Klarinet Archive - Posting 000115.txt from 1994/03

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Bernie Hunt's inquiry on Benny Goodman
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 09:13:55 -0500

Bernie asks about Goodman's recording of the Mozart concerto.

I have that recording and, despite my extraordinary respect for
Goodman, I have never found his performance of the work to
be appealing or convincing. But it was not just this single
work in the non-jazz world that I thought of this way, it was his
performance of almost anything in this repertoire.

He played all the pieces competently: the Mozart concerto, the
quintet, the Weber concerti, the Bartok Contrasts, the Milhaud
trio, everything. And he played legitimate music a great deal
better than most legitimate players played jazz. But it was
(IMO) never top drawer classical clarinet playing.

But when he played jazz, OH BOY! No one every showed his
imaginative skill and complete mastery of the idiom. And that
was his weakness in classical playing. He never mastered the
idiom. He simply played it.

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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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