 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Bruno
Date: 2014-01-24 06:22
Does anybody know anything about Evan Christopher's clarinet?
Thanks,
B.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: ned
Date: 2014-01-24 08:49
The Bb (4-ring M series) & C (6-ring L series) just delivered and acclimating gently after having been serviced in NJ. ...Test driving tomorrow.
Go to Facebook for the picture, here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/EvanChristopherClarinetRoad
They look like Selmer ''Radio Improved'' models.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: chris moffatt
Date: 2014-01-24 15:28
Those are indeed Selmer "Improved Albert" clarinets. AFAIK the "Radio Improved" was a Boehm horn precursor to the Balanced Tone. Rumour has it that Evan Christopher plays or has played a Hammerschmidt, as did Ed Hall at one time
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Vytas
Date: 2014-01-24 18:21
I just recently serviced Evan Christopher's three clarinets. These are indeed Improved Albert system Selmer clarinets.
His main Bb clarinet Selmer s/n M59xx received cork pads and complete body (wood) treatment.
Another Bb Selmer s/n M84xx clarinet has different RH thrill keys that work independently like on the Boehm system
Selmer s/n L40xx has the same design just like his main clarinet.
During the bad weather Evan plays hard-rubber clarinet.
I personally like Evan's Selmer s/n M84xx clarinet
Vytas Krass
Clarinet Repair
Professional clarinet technician
Custom clarinet mouthpiece maker
Former professional clarinet player
Post Edited (2015-12-20 20:42)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bruno
Date: 2014-01-24 23:42
That is very nice.
Vytas, do you know what hard rubber clarinet Evan uses? I've been thinking the same thing.
tdeecy@gmail.com
Bruno/
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-01-25 00:01
When I heard Christopher in Irving Mayfield's big band, I believe he was playing a Hammerschmidt. If he has turned to the 1920s Improved Albert System of Selmer, he is following in the tradition of the New Orleans Jazz clarinetists such as Johnny Dodds, Barney Bigard, Omer Simeon, Sidney Bechet, Larry and Harry Shields, Irving Fazola, Ed Hall and many others who liked that model.
If you are ever in New Orleans, go to the Holiday Inn on Loyola Ave near the Superdome, and you will see a gigantic painting of the Selmer Improved Albert, immortalized in all its glory on the side of the building. For traditional jazz players, this may have been the equivalent of the Buffet R-13--the go to instrument in its day.
The painting:
http://www.uark.edu/ua/nc/ClarinetCollections/SelmerImprovedAlbertSystem/HolidayInnNewOrleansClarinet.htm.
When I was growing up in New Orleans in the 1950s, jazz clarinetist Ray Burke used to have a little stall in the French Quarter where, among other things, he sold clarinets (almost always Albert System). At one time or another he had many brands, but the French ones were always held in the highest esteem, with Selmer at the top, though Buffet Alberts were also highly regarded. The Boehm instruments were mostly for the "younger generation" players such as Pete Fountain and Harold Cooper!
Today, New Orleans clarinetists working with the traditional jazz style in mind have shown some interest in German instruments because the French Alberts they once preferred are no longer made. Christopher's use of a Hammershmidt is one example, and Dr. Michael White's adoption of a Wurlitzer Reform, German mouthpiece, and string ligature are another.
On Youtube, when Dr. White plays "A Song for George Lewis" on his Wurlitzer, he sounds to me just like the old time jazz clarinetists I heard in New Orleans in the 1950s--a very round, dark, mellow, hazy, covered. veiled, and bluesy sound.
Listening to Evan Christopher and Dr. Michael White and remembering the history of clarinet playing in New Orleans before the Swing Era, I have to think that Artie Shaw must have been suffering from amnesia when he said that he and Benny "invented jazz clarinet playing." Swing Jazz playing maybe (but what about Jimmy Noone and his Selmer Albert system clarinet?) but certainly not "jazz" clarinet.
As we discussed on a prior thread, Evan Christopher often uses an old Selmer Magni-tone ligature and has collaborated with Ytas Krass to produce an "Evan Christopher Jazz Clarinet mouthpiece."
http://www.krassmouthpieces.hostei.com/evan.htm.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bruno
Date: 2014-01-25 00:25
Shaw was undoubtedly one of the great clarinet players of all time but when it came to other matters he often let his ego gain control. "Frequently wrong but never in doubt" is the way I heard it.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Vytas
Date: 2014-01-30 09:30
seabreeze wrote:
>>>"I believe he was playing a Hammerschmidt".<<<
Evan used Hammerschmidt clarinets between 2000 and 2002
Bruno wrote:
>>>"Vytas, do you know what hard rubber clarinet Evan uses"?.<<<
That’s K-series Selmer hard-rubber clarinet
Vytas Krass
Clarinet Repair
Professional clarinet technician
Custom clarinet mouthpiece maker
Former professional clarinet player
Post Edited (2015-12-20 20:43)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2014-01-30 13:23
I think Shaw would get a kick out of people still indignant and quoting him. Check out his other interviews. The stuff he says about Benny is often preposterous, and pretty obviously designed to jab. And people still quote him seriously, without bothering to sort through which quotes are serious and which aren't.
