I am in business because “they” are missing it.

When it comes to modern tools and manufacturing processes, the Meyer Bros, Otto Link Slant Signature, Dukoff Fluted Chamber, and Brilharts, for example, were vulcanized. The rubber was prepared in a mold form, which is not machining. Berg Larsen machined his mouthpieces from a solid rod, but the others mentioned made their products through a molding process.

Today, mouthpiece manufacturers are trying to recreate something that was made in a vulcanized rubber mold form by using a completely different machining process, a seven-axis machine. What the machine is capable of producing is impressive, but the process of machining the part (cutting material away from a solid rod structure) and forming those shapes in mold form are completely different processes.

In my opinion, I think it would be better if the folks that are using seven-axis machining just said, “This is how precision parts are made today, so we’re not claiming to identically recreate a product made in the ’50s, when our process of making it is entirely different.” The machining today is accurate. But straight off the machine, all of those parting lines, evidence from the machine, and the cutting tool lines have an effect on the playability of the mouthpiece.

Some people remove the evidence of machining, and others leave it, selling it as-is. A great early example is Guardala. The most sought-after Guardala mouthpieces are the handmade models. It’s a CNC blank, and then Dave went in and hand-finished it. I never met Dave Guardala and feel bad for those who were negatively affected by him.

With that being said, having checked out his work, his hand-finishing work was extremely precise, and he could do the same style of finishing work over and over again without having variation. He was one of the early boutique manufacturers, and I remember in the mid ’90s when his pieces came out at Sam Ash with the pink bite plate and gold finish in a tube.

Every other mouthpiece was priced from $125 to $200 max, while Guardala’s mouthpieces were $1,200. I think had it not been for a guy like Brecker sounding that good on one, people probably would have said, “That’s a lot of money.” Years later, the consensus is that the handmade Guardala’s are much better than all machine-made, laser-trimmed models. To eliminate the human element seems to leave something to be desired in the final product.

ZS: When do you think it makes sense to get your mouthpiece refaced? What expectations would you set with players looking to have there mouthpiece refaced?

AN: Examples when NOT to reface: When a sound engineer pulled a mic cable and knocked your saxophone stand over with your mouthpiece, now broken into six pieces, that player will reach out to ask if I can glue the mouthpiece together. The fixing of a broken mouthpiece with epoxy is something that a lot of mouthpiece refacers do in the beginning to prove that it can be done. I did it a lot in the beginning to prove that I could do it, but what I am noticing is how no matter how great you do the repair, the player still loses confidence and is worried that the repair could come apart at that crucial moment at a gig.

Cracked and chipped mouthpieces are better off to be put in a drawer and thanked for getting you that far in your journey. Or, if somebody came to me and said, “I had mouthpiece refacer A, B, C, D, E, and F work on the mouthpiece and I don’t like it; it gets worse and worse, so would you like to try?” That might be an exaggeration, but if the mouthpiece has been worked on by more than three refacers, it’s maybe not worth working on it yet again.

The way I look at it, excluding epoxy and laser welding metal onto the blank, is that the only thing a mouthpiece tech can do is remove material. When someone brings me a mouthpiece where the baffle has been cut through to the bite plate or the seam is completely eroded and there is no solder between the two halves at the tip with an Otto Link, at a certain point you have to say, “Why are you going to pay me this money to work on something that is this far gone?” The time to reface a mouthpiece is when there is zero risk of losing something you enjoy or if you basically enjoy most aspects of the sound, but the reed doesn’t seal.

Now, there are the times where, for example, Lew Tabackin brought me one of the most beautiful original Otto Link STM 8* Florida, no USA, I’ve ever seen. It was a perfect example of stock original mintiness. I was looking at it and measuring it; it was such a museum piece where it’s perfect; there is nothing I would change about it. Yet, Lew didn’t like it as much as the other ones I did for him.

