Darius Hampton on the Giant 8

"I currently play the JodyJazz Giant 8* for tenor. For me it's the best of all worlds. It offers plenty of projection and it sits in the middle of the dark to bright spectrum. For me, all that means I can color my sound however I need to. It lets me sing out when I need to and even and cut through a loud rock band, but I can use the same piece to blend into a jazz big band sax section or play in more intimate small ensembles. I can subtone all I want and still play way up in the altissimo register with a good tone and dynamics.

I've been playing JodyJazz mouthpieces since 2012. At the time I was recovering from a case of Bell's palsy -- a temporary, partial facial paralysis -- which obviously prevented me from playing my horn for a while. As muscle movement gradually returned I was determined to play again but my old mouthpieces had too much resistance for my recovering embouchure. Air would leak out of the side of my mouth because I simply didn't have the physical strength or control to deal with it. Through word-of-mouth I heard about JodyJazz and really appreciated the ethos of more free-blowing mouthpieces. I got a JodyJazz Classic Tenor #8 (which was still in production at that time) and an HR* Tenor #7*, both of which were far less resistant than what I had. I could play again! I was still far from where I wanted to be, but just the ability to make the sounds I wanted to hear kept me going and the more I played, the stronger I got. I truly believe playing accelerated my recovery and JodyJazz had a lot to do with that!"