Selmer Paris Jazz Flow 7 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece Review
Description
Today, I am excited to be reviewing the new Selmer Jazz Flow 7 alto saxophone mouthpiece released by Selmer Paris. A few months ago, I started reading some great customer reviews about these new Selmer Jazz Flow alto sax mouthpieces and just as my curiosity was peaking, Ryan Lillywhite, the woodwind category manager at Conn Selmer, reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in reviewing a Jazz Flow saxophone mouthpiece. I, of course, said “Yes”, and the Selmer Jazz Flow alto saxophone mouthpiece arrived at my door just a few weeks later.
Selmer Paris Jazz Flow 7 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece
Before I even received the Selmer Jazz Flow mouthpiece, I started doing some preliminary research on the mouthpiece just to see what was coming my way. While I was reading different facts about the mouthpiece I came across a description of the mouthpiece that said it had a facing curve length of 30 mm. The longest facing curve on an alto saxophone mouthpiece I had ever played was a 23 mm length curve and that was described as a really long facing curve by Brian Powell and Dave Valdez so reading that this Selmer Jazz Flow alto mouthpiece had a 30 mm long facing curve seemed like a mistake to me.
After chasing down the answer from multiple sources, Ryan Lillywhite at Conn Selmer sent me this message:
“In a nutshell, normal humans use the .0015 gauge to read the length of a facing curve but Selmer Paris looks at their CAD model which tells you where the first micron starts to curve. So if you had a .0000001 gauge it would get close to the 30 mm facing curve length.”
All that being said, to us mere mortals who have to use a .0015 gauge to measure a facing length, the facing length of the Selmer Jazz Flow mouthpiece comes out to about 22.5 mm which I would still consider a longer facing curve on an alto saxophone mouthpiece.
Selmer Paris Jazz Flow 7 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece
Here is a description of the Selmer Jazz Flow alto saxophone mouthpiece from the Sweetwater website description (this is so perfectly written I wondered if perhaps AI wrote it):
The Jazz Flow’s rich timbre gives you an expansive sonic palette for a full range of expression. Drawing on its expertise in acoustic engineering and fruitful collaborations with professional alto players, Selmer has produced a mouthpiece that both complements and exploits the distinctive voice of the alto sax. Delivering a sound characterized by exceptional density, depth of grain, and luscious warmth, the Jazz Flow offers the versatility to excel in a wide variety of genres, from straight-ahead jazz to contemporary funk, pop, rock, electro, world music, and all fusions thereof. With that said, the right reed and embouchure will enable you to mellow it out and blend in beautifully with an orchestra. It’s this versatility that makes the Jazz Flow a perfect alto mouthpiece for just about any musical setting. Whether you’re a beginner who wants to get started with a jazz sound, an advancing student developing your own voice, or a professional who requires versatility and reliability, the Jazz Flow is your go-to alto mouthpiece.
The Jazz Flow is crafted of high-grade ebonite, considered the material of choice for mouthpiece fabrication for over a century due to its unique acoustical properties and superior durability. Selmer Paris uses ebonite made from natural rubber-tree latex that conforms to European Union standards for non-toxicity. Located within Selmer’s Mantes-la-Ville workshops, digitally controlled facilities maintain uncompromising quality standards. Here, Jazz Flow mouthpieces are meticulously fabricated on modified machinery formerly used by the Swiss watchmaking industry. To ensure unit-to-unit uniformity, this precision equipment is calibrated to tolerances of less than 0.03mm. In addition, a high-resolution 3D optical quality control machine scrutinizes every design parameter, guaranteeing the mouthpiece you get will be perfect and play flawlessly. The result of Selmer’s fastidious attention to detail is a mouthpiece that provides supreme playing comfort and optimal expressive malleability.
The Selmer Paris website also adds this information about the Selmer Paris Jazz Flow alto saxophone mouthpiece:
Inspired by the great mouthpieces that have marked the history of Jazz, this new alto saxophone mouthpiece is called Jazz Flow ; a tribute to musical improvisation and to one of the first SELMER mouthpiece models from the 1950s, the Air Flow. The ancestor of the Soloist, this very flexible mouthpiece offered musicians a wide palette of sound textures.
It is available in two openings: 5 (1.95mm)(.077″) and 7 (2.05mm)(.081″).
Selmer Paris Jazz Flow 7 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece
The Selmer Jazz Flow alto saxophone mouthpiece is made of quality hard rubber (ebonite). It comes in two tip openings of 5 (.077″) and 7 (.081″). I find it strange that Selmer just didn’t call these tip openings a 6 and a 7 but maybe it’s a French thing. Just remember that there is no 6 tip opening. Also remember, that the 5 (.077″) is very close in tip opening to the 7 (.081″). The difference is only .004″!
I have not played the 5 tip opening Jazz Flow mouthpiece but as someone who feels most comfortable on an alto mouthpiece with a .075-.080 tip opening, I felt very comfortable with the 7 (.081″) tip opening.
The Jazz Flow alto saxophone mouthpiece comes in a nice black velvety bag that is inside a beautifully designed cardboard box with what looks like mouthpiece engineering drawings and measurements all over the box. The tip opening of 7 is listed as well as the facing curve length of 30 mm.
The chamber is listed as round on the website as well as on the box and although it looks round from the tip end of the mouthpiece looking into the chamber, if you look at the photo of the bore further down in this review, the shape of the chamber entrance looks more like a round rubber ball that is pressed down on a flat surface to make the bottom of the circle flat rather than a round shape. It’s interesting how two different views of the same area can look markedly different from different perspectives.
Selmer Paris Jazz Flow 7 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece
The Selmer Jazz Flow mouthpiece has the “Henri Selmer Paris” logo beautifully engraved in gold on the top of the mouthpiece with “fabrique en France” (made in France) engraved below it. The words “JAZZ FLOW” are engraved on the side of the mouthpiece in what looks similar to the “jazz font” I use for writing music notation in Finale. The tip opening of 7 is machine engraved on to the middle of the mouthpiece table.
Interestingly, Selmer made the risky yet stylish decision to cut the shank of the mouthpiece at an angle. If you put the mouthpiece down on a flat surface by the shank end it will sit at a slight tilt to the horizontal table. Even at an angle, the Selmer Jazz Flow mouthpiece sits relatively stable on a flat service. This is an interesting and unique design as I have never seen a mouthpiece made with a slanted shank end like this before.
Selmer Paris Jazz Flow 7 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece
The Selmer Jazz Flow alto saxophone mouthpiece looks great to the eye. The ebonite is smooth and shiny and I don’t see an imperfection anywhere. The tip, rails and table look even, flat, precise and perfectly crafted. The mouthpiece tip rail and side rails are even and symmetrical. The shape of the tip rail matched the shape of the different reeds I used on the Jazz Flow very closely.
The baffle of the Selmer Jazz Flow alto saxophone mouthpiece is scooped from side to side so that the middle of the baffle is lower than the outside edges of the baffle. The baffle does travel at a steady declining
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