Klarinet Archive - Posting 000022.txt from 1993/05

From: Andrea K Hakari <hakari@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Contrabass Clarinet recordings. Suggestions?
Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 18:36:55 -0400

Gee, just as luck may have it, I posed a similar question, about jazz
bass clarinetists, to rec.music.classical and rec.music.bluenote a
couple months ago, and got a slew of responses! Glad I saved all the
stuff. What follow is the responses I received; enjoy!

--Andrea, Bb contrabass clarinetist extraordinaire???

******************************************************************************

Happy to oblige. THE CLARINET FAMILY is by Hamiet Bluiett, and is on
the Black Saint label (BSR 0097). It features a whole range of
clarinets: sopranino, soprano, alto, contralto, bass and contrabass.
The Penguin Guide to Jazz (a pretty reliable source of reviews) gives
this CD its highest rating (four stars). The Black Saint label is
Italian, but is distributed in the U.S., so this should not be too hard to get.

I see Hamiet Bluiett has already been mentioned, and so has Bob Mintzer (sp?).
I just wanted to add that Bob Mintzer plays bass clarinet with his big
band on most of the recordings I've heard.

There's quite a bit of Dolphy available. A better place to pose this
sort of question would be rec.music.bluenote, the jazz/blues discussion group.
You might want to start with some of the Dolphy CD reissues on Original
Jazz Classics (put out by Fantasy Records). They're not only excellent
albums (OUT THERE, OUTWARD BOUND, AT THE FIVE SPOT VOLS. 1 & 2, etc.),
but they're also inespensive.

Well, I know for a fact that "Out to Lunch" is on CD, and I have seen others
but can't recall the titles. You might want to check on rec.music.bluenote.
Someone there is bound to have more info. Finally, I think he played
with John Coltrane on several of his recordings (In particular, check out
"India" off of his "Impressions" CD. I don't claim to know much about (i.e.
anything) the bass clarinet, but this song definitely does it for me).

Yes, there is a lot of Dolphy's work on CD. It's generally accepted
that his classic work is OUT TO LUNCH, on the Blue Note label. Other
notable works include OUT THERE, OUTWARD BOUND and FAR CRY, all on the
Original Jazz Classics label. His work with Charles Mingus is also worth
checking out. Mingus' MINGUS AT ANTIBES (on Atlantic) has some striking bass
clarinet work by Dolphy, for example.

If you are interested in jazz bass clarinetists, you should also check
out David Murray, Dolphy's successor as the leading voice on this
instrument (although his main instrument is the tenor saxophone). Murray's
MING'S SAMBA (on Columbia/Portrait) has perhaps his best bass clarinet work
(and is more readily available than most of his other albums, which are
mostly on the import labels Black Saint and DIW). And if you are interested in
jazz contrabass clarinet, you should look into the work of Anthony
Braxton, who plays essentially all of the different saxophones and
clarinets. I know of only one album on which he definitely plays contrabass
clarinet (Max Roach's ONE IN TWO - TWO IN ONE, on the import Hat Art label),
but there are probably others.

I'm sure the contrabass clarinet must appear on other jazz albums as
well, but nothing comes to mind right now. A good newsgroup to ask for
further information along these lines would be rec.music.bluenote, which deals
with all types of jazz/blues/etc.

Dolphy made a fair number of recordings as leader (not as many, nor
for as long as we would wish), but you should also look at Charles
Mingus recordings, as Dolphy made many with him. Also look for the
few albums led by Booker Little. Dolphy also played with Coltrane and
is on Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz.

David Murray plays bass clarinet frequently on his own albums, on
those with the World Saxophone Quartet and on many others as well.

Anthony Braxton plays contrabass clarinet on Willisau Quartet 1991 (a
truly wonderful recording) and may do so on others that are not in my
collection.

Dave Finucane plays bass clarinet on Either Orchestra and on Orange
Then Blue recordings (as does someone else, I think).

John Magruder doubles on bass clarinet (his main instrument is
baritone) on some of Don Ellis' experiments with funny electronics. I
don't think these are on CD.

Bob Mintzer plays bass clarinet on Don Grolnick's album "Weaver of
Dreams." He also plays bass clarinet on some of the cuts on his own
album with the John ABercombie trio, "Hymn." Both albums are quite good, BTW.

And, both are recent albums available on CD.

In addition to what others have suggested, I would also add Gary Thomas, who
plays the bass clarinet in addition to flute and his main instrument,
the tenor saxophone. He tends not to play the bass clarinet as much as Dolphy
did, but he does get in a few licks here and there. He has several albums out
under his own name, plus he plays on a few Jack DeJohnette albums: Audio
Visualscapes, Earth Walk, and at least one other whose name I can
never remember.

Bennie Maupin plays bass clarinet on several Herbie Hancock albums
(and probably others), but the ones I've heard don't feature him much (or
at all).

: Since Dolphy, many jazz saxophonists have doubled on bass clarinet -
: mostly in the avant-garde tradition growing out of Dolphy and others.
: (There, I finally said it - "avant-garde tradition"! Take that, Crouch!)
: There have actually been more people playing bass-clarinet than clarinet
: in modern jazz (w/ the exception of the wonderful John Carter.)
:
: Anyway, that means there are a lot of places to look for bass-clarinet
: playing, but not that many albums featuring ALL bass clarinet. But you
: might start in a few places: David Murray (on his own records and
: with the World Saxophone Quartet); Henry Threadgill (I think); Douglas
: Ewart I believe plays some nice bass-clarinet but he's hard to find
: (on some Muhal Richard Abrams, probably). The contrabass clarinet player
: is undoubtedly Anthony Braxton - who's probably played every single-reed
: instrument in existence - but unfortunately I can't remember what album(s)
: he plays it on.

This may have been mentioned already, but Don Byron's _The
Tuskeegee Experiment_ (may have the name wrong), a fine jazz
clarinet album, contains a couple of bass stick cuts.

Ahh a clarinet fan. There are a number of players who are currently
working with the lower register clarinets. Anthony Braxton is a
player who works with the contrabass clarinet. You can check him out
(his contrabass clarinet) on his duet recordings with Max Roach --
esp. the Hat ARt live recording. Also check out his mid-seventies
material w/Geoge Lewis.

As you'll probably hear on the newsgroup (if you haven't already),
David Murray is one of the finer bass clarinetists playing today. I heard from
folks on this newsgroup that he recenly made a recording playing only
bass clarinet (he's also a fantastic tenor player). His work with The
Clarinet Summitt (3 b-flat clarinetists and Mr. Murray on bass) might
be a good place to start.

A lesser known bass clarinetist is Walter Zuber Armstrong. He put out
a number of fine records in the mid-seventies on The World Artists label.
Cadence may have a couple of these records in stock. Check out his duets with
Steve Lacy - fantastic.

Douglas Ewart has put out a recording called The Clarinet Choir which
incorporates a number of the lower register clarinets. You may be able
to find one of these tapes in Mpls. (I noticed you're from Northfield) as Mr.
Ewart currently resides in Mpls.

One of the finest recordings I've heard is Hamiet Bluiett's, "The
Clarinet Family" on Black Saint. A live recording featuring many outsatnding
clarinetists (Don Byron, J.D. Parran, etc). There are two or three
lower end clarinets on this recording also.

I believe that the veteran saxophonist Flip Phillips has made some
recent albums using the bass clarinet - don't know any details.