Klarinet Archive - Posting 000031.txt from 2006/01

From: "danyel" <rab@-----.de>
Subj: Re: [kl] Selmer mouthpiece vintages
Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 15:19:13 -0500

Hi Ellis,
that sounds interesting. Your teacher does not happen to play New Orleans
Jazz? I have been told most of the old Creole clarinettists used the E. As
for me, I should explain I am sort of a Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, playing
chamber music with these Viennese super long facing narrow tip MPs and early
Jazz with historic Mueller/Beermann/Albert instruments as well, but quite
different MPs. Right now I am using a Selmer D with very nice clarino and
very good altissimo, almost cornet like but not shrill, but the chalumeau is
not quite as round and velvety as I would like it and get it with other
pieces. My senior colleague (mentioned earlier) is in fact Reimer von Essen,
honorary citizen of NO, who new and used to play with Albert Nicholas, Ed
Hall and many of the greats from the late 50s, early 60s. His three
treasured Selmer MPs are all E and were given to him by other musicians, one
is from Claude Luther (who played with Sidney Bechet). All three are
completely different, one (with an oval stamp on the table) I don't like at
all, the one Reimer plays is just incredible and the third (no oval) is very
good and in character (and apparent age) quite like the D I play now. He
uses but one of them all the time and recently had an ebonite inlay made for
it because he almost had bitten through (playing on it for hours on a daily
basis for over 40 years, believe it or not). Fortunately this operation was
undertaken with utmost care and expertise by Martin Moeller of Darmstadt,
Germany (who is my favourite restorer) and it now plays even better than
before.

Best wishes,
danyel

(I would be very grateful if you could send some photographs to
rab@-----.de!)
www.echoton.de/clar.html

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ellis Johnson" <ellisjohnson@-----.com>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 8:18 AM
Subject: Re: [kl] Selmer mouthpiece vintages

I have a vintage Selmer D Bb clarinet mouthpiece that I absolutely
love. It is from mid 40's and I don't believe it has an oval on it.
I would be happy to send you a photograph of it if you want. My
clarinet teacher bought several Selmer mouthpieces and ended up
sticking with a Selmer E but kept this as his back up mouthpiece.
Anyway, I ended up with the D and love it dearly, but I really want an
E. But there is my 2 cents. I could probably track down the exact
year he purchased it. I will bring it up at my next lesson.

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