Author: seabreeze
Date: 2018-11-20 08:44
Michael Wright is not "wasting his time" trying to capture certain qualities of the Albert system on the Boehm. He has explained "The Boehm system seems to be less flexible than the Albert in bending and producing a singing tone. My goal has been to try to produce an Albert-like tone on a Boehm clarinet" (which he considers easier to play). The players who forged the New Orleans style (Johnny Dodds, Ed Hall, George Lewis, Sydney Bechet, Omar Simeon, Leon Rappolo, Al Nicholas, Barney Bigard, Irving Fazola et al) all at some point tried and rejected the Boehm, preferring the more "bendable" and vocal qualities of the Albert to the increased technical capacity of the newer system. Unlike them, Wright started on a Boehm and developed proficiency on it, so it makes sense for him to continue with that system but try to find a way to voice it like an Albert. Hybrid forms in art can be beautiful; jazz itself is a gigantic, flying hybrid.
Evan Christopher, after trying a Hammerschmidt clarinet and many other clarinets decided to return to the Selmer Albert type that was favored by many of the old New Orleans players. An analogy here might be made with "authenticity" in architecture. If you like traditional New Orleans wooden shotgun houses, do you build them "Katrina Cottage" style with the long vertical windows and maybe fireplace, or do you put solar photovoltaic cells on the roof, substitute smaller clerestory horizontal widows just below the ceiling, and add insulation never dreamed of in the old days? In selecting an instrument, Christopher is sort of going the Katrina Cottage "make 'em the old way," and White is going the photovoltaic and insulation amenities of the more facile and modern clarinet. Each to his own, I say. Both ways can be authentic.
Post Edited (2018-11-21 02:20)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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