Klarinet Archive - Posting 000635.txt from 2005/06

From: Adam Michlin <amichlin@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] More on Lester Young, and back to the clarinet...
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:31:05 -0400

And a bit more from "Lester Young" by Lewis Porter (Twanye Publishers, 1985):

Re: Position of his Tenor Saxophone:

One of the most striking mannerisms was this habit of holding the saxophone
out to the right at about a forty-five-degree angle when he soloed. He
probably developed this habit in his youth - Ralph Ellison remembered
seeing the horn "outthrust" around 1930 - although reedman Rudy Powell felt
that "when he first joined the [Basie] band, he said, 'Herschel [Evans] is
playing so much, nobody is paying any attention to me.' So he held his horn
a different way." A more pragmatic explanation was offered by Ross Russell:
"At the Reno Club with its crowded bandstand . . . Lester acquired his
unusual way of holding the saxophone. to avoid poking fellow musicians in
the back, Lester would twist in his chair turn the horn an angle of
forty-five degrees and project it through an opening in the front line, so
that he could play without interference and be heard by the dancers."

Re: The clarinet

On occasion, Young played clarinet. At first he liked to use an old metal
clarinet. Benny Goodman loved Young's playing, ad at a jam session at the
Black Cat early in 1937 he and Young are said to have exchanged
instruments. Goodman was entranced with Young's performance that he later
had Young at his apartment [see footnote] and presented him with a wooden
clarinet Sadly, this gift was stolen from Young's dressing room a few years
later, and Young virtually dropped playing the instrument, although he
could easily have replaced the instrument. (Young appears in a "Down Beat"
advertisement endorsing Martin Freres clarinets in April 1939).

Footnote: This version of the clarinet story was researched by Loren
Schoenberg and differs from that usually given by John Hammond and others,
who omit the exchange of instruments and say that Goodman gave Young his
clarinet on the spot. This version appears to be more authentic.

--- End Quotes ---

Interestingly, Douglas Henry Daniel's recent (2002) bio of Lester Young
(Lester Leaps In: The Life and Times of Lester "Pres" Young, Beacon Press)
goes with Hammond's original story (which is apparently from an article
written by Hammond and published in Downbeat circa 1937) and doesn't
mention this alternative possibility. I don't have easy access to my Benny
Goodman bios but I believe both James Lincoln Collier and Ross Firestone
also go with Hammond's original version (I hope someone will correct me if
I am remembering wrong). Unfortunately, Porter doesn't give a reference to
Schoenberg's research.

FWIW,

-Adam

At 12:39 PM 6/30/2005, Danny Bittker wrote:
>..and, to bring the Lester Young entries back to the clarinet, he did play
>and record on the instrument; apparently he used a metal one,by the way. I
>don't think I have any of the recordings, but in the index to Lewis
>Porter's excellent "A Lester Young Reader" (Smithsonian Press, 1991) there
>are at least a dozen entries on his clarinet playing. I imagine that due to
>the construction of the instrument, he was unable to play it at a right
>angle to the floor....

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