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Article: J.J. BABBITT ... UNSUNG HERO OF THE BAND BUSINESS
- Article from:
- Music Trades
- Article date:
- December 1, 1997
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Music Trades Corp. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IN 1919 THE LINE FOREMAN at the Buescher Band Instrument plant in Elkhart, Indiana, handed Jesse Babbitt a long bar of hard rubber and the offer that if he could figure out how to build nine saxophone mouthpieces a day, he had a job. The Buescher foreman was obviously aware of a basic fact that continues to elude most retailers and players, namely that despite a simple outward appearance, woodwind mouthpieces are extraordinarily difficult to manufacture. A skilled photographer and a self-taught engineer, Babbitt rose to the challenge and devised a pressure casting method to produce hard rubber mouthpieces. Along the way he got the job supplying mouthpieces to Buescher and ...