 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: chumbucket804
Date: 2004-02-02 01:47
My high school doesn't allow clarinets in jazz band. What are your opinions on this?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: clarinetfreek
Date: 2004-02-02 02:11
Ahhh!! My school was the same way... My director claimed that the jazz clarinet has such an "unconventional" tone that a classically trained clarinet player would never be able to master it (or even make it sound like it is supposed to.) I argued endlessly, but to no avail; so I played piano instead.
HMPH.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: diz
Date: 2004-02-02 02:28
chumbucket - learn sax mate, it'll be good for you in the long run (doubling) and you'll be able to play your beloved jazz.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2004-02-02 02:51
In answer to your question, I think it's ridiculous. Not uncommon, but ridiculous. Next, someone may require jazz bands to play only from sheet music. Absurd.
Regarding classically trained Clarinet players, most really good ones can make a Clarinet sound like anything they want. Saying a classically trained Clarinet player can't play jazz is almost like saying that same player can't possibly play a saxophone. Hogwash!
And how amazing that a high school band director knows so certainly just what a jazz Clarinet "should" sound like. That may be even *more* ridiculous!
Someday, I may quit holding my opinions on this subject in check and tell how I *really* feel.
MOO, and all that sort of garbage.
Regards,
John
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Rick Williams
Date: 2004-02-02 12:04
I've heard quite a few arguements about this. "Clarinets aren't jazz instruments." "Clarinets can't be heard over a jazz band." I've never heard the classically trained arguement before though. Just where does he find those classically trained clarinet players in HS anyway...g The first arguement ignores history, the second makes me wonder how Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman were ever heard over those "Big Bands?"
I wonder if the real problem is the lack of appropriate scores for HS jazz groups which include clarinet. If you check the standard catalogues for jazz ensembles virtually none are scored with clarinets unless they are reproductions of a particuar piece done by somebody like Benny Goodman, then they almost always contain a sax sub for the clarinet part.
Best
Rick
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: msloss
Date: 2004-02-02 12:22
I wonder why there aren't more shawms, rackets, sackbuts and crumhorns in orchestra.
If you discuss clarinet like a period instrument and just wave Benny and Artie in a director's face, it will be looked at that way and discounted along with the banjo as part of jazz history. There are plenty of contemporary charts from Gil Evans on up that call for Bb and Bass clarinet as ensemble parts. Bobby Mintzer, Eddie Daniels, Paquito D'Riviera, Toshiko Akiyoshi, etc. have either written or had charted big band music that calls for one or more clarinets. You have to get to the band director when he has budget for ordering music and make sure he/she is aware of some of the more diverse charts out there.
And... Diz is absolutely correct -- learn sax, because clarinet, flute, bassoon, oboe and such are arranged as doubling instruments for the reed section. Also, learn to swing. There is nothing more painful than listening to a clarinetist attempt to play jazz with a delivery so square I could do architect's drawings with it.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2004-02-02 13:10
Hi
Rick has it pretty well figured out with:
"I wonder if the real problem is the lack of appropriate scores for HS jazz groups which include clarinet. If you check the standard catalogues for jazz ensembles virtually none are scored with clarinets unless they are reproductions of a particuar piece done by somebody like Benny Goodman, then they almost always contain a sax sub for the clarinet part."
As a former HS jazz band director and earlier a dance band player (that's what they called it in the 50s and then a stage band in the 60-70s), there are just not any parts written for clarinet as a stand alone instrument. Usually 5 saxes, 3-4 trumpet, 3-4 trombone, piano (sorry, keyboard), bass, and drums/percussion. There was some doubling on clarinet in the early days and even some piccolo/flute doubles on several Woody Herman charts but to have a clarinet player (unless your were the leader - ala Goodman or Herman) as a part just has not happened. We have pretty well discussed the whys and wherefores on this issue in several earlier posts.
As far as the clarinet classical sound issue and not knowing the jazz sound, I do find that sometimes the words of band directors are taken out of context. I'd want to question the dirctor specifically about the comment.
HRL
PS Yes, one needs to learn to swing as msloss says. Reminds me of Steve Martin in the movie The Jerk!
