Unusual instruments ~ The serpent

[Jazzrook]

I'm fairly sure that the serpent(a distant ancestor of the tuba) has never been heard on JRR.
Here's Michel Godard playing a mean solo on one with drummer Gunter Sommer in Berlin, 2010:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Turv2oAg5fo

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

[Flay]

Good old Hoffnung! I loved those cartoons

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Presumably it morphed into the ophecleide?

[Tevot]

Eaten to it

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Presumably it morphed into the ophecleide?

And, for a certain generation of composers, into a Magnetic Tape Worm.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm fairly sure that the serpent(a distant ancestor of the tuba) has never been heard on JRR.
Here's Michel Godard playing a mean solo on one with drummer Gunter Sommer in Berlin, 2010:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Turv2oAg5fo

I wonder how many would be able to identify the sound of a serpent if heard "blind".

[MrGongGong]

I wonder how many would be able to identify the sound of a serpent if heard "blind".

Or tell it apart from the ophicleide ?

[Ian Thumwood]

Jazzrook

I was always intrigued about this record although this had more to do with the castle on the album over than the music. (Medieval history is another interest of mine.)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Castel-Del-Monte-Michel-Godard/dp/B00006IJ7V/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1427144224&sr=1-1&keywords=michel+godard

I'm not 100% sure if Godard is part of the collective that Louis Sclavis belonged to in the early 1990's that consisted of musicians form jazz. folk and classical music that had a name like "the society of imaginary folk music." I never heard any of their records but it chimed with a lot of material that ECM produced at the same time, the best example of which is probably Jan Garbarek's "Rosenfole." When I was younger this music seemed fascinating. I'm not too enthused now. It is interesting but French jazz always seems to want to go it's own route and stick a defiant middle finger up at the American tradition. When it works, I think the results can be impressive and something like the collaboration between Portal and Sclavis which I heard a few years back. I don't think that collaboration which also involved a photographer ever manifested itself on record which is a shame as the result was compelling and honest. If French jazz doesn't quite click, the results can sound a be annoying, in my opinion. The Godard stuff seems a curiosity. I'm not shocked by the music and can admire the innovation or consider it as some kind of European mutation of the work of the late, great Yusef Lateef.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There's one being auctioned in Scarborough tomorrow.

https://davidduggleby.com/auctions/29082015/0/290/MusicalInstrumentswoodandpapiermachemilitaryserpentfivebrass.aspx?search=serpent

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It was sold for £1,400!