Author: Mario
Date: 1999-09-23 22:24
Hum!
Where should we start. For one thing, talking about jazz is too broad. Over time, what is considered a good jazz sound has evolved substantially, from the original New Orleans stuff to contemporary jazz derived (more often than not) from the jazz composed between 1946 and 1949 where new fundamental aesthetic in jazz basically stopped evolving (hard bop and cool with jazzmen essentially altering the patterns invented just after the war - but I digress).
Let me make a wide generalization. As jazz evolved, it became more formal with a precise way of playing the music, repeated patterns, etc. A modern jazz musician has to learn a big body of style, knowledge, technique, repertoire, etc. in order to join the club. Some jazzmen are even allowed to try new things. As a side effect of this, jazz sound has come closer to classical sound in all instruments since the fundation of jazzmenship now require a solid classical training. Hence, jazz sound is becoming darker in all instruments (including the clarinet). Brightness is associated with popular, folk music; darkerness is associated with formally studied music. As a matter of fact, bright sound is often the result of poor equipment and poor training, since technique and technology (in all instruments, not just the clarinet) tends to wash out the noise (i.e. the high partials). So, here we have it: If you want to play leading edge jazz, get first the best classical sound that you can get, and then work from this basis. Soften the reed, pitch the lip, think thin and bingo: your beautiful dark sound is now tolerable for "popular" music. But try the other around (try to darken from a bright platform) and you are finished.
Dark is beautiful. Let's never forget that.
By the way, if you play jazz, try to invent something new every now and then. One get so tired of the same old thing that jazz produces. The great pieces of the classical repertoire have some much emotional and aethetic depth that they stand on their own and survive even weak performance. But jazz is thin. If it is not done by Masters, it is essentially boring and shallow.
Hum, let's get the flame throwers here.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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