JRB About your beginnings. You started making mouthpieces for the players you were playing with?
GL There were two other players. They asked, so I made them. They seemed to be rather more than highly delighted. I thought maybe there's something in this. Then Les Lovelady, who played baritone with the BBC band, liked the mouthpieces I made him. He introduced me to the Bob Sharples band, and I got two or three in that band. Then I met the guy who played baritone in John Dankworth's band. At that time the Johnny Dankworth band was very big. Very quickly I sold quite a few to London session musicians. At that time there was very little in the way of metal mouthpieces. I concentrated on the baritone for that reason. I said to John Dankworth, 'Would you like one?' He said, 'I'm an ebonite person.' I said 'Take it, you never know.' The next thing he wrote to me to say that he was playing on it, and it was absolutely superb. For thirty-five years he's been paying on that mouthpiece of mine, and he loves it. So that's how I started. Then I met Harry Carney. He was friendly with someone in Manny's in New York. He went in and mentioned my mouthpieces, and that got me going with Manny. I've sold thousands of mouthpieces through Manny in New York. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I even do the plating, because I could never be happy with someone else doing it. They either knock the mouthpiece, or the plating comes off, or they don't put enough plating on. When you're talking about gold, you're talking about money relative to something you're trying to sell for around $150. That's after the shops have taken their profit and the Government have taken their thing. Gold has been $850 an ounce! It's not that expensive now, but it always teeters around $500-$600. You can't put too much on ...Underneath the gold it's silver plated, which is also expensive. The base metal isn't brass, like most people use. I just use the best materials available. I use nickel silver, which is one of the most noble alloys you can get, 50% dearer than brass. There are so many possibilities with a mouthpiece relative to the lay, the width of the rails, the shape of the interior, the height of the baffle, the size of the throat, the thinness of the tip, the angle of the bite, the width of the mouthpiece, the material it's made of. Then there are all the different openings. I make from four star up to fifteen star for America. If you compute all that you find it's completely endless. If you're going to copy something, which one should you copy? You might be copying the wrong thing. For many years George Coleman played one of mine. I'm a big fan of Ernie Watts, and he uses one of mine on alto. Pepper Adams played on one of mine for about four years before he died. Charlie Fowlkes played on mine; he was a great baritone player. The sound that he used to get was unbelievable. You could almost see the sound coming out of the end of the baritone. Christiane Wickens plays mine. Ron Holloway, who was with Dizzy Gillespie for four years, must have fifty or more of my mouthpiece. He wouldn't sell you one for anything. He plays with Gil Scott-Heron. His forte is the ability to play harmonics. The best player of harmonics I've ever heard. I'm expecting him on the doorstep any day now. He must have been here fifteen or twenty time; he's mouthpiece mad! When he first got a Lawton mouthpiece he got a flight out here right away, from America. I get people who are jibbing at coming forty miles. He comes three thousand miles. Sonny Rollins played my mouthpiece for many years. He's had terrible problems with his teeth. He's got a rubber mouthpiece at the moment and he's playing on that.
JRB And your rivals?
GL I think they are extremely expensive. People have been brainwashed into the idea that you get what you pay for. If you go to a shop and buy the most expensive thing in the shop, it's going to be the best thing. In a lot of cases that's true. If you want a good car you buy a BMW or a Rolls Royce. You pay a lot of money and you know right away that car is going to be a good car. So that mouthpiece is £350 and this one, which is a Lawton, is £150. But this Lawton is better. Some young people can't think that that could possibly be true. They think that there's something in that mouthpiece that must be better, otherwise how could he sell it for £350? However, until recently mine was the dearest on the market. Considerably dearer than a Link. Links are made in a different way. Not machined from the solid, they are made in two halves, silver-soldered together. There's a minimum of hand work that can be done by less skilled people. Guardala are made from a piece of brass, machined. I don't use brass, I prefer to use something that's a more noble material. I have a complete range of mouthpieces made from surgical stainless steel. I defy any of the people who make mouthpieces to make one from stainless steel.
JRB It's horrible to work.
GL Unless you were an absolute fanatic, and you'd done twenty years in a tool room, you wouldn't know how to start with stainless steel. Brass is like a boy's material. The big advantage, if you like stainless steel, is that it will last for ever. It will never need replating. It will never wear. You could drop it on the floor and you'd be very unlucky if it dents. Larsen made some. They went through a period that was laughable. The reed used to overhang the mouthpiece by a thirty-second of an inch on either side! But they overcame these problems. Much better made now. Good luck to them. It really has amused me that people will pay as much for a mouthpiece as they will for a saxophone. You can buy a soprano saxophone, beautifully made, or £600. You can pay £650 for a baritone mouthpiece. There's no comparison with the relative amount of work. There isn't £600 worth of work in a baritone mouthpiece. I couldn't charge people for the time spent on mouthpieces - talking about them, worrying about them, trying different ideas. I'm never satisfied. I'm still trying new ideas. I can show you a box of mouthpieces where I've tried every mortal thing that it's possible to do. I've had round bores, square bores, diamond bores, ribbed bores, curve walls, concave walls, areas near the tip lowered, high baffles, V baffles, reflector baffles. Long lays, short lays, flat lays, curved lays.
JRB Movable baffles?
GL The problem with movable baffles is that no matter how you make anything that you stick into a mouthpiece, you can never get away from a certain amount of air noise. No matter how well you make it there's always an edge. When you blow the air through, it hits that edge and creates air noise. You can only get a mouthpiece that has no air noise if you have a perfectly aerodynamic shape. You have a few people in the world who think about saxophone mouthpieces. Eventually - if you are like Arnold Brilhart, who's been making mouthpieces all his life, and a damned good saxophone player - you've tried everything. I make saxophone mouthpieces in nickel silver, brass, some in pure bronze - basically high tin and copper.
JRB Bell metal?
GL I also make a tenor mouthpiece in bell metal. Pure bell metal. It's extremely hard, but if you dropped it on a hard surface it would break, crack like a pot. It's similar to bronze, but contains more tin. Proper bell metal has 20 tin, 80 copper. Very similar to what Zildjian make their cymbals out of. But it's all a matter for the individual player.
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I have spoken to Geoff Lawton and to his son, Jason, on the 'phone and they were both very interesting to talk to. It is very much a personal business and not a factory. Unlike many other makers, Geoff (and now Jason) machined everything from solid rod and did not use moulded or cast blanks. They probably contracted out the gold plating and maybe even manufacture of the special ligature and cap. Geoff was constantly experimenting, and trying new ideas out, although I believe that Jason sticks to making the most popular models, without 'unusual' or new ones.
Rhys
