Klarinet Archive - Posting 000658.txt from 1999/12

From: Ken Wolman <ken.wolman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Cause for concern?
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 08:56:16 -0500

michael@-----.uk wrote:
>
> Unsafe sax: cohort study of the impact of too much sax on the
> mortality of famous jazz musicians
> Sanjay Kinra and Mona Okasha
> BMJ 1999;319 1612-1613
> http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7225/1612
> MB

Well, I intend to read this later, much more closely, from home tonight,
hoping to make sense of it: but right now it's sort of funny and makes
me wonder whether either of the authors ever played any instrument
beyond the Flutophone or Tonette. Especially since they highlight two
musicians who make pretty lousy examples of dying of circular
breathing. Both Parker and Coltrane--particularly the former--had
spectacular drug and alcohol problems. I believe the non-jazz-fan
pathologist who did the autopsy on the 35-year-old Charlie Parker
thought he was looking at the lousily-maintained body of a man over 60.
According to Miles Davis, it was not unheard of for Parker to (in rapid
succession) shoot heroin, consume a pint of whiskey, eat a huge meal,
receive oral sex from a "groupie" in a taxicab while heading for a
downtown club, but then get up on the stand and play his ass off. Maybe
that's what killed him: his ass fell off, he lost his balance, toppled
off the bandstand, and broke his neck:-).

Eric Dolphy died at age 34 of complications from undiagnosed diabetes.
Well, he doubled or tripled on lots of wind instruments. Personally I
think the bass clarinet is far more hazardous to your health than the
sax. It tends to weigh more. Or the flute: blowing into that little
hole twists your face something awful. It's a good thing he didn't take
up the English Horn: he might have acquired a British accent to go along
with circular breathing.

Maybe Eddie Daniels had something to do with this. He began his career
playing tenor sax, ne c'est pas?--and switched to clarinet as his main
instrument later. So it could be this entire story is a conspiracy
concocted by the G. Leblanc Corporation to sell more clarinets.

Hey, Bill Evans was a junkie, too; it could be extending his hands and
arms to play the piano had an adverse effect on his innards and caused
him to die at age 51. And Art Tatum was a drunk: physiologically, it
could be a case of same difference.

I think I will keep a tank of oxygen around for when I limber up on the
alto.

Ken <bewitched, bothered, and bewildered that research money goes into
drek like this>
---------------------------
Kenneth Wolman Deutsche Bank, NA 212-469-6494
1251 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020

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