Kanter Cinema Bb Clarinet Mouthpiece

FROM JIM KANTER:

What is the Chedeville Kanter Cinema Mouthpiece?

This is a sublime mouthpiece.

The mouthpiece is designed by me and then perfected in the immaculate incredible accurate equipment that Jody uses into a mouthpiece that not just me, and not just Jody, and not just in our blind testing, but so far everyone else who’s tested it agreed that this is a sublime mouthpiece.  This is really going to work well. It’s a mouthpiece that stands in the middle of tip openings and facing designs. It’s a mouthpiece that will work very, very well for a variety of things.

Why did you decide to do this collaboration with Chedeville?

The idea that my name will be associated with Chedeville means a great deal to me because Chedeville is a very famous, well established, and richly respected brand name for clarinet mouthpieces.  At this point, the legacy, what it means to me to be a part of that is way beyond words and so that Jody and I are collaborating, that he thought to ask me to be a part of it, is an honor that I can’t be more grateful for.

How did you come to know and work with Chedeville and Jody Espina?

When Jody bought Chedeville I badgered him for about a year to make me blanks. Now Jody Espina and Chedeville supplies me with, without a doubt the best blanks, the best mouthpiece making material I’ve ever had in the almost 50 years I’ve been making mouthpieces.

FROM JODY ESPINA:

What do you think about this mouthpiece and the collaboration? Jim is on the top as far as what he does, his knowledge of curves, his accuracy in what he makes. He uses the word sublime, to describe the Kanter Cinema, and that’s exactly the perfect word. When you play something that is just so good, it’s hard to describe but it’s sublime. So, Jim has been really gracious with me in imparting his knowledge, helping us learn more. I may be one of the few mouthpiece makers who say, I don’t know everything, so I’m always ready to learn and I feel this is a great point in my mouthpiece career to learn from Jim Kanter. And the fact that he’s helped us make this mouthpiece to his specifications, to his exact thing, and that we were able to achieve it, because I wasn’t sure that would be possible, but we did it.  I’m very proud of that and really grateful to Jim Kanter for doing this project with us.

How would you describe the Kanter Cinema? I’ve said for many years now that the facing curve is the most important part of a mouthpiece. The curve has to be great for you and the way you play and the music you are trying to achieve. Jim Kanter is the Curve Master.  He measures a facing curve with more than twice the points of any mouthpiece maker I know of. So, we took an actual Ruby Probe on our 5 Axis CNC Mill and measured his curve of the Cinema prototype 10 times as many points as any mouthpiece maker. In other words, in a world where much or most of the magic in a mouthpiece is in the facing curve, we wanted to collect all the magic of Jim’s curve. Then of course there are other nuances that Jim does to a mouthpiece that we are not going to disclose. But the end-result is that I find that this one mouthpiece, the Cinema, appeals to more players than any other mouthpiece I have come across. It has a beautiful warm sound while being very flexible. I just encourage people to try it so they can see what they think. Please note that to achieve Jim Kanter’s vision of a subtle and understated look for this mouthpiece, the engravings are left unpainted.