 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: wjk
Date: 2003-01-11 18:01
I'm listening to clarinetist Tony Scott and pianist Bill Evans on "Golden Moments." What a meeting of great minds! Does anyone else like Tony Scott? Any suggestions re: recordings of his?
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Author: ben
Date: 2003-01-11 18:10
hi wjk!
yeah man, tony scott has the biggest sound of all. don byron is inspiered by him. so he has a key
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Author: Birch
Date: 2003-01-11 21:44
Tony's a good friend of mine. I mentored with him for a while a couple of years ago. He's 81 years old and lives now in Rome, Italy, and still has the biggest sound I've ever come across. Tony gave Bill Evans his first big jazz gigs (he also 'discovered' Carmen McRae, and gave Eddie Daniels his first jazz gigs, on Tenor Saxaphone.)
There's a great album of Billie Holliday singing with the Tony Scott orchestra. They were good friends. "The Complete Tony Scott" is a big band recording where Tony has the sweetest, most honey-like tone I've ever heard. Quite the contrast from Golden Moments.
Tony's big selling album, which is absolutely beautiful, is called Music for Zen Meditation (and other joys) and is available on Verve. It was recorded in 1964 in Japan with a koto player and a shakuhachi(sp?) player. Very different from his intense Be-Bop from a few years earlier. This album has even been credited with being an important early influence of psycedelia. (When I mentioned psychedelia to Tony, he said "oh, are they still using that word?)
I think the most impressive of Tony's recordings (other than, perhaps, his Healing Music, which only exists on a couple tapes in his apartment) is the one called Astral Meditation: Voyage into a Black Hole. It is three hours of the most intense spacyness... I bought a copy at Virgin Megastore a few years ago, but only the first and third CDs are included now. The second CD, which is entirely piano and keyboards, is available only from Tony now. It's an incredible masterpiece.
There are a couple songs recorded of Tony and Charlie Parker playing together that just blow the roof off. I think they were re-released on some compilation, but I'm not sure which. He has a web page at www.tonyscott.it put together by his wife. He's got lots of crazy stories, and over 200 recordings from his more than 60 year recording career. He's also the only clarinettist who was able to cut it in Be-Bop. Have fun checking him out!
--Birch
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Author: John Scorgie
Date: 2003-01-12 04:53
Thanks, Birch, for the update on Tony Scott. I lost track of him back in the early 1960s and so have not heard any of his later recordings. Sadly, all too few of the younger clarinet players have ever heard his unique and glorious clarinet sound. Please let us know -- in his later years, did he maintain that sound?
My favorite Scott recording is an RCA Victor LP from the late 1950s entitled "The Touch of Tony Scott" with himself on the cover playing a clarinet with a crystal mouthpiece. Several excellent big band arrangements with the cream of the NY studio players, and some small group tracks with a sublime pianist -- Hank Jones? Jimmy Rowles?
Next to some that were done by Monk himself, my favorite version of Round Midnight is by Tony Scott on that album.
IMHO, Tony Scott is, (in company with many other truly great artists), in the words of Duke Ellington, "beyond category".
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Author: Birch
Date: 2003-01-12 06:48
The last time I heard Tony play was when I went to visit him last April in Rome. At 80 years of age, his clarinet sound was still the biggest, fullest, and most intense clarinet sound I have ever heard, and he continues to wow audiences wherever he plays. His mentor, when he was young, was Ben Webster, and his Tenor sound, when I heard it last April, was like Webster's with an extra 60 years of improvement. I was thoroughly stunned.
You're right, it is a shame that younger clarinettists often haven't heard of Tony. His playing is very relevant to the modern clarinettist. He said once (back in the 50s when he was the only clarinettist surrounded by a sea of saxes) "The clarinet is dead. I hate funerals." The way I see it, what pop music needs today more than anything else, is a wailing clarinet lead.
By the way, Tony's setup is something of note. His sound comes from having to compete, volume wise, with loud saxaphones and drums. He plays with a very wide open mouthpiece (1.60mm or so) and a 55mm barrel. The short barrel, of course, throws his intonation right out, so he lips every note way down to the pitch he wants. At his hight, he played with a #5 reed and an O-Brian #5 crystal mouthpiece, or his favorite (and mine also) a ROC 6* made of some white material. Nowadays, he still uses the widest open mouthpieces I've ever come across, but softer reeds because he doesn't play quite as much as when he was younger so his muscels aren't as strong.
