Klarinet Archive - Posting 000068.txt from 1995/01

From: Lee Callet <LCallet@-----.COM>
Subj: jazz/not jazz
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 23:53:54 -0500

Richard Stoltzman is not a jazz player. He shows nothing of the tradition or
the "swing" which is inherent in the definition. For some reason he wants to
be a jazz player. He has lots of technique and a pretty sound; he has worked
out some cutesy-cutesy arrangements with his pianist/ bassoonist Bill
Douglas; he performs with a premiere bassist (Eddie Gomez), but to me he
misses the point. Listen to Buddy DeFranco, or Eddie Daniels, or Benny
Goodman, or Artie Shaw, or Jimmy Hamilton, or Ken Peplowsky, (or Phil Woods
or Paquito DeRivera, both alto players who double on clarinet, and are JAZZ
clarinet players). I don't know what bothers me so much about Richard
Stoltzman, but somehow I equate his "jazz" playing with his streaking the
Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. He is looking for attention. Some years ago
he was accorded a Time Magazine Cover, certainly a precedent, and certainly a
press agent's dream. Harold Wright never got a Time Magazine cover, nor can I
think of any other clarinet player with this honor.
The real jazz players have invested a lifetime of practice, played a million
gigs, learned the repertoire, and speak the musical language. There is an
element of swing which is basic to the playing of the best jazz players, on
any instrument. All of this seems conspicuously absent with Richard Stoltzman
's jazz. What he shares with Kenny G., I think, aside from keen showmanship,
is that they are both facile, and not in the best sense of the word.
I don't wish to deny Richard Stoltzman his right to play jazz clarinet, but I
don't have to like it either, and I wish I were afforded an equal opportunity
to turn on PBS and hear Buddy DeFranco.
Lee Callet