Post Edited (2004-02-02 13:50)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: allencole
Date: 2004-02-02 18:28
I agree. Trying to be a standalone clarinet in a modern big band is like trying to be the bassoonist in a brass quintet. Lots of sax players in those groups are actually clarinet players...trust me.
Mark or GBK - This question keeps coming up just as soon as the last thread scrolled off. Would it be a good idea to post an article on this subject? I'd volunteer to write it as would a number of others, I think. We could then respond with a link.
Allen Cole
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: sinkdraiN
Date: 2004-02-02 18:37
Jazz bands sound great with french horns and bassoons. However, I director is giving a clarinet player a false impression by playing clarinet alone in a school jazz band. In the real world outside school a clarinet player who has learned saxophone will have all the tools to continue playing later in life. I have had many middle school sax(doubles) who pick up a clarinet and blow a solo in our lead jazz band. Why be so afraid to pick up a saxophone? Its much easier than clarinet and opens many doors later for pits and jazz bands.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Krisat
Date: 2004-02-03 01:26
I learned trombone to be in my school's jazz band, since only a few songs had clarinet parts...but I suppose sax would be easier. However I never get my fingerings confused!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: ClariSax217
Date: 2004-02-03 02:01
Definitely pick up sax... Our school's top jazz ensemble has 5 of 7 "switch over" players. It also might not hurt to suggest to your director that your band play some Benny Goodman tracks. (As over-used as it is, I love playing the clarinet solo in "Sing Sing Sing.") You may need to prove to him that clarinet is THE jazz instrument, and should not be overlooked.
*~*Malaya*~*
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2004-02-03 03:54
Allen,
"is like trying to be the bassoonist in a brass quintet." That says it all!
HRL
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2004-02-03 17:07
Aha, perhaps now I understand. It would appear that just as a bassoon is not a brass instrument, likewise a Clarinet is not a jazz instrument.
Oh, my goodness, thank you so much for this powerful touch of insight. But please don't tell all those people out there who are making a good living pretending to play jazz on Clarinets. Let's just keep it our little secret, eh?
Balderdash. George Gershwin would rotate in his crypt -- along with dozens of others. We seem to have reached a point where Jazz is not moving in directions forged by its practitiopners, but rather in ways determined by academia. Frightening!
Sure, there is nothing at all wrong with learning sax. I did it 50 tears ago, because sax players got more gigs (and still do). But this thread began by asking for opinions of a high school jazz band that doesn't allow Clarinets. "You ought to play saxophone" seems like a great answer, but to quite a different question.
I am concerned that jazz is becoming so standardized in schools today, it may lose the degree of ineffability it once had. Educators always have the idea that to teach anything it must be precisely described, but semiotics can be self-defeating. My feeling is that if jazz becomes over-defined, it will no longer be jazz -- at least not in the way so many of us know and love it.
Imagine: a school trying to teach traditional New Orleans jazz turns down a gut-bucket player as not being "proper" for the group. The words "proper" and "jazz" are almost mutually exclusive, at least to me. Evidently many others don't find anything strange there.
Regards,
John
maybe too old for his own good (or anyone else's)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: GBK
Date: 2004-02-03 18:48
To follow up on JMcAulay's insightful posting:
There are jazz band arrangements being written today which have a completely separate (and often featured) part for clarinet.
In our big band we have recently purchased a number of the "Jazz at Lincoln Center" series, "Essentially Ellington" charts, arranged by David Berger (published by Warner Brothers).
We have used them on gigs. They are great fun to play and the audience reaction is always positive...GBK
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Brian
Date: 2004-02-03 22:40
"We seem to have reached a point where Jazz is not moving in directions forged by its practitiopners, but rather in ways determined by academia. Frightening!"
True John, but music, like almost everything else, unfortinately, falls under the law of supply-and-demand. It's what people want these days.
Brian
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2004-02-03 23:33
What people want is Kenny G. He sells more records now than any other instrumentalist. So why aren't schools teaching people how to play lullabyes on the soprano sax?
