“As far as I know, the sax that Steve Gregory played on this song was a Selmer Mark VI tenor, but I don’t know which mouthpiece or reed he used. As that instrument didn’t have a top F# key, the engineer turned down the tape speed so that Steve could play the sax line a semitone lower.”
Wow my 2 cents worth if anyone had a mk6 they’d at least know how to play f# after fork f and before altissimo g – so i too am interested in @Johnny’s take! I guess the ears have it …
Careless whisper has an alto on the original not tenor.
and the alto notes are all within the regular range, not altissimo so someone’s given you some wrong information I think.
just curious even knowing the same mouthpiece and reed , will not make one play the same way, , i mean copying certain styles is a nice thing, personally i like Coleman hawkins and Lee Allen, but many mouthpieces and reeds can pull it off, my 2 cents anyway,,, i have an F# key and never use it , i use the X key ,4th key and side Bb
Yes thanks Johnny I also heard it was an alto. Ther has been lots of questions regarding this riff over the years regrading it being a tenor , alto , nose flute. Thanks for clearing it up. I will now switch to Alto on my gigs.
If you play that riff`In the same key it sounds too low that’s why I did a transposed version for tenor
Notice on my video I played the riff on alto and the rest on tenor
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