Klarinet Archive - Posting 000567.txt from 2000/05

From: Kenneth Wolman <kwolman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Bass Clarinet CDs (was [kl] Hi)
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 19:23:44 -0400

At 09:09 AM 5/9/00 -0400, Lelia, Shadow's slave, wrote:

>He would go onstage at one of these basically classical venues, where
>sometimes they'd bring on some jazzmen in the interest of "expanding our
>knowledge of different cultures" -- translation: as the animal act. (We're
>talking late 1950s here, Jim Crow time, when there wasn't much *real*
>cross-cultural mixing in the USA *except* between jazz musicians and serious
>jazz fans.)

The one time I had a conversation with Charles Russo, he told me that back
in the Sixties--maybe even later--if you got known as a "crossover" player,
you could kiss your New York gigs bye-bye. The jazz people wouldn't touch
you because you played classical, the classical people held you in contempt
because you played THAT Uptown stuff. So there was a virtual underground
of classical and chamber players who'd show up at afterhours clubs, or play
for friends; and the same may also have held for classically-trained
musicians who chose to go the improvisational--i.e., jazz--route in their
careers. I don't know what the conservatories were doing back then, but I
infer that the "programming" for people who wanted to play jazz over a base
of musicianship left something to be desired. Miles Davis devotes some
time in his autobiography to the rather conservative approach of Juilliard,
though I don't recall him faulting the school for teaching him the finer
points of theory per se.

Things appear to have changed. I've heard around the list that Larry Combs
can play really fine jazz clarinet; Eddie Daniels has long since been out
of the crossover "closet"; and on a recording of Ravel's "Bolero," the
clarinet solos--presumably by the incomparable Drucker himself--feature
some tone-bending and sounds I associate more with jazz than strict
classical work.

Has the wall broken? Buddy DeFranco published his own version of the Hanon
exercises: hell, they suggest the man can read music:-).

Ken

----------------------
Kenneth Wolman http://www.rio-cardoner.com
"i had not really expected to find any of the art world populated with
ex-murderers fascists green berets and now i know that you can find
anything in the art world and they can even become prophets' -- David
Antin, "Tuning"

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