“The horn is very open in the upper register and also has a very good low register… the note pitches were particularly accurate.”
Founder Charles Macaluso recounts an early playtest by trumpet great Wayne Bergeron:
Wayne Bergeron played the Macaluso trumpet in West Palm Beach, Florida, on December 6, 2013, following a Palm Beach Atlantic University Jazz Band Concert, in which he was the featured jazz soloist. The play testing occurred as a result of an exchange of emails about ten days prior to the concert. After the concert, Wayne sold and autographed his CD’s, and posed for photos with his admiring fans. When all had left, I introduced myself and recounted our previous meeting following a 2001 ITG conference in Orlando, which Wayne immediately recalled.
I affirmed that I had brought the trumpet I designed, and he was very interested in seeing and playing it. Wayne admired the highly polished raw brass instrument, and he commented the instrument was beautifully finished in every detail. He immediately noticed the bell throat diameter was much larger than that of other trumpets and the trumpet was lightweight, like his Yamaha YTR-8335LA Signature Model trumpet. He wanted to know who built it, which I was glad to tell him. Wayne used his two GR Technologies Wayne Bergeron Signature mouthpieces to play in the mid-range and upper register. The lobby area of the Helen K. Persson Recital Hall, where the trumpet was play tested, had acoustics that were bright but favorable. He played the horn primarily in the middle registers continuously for about five minutes.
When he stopped, he said, “It’s very accurate, just as you said.” He then went back to playing, exploring the upper register and commenting, “The horn is very open in the upper register and also has a very good low register.” Wayne played Double C’s many times. At such a pitch, the sound was not overly bright, but pure and clear. He then played arpeggios over two octaves in all the keys and commented, “The note pitches were particularly accurate.” I told him that the only notes that were not in perfect tune were those using valve combinations 1&2, 1&3, and 1,2&3, which required extending the first valve slide. He responded that on my horn, the notes played with valves 1&2 had quite accurate pitches; whereas such fingering on his YTR-8335 was not that good and required use of valve 3.
I explained the horn was designed to be played with an unaltered embouchure and constant lip penetration into the cup. He then said, “I’m glad that you mentioned that, as I have been playing your horn just as I normally play my trumpet.” He then concentrated on playing with an unaltered embouchure. My personal assessment was the sound to a Double C was clearer and purer than before and better than the sound of his YTR-8335. He also played some Triple C’s. However, as was expected, they were not loud, full notes. Wayne volunteered his mouthpieces would not produce the proper mouthpiece gap on my horn. He explained, “The gap in his already gold-plated prototype of the YTR-8335LA was not correct with a standard mouthpiece shank diameter. To correct such an incorrect gap, his mouthpieces were made with a special, larger shank diameter.”
He spent at least 20 or 30 minutes play testing my horn. Each time he stopped playing, he seemed very satisfied with the qualities he was seeking to evaluate, and he went on to try other things. He mentioned his chops were “beat up” from playing the 1½ hour concert, with no breaks, before the play testing. At the end of the session, Wayne stated, “It was a very nice horn, and I had designed something really special.”
I couldn’t have been more pleased with Wayne’s open feedback, particularly in view of him being a Yamaha Performing Artist. He seemed to genuinely enjoy playing the instrument and giving me his assessments, primarily out of his natural curiosity and enthusiasm.