Four great saxophonists in modern and contemporary jazz — Dave Koz, Gerald Albright, Lakecia Benjamin and Miguel Zenón — offer sage advice based on decades of onstage experience.
“A bad reed is like a bad relationship,” says saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin. “Every night is going to be a fight and every note is going to be a hassle.”
Indeed, the relationship between a saxophonist and their reeds can be a complicated one. For such a small, seemingly simple piece of equipment, a reed is absolutely crucial to a musician’s identity. “Your reed plays a huge role in your sound,” says Gerald Albright.
“You can have a great, high-end mouthpiece,” he continues, “but if you don’t have the right reed it defeats the purpose. Even with a mediocre mouthpiece, if you have a decent reed that’s nice and balanced and it’s reacting the way you want it to, it’s usually going to be an easier experience.”
Dealing with reeds is enough to make even a veteran saxophonist like Dave Koz envy his non-woodwind-playing bandmates. “I think most saxophone players would agree that we can get a bit jealous of trumpet and trombone players who can just put their mouthpiece in and go,” he says. “We have this extra element that we have to consider. My least favorite aspect of my job — and I love my job — is finding reeds.”
Finding the Perfect Reed: Cane or Synthetic
Each individual musician approaches their reed of choice differently. Some are faithful for life while others are serial experimentalists, eager to compare and contrast different brands, styles, strengths and materials.
Koz is decidedly in the former camp. The nine-time Grammy nominee, who has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and hosts his own annual contemporary jazz cruise, has been using Rico’s Plasticover line, a coated cane reed recognized for its durability and robust tone, almost since the beginning of his career. He has continued to endorse the reeds after Rico was acquired by D’Addario in 2004.
“I’m not a gearhead,” Koz insists. “I don’t know whether it’s laziness or just an ‘if it’s not broke, don’t worry about it’ attitude, or some combination of the two. I know a lot of musicians, especially sax players, who are tinkerers, but I’m a creature of habit and the Rico Plasticover reeds have been consistent for me for decades.”
Miguel Zenón, also a D’Addario artist, echoes Koz’s sentiments. The saxophonist and composer, a Grammy winner and Guggenheim and MacArthur fellow, is renowned for his exploration of the ties between jazz and the music of his native Puerto Rico.
“I’m not super picky about trying a bunch of different reeds,” says Zenón, who uses D’Addario Organic Select Jazz reeds. “I’m a firm believer in finding something that makes you feel good and that you don’t have to think about too much.”
Like Koz, Albright is a nine-time Grammy nominee. He spent years switching between different reeds before finding the right fit with Légère. A contemporary jazz superstar who began his career as a session and touring musician with the likes of Whitney Houston and the Temptations, Albright uses synthetic rather than cane reeds, opting for Légère American Cut reeds across the spectrum of soprano, alto, tenor and baritone.
“I moved from Los Angeles to Denver, Colorado, in 2005,” he recalls. “When we arrived I found that reed cane didn’t react very well to the higher elevations and drier weather. So I had to find a plan B, which turned out to be Légère. I was a little timid about going that way, just because I had always been an old-school, traditional reed guy. But it turned out to be a great find.
“Légère really surprised me in terms of the tonality, the projection and the vibration of the reed. I’m one of those guys who visits the altissimo register pretty often, and they react just the way I need them to based on my muscle memory and my embouchure. The fact that they’re also low maintenance made it a win-win for me, and I’ve honestly never looked back.”
How Important Is Reed Strength?
Beyond the brand and style of reed, another important and individual choice is reed “strength,” which measures a combination of the reed’s density, stiffness and thickness on a scale of 1 (soft) to 5 (hard). Many saxophonists opt for a couple or a few different strengths within a narrow range. Benjamin says she uses a 2.5 or a 3, “depending on the weather and my mood.”
A five-time Grammy nominee a little more than a decade into her recording career, Benjamin has been lauded for her warm, burnished tone and her role as a modern-day torchbearer for the exploratory jazz of John and Alice Coltrane. She uses Vandoren JAVA Red reeds.
Weather is a good reason to carry several strength options when traveling. Benjamin recalls finding herself unexpectedly caught short during a tour abroad. “I had reeds that I thought were great, but then we landed in South Africa and the humidity and the altitude hit me,” she says. “Now these reeds are too hard and I have no way to get that particular reed. I’ve learned a lot from traveling.”
Koz also prefers a reed on the softer side. “It depends on my current abilities and how much playing I’ve been doing, but typically it hovers around 2.5,” he says. Albright’s preferred strength varies by horn but also tends to be softer, ranging from a 1.5 for alto and soprano to a 1.75 for baritone and a 2.25 for tenor.
