Klarinet Archive - Posting 000017.txt from 1995/05

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Conrad Josias' wonderful posting with random thoughts
Date: Mon, 1 May 1995 06:30:38 -0400

Connie, I must tell you what great pleasure I had from your note. Within
it you asked if anyone else remembered Ed Hall. I do, and with great
pleasure.

On Saturday nights I would often take a date to Condon's in NY. There
was a $5 cover charge as I remember and Eddie Condon would, on occasion,
play banjo with the group. But the person I always went to hear
was Edmond Hall, a player of great intelligence who I heard in the
twilight of his playing years over the late 1940s and early 1950s.

I once stopped him as he walked through Condon's after a set and asked
to see his clarinet. It was an Albert system as I remember and I asked
why he didn't play a Boehm system (which is, in retrospect, a particularly
dumb thing to have asked) and he said that the Albert system was the one
he started on and didn't feel compelled to change at that stage of his
life.

I must admit that as much as I loved his musical ideas, I hated his sound.
I hated the sound of almost every jazz clarinetist I ever heard with the
exception of Benny Goodman. It seemed to me at the time that they made
an effort to sound ugly. For a while, I thought that Pee Wee Russel, who
had the ugliest, dirtiest sound I ever heard, was the standard for
playing.

But to return to your question, I do indeed remember Edmond Hall. I don't
know what ever brought him to New York City for so many years but, whatever
it was, I am grateful to have heard him on so many occasions.

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