But I felt it would be wrong to cut into it. So, what ended up happening is I bought the piece from Lew. I felt this particular piece was worth more to me as an example or a model to show people what the original Otto Link mouthpiece was like brand-new, before someone tinkered with it. Another example is a perfect Otto Link Tone Edge (10) that had nothing done to it. The table was perfect, and every gauge lined up. I told the player I was not working on it even though he didn’t like how it played.

I ended up helping the mouthpiece owner re-home this piece to my friend Chris Cuzme, which he still plays today. I turn down work for mouthpieces that don’t need to be fixed or if there is not potential improvement. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

A mouthpiece reface dates back to when someone could still stop off at Meyer Bros in New York and could ask, “Can you open this 5M up to a 6?” and that was a possibility. To look at the old catalogs, Meyer or Otto Link offered this type of work, and you could send something back to the company to have something size-corrected and re-stamped.

When you are working one-on-one with the client, oftentimes it’s not that the mouthpiece needs a drastic overhaul adjustment. Sometimes the player needs something pretty subtle. When people enjoy the mouthpiece, they like 80% about it, but there is “this one thing, one aspect that is troubling them.” Sometimes what they dislike has to do with their experience going for one certain note. This is the time to reface your mouthpiece, rather than scrap it entirely and find another setup.

I recently had a client who reached out and said they bought this particular mouthpiece and paid a lot of money for it, but what’s happening is that when I put the reed on the mouthpiece and play, it plays good initially. However, if I put the horn down and come back—say, go take a phone call and then come back thirty minutes later (for example)—the reed won’t seal anymore. This player didn’t want me to change the tip opening, nor lengthen or shorten the curve, but just wanted the reed to seal all of the time. Not some or most of the time, but always. They searched far and wide for that particular brand/model mouthpiece, finding it wasn’t easy. Now that they had it in their possession, they needed it to perform.

When a player is looking for something along the lines of a small adjustment, this work becomes nuanced and very subtle to find that one flaw. But that is my job as a mouthpiece refacer.

ZS: With more and more mouthpiece refacers entering the scene and many introducing their own line of mouthpieces, how do you stay relevant and competitive? How is your work different from other colleagues in the field?

AN: What’s different about me is I am not in a rush to take credit for the discovery of a concept. This is not my invention; it’s a continuation, as I’m sharing what I was first shown by Gerry Niewood. I had a father who would scold me if I brought something home that was substandard.

With mouthpiece refacing, I studied several years with Ted, who showed me “these are the steps, this needs to be inline, it has to be exactly this way.” I did the work under harsh scrutiny over a long time. I see a lot of refacers who try to project that they found, discovered, or reinvented a “new way” to do things… and that is fine. Look at Francois Louis with his designs, which are revolutionary, and people need to experiment and push boundaries to see if they can come up with something new.

But the way that I am working is almost like a franchisee. I was shown “the secret recipe” and have been given permission to utilize a specific skill set and information in order to work respectfully within the brotherhood of the school I come from. I lovingly refer to it as “the dojo.” The concepts I put into practice are not revolutionary; I’m not a genius for discovering them; in fact, they are old-world.

You are probably not going to see me working for a big company with some new product launch and marketing campaign. This would lock me into exclusivity. I do like being accessible to everybody. If somebody comes to me with any brand of mouthpiece, I like being able to work on it for them one-on-one, artist direct. A lot of these refacers that transition to having their own brands, you can’t get them to fix your Otto Link or Meyer for you anymore because they are so preoccupied with filling orders and attending to their brand. Because of my loyalty to Ted, you won’t find me doing fine-finish work for any brand that is in direct competition within the marketplace with Ted Klum Mouthpieces LLC.

Another part of my service is if a client doesn’t have a specific mouthpiece in mind to send me, I will work with them to choose the right blank I am going to work on. The client would send me links from Reverb, eBay, and other sites, and I would help steer them towards mouthpieces that would be a better fit for the demands of the music they want to play.

Finally, I try not to allow people to pressure me to meet specific deadlines that are impossible to fulfill. The precision and integrity of the work cannot be compromised by sending out substandard work to meet an imposed deadline.

