Author: jim S.
Date: 2006-06-06 14:31
As a kid I always preferred Benny. It was because of his tone, and because I associated Artie with his hits, which I think he would agree were not his best work by any means. I have since heard stuff by Artie that is very, very good. But I don't think his Concerto reflects how good his improvisational ideas were. It seems pretty uninspired to me no matter how good his performance is, technically. (No one could smear as effortlessly as Artie.)
Benny was not stupid, but it is true that he was very, very narrow in his fixation on his version of jazz and his career. Also, he wasn't very nice to a lot of people. Collier's bio is filled with stories about his insensitivity. His childhood explains his drive to "make it big". There were always frictions among the brothers, but Benny helped them all over the years. He financed a band for Freddy which flopped. Maybe that failure was the source of Freddy's intemperate remark.
Benny demonstrated a greater ambition to stretch himself beyond jazz and work hard at developing his understanding and performance of the classical clarinet works. That is something Artie wouldn't do. Artie was jealous of Benny's celebrity, I think, (perhaps like Freddy Goodman) and perhaps also jealous of his dogged work ethic. Benny's superior tone is very tangible proof of the hours of practice that Artie wouldn't put in just for more technique. Artie was a more complex guy, no doubt about it. They had equally outsized egos. Artie was probably "brainier" in the usual sense of the word. Read a lot, wrote a novel, etc. Benny, in a Clarinet mag article didn't know of the Kegelstatt Trio. That makes sense. He probably had no interest in listening to other clarinetists or studying the expanse of clarinet literature. He was too absorbed in practicing for the next performance while Artie was relaxing in Carmel.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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