He says he’s scaled back his choice in reed strength over the course of his career. “I found that I was very tired after performances [when using higher-strength reeds],” he recounts. “I was pushing more air than I really needed to, and I found a new balance between a more open mouthpiece and a slightly softer reed. I can play all night now and still have energy the following day for whatever city we’re performing in.”
Zenón, on the other hand, prefers a reed on the harder end of the scale, tending toward a 4. For less experienced saxophonists, he stresses, it’s important to build your power and technique before diving into that deep end. At the same time, players shouldn’t back down from a challenge. “You don’t really want to be struggling with something too hard or too soft for your sound,” he advises. “Especially for younger players, you have to figure out a number that you can deal with — start off with a 2 or 2.5 and build up resistance in your embouchure from there. If I started with something harder, I would have struggled a lot.”
Benjamin also points out that reed strength is not a proving ground. “Be honest about your reed size,” she insists. “It’s not like a shoe size, where you keep climbing up as you develop. It really is about what works for you. … I’ve [used strengths outside my comfort zone and] split my lip just from the impact of the reed vibrating. The size of the reed is not [some kind of] warrior status.”
Preparation & Maintenance Essentials
Every saxophonist has their own particular method of selecting, preparing and storing their reeds. For Albright, the process of choosing reeds has only made him favor synthetics more. “When I was using cane reeds, I’d open a box of 25 and usually get maybe three or four reeds that really perform well,” he recalls. “The others I either had to do some surgery on or they just weren’t good at all. With the synthetic reed, I may have to put a little sandpaper on the backside to make sure it’s balanced, or shave a little bit to get the edge and richness that I want. But it’s very minimal.”
Zenón is characteristically relaxed about his own approach to selecting reeds. “I have colleagues who open a box and throw away every single reed,” he says. “I’m not like that. I ride the wave and wait for things to turn — because they always turn as we move around from place to place. So I give all the reeds a fair chance.”
More important to Zenón is making sure his reeds don’t become dried out. “Every day when I go practice, I’ll soak them in water,” he says. “Then when I’m done with my routine, at the end of the day, I’ll put them back in their packets and into a plastic Ziploc bag to keep them moist. I do that pretty much every day.”
Benjamin stores her reeds in a Vandoren Hygro Reed Case to prevent mold. “There was a period where I was soaking them and then letting them sit out so that the water absorbs and the reed gets stiffer,” she explains. “Once they get dry and crinkly, they become too soft and I end up squeaking and honking and cracking notes during a show. But putting them back into a dry reed holder, you might come back the next day and they’re moldy. Vandoren makes a humidifier that keeps the reed dry but also keeps enough moisture within them.”
Prior to leaving on tour, Koz will set aside a full day to select reeds, settling on a group of ideal reeds for each of his horns — soprano, tenor and alto. “I’ll spend a day pre-selecting 10 or so reeds for each horn and put them in my reed guards,” he says. “Then, as I’m dealing with different locales and weather patterns, I’ll take them all out and try the one that says ‘A.’ If it works, great. But if it doesn’t, I’ll keep going down the list until I find one that I can work with. If that doesn’t happen, I usually bring a nice big bag of reeds just in case.”
American Cut vs. French Cut, Unfiled vs. Filed
One key question to determine is a preference for American Cut or French Cut reeds. American Cut, or unfiled reeds, have a distinctive U shape below the vamp and tend to produce a more powerful tone. French Cut, or filed reeds, have a strip removed below the vamp, leaving a straight line and a more flexible reed.
Zenón uses French Cut, having experimented with both and found the filed reeds to be “easier to control and more consistent.” Benjamin also swears by filed reeds, saying, “The seal on it is better and the quality feels better.” Albright, on the other hand, opts for the American Cut. “They give me a little more brilliance and edge to the sound,” he says. “They also seem to be a little more consistent.”
Hitting the Jackpot
The search for the perfect reed never really ends. After all, even the best-sounding reeds have a limited lifespan. “I can get three or four 90-minute shows out of a reed and not have to worry about it,” Albright says. “At that point it still has life to it, but you can feel it reaching that stage where it’s about to descend in terms of quality.”
“I always look at how long the reeds last,” Benjamin says, “and how long they last after I break them in. Some of them feel like I’m more powerful than the reed, and eventually I’m going to split this thing in half.” Benjamin knows she has a winner if, after a reed is broken in, “it’s good for two and a half weeks of playing shows five times a week.”
As Koz sees it, a good reed lays the foundation that allows a saxophonist to reach new creative heights. “If I get a good reed,” he muses, “it’s like floating on a bed of clouds. You can try anything, and it just seems to respond in the way that you hope it will. When you have a reed that doesn’t quite get there, you might not take as many chances. A great reed will give an artist the comfort and confidence to push the envelope.”
Lead image photo credits, from left: Antonio Dixon, Courtesy of the Artist, Elizabeth Leitzell and Adrien H. Tillmann.