I only note this because of the sorriful modern trend of clarinet becoming more exclusively a mild, docile, thoroughly -pleasant- instrument at the expense of its potential to be a wildly raucus, wailing, soaring beast that can competently put even the nastiest distorted electric guitar to shame. Tony had, and still has, full mastery of both these extremes of the clarinet's sound.
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Author: Bryan
Date: 2003-01-12 14:59
I remember quite clearly that when I was five or six years old, my mother got briefly into Yoga (this was back in the hippie days), and had a copy of Tony Scott's "Music for Yoga Meditation", which I became quite fascinated by and listened to repeatedly. The album got lost a few years later when we moved, but I still remember it clearly (I suppose I could get it on CD now; I've got the "zen" album). I don't know how much this influenced me 30 years later to try playing clarinet.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2003-01-12 16:20
Birch wrote:
> I only note this because of the sorriful modern trend of
> clarinet becoming more exclusively a mild, docile, thoroughly
> -pleasant- instrument at the expense of its potential to be a
> wildly raucus, wailing, soaring beast that can competently put
> even the nastiest distorted electric guitar to shame.
???????????????????????????????????????
Who have <b>you</b> been listening to? Surely not one of the dozens of modern composers and artists who have gone beyond what's considered the "norm".
While I might find some of the compositions barely listenable, they're out there.
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Author: FrankM
Date: 2005-05-18 13:56
I like to think of myself as a student of the clarinet and have a fairly extensive vinyl and cd collection of many clarinet and sax players...mostly jazz, but some classical as well. Some how, I missed Tony Scott, but the situation was rectified recently with a cd purchase of his from the late 50s...really tasty jazz playing with a very different sort of sound...it brings to my mind a tenor sax subtone kind of sound. I have read about how loud he could play in the unamplified good old days, but his playing here is very warm. He also plays a tune on bass clarinet ! If Lester Young ever played bass clarinet, I would think he would have sounded like Tony Scott. I'll be on the lookout for more by Mr. Scott
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-05-18 14:11
[In]famous quote from Tony Scott:
"I use only Vibrator Reeds. They're the best!"
It ran in every issue of the old Clarinet Magazine and unfortunately led me to try the worst reeds every made. They even tasted like rotting wood.
Birch - Could you please recommend some TS album names and numbers?
Thanks.
Ken Shaw
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Author: jmsa
Date: 2005-05-18 17:29
Birch wrote: "He's also the only clarinettist who was able to cut it in Be-Bop."
Buddy DeFranco also played superb bebop clarinet.
jmsa
Post Edited (2005-05-18 17:32)
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Author: Roger Aldridge
Date: 2005-05-18 21:30
I'm sitting here listening to Tony do Nina's Dance on the Verve Tony Scott B0001459-02 CD. His playing has such a high degree of passion and intensity that it reminds me of Charlie Mariano on alto sax. His playing is also remarkable on Satin Doll. Wonderful extremes in his sound -- from feathery and wispy to all-out wailing. Great player!
Roger
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Author: jim S.
Date: 2005-05-19 04:30
The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 5th Edition, gave his "A Day in New York" four asterisks saying, " Scott enjoyed a close and fruitful relationship with Bill Evans, and perhaps his best recorded work is [this album]... The clarinettist's [sic, they are Brits after all] opening statements on Evan's "Five" are almost neurotically brilliant and a perfect illustration of how loud Scott could play." The CD set is on the Fresh Sound label, FSR CD 160/2.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2005-05-19 05:52
I had a double CD of Tony Scott and Bill Evans (just a duo) and it was really good. I either lost it or gave it to someone and forgot who, but now I can't find it anywhere... :(
Birch you have to hear the clarinet trio called Trio De Clarinettes.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2005-05-19 14:38
Bill Evans son is a really great film composer. He's the one that David Benoit wrote "letter for Evan" for.
His site is at
http://www.evanevans.org
Very Bernard Hermann like compositions.
Disclaimer - I do promotion work for Evan
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