Klarinet Archive - Posting 000900.txt from 1995/10

From: David Channing <dc@-----.DE>
Subj: Re: The best book in show business
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 21:36:01 -0400

>Walter Quan suggests that, in his opinion, the best book in show biz
>is reed three of West Side Story. That is hard to argue with. In one
>number, "A Boy Like That" all 5 or 6 reed players jump on bass clarinet
>at the same time. Can you imagine that? Five or 6 bass clarinets

There are five reed books in 'West Side Story', one of whom only plays bassoon.
The four other books all call for bass clarinet, although there is always only
one playing at a time except in "A Boy Like That" where three of them play
simultaneously.

I wouldn't consider the reed three book in 'West Side Story' the best book in
show biz, unless the fact that it calls for eight different instruments makes
it the best. In fact I think of things that are a lot more fun than dragging
a baritone sax to a gig to play less than 50 bars of music on it (of which
about 4 bars are sort-of solo).