Bel Canto Akright-Severinsen Model 54 Bb Trumpet

Description

Rare Bel Canto 54 Bb Trumpet in raw brass for sale! superb copy of Doc's 1930's NY Bach Strad. The Bel Cantos are hand made by Dick Akright in collaboration with trumpet legend Doc Severinsen. The Bel Canto is a close copy of the original NY era Bach trumpet. These are no longer made due to the high manufacturing cost. According to Dick Akright, Doc play tested each horn and none were released for sale until he was happy. This is the Severinsen-Akright, Model 54, featuring .459” ML bore and reversed leadpipe. This model is known as the Severinsen personal model. Serial number is 040188 (the first trumpet to be completed in April 1988). The trumpet is in excellent condition, with some ugly solder marks when the leadpipe was replaced with a Bach reversed pipe, and a tuning slide. The valves are in stunning shape with great compression. The finger buttons are not original but they have been aligned correctly. The brilliance and open blow throughout the range is absolutely unmatched in comparison to anything else we have in our inventory! If you want to sound just like Doc, this is The horn for it!
Doc Severinsen’s review on the Bel Canto: “I started working closely with Dick Akright of Best Music in Oakland, California. We both knew what we were trying to do, but none of the companies would listen to us. I ask Dick to figure out how much it would cost to build a horn, and we decided to start making trumpets ourselves. I took a very old New York Bach to him and said I wanted the new horn to blow and look like that trumpet. That was the start of the Severinson-Akright Bel Canto Trumpets. We had a lot of fun with it. At first, we were going to get parts and put them together. We bought a few valve sections and other things, but we threw them right in the trashcan. We knew that we would have to do it ourselves. I had a few things that I insisted on for the horn. For the construction and weight of the valves, I wanted it to be like the old New York Bach. No one was doing that because it was too expensive and time consuming. Well, we did it, and it made a difference. Dick really came up with the leadpipe. It was an offshoot of the Bach 25 leadpipe. I wanted the bell to be like the old Bach too. The great thing about this horn is you can play anything on it. This business about a horn that does only one thing – I wasn’t brought up that way. You had one horn and you had to do it all on that”.