 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: claaaaaarinet!!!!
Date: 2018-10-12 22:36
I have been asked to play a funeral next Tuesday and the family has requested at least one "Dixieland clarinet" tune. Does anyone know of any good arrangements for clarinet (or another B-flat instrument) and piano of one or more Dixieland tunes? The idea would be to have the usual improv and ornaments written out and done in a sophisticated style to make a square classical player such as myself sound like I know what I'm doing. I need instant Dixieland. Seems like there should be a collection like that out there, but I can't seem to locate anything. One caveat: it needs to be secular, not Christian.
I had a good arrangement of "Just a Closer Walk" but that won't fly. :( Thanks! Dan
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2018-10-12 23:48
Wow. That's a pretty tall order! They sorta tied your hands.
1. Solo w/ piano arrangement for a dixie tune (don't know of any)
2. "...usual improv and ornaments written out..." (conflicting statements)
3. Secular/not Christian (threw out the best/most common ones)
Songs like "Just a Little While", "Down By the Riverside", "When the Saints", and "Flee as a Bird", pertain to Christianity...and a song like "Didn't He Ramble" probably isn't well-suited unless the family specifically asked for something like that.
Is this song for the dirge part of the New Orleans tradition, or for the celebration part?
Maybe you could do something like "Do You Know What it Means (to miss New Orleans)" or "St James Infirmary Blues". While I don't know of any specific publications to recommend, both songs are widely published, and you might be able to find something out there.
Fuzzy
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Author: claaaaaarinet!!!!
Date: 2018-10-13 00:04
Up-tempo, happy is fine. It's more postlude/recessional "celebration of life" vibe, not dirge or somber.
I think of the Bela Kovacs' pieces that impersonate klezmer and jazz and various classical composers, etc. and am wondering if there is anything out there along those lines for Dixieland.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2018-10-13 01:59
Here's quick advice from someone who grew up in New Orleans surrounded by New Orleans jazz of various stripes, including "Dixieland":
1) Don't play just one tune. You will run out of things to "say" with it because you haven't lived and breathed the style well enough to sustain interest on just one tune. So
2) Chose a medley of short tunes that will hold interest easily.
3) Whatever you do, don't play "Dixie," the Confederate States' song. That is rightly considered racist.
4) Keep it short and sweet. New Orleans jazz recordings were on 78 rpm records and they played for just a few minutes.
Kenneth Abeling has done some arrangements of Dixieland tunes for, of all things, clarinet quartet. But they can be converted to clarinet and piano easily enough. You can play the 1st or 2nd clarinet part (wherever the melody happens to be) in these arrangements and give a copy to a good pianist who can glean a reduction/accompaniment from it. I suggest Abeling's medley of "That's a Plenty," "After You've Gone," "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Margie," and "At the Jazz Band Ball." Generous full page excepts from this are given here: just google search for Dixieland Medley (for Clarinet Quartet) Sheet Music Plus and it should come up.
None of these tunes have any obvious religious connotation (though any minister could find one in "After You've Gone") and all have been associated with Dixieland ("Margie" perhaps the least). It ain't really Dixieland and it's not even close enough for jazz, but it's probably close enough for a funeral. And after the funeral, you can have fun playing the original arrangement with three other clarinetists.
So far as I know, there has been no Bela Kovacs to write pastiche etudes in the style of famous New Orleans Jazz clarinetists, but composer David Schiff has put together a "Ducal Suite" for clarinet and strings that pays tribute to Duke Ellington and two of his clarinetists, New Orleans' own Barney Bigard and the New Orleans trained (but more modern) Jimmy Hamilton. More of that here:https://cmnw.org/music/duke-ellington/.
Post Edited (2018-10-13 06:01)
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2018-10-23 19:38
claaaaaarinet!!!!
I'm curious whether you found what you were looking for, and (if so) how the performance went.
I hope everything worked out well, and that you had a great time with the music.
Fuzzy
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