Klarinet Archive - Posting 000099.txt from 1999/07

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] sax trouble
Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 18:29:26 -0400

BlueNote83 wrote,
>Charlie Parker experimented with the Plastic saxophone earlier though.>

Charlie Parker played just about everything. Apparently he'd run out of
money and pawn his horn. Someone would buy him a new one. He'd run out of
money and head for the pawn shop again. As a result, there are trainloads of
alleged Parker saxes out there, usually with no provenance. I'd sure like to
have a dollar for every time I've been offered "Charlie Parker's sax" at a
flea market. Guess I must look like a born sucker, because usually it's a
beat-up Bundy made years after Parker died.

But he did play the acrylic Grafton by choice for awhile, and recently it
sold (*with* provenance!) for over $200,000! Ken Wolman is right that
Ornette Coleman played Graftons, too. Paul Lindemeyer writes, in
_Celebrating the Saxophone_ (Hearst Books, 1996, p. 27, also the source of
that incredible price on Parker's Grafton), that Coleman "wore out several"
Graftons. Unlike plastic clarinets, the Grafton acrylic saxes, made in
England, were a serious attempt to use new technology to make a top-quality
professional instrument. Evidently the Graftons sounded terrific, but they
lacked durability. I don't know why, since plastic clarinets seem just about
indestructible, but the plastic in the Grafton saxes got brittle and broke
after a few years, and that's why they disappeared from the market.

BTW, going back to the original question, another way to get those low notes
on sax is slap-tongueing, or combining slap with "spanking" the key. On some
basses, I gather slap is the *only* way to get the low B and Bb. My bass
plays the low notes okay with normal tongueing, but I used slap on a tenor
sax that leaked, until I got it repadded. (Slap is also used as a jazz
technique just for its special sound.) Instead of touching the reed with
the tip of the tongue, you anchor-tongue that note and slap the reed hard
with a big, fat, flat slab of tongue. Ugly note and likely to be off-pitch,
but useful for color sometimes and better than a squeak or a silence on an
instrument that's leaking. Slap works on clarinet, too, if you do it gently.
Slapping a clarinet reed hard can split it.

Tim Shaw wrote,
>...[H]ave you ever heard the recordings by Adrian Rollini who must surely be
THE GREATIST bass sax soloist of all time. Rollini stopped recording as a
bass saxist sometime in the late 30's as far as I know (after that he went to
UK & arranged & led orchs & played other instruments including xylophone!)
but I don't think he's ever been equalled for technical virtuosity &
imagination as a bass instrument virtuoso....>

Glad to hear from another Rollini fan! Rollini's spectacular playing is one
of the reasons I wanted to try to learn bass sax. I sure wish he'd recorded
more on bass.

I also think Art Springs, who composes and plays bass sax for The Nuclear
Whales, is fantastic. He gives the lie to anyone who thinks bass instruments
are slow and ponderous. The most recent Whales recordings include a
contrabass sax, too. Wouldn't mind finding one of those in the corner of a
junk shop. (I should live so long....) Sorry about all this off-topic
stuff, but anyone who might be a closet contrabass maniac can find a lot more
on Grant Green's site, www.contrabass.com, where there's information and a
good, active mailing list. Several bass and contrabass clarinetists from
this list also subscribe to that one, along with the contrabassoonists, tuba
players, etc..

Lelia

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