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Gorkaphone
Fictional horn of some kind from the April 11, 1963 "Out of My Head" humor column in Downbeat Magazine. It's played by musician Gimp Lymphly of the Zoot Finster Octet jazz album At Sun Valley.
A recent arrival on the jazz scene, Lymphly was discovered by miscellaneous-instrumentalist Cameron Lindsay Jr. while he was working in a razor-blade factory near Duluth. He masters the somewhat difficult gorkaphone (a cross between bassonium and ear flute) as a French chef masters a recipe. His tone on the unwieldy horn has a Far East tang, which is probably why he chooses to sprinkle his lines with bits of Buddhist music. His only fault, in this reviewer's eyes, is a tendency to forget the melody line, a lapse that explains his playing "I'll Remember April" on every track.
The June 20, 1963 issue had a follow-up column giving short funny bios of each member of the band, here's Gimp Lymphly's:
GIMP LYMPHLY: Born Garnett Mash Lymphly in Kentucky, the most memorable event of his childhood was that of watching revenue agents smash his father's still. It was then he coined the phrase "flatted fifths." At the age of 24 he bought a secondhand gorkaphone at an Edsel parts rummage sale. Upon mastering the complicated fingering of the unwieldy horn, he was committed to a Stan Kenton Clinic as the result of chronic complaints by unhip friends and neighbors. After numerous treatments there, he decided to go on to bigger and better things and obtained a master's degree in music from a box of Cracker Jack. Unable to land a musical job, he went to work in a razor-blade factory near Duluth, Minn., where he was discovered by miscellaneous instrumentalist Cameron Lindsay Jr. Lindsay ultimately recommended him to Finster, and the rest is history.
