What Alto Mouthpiece Did Cannonball Adderley Play?
Try doing a Google Image search for Cannonball Adderley. Most of the photos you will find are portrait photos of Cannonball posing with or playing his King Super 20 Alto Saxophone. On almost all of those photos at the end of his horn sits a distinctive mouthpiece with a brass ring on the shank.
It’s the mouthpiece that he played and recorded with most of his career. He purchased the mouthpiece around 1954. Apparently, shortly after purchasing it, the shank cracked and he had it repaired with a brass ring to prevent further cracking.
What was this mouthpiece? Until recently, most everyone, including myself thought that the mouthpiece was a Meyer Bros New York Medium Chamber with a 5 facing. However, we discovered something quite different when closely examining Cannonball’s original mouthpiece.
When Cannonball Adderley passed away in 1975, prominent LA alto saxophonist Bill Green acquired some of Cannonball's equipment, including his mouthpieces, from Cannonball's wife Olga James. Bill gave Cannonball’s mouthpieces to another prominent alto saxophonist named Dave Edwards. After Dave passed away in 2000, his wife gave Cannonball’s mouthpiece to Dave’s friend and fellow alto saxophone player Jim Snidero.
Jim typically plays on vintage Meyer Bros New York Medium Chamber mouthpieces so he is very familiar with those pieces. However, Cannonball’s mouthpiece is different than all the other Meyer Bros pieces Jim plays on. After Jim had seen what we had done with the “Dry Martini” Model alto mouthpiece, he brought the Cannonball piece to the Morgan Mouthpiece Company and asked if we could duplicate it and make an exact replica.
My first thoughts were…Cannonball played on a Meyer Bros NY Medium Chamber Model…most every mouthpiece company, including us, already makes a version of a NY Meyer Medium Chamber mouthpiece. Even Meyer is claiming they have a re-issue the original piece that Cannonball played. The world really does not need another Meyer Bros New York style mouthpiece.
Then Jim showed us the original Cannonball piece…What’s this? This is an odd piece…it’s short, it’s fat, the slope of the beak is steeper resulting in a thicker beak, the chamber is not a standard medium chamber. There are no markings on the table. There is a 5 facing stamp on the side left of the end of the table. The top is marked “Meyer Bros”. There are no other markings visible. Any markings on the shank are covered by the shank ring. This is definitely something different, so what is it?
The Meyer Bros Mouthpiece Company was founded in 1936. They started making hard rubber mouthpieces in 1938. The designs of the models of hard rubber mouthpieces changed every few years until the company was sold to Babbitt in 1970.
Meyer started making mouthpieces with small, medium and large chambers in 1948. However, prior to 1954, the small, medium and large chamber models all had different body lengths. The Large Chamber Model had a short body length, the Small Chamber Model had a long body length, and the Medium Chamber Model was in between the two.
In 1954, Meyer redesigned pieces with all new chamber designs for small, medium, and large chamber models and now all models shared the same exterior body. This is the model we all know as the Meyer Bros New York Model and this is the model that many mouthpiece companies have used as inspiration for their own “New York” model. This is also the model that most every online history of Cannonball Adderley claims he played. All over the internet, you can find articles and blogs that make the FALSE claim that Cannonball Adderley played a Meyer Bros New York Medium Chamber 5. NOT TRUE!!!
Not only is everyone on the internet wrong about the model he played, we also believe they are wrong about the chamber size of Cannonball’s alto mouthpiece. Due to the shorter exterior of the body, we believe the original piece is a “Large Chamber” Model…not a Medium Chamber Model. Meyer marked the chamber sizes on the shanks of the mouthpiece. Cannonball cracked the shank of his mouthpiece early on and had a brass ring put on the shank to prevent further cracking. Unfortunately, the brass ring covers the original shank markings. We begged Jim Snidero to let us remove the shank ring so we could see the markings underneath, but Jim was very protective of the mouthpiece and would not allow us to do it. What we can say is that the chamber is certainly larger than a Meyer Bros New York Medium Chamber, but it is not as large as what most of us think of as a large chamber. So, our best guess is that Cannonball Adderley played on a Meyer Bros Series III LARGE Chamber Model Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece, and it was definitely made prior to 1954…probably 1952/1953.
While surprising, this was great news for us. The mouthpiece Cannonball played on is a rare and hard-to-find mouthpiece and there is nothing like it on the market. The Meyer “Series III” Model mouthpieces were produced for maybe 2-3 years and surviving examples are difficult to find. Making a modern replica of this mouthpiece re-introduces a mouthpiece design not seen for 70+ years…and what a great playing mouthpiece it is.
Our Kind-of-Blue Model is a near exact replica of the original. The only modification we made is to the diameter of the back bore (inner shank)…the part that goes on the neck. There’s a reason the original mouthpiece cracked…it was way too tight on the neck and has to be forced on. We opened the back bore just a bit so that it will fit more comfortably on a neck.
We offer the Kind-of-Blue Model with and without the ring. The ring is cosmetic for those wanting a visual replica of Cannonball’s mouthpiece. The ring does not change the sonic properties of the mouthpiece.
The original alto mouthpiece has a facing stamp of 5. For the Kind-of-Blue 5 facing, we copied the facing curve on the original mouthpiece and the tip opening measures .072. Since the original mouthpiece changed hands a couple of times between Cannonball and Jim Snidero, we cannot guarantee the facing was unchanged since Cannonball owned it; however, the stamp on mouthpiece is consistent with the facing that would have been on the original piece. We also offer the mouthpiece in a 6 (.077) and 7 (.083). Other facings are available on request.
In February of 2025, Jim Snidero donated Cannonball’s original mouthpiece to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History to reunite it with Cannonball’s King Super 20 Alto Saxophone. The museum also asked for a Kind-of-Blue Model to put with it to demonstrate capabilities of modern technology and production…we were happy to oblige them.
Later in his career, Cannonball did pick up a 1960s Meyer Medium Chamber alto mouthpiece. He used this newer piece along with his original piece in recordings and performances the rest of his career. However, for most of his career, he played on an earlier hard-to-find Meyer piece. If you are looking for a similar piece to what Cannonball played, the Morgan “Kind of Blue” Model is a replica and as far as we know, the only mouthpiece like it on the market.