Klarinet Archive - Posting 000966.txt from 1998/04

From: merlinw@-----.ca
Subj: Re: wind instruments and circus tricks
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:19:30 -0400

On 04/17/98 08:48:34 you wrote:
>
>On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, Daniel A. Paprocki wrote:
>
>> By the way, what instruments can't circular breath? I know the
>> clarinet, sax, and oboe can. What about flute, bassoon, and brass
>> instruments?
>
>Trumpet players certainly can. What was the piece that Wynton Marsalis
>recorded with Eastman that seemed to go on forever without a breath?
>A version of Moto Perpetuo for trumpet perhaps?

I've also heard Marcus Belgrave circular breath on trumpet and flugelhorn. The first time I noticed this was in a performance of Billy Strayhorn's "Isfahan". He played it VERY slowly, and managed to build up terrific tension on the sustained notes at the end of each phrase. Definitely not a circus trick in this instance.

Harry Carney, of the Duke Ellington Orchestra used circular breathing. Sometimes this was done as a trick (check out some of the versions of Sophisticated Lady, where HC holds a note, and Duke plays about a minute long piano cadenza.) He would also use it in long phrases at slow tempi.

I'm reasonably sure that Ellington clarinettist Jimmy Hamilton could also do it.

Merlin Williams
merlinw@-----.ca
http://www.netcom.ca/~merlinw
(A member of the Sax Ring!)