I was in a bookstore recently and mentioned a quote of his about Glenn Miller. "It would have been better if Glenn had lived and his music died." An elderly lady browsing nearby overheard and stormed off, muttering loudly "Artie Shaw was a jerk!" I can't blame her, though--she might have been one the fans of his he called a "moron"--another quote, though with context rarely discussed.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bruno
Date: 2014-01-30 22:38
Wow! That E.Christopher MP has a 1.6 mm tip opening! The VD 5JB tip opening is only 1.47 mm, with a facing length of 22.5 mm. I repeat, WOW!
If such a thing were available, I'd have to play a #1 reed on it (probably have to scrape down a 2 or a 1,1/2).
B>
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony F
Date: 2014-01-31 04:56
I have a box of Rico reeds marked as 1's that I inherited with a very old B & H Edgware. They sound like a kazoo.
Tony F.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2014-01-31 07:14
Just finished listening to The Mooche and he is a gifted player however I do not care for the nasal sound from his instrument which reminds me of a plastic alto sound.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: kilo
Date: 2014-01-31 13:42
Quote:
... and Dr. Michael White's adoption of a Wurlitzer Reform, German mouthpiece, and string ligature are another.
When I met Dr. White a few years ago he was playing a relatively new Boehm Rossi instrument. Has the move to the Wurlitzer been a recent one? Really nice fellow, by the way; very interested in gear — he was actually trying out a reed made of maple at the time.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2014-01-31 13:49
Dr. White switched to a Wurlitzer R-B a few years back, shortly after his work with the Rossi clarinet you mention. I worked with him a bit during his transition period (I was part of Wurlitzer Clarinets America at the time). Don't know if he's still playing the Wurlitzer now--he was pretty exclusively on it for a couple of years--but I also know he was interested in L&K and some other makes. Who knows? He owns Omer Simeon's old Selmer Albert...and with his love of Simeon's playing, and that whole legacy, I wouldn't be surprised if he refurbished that one and give it a real go someday.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-01-31 19:04
In 2012 Dr, White was still going strong on his Wurlitzer Reform Boehm and string ligature. You can hear and see him with this gear, playing "A Song for George Lewis":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq5hzyW6XBY.
He gets that wet round that seems to drip with the rain among traditional New Orleans jazz clarinetists (and some modern ones too, like the late Alvin Batiste). Don't know where those phrases in the style of Artie Shaw's Concerto came from, though. Always searching, last year Dr. White seems to have exchanged the Wurlitzer mouthpiece and string for a white plastic mouthpiece with more punch and edge to the sound, and that too is part of the New Orleans tradition.
Did you know Harold Cooper, who used to play with the Dukes and Al Hirt? He used a regular French Boehm (one of the big bore Selmers, I think) and a Selmer E mouthpiece and also got that very dark, very covered "wet" sound.
I grew up listening to him, transfixed by his ability to do very musical glissandi wider than Shaw's or Bigard's (yes, he could play the Rhapsody in Blue solo starting on the low g and gliss smoothy up, over the break, all the way to the top c, as if his instrument were equipped with a slide), slap tongue, and play effortlessly in the extreme altissimo without getting the least bit shrill. He also had a way of positioning the tone holes of the clarinet so the notes he played would be miked directly instead of picked up through the bell of the instrument. I have never seen another clarinetist use the technique of milking the microphone as effectively as he did. Great as he sounded in person, his records do not do him justice.
When tenor sax player Zoot Sims came to town, he was so impressed by Cooper's playing that his comments on Cooper wound up in the local Times-Picayune newspaper. Unfortunately, someone--whether Sims or the reporter--used the phrase "the Maynard Ferguson of the clarinet" but Cooper only played above the usual range in passing, as part of his jazz line, never as grandstanding. Oh, well
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2014-02-01 00:44
Seabreeze--
That "Song for George Lewis" was released in 2000-- before Michael switched to Wurlitzer (though that pic was of him playing the W R-B). Back then, I know he was doing quite a bit of work on a Buffet R-13. But he has a lot of horns, and many of his albums are mixed -- Rossi, Leblanc, Selmers, Buffet...it's hard to keep up with the man! He once quizzed me on what I thought he was playing on each tune...my guesses were mostly wrong.
Thanks for bringing up Harold Cooper! Did he play with the Dukes when they had a two clarinet line-up? Somewhere I remember hearing a two clarinet lineup for them with Raymond Burke thrown in the mix. Anyhow, I used to listen to the Dukes when I was a kid and always loved the clarinet playing--the LPs I had were from the 1950s/60s, and I don't remember who was playing.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-02-01 01:09
Then, I guessed wrong too. Sure sounded like he was using the Wurlitzer. Must have had the sound in his head long before switching.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
