Tuba with bent leadpipes?

[Hank74]

This past weekend, I was watching an old "Lawrence Welk Show" from 1975 and they featured Richard Maloof playing a recording bell tuba on a few occasions. They even had a nice close-up shot of him playing the bass part to "National Emblem." Now the thing I noticed from that shot was that the leadpipe was bent, so the mouthpiece would be at an angle. In this piece, Maloof was sitting down and the tuba was placed on a stand.

What I want to know is were there any tubas that had a bent leadpipe, or could it be that a sousaphone bit was used to help position the mouthpiece to the player.

BTW, Maloof was an early inspiration for me as a young boy to get really interested in the tuba. Hope he is doing well.

[Ken Herrick]

"Bits" were common with a lot of the old tubas to make it easy to adjust mp position.

My parents always watched Lawrence Welk and would always alert me to "There is a tuba playing".

[EdFirth]

I remember that Welk show. He was playing a Martin. Most of them had two bits that actually were part of the leadpipe. Martin had figured out that everyone isn't the same height and different players like the leadpipe to be at different angles. Conn intended for one bit to be used on their big horns. There's a good picture on the original Bill Bell album cover of him with a Martin front banger with the bits(it was actually Harvey's horn) but when King, he was a King artist at the time got wind of it they reshot the cover with his King. Great idea that will probably not be revisited. Ed

[iiipopes]

Maloof is a great player. Underestimated, because even though rarely featured, he essentially had to be perfect every week with a completely new and different program, as Welk was, of course, live and had to fit in the time allotted.

Welk arranged a duet for his wife, Mary Lou Metzger, and him on "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands." He couldn't make it out to Branson for the taping of the Welk "Precious Memories" TV special on PBS, so I played the part, albeit on bass guitar instead of double bass, as I did not own one at the time. Good arrangement.

And yes, Maloof played a Martin most of the time he played tuba on the show. The "bent lead pipe" may actually be a bit or two, as bloke points out.

[Hank74]

Thank goodness for spare Sousaphone bits! I found a lacquer one (I believe it was a Yamaha), put it into both of my Reynolds tubas, and it fit in great! For being a tall guy, I really needed something comfortable for the upcoming band season with all those rehearsals.

Of course, if anyone is going to do this they need to find a bit that fits perfectly and has the right angle. Most of them are either 20 or 45 degree. So it's a matter of trial and error.

Thank you cameraman of the Welk show for that Maloof close-up!