Excellent idea. When I was new to playing, I listened to recordings of great bands and soloists over and over and tried to learn enough to play along. Most importantly though - I took private lessons from the start. If I had not had these, I never would have achieved the level of proficiency that I was able to with lessons. From what I remember or was told, Zoot Sims' tenor was always a Selmer with an old rubber Brilhart mouthpiece. His initial pro horn was a Cigar Cutter/Super Sax from the early 1930's. He still had this horn - or one like it - in Sweden in the 1980's evidently. Stan Getz played a new Mark VI around the Girl from Ipanema period (1966 model?). Obviously he started on something else. Gerry Mulligan played a Conn baritone. There is some sketchy info around as to what different pros played - some references to this on this forum. Paul Desmond evidently usually played a Super Balanced Action Selmer from the 1940's, I found out here, for instance. There is a page on the website of The Lamont School of Music at Denver University that lists mouthpieces and some horns used by various pros. Go to : - - - www.du.edu/lamont/Mpce.html For now, learn your horn well. I've been playing for 44 years and have had two tenors. My Mark VI is 44 years old. I've taken care of it --- learn to do this yourself. The Yamaha would likely make a fine horn for you - but most important is the work you'll put into whatever horn you have. Listen to what you can from the past. Take lessons and practice --- minimum of 1 hour a day. Start each session with breath control work. One of the most important elements of tone is breath control. If your air stream is weak, your horn will sound wimpy and potentially flat. - - Good Luck.

if you have only been playing for a year, i would reccomend holding off on a buying an expensive pro series horn. over the next few years you will evolve as a saxophonists and udoubtedly your taste will change. you still have to decide where you want to take your playing genre-wise. and your preference in horns will most likely change. dont get yourself in a pinch in the future buy going for a really expensive purchase now. experiment with all the horns you can. but i wouldnt recomend going all out now and closing your line of sight on horns. yamahas are very solid good horns no doubt. also, if you really like the 62, experiment with some other yamahas side by side with it. a lot of people prefer the custom series to the 62.

I'm a big fan of the YAS-62 (and in fact play a first-run 62 alto for a lot of stuff . . . I also have a Mark VI alto, but reserve that for lead alto and straight ahead work). A number of my friends and colleagues who play Yamahas (for alto and soprano) actually prefer the 62 over the Custom or Z line horns, and I personally prefer the original 62 over the 62-II. They're a very versatile horn, consistent, and play well in tune. I bought my 62 alto brand new almost 20 years ago, and still use it for a lot of the alto work I do.