 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Garth Libre
Date: 2012-08-12 09:11
I believe Benny Goodman's instrument of choice was the Selmer during the heart of his career. Here's a clip of Benny Goodman when he was in his 70's. Can anyone pick out the clarinet he choose to play in this Japanese concert towards the end of his life? Surely he had many opportunities to try out all the instruments that are so highly prized on this board. At the beginning of the clip is a close up of his hands and the horn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jE2g055zRA&feature=related
Garth, 305-981-4705. garthlibre@yahoo.com
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Author: chris moffatt
Date: 2012-08-12 11:36
Per The Smithsonian from about 1967 on Benny Goodman used a Buffet clarinet. It is now in the Smithsonian collection (as of 1990).
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-08-12 13:35
It's impossible to identify the horn from the rather grainy video, but it's probably a Selmer, which BG played for jazz throughout his career. See http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3676, which shows the Selmer bridge key design. He used a Balanced Tone and later a Centered Tone.
After he studied with Reginald Kell, he played a Boosey & Hawkes for a while (flat barrel rings, no bell ring). Kell turned his ligature 45 degrees to the side, so that only the two bands touched the reed http://www.ebay.com/itm/REGINALD-KELL-Clarinet-MOZART-BRAHMS-AXTL-1071-/270572825598, and BG did the same from then on.
BG made a bunch of classical recordings toward the end of his life, for which I'm pretty sure he played a Buffet, but even that is in doubt. See http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=59416&t=59202. I've read that he sat for a Selmer ad while holding a Buffet, but I haven't been able to find a copy of it.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Garth Libre
Date: 2012-08-12 15:07
A lot has been said about BG innate cheapness. (stealing apples, making free xerox copies by ordering a copier and returning, asking for student's mpc and reed, free instruments etc.) However he also gave free college scholarships to deserving students. Of course he did it anonomously so everyone wouldn't have their hands out. What has to be kept in mind is that at one time he was so poor so that he recalls "... some times I was so poor that we didn't have too little to eat. but we actually had nothing to eat." (paraphrase) His father had to work some horrible slaughterhouse job and still the family lived in abject poverty. My mother was born 13 years after BG and her family lived in similar poverty. She learned to exercise incredible acts of frugality just to survive. My father was born decidedly rich and never learned those lessons. He frittered away a large fortune between the time he was in his mid 20's to his mid 40's. My mother made wise investments and currently owns property in NYC bought with money she earned after her divorce with my father. As good a man as my father was, not having to understand financial limitations never served him.
Mr. Goodman was Jewish of course, so it's fun and easy to just label him as a tightwad. My experience is that many people, Jewish and otherwise, learned frugality, and along with that lesson they learned that money does not buy happiness.
My understanding is that no famous Steinway performer has to pay for the use of, nor the delivery of a Steinway piano used in performance. I'm sure Buffet, Selmer and Leblanc were begging BG to take and use their horns.
I'm sorry that such horrible poverty is a part of so many people's lives then and now, but poverty is only a barrier to human greatness, and it's only a minor barrier to human joy. Wealth insures neither.
Garth, 305-981-4705. garthlibre@yahoo.com
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2012-08-12 16:15
My Father also suffered childhood poverty similar to BG and I saw the effects from that my entire life. He said that he discovered that fruit is not supposed to have bruises when he went into the service. He thought that was the way it grew because he had never seen fruit without a bruise. He said that we were so poor that we could not even afford to pay attention.
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Author: Bill
Date: 2012-08-12 16:55
His 10G was on ebay a few years back.
Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)
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Author: William
Date: 2012-08-13 21:58
Probably more accurate--and safe--to say that Benny played the clarinet, and very well, at that...............
FWIW, my good friend, Chuck Hedges--Milwaukee jazz clarinetist--played a Selmer BT for most of his career, switching to a Leblanc Concerto, but only because Vito gave him one for free. Same for his use of Legere reeds.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2012-08-13 23:31
Garth Libre wrote:
>
> Mr. Goodman was Jewish of course, so it's fun and easy to just
> label him as a tightwad.
>
This sort of sentiment nauseates me. I hope you were being facetious; I'm saddened (and angered) that many aren't.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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