Klarinet Archive - Posting 000406.txt from 1995/01

From: Syd Polk <jazzman@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Eric Dolphy again
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 13:40:40 -0500

On Jan 26, 12:21am, David Lechner wrote:
} Subject: Eric Dolphy again
} First off does anyone happen to know the make and model of Dolphy's bass
} clarinet(s)? Did it have the standard range or did it have the extension
} some of you have mentioned in previous postings?
On one album, he was playing a Conn with a low D. That's all I know.

} Secondly, I have a puzzle that came to my attention while driving to work
} this morning. I was listening to a tape of Dolphy's _Copenhagen
} Concert_ for which I no longer have either playlist and personnel.
} Unfortunately the album doesn't appear to be available currently except
} as a used lp (if one could track it down). I believe the album must have been
} a two record set, since the tape runs about 90 minutes. About half way
} through side 2 (thus at the end of disk 2 side 1 or beginning of disk 2
} side 2) there is a song in which after an extended piano solo and following
} piano/bass/drums vamp, an alto sax solo begins and runs about 2 minutes
} before the song ends. _Immediately_ before the alto begins, there are
} three notes played by what can _only_ be a CONTRABASS clarinet (or
} possibly a very stuffy bass sax) played in the low register. Okay, it stands
} to reason that if Dolphy played bass clarinet he could well have played
} contrabass, yet I've never heard of it before. Secondly, the alto solo
} definitely _sounds_ like Dolphy and there isn't enough time for any
} mortal musician to switch horns. So who's on first and what's on second?
} Any ideas? Thanks!
Well, if he got a low C bass clarinet, they can fool you into thinking
you have a contra. He played bass with a neck strap, and he could have
had both horns on a strap. But it's most likely somebody else; maybe
it's bowed bass. I will have to try to find this.

By the way, on the album "The Last Concert", in the tune "When Lights
are Low", after Dolphy plays the head, he starts his solo with a middle
D, with a gliss straight down to the low D, which he hold for almost
three bars.

Syd Polk