Schilke MPC History For The A4a cups & Changes

[chase1973]

14A4a: One of the most popular pieces around, one of the top sellers for Schilke. However, the stock piece is one of the worst pieces made. Not because of quality issues but, the spec's of the piece itself and how it's an almost diametric polar opposite of what the original runs of the 14A4a were.
Forrest Buchtel, a great Chicago-based lead player had been in Vegas and when Bill Chase was leaving Woody's band for the final time in Oct. '69, he had Forrest come on to replace him. Forrest was playing a Purviance piece which he gave to Mr. Schilke to copy. With a little tweaking. Schilke came up with the early drafts of the 14A4a.
The inner diameter has not changed but, the original had more of a rounded contour (like a Reeves 42 rim) with a nice drop off below the rim. The cup was more bowl in shape rather than the more "funnel" cupped shape of current models. The throat was a #28-stock models have a #27 with a really tight "aa" backbore.

13A4a-made for Mike Vax in 1970 when he was playing lead with Stan Kenton. In fact, the whole Kenton Trumpet section had custom Schilke pieces made (Dennis Noday, Joe Marcinkiewicz, Jim Kartchner, Jay Saunders, et-al)
The 13A4a hasn't changed too much in 48 years except, the earlier models had a more "conical" cup-like a Reeves-Warburton SV-which, tends to make the piece more playable and to offer more chop assistance it had more of a pronounced drop off below the bite of rim with slightly more cup depth.

6A4a-Bill Chase came to Schilke's shop in the spring of '72 to have his custom Jet-Tone (that Ray Amado had made for him) copied. Mr. Schilke made 3 copies all labeled Schilke-Chase. One Bill kept, one that was gold-plated Bill gave to his band-mate Alan Ware and the 3rd went to vocalist GG Shinn.
Throughout '72, Schilke would make small tweaks to Bill's piece whenever he was up in the shop and the early versions of the 6A4a were born. The one Bill used (and which I had had Schilke copy this year, 2018, to make ava to the public) had a slightly wider inner diameter (.633 over the stock .630) it had more of a cushion rim with a medium bite. There was no undercut but a very well pronounced drop off, convex bevel, below the rim bite-the early stock pieces also had this feature. The cup has never been changed but the stock models have a #27 throat with an "a" backbore. The Chase 6A4a has a #24 throat entrance which quickly drops to a long #28 leading into the backbore. The backbore begins as an "a" which gradually expands to a Schmidt shape and the inner walls of the shank at the end are very thin.

Why the changes? The early pieces were made with hand form fitting tools which were constantly being broken. When that happened, new tools had to be made. Each time this happened, dimensions would be altered, only slightly, but enough to where the current pieces barely resemble the originals.

[Ed Kennedy]

This is very interesting to me. My first stint at the Schilke shop was 72-73 fresh out of the Army. I recall seeing Chase in the shop during that period. For a time I operated the turret lathe, cutting stock mouthpieces and personally broke a backbore tool. I got a real ass-chewing for that one.

Most of the emloyees were trumpet players and prone to experiment with the product. I had Phil (Scott's predessesor) take a 14A4a and make an undercut at the rim to prevent bottoming out. That was a popular mod.

[Vin DiBona]

Phil told me the 14A4a had indeed been modified more than a few time over the years to meet the demands of more players. The original was very difficult to control for most players and as Mr. Buchtel told me it was made for him to play extremely loud above the staff and was not intended for all around playing. I have one from approximately 1970 and while I can play it, after a while, the slight swelling of my lip makes bottoming out very likely. Interestingly, while I've had this since 1970 and I did not mofify it, it has a 25 bore and plays rather open.

R. Tomasek

[nowave]

Really interesting history. You mention making copies of an original 6a4a available for sale - could you elaborate on that?

[boog]

I have an early 70's 13a4a I bought new back in that time period that is different from any I have seen in the last few years, both in playing qualities and in appearance. The end of the shank is chamfered to a very thin edge. I believe that they called this "skeletonization" or something like that. I bought it because I played a show with a guy that had one, and thought I would try it, as I was playing a 12 at the time. I used that piece for years for lead playing, still have it...I tended to bottom out on it, so I have switched to deeper cups.