Posted by Karl Parks on March 17, 2003 at 22:53:11:
In Reply to: Info needed on Marzan Tubas posted by Aaron Poole on March 17, 2003 at 20:30:17:
Check the achives for the past few years. There have been several discussions about Marzans. There were nice horns made under the specifications of Fred Marzan. I believe they were first made in the late 60s and were not made after the early 70s. There were rotary and piston valve models. The rotary version, which I played and loved in college some 25+ years ago, I think was actually made by Willson. The pistons may have been made by Nirshell or B&S, I just do not remember, but I am sure you can find it in the achives.
The horn I played was a full sized 4 valved BBb rotaty with string linkage, a rather large bore and had a tuning slide at the top that could be used while playing with the left hand. I recently have played a 4 valve piston BBb I really liked it as well.
Karl Parks
Orlando, FL
P.S.
I just found an email from Michael Grogg. He states:
The Marzan instruments were in fact made in both places. The Marzan Euph
was made by Willson. The model is still made and sold under the Willson
label in Europe, but never found much favor in this country, the
traditional 3+1 pattern of Besson being the "proper" layout for a euph.
My room mate of a couple years in college played one, it was a good
little tenor tuba, but not like any of the other euphs in the studio.
The Piston horns were made by Boehm & Meinl, now Nirschl. I can't say
for sure whether the tubas were B&M or Willson, it is possible that
depending on the importer, they could be either or both.
For the history side: The horns came and went in about a ten year period
from about 1968, to about 1978.
Custom Music got the ball rolling, worked with Fred Marzan to get the
horns in production. Fred and Custom had a falling out somewhere around
1972 or so, and Don Getzen aka DEG Music picked up the line. Willson was
already making horns for DEG, so it wasn't a big jump for either of
them. ( It is possible that Willson could have built some tubas for DEG
with the Marzan name, I really can't say that I have seen one that I
could verify came from DEG, only the Euphs that were Willson built and
distributed.) I have played on both rotary and piston valved Marzans,
and I much prefered the piston model. I keep looking for a nice CC in
silver plate to appear, even a not so nice one that is restoreable would
make me happy.
When I worked at Custom we still had a few Rotary horns left in stock,
they were dead inventory at that point, and got little interest, Rudy
Meinl and Hirsbrunner Tubas were the hot items at that time.