Anello Mouthpieces is a small boutique woodwind mouthpiece creator and refacing shop.
Emil Anello was a professional musician from his teenage years in the 1930s to his passing in 2010. He played clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone, flute, and sang with the chorus in the Florentine Opera Company.
In 1965, Emil Anello began working professionally with mouthpieces. He learned the art of refacing mouthpieces from an early music teacher, Robert Miller, who refaced mouthpieces by hand.
For several years to come, musicians requested his technical expertise – first locally, then nationally, leading to his notoriety among musicians for his precision craft and knowledge. Emil Anello offered a variety of mouthpiece refacing services, such as restoring chipped mouthpieces, duplicating facings of legacy mouthpieces, and creating custom products with a variety of popular facings.
Through decades of experience refacing hundreds of mouthpieces, Emil Anello learned the most popular facing specifications among musicians. In 1974, he developed a new mouthpiece model using a composite of these popular specifications and produced the Anello Mouthpiece Clarinet and Saxophone Series. From the very beginning, these mouthpieces have been manufactured with the technical partnership of JJ Babbitt in small production batches of no more than 12 pieces.
As a veteran tool designer of 35 years at the Square-D Company, Emil Anello spent a lifetime working to extreme tolerances and specifications for all types of manufacturing needs. His appreciation for reliable precision, combined with engineering and refacing expertise, led to the development of a first-of-its kind process for refacing mouthpieces.
Shown below is the Variable Radius Mouthpiece Facer, a unique patented mechanical apparatus to reface mouthpieces, capable of tolerances to 1/1000th of an inch.
The Variable Radius Mouthpiece Facer operates on the fundamentals of algebra and geometry, using a system of calculations prepared by Emil Anello to create any desired mouthpiece facing. The facings of all single reed mouthpieces, clarinet or saxophone, vary according to the tip opening and back taper, both of which are a function of a radius of a circle and the length of a chord that subtends an arc of the circle.
By calculation, using standard mathematical formula, any desired facing can be achieved to an accuracy of one‑thousands of an inch.
The mouthpiece is clamped to the angle plate surface, its flat portion (the table), facing down. The facing operation is performed by incrementally moving the abrasive to remove more material as the swinging arm moves back and forth on its radius, until the desired tip opening is within one-thousandth of completion.
The remaining material is removed through hand-finishing process and is confirmed by micrometer. Further hand‑finishing focuses on accurate width of the tip rail, side rails, and inner chamber contour.
Emil Anello - early years
Emil Anello performed professionally for more than 60 years during some of the greatest periods of Milwaukee live music. He played nonstop every weekend for numerous gigs and with variety shows that included the Ringling Brothers Circus, Green Bay Packers Ensemble, Wonago Rodeo, and the Great Circus Parade.
Emil Anello played for more than 25 years with the Eagles Club House Band that accompanied many of the nation’s most popular performers, including Tony Bennett ● Mel Torme ● Sophie Tucker ● Frankie Avalon ● Liberace ● Sergio Franchi ● Glady Knight and the Pips ● Wayne Newton ● Jimmy Durante ● The Ink Spots ● The Four Freshmen ● The Four Aces ● The Four Lads ● Ford & Hines ● Anna Maria Alberghetti.
Emil Anello was the band leader for the Army Big Band that performed for USO concerts on Okinawa during WWII. He performed in the powerful American Legion Band in Milwaukee for more than 50 years, and also sang in the Florentine Opera Chorus with other Anello family members. When it came to music, Emil was all in!
Emil Anello - later years
Emil Anello began teaching his son Mike Anello the art of mouthpiece refacing when Mike was in high school. After careful tutoring, Mike became a partner in the mouthpiece business in 1999. Mike and Emil carefully documented the precision craft of creating these high-quality mouthpieces and accumulated a robust archive of this process for posterity and historical record. Some of this information is presented in the Emil Anello Emil Anello's Mouthpiece School
Emil Anello passed away in 2010, but wanted his mouthpiece design and craft to survive. Although the business was briefly shuttered after his passing, Mike Anello reopened the mouthpiece shop in 2019 to carry on the Anello tradition.
Mike grew up in a “Music Family.” He played the clarinet like his older brothers, and belonged to concert and marching bands in middle school and high school. However, Mike was never a musician like his father. Instead, Mike gravitated towards engineering in high school and earned a Pre-Engineering Degree at Milwaukee Technical and Trade High School. It was there that Mike learned about mechanical design and the use of high-precision machine tools. Today, Mike continues the same high standards for precision and quality with help from local musicians who participate in rigorous testing of mouthpieces and ongoing product development.
Emil Anello was a music educator and strong supporter of music education. He gave private lessons for clarinet and saxophone, and taught music in Milwaukee Public Schools for more than 25 years. To continue support for music education, Anello Mouthpieces will donate $25 from each mouthpiece sold to Forward Performing Arts, Inc, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) Wisconsin corporation, with musical programs that include The Madison Scouts Drum & Bugle Corps and Black Star Drumline. Your purchase supports music education!
Anello Mouthpieces also offers discounts for the educator, student, or music program. For school district purchases of 4 or more mouthpieces, contact Mike Anello directly to discuss significant discounts for your school’s music program.
Phone: 414-704-0209
Email: info@anellomouthpieces.com