Klarinet Archive - Posting 000887.txt from 1998/07

From: Lisa Clayton <lisakc@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Benny Goodman/Jazz Clarinet
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 20:03:47 -0400

At 07:07 PM 07.23.98 -0400, you wrote:
>I just received my August 13, 1998 copy of the New York Review of Books
>in the mail. It contains an extremely informative article on Benny
>Goodman by Whitney Balliett, former jazz critic for the New Yorker. I
>wonder how many of you would agree with Mr. Bailliett's conclusion.
>
>"Goodman...died of a heart attack in June of 1986....To all intents and
>purposes, the jazz clarinet died with him."

It seemed to have gone into a coma around the the time of Bebop, that's for
sure. If you count the bass clarinet, then a *very* good case can be
argued that Eric Dolphy brought it back to life.

But the ol' corpus is showing some signs of life. Eddie Daniels and Don
Byron, of course. Little-known but absolutely incredible avant-garde
performers Ben Goldberg and Beth Custer. All of these musicians are
primarily clarinet jazzers and are reviving the concept of the clarinet as
a jazz instrument. So the body ain't dead; just very, very skinny.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/eguide/archive/1998/07/16/de
rk.dtl
for a great article on Ben Goldberg.

http://www.sirius.com/~b1custer/
for Beth Custer's site.

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