Jennifer Price, creator of Vigilante Mouthpieces, attended Berklee College of Music where she was a flute major.
After graduating, she left Boston for NYC, where she worked on 48th Street in the music district by day as a woodwind buyer for various shops and played all sorts of jazz and classical gigs nights and weekends.
She didn’t own a saxophone at Berklee but learned to play after college. Her teachers were the NY saxophonists who helped me to craft my sound.
As a buyer on 48th Street, she learned a lot through various well-known saxophonists about mouthpieces, which began her interest in what shapes a mouthpiece sound.
After working for years in NYC, she was offered a job working with Dave Guardala. At that time, Dave was working with the top saxophonists in the world and his work was well respected. Guardala and Price worked together for more than a decade creating works of musical art for Tom Scott, Branford Marsalis, Bill Evans and most notably Michael Brecker.
She took the skills learned with Guardala to create her own Vigilante Mouthpieces.
Price has had the honor of working with four former Tower of Power saxophonists as well as Richard Elliot, Paul Taylor, Euge Groove, Jeff Ryan and many others.
In this episode we talked about:
- Similarities of flute, trumpet, and other horns
- How Dave Guardala met Dave Liebman and Michael Brecker
- How Michael Brecker’s concert changed her perception towards saxophone
- How she picked reeds for Michael Brecker
- What people should look for when choosing reeds
- Her first time meeting Dave Guardala
- Rules for mouthpieces
- And tons of great stories!
Links:
Websites:
Her music store in Simi Valley, CA: http://www.musicmusicca.com/
Store phone number: 818.269.9856
Vigilante Mouthpieces:
http://www.vigilantemouthpiece.com/
https://www.facebook.com/VigilanteSaxophoneMouthpiece/
You can watch the video of this interview (& Subscribe to our channel!) HERE:
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Donna,
Thank you for doing this interview with Jennifer Price. It was truly enlightening, esp the parts on reeds and mpcs. It is hard to get mpc info; it is so secretive. You might consider making a post of this interview on saxontheweb, as it would reach a lot of people. I won’t do it, I promise; it would have to be your thing. Thanks again
.BTW, I did call Jennifer some yrs ago when I was in LA, but was not able to followup and actually visit her store;was a little deterred by the fact she does not make soprano sax mpcs; she was very nice to talk to as demonstrated by the interview.
Jen just watched you on the radio cast live from your Music Shop, what a great Job. I am still enjoying my Two Tenor Mouthpieces that you made for me. You are Highly Skilled . Your Mouthpieces are forever. Sax Players who have never tried your mouthpieces are missing out on the BEST Mouthpiece EVER. I can’t say enough about and your Skill. My Stage Name is Jimi Jam. Thank you for all your Hard Work. You made me a Better Player.
I’ll forward to her…