Klarinet Archive - Posting 000107.txt from 1997/08

From: Neil Leupold <nleupold@-----.edu>
Subj: Stoltzman: It's all relative
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 13:50:13 -0400

Alright. Just to make a point to myself about the relative legitimacy
of praise directed toward Stoltzman, I bit the bullet and pulled out
Acker Bilk's "Stranger On the Shore" album. My GOD it's bad. Next to
Woody Allen, I had no idea the clarinet could be made to sound so
terrible! I was tempted to grab the nachos, there was so much cheese
dripping from my Fisher speakers. This is a great album to pull out
during a party with other musicians -- a guaranteed ice-breaker as people
burst out in varying phases of laughter and nausea. Even Stoltzman's
"new agey jazz stuff" (as Gary Young put it) sounds like the graceful
licks of Parker & Getz by comparison. And then, of course, Eddie Daniels
assumes the status of a supreme being. As if Bilk's playing weren't
bad enough, the retro-70's disco strings in the background make it
beyond the threshold of human suffering. Whew! Sapuku with a rusty
spoon...

Neil