ZS: Why have mouthpieces continued to increase over the years? Is it a cost of materials, or customer expectations which seem to demand more hand-work? 

AN: The amount of time and labor that goes into fabrication affects the final cost. For example, when finishing a raw casting, the material is poured into shape and begins in a very raw state out from a mold. The harder materials like silver, brass, and bronze, if they’re manufactured using a lost-wax casting process, require a significant amount of prep and then hand-finishing to bring a raw casting up to the condition that you would look at and say, “Wow, this is beautiful.”

This refacer is probably going to be working on one piece for an entire day. There are certain castings out there that look like a melted crayon where the shapes are distorted. To get a really good, accurate casting is difficult. If you see a mouthpiece for $900, $1,100, or $1,200 to $1,400, it’s potentially a reflection of the sheer amount of hours of back-breaking labor invested into finishing the raw casting into something that a person would want to play.

Whereas comparatively, some mouthpieces just come straight off the machine, get a couple of sandpaper swipes to make the table look visually and cosmetically “correct,” and then it’s put in the box. Now, machining, once the process is dialed in, isn’t as inexpensive as one would think. You need someone who understands and can write machining code (G-code).

Also, the process of all that R&D to get to the point where you can get the machine to produce a mouthpiece that eight out of ten players “like it” — this all takes time, energy, patience, and money! Every time one makes a change to the prototype, plays it, and needs to make more changes to the file, it requires the technician to “rewrite” the code for the machine file. With all these revisions, that has the potential to be very expensive.

Then, simple inflation is another factor. So when my dad said that when he bought his first NY Meyer Bros, it cost him $35. But what was $35 dollars in 1955 compared to 2024 (about $350+)? A metal link when he was in high school was $65, but adjusted for inflation today, it would be around $750. If you go to Sweetwater or Musician’s Friend and not factoring in the difference in the finishing, a new Meyer from JJ Babbitt or a new V16 alto mouthpiece is around $130+. So a new mouthpiece from these brands doesn’t follow the rate of inflation and is actually cheaper.

As far as mouthpiece buyers go, I feel there are three types of players. There is the nitpicky guy who has one mouthpiece that is his favorite and holds every mouthpiece to that benchmark. He will play other mouthpieces, but when he goes back to his main piece, he will still find, “this one” plays the best (well, this is because you have been playing this mouthpiece for many years, and you have such a personal connection with “this piece,” even when there are imperfections). This is the most difficult client to work with because their expectation is that the backup should play exactly like their main mouthpiece.

The second type is the experimental and exploratory type. One example will be John Ellis, who comes in with the attitude of “this is fun.” Each project is an experiment, and he will say, “make this one different than all the others,” because what John is getting into is learning about all the differences between each mouthpiece and getting into the subtle nuances of each piece.

The third person, who really has no goal or objective at all, is just bored and wants to go shopping. This is still fun because they want to explore and see what possibilities are out there.

ZS: Any future mouthpiece projects on the horizon, or new directions you see your business going?

AN: I have been based in Pennsylvania for 12 years, but coming November 1st, I’ll be relocating to Montclair, NJ, where players can schedule appointments for mouthpiece work, as well as an opportunity to try out mouthpieces on consignment and saxophones, such as the Retro Revival Tru-Six and the Remy Veerman soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones.

In addition to my New Jersey location, I will be taking appointments at Midtown Music Loft as their mouthpiece technician. In my 22 years working on mouthpieces, I have not had a lull, and it’s been constant where every time I send something out, two or three more boxes come in. There are no future projects right now, and you probably are not going to see me release a “Niewood” brand mouthpiece because I think the market is currently flooded, and everyone has something new.

I am finding a lot of players are buying pieces, trying other cheaper refacing alternatives, and if it doesn’t work out, eventually find their way to me one way or another.

Between my loyal clients and folks experimenting with something new, at this point, I have had an opportunity to look at what else is out there. I am busy being a free agent, fixing and working on “everything,” and that is where I think I’ll be for the foreseeable future.

To Learn More About Adam…