Klarinet Archive - Posting 000021.txt from 1993/05

From: Buck-Naked <TBUCK@-----.BITNET>
Subj: Contrabass Clarinet recordings. Suggestions?
Date: Tue, 18 May 1993 23:37:00 -0400

This is an absolute shot in the dark because such animals may not even
exist, but can anyone recomend any recordings that feature the contrabass
clarinet? Classical or jazz, or anything else for that matter. I'm under
the impression that Anthony Braxton may have done some avant-guarde jazz
stuff with the contrabass, but I've never been able to find any of it.

Frank Zappa's 1988 touring band featured a 5 piece horn section with one
guy alternating on baritone sax and contrabass clarinet. 5 CD's have been
released thus far from recordings of that tour: Broadway the Hard Way, The
Best Band You Never Heard (2CD), and Make a Jazz Noise Here (2CD). None
feature any solo work on the Contrabass, but it can clearly be heard down
in the lower registers of many tunes, and it adds a wonderfully rich tibre
to the overall sound. :-)

I'd love to find some Eric Dolphy on the contrabass, but I doubt he ever
recorded with one. Are there any other bass clarinet gods that I'm missing?
People that might have done a few things here and there with the deepest
member of the clarinet family. (I am right on this, there isn't anything
deeper than the contrabass clarinet, right?) Is there a clarinet between
the bass and contrabass?

It's a shame that these lower members of the orchestra (including the bass
flute, the contrabassoon, and others) weren't around back in the 18th and
19th centuries for some of the great classical and romantic composers to
write for. (Not that they would have written much, but even two or three
compositions per every 50 years might have been fun.) By the way, there
isn't a contrabass flute, is there? Any great contrabassoon recordings or
compositions lurking about either?

I seem to remeber reading a review in the St. Louis Post Dispatch of a
chamber concert which featured compositions for one and two contrabassoons.
Unfortunately I do not remember the composer and read about the event after
the fact. I believe it was given by members of the St. Louis Symphony.

Are there any other fans of these low register instruments out there?
Anybody own their own contrabass clarinet? What's it like to play?

Tom, who used to play clarinet
back in high school, and
bass clarinet every now
and then too.

P.S. any Charles Ives fans out there?