 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ruben
Date: 2016-07-11 18:59
There are few performances on YouTube of this fine musician-mostly with Django Reinhardt-but I would like to call attention to his existence. His tone is so round and velvety, his phrasing so flexible; a jazz version of the great Cahuzac is how I would describe him. He had a musical career of great diversity: traditional jazz, bebop, composing and arranging film scores, playing Classical music and avant-garde music (the music of Jean Barraqué, who was at one point, considered a rival of Boulez). I never had the pleasure of meeting him and I regret this very much. Is there anyone out there who did and who could tell us more?
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: James Langdell
Date: 2016-07-12 00:14
I've enjoyed Rostaign's jazz recordings (with and without Django), but did not know of his connection with music composed by Jean Barraqué. I'd enjoy learning more about this clarinetist.
--James Langdell
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-07-12 01:04
Though Hubert Rostaing is often remembered as a trad jazz player with Reinhardt, I first heard of him in the late 50s as a modern jazz player roughly in the "birth of the cool" school performing with the Kenny Clarke Sextet. An adaptable, versatile player, he could play Le Jazz Hot one day, front a big swing band on another, or switch to a perfectly vibratoless Lee Konitz style on alto sax as he did here, performing Milt Jackson's "Tahiti" with the Kenny Clarke Sextet, including fellow Algerian, Martial Solal, on piano:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Kenny+Clark%27s+sextet+Tahiti+1956.
As if this wasn't enough, Rostaing wrote the score to "Barocco." a 1977 French film, and did many other film scores, as well as compose music to "Six Fables of La Fontaine." He was classically trained and didn't seem to have just one easily identifiable style; given any situation he managed to morph completely into the setting like a polygot with the gift of getting the accent and pronounciaton of a new language just right so that even native speakers could not tell he wasn't born speaking it. I wonder if he ever performed the Barraque Clarinet Concerto; he was certainly capable of playing it (a peice that, despite the title, doesn't really feature or foreground the player much as a soloist).
Post Edited (2016-07-12 01:17)
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2016-07-12 01:38
Right on, Ruben.
Rostaing was a true great. I've often played his counter melodies in gypsy jazz groups (for tunes like "Swing 42") and even written my own counter melodies using his style as a template (a tune of mine called "Stompin' at Christopher's" was originally written as a counter melody to "Stompin' at Decca", as there was no Rostaing line to draw from, and one of the bands I'm in performs it quite often).
Rostaing's tone was great, and his ideas were very, very smart. He should be remembered as an important figure in jazz clarinet.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: ruben
Date: 2016-07-12 13:22
Thank you all for your interest in this wonderful player. If I remember correctly, he also premiered a concerto by Joseph Cosma, the Hungarian-French composer of so many wonderful film scores and tunes, one of which is "Autumn Leaves" ("Les Feuilles Mortes" in French). There must still be a few people in France who remember him and worked with him. One of them might be Michel Portal, still going strong at eighty and also a "double-agent": Classical and jazz (or kind of jazz). I will research the matter and write an article about Rostaing, but who will be the slightest bit interested in publishing it?
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: cearnsh
Date: 2016-07-12 15:20
The International Clarinet Association and the Clarinet and Saxophone Society of Great Britain both have magazines which should be a good home for such an article.
Chris
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2016-07-12 15:36
Check this track out. It really does not get any better than this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bizgPD3zFE&index=18&list=PLEF96C4986E61F0B1
Post Edited (2016-07-12 15:42)
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Author: ruben
Date: 2016-07-13 09:37
Dear Eric,
Is "Gypsy Jazz popular in the US? These days, here in France where it originated, I would say it's almost too popular. This is the style the youngsters most play. It's true that it's the only original form France-or Europe, for that matter, has contributed to jazz throughout the years.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2016-07-13 10:25
When my Father was stationed in India during WWII in the US Air Force in the mid 1940's he had an Indian girlfriend that introduced him to The Hot Club Of France Gypsy Jazz and he was a lifelong fan as I am also.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2016-07-13 16:43
It's increasingly popular here, Ruben. Here in Cleveland/Northeast Ohio there are two popular gypsy "all star" bands--I'm in one called "Hot Djang." We play all the major nightclubs and elsewhere, and the crowds are always enthusiastic about what we do.
There are many attractions to gypsy jazz from a purely musical perspective. First, it's a style that developed without a drummer. As it can be very difficult to find drummers who work well with early jazz styles, this cuts out one potential problem. Second, it makes use of instruments ordinarily sidelined here in the US--specifically violin and clarinet. Third, because of the texture of the ensemble, the clarinet can project easily in all registers--no piano or drums to make chalumeau playing difficult.
There are now gypsy jazz festivals all over the country (the band I'm in hasn't played any yet, but some of my colleagues have been quite busy on that scene). The big magazines like DownBeat and JazzTimes virtually ignore it, of course, but they have a very narrow view of jazz.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: ruben
Date: 2016-07-13 18:40
Eric. Great!! It's a form of music that's sensitive and clear, as you described. It also makes people feel good, and that's not such a bad thing in these troubled times, is it? The clarinet is ideally suited to it. Here in France, a lot of the people playing it are French gypsies ("Manouches", they're called in French) and there are still descendants of the Reinhardt family knocking around. In the last town Django lived in-its name escapes me- there is a yearly festival of "Jazz Manouche" (I use the term Manouche rather than Gypsy because as I said, it specifically relates to France's centuries-old Gypsy community. ) For some reason, the clarinet was not originally a Manouche instrument, though it is a staple of Romanian and all Eastern European Gypsy music. This explains Rostaing's presence, who had to fill Stéphane Grappelly's size 10 shoes during the war (Grappelly was of Italian descent and was from a very "respectable' upper middle-class family.)
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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