Klarinet Archive - Posting 000773.txt from 2002/11

From: "don hatfield" <djwl@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Re: klarinet Digest 17 Nov 2002 09:15:09 -0000 Issue 4175
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 00:00:01 -0500

Bill -

That 'guy' from the Lawrence Welk show was Henry Cuesta,
and to add to this line of discussion...
I had the pleasure of meeting Henry two years ago while he
was in town for a jazz gig. He had called around looking
for someone to work on his clarinet, and we were the only
shop in the area with a repair tech in on Saturday. I got
to spend part of an afternoon talking and listening, and
we discussed the tone questions seen here, and with no
more success in coming to agreement than here, either.
<p>
Henry likes the old Selmer BT clarinets at present, and
has two or three, and always looking for more. With the
mouthpiece and barrel combo he had, he could produce
(watch the words here) an incredible 'legit' tone when
playing Brahms and Mozart, but got that 'huge, focused'
sound you mention in regards to Pete Fountain. At one
point he
handed me his clarinet and said "get a reed and try my
setup"...and did I even come close to the same sound???
<p>
Nope, I sounded like me playing Henry Cuesta's clarinet
and mouthpiece...but I had never tried a BT before, and
when I put my old Kaspar/Cicero mouthpiece on it I
realized why I could never get the kind of sound the old
huge-bore Selmers allow on my Buffets. So I found a BT to
use for jazz, and I'm having a ball with my new-found
huge, focused sound. As a note, I can remember our choir
director in college teaching us that a 'dark' sound in his
vocabulary meant 'covered'...a can of worms for sure...

Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 19:16:38 -0700
From: "WILLIAM SEMPLE" <wsemple@-----.com>
Subject: RE: [kl] Centred tone
Message-ID: <F35NZ4mF1IT18olkDTM0000011d@-----.com>

Okay. . I don't think Edmund Hall, Omar Simeon, or Sidney
Bechet (as a
clarinetist) have centered tones -- whereas Peanuts Hucko
and Irving Fazola
do. Benny Goodman had a centered tone in the clarion
register, but I never
much liked what happened in the chalumeau. Now what about
Pete Fountain?
Eddie Daniels? Buddy de Franco? That guy who played on
Lawrence Welk? (can't
think of of his name, darn).

Most classical players have centered tones, though with
subtle variations,
e.g. between Karl Leister and Harold Wright.

Pete Fountain's sound is both focused and huge, as if his
air column causes
the instrument to bulge. I therefore give "center" a bit
of a physical
description, if not scientifically accurate --the air
delivered by the
player seems more tightly focused down the center of the
horn with less of
the kind of sound one hears with a reed that is too soft
.. there is a
similarity between a centered sound and the equivalent
stop on a good organ
. . .

Too much center, and the sound begins too become hard,
hollow, dead.

This has to do more with the mouthpiece, reed and
embouchure -- and less
with the instrument, METHINKS.

But who knows, all of this is probably just crazy.

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