Anyway, supply and demand does not at all control what's offered in secondary schools. Ask any teacher. Would a band director actually say, "I'm not going to let you play Clarinet in the jazz band, because that isn't what the public wants to hear"? I think not. Not legitimately, at least, with GBK (music director and lead alto sax of a stage band), who gets out there and plays for the public, writing to tell us it just isn't so.
GBK: Surely you aren't totin' one of your beloved Buffets around to dance gigs, are you?
Regards,
John
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: GBK
Date: 2004-02-03 23:51
JMcAulay wrote:
> GBK: Surely you aren't totin' one of your beloved Buffets
> around to dance gigs, are you?
For the big band gigs I use an older "B-series" (B10xxx) Evette & Schaeffer from the late 1930's/early 1940's ...GBK
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: sinkdraiN
Date: 2004-02-04 03:05
Eddie Daniels does not play clarinet in a jazz band. He is a soloist as was Benny Goodman. A teacher's job is to equip the student with all the tools. If that student wants to play in a swing band he or she better learn sax. Then have that student solo all day and night on clarinet. If you dont encourage a clarinet player to play sax you better hope he or she lands a solid jazz quartet gig because that will be the only jazz outlet.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: sinkdraiN
Date: 2004-02-04 03:07
Incidently, I learned clarinet because I wanted to play in the orchestra. Im glad I was encouraged to pick it up...
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2004-02-04 12:00
Hi,
On the bassoon commentary, the great Australian Jazz Quintet had Errol Buddle doubling on jazz bassoon (main instrument was tenor though). I heard this group in a 1955 concert with the Zoot Sims Quartet and the Dave Bruebeck Quartet (Paul Desmond on sax).
AJQ stole the show in my mind. Buddle was a gas!!!! I think he aslo played flute or maybe that was Jack Brokenshaw (sp???)?
HRL
Post Edited (2004-02-05 10:40)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: allencole
Date: 2004-02-05 08:17
An additional note on Eddie Daniels. His career as a clarinet soloist began when he was a --- tenor saxophonist --- with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big band. During a recording session he took one of his tenor solos on clarinet--against the wishes of his bandleader. That solo got him a downbeat award, and put him on the map.
But he got his foot in the door playing Tenor Sax--and playing it so well that he was hired into one of the nation's greatest big bands.
GBK, thanks for the mention of the Lincoln Center charts. That can go on the list of possible music to play.
Allen Cole
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Wes
Date: 2004-02-06 03:20
Having played quite many contemporary jazz band arrangements recently, I've found that very few of them have any part at all for a clarinet as a double. The soprano saxophone is frequently required as a double, however, and is a must for the lead alto sax player. For one band I play in which plays only recent material, I always take alto sax, flute, and soprano sax and leave the clarinet at home. They just don't have charts for it.
The reason is that the composers of these charts seem to be trying to sell their new charts to high school and college bands and some make a good living at this. Many high school and college sax players have not learned the clarinet, from what I've seen.
Although a handful of bassoon players are making small inroads into jazz, the bassoon is simply awkward in jazz compared to the sax. Jazz oboe is an oxymoron as far as I can tell, again sounding awkward and sometimes ugly.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: johnsonfromwisconsin
Date: 2004-02-06 14:57
If this saxophonist could make a note:
I have no problem with Clarinets in Jazz Band. I do have a problem with a clarinetist wanting to be in jazz band so bad that the director caves and lets him/her read along with the trumpets for no other reason than to satisfy a student's desire. It's like the proverbial, "Hi Mr. Director, my young middle school aged daughter bought this soprano saxophone and would like to play..." scenario. The difference is between adding the clarinet voice to contribute to musicianship, and an arbitrary and oftentimes disruptive arrangement.
-JfW
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Brian
Date: 2004-02-07 19:29
John,
I understand completely what you're saying.
However I firmly believe that a lot of music teachers have their groups, especially jazz and pep bands, play popular tunes. So in effect, what people want to hear at a given point in time is what some music directors give them. I say this because I can remember in high school we would always play the top 10 pop tunes of the day.
I just think you may have misunderstood what I was trying to say.
Brian
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
