 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: sebastian
Date: 2001-11-16 09:35
I heard recently that Woody allen plays an old clarinet by Rampone & Cazzani. Can anyone verify this?
Please feel free to answer to sebastianscotney@aol.com
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Author: Dee
Date: 2001-11-16 13:19
Search the board for Woody Allen as this topic has been covered before. If I remember the other posts correctly, he plays a Selmer Albert system that was custom built for him. He had originally learned to play on an Albert system horn.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2001-11-16 18:37
Here is the Rampone and Cazzani site which mentions Woody Allen playing one of their clarinets (I believe until 1995, when he had Buffet make him 2 Albert system clarinets).
The site is in Italian, but you can use one of the translation search engines to help you if your Italian is rusty.
http://www.lagodorta.com/paese.htm
As was mentioned before, if you've never seen "Wild Man Blues", where Woody is given a personal tour of the Buffet factory, and falls in love with a metal clarinet in the display case(but is told it's NOT for sale), it's worth watching the movie just for that moment...GBK
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Author: Bob Arney
Date: 2001-11-16 21:28
Y'all can now say "Duh!" BUT, who is Woody Allen? Is he related to Steve Allen? Movie star? Comedian?
Bob A
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Author: Kathy Beatty
Date: 2001-11-16 22:06
Woody Allen produces, directs, and stars in his own comedy films. In his personal life, he's perhaps best (infamously) known for having dumped his movie star wife Mia Farrow, and then marrying his own (adopted) daughter. He also plays (Albert system) clarinet pretty well, I understand, although I've never heard him play.
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Author: Rob
Date: 2001-11-17 03:20
Woody Allen was also, long ago, married to Louise Lasser ( of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman fame) and for a long while before his entanglement with the peculiar Ms. Farrow (ex wife of Frank Sinatra and Andre Previn, I think) was romanticaly linked to Diane Keaton, who has starred in a number of his films. He has a habit of using many of the same actors in his films, including his former paramours. In the 60s he was a comedy writer, stand-up comedian (mostly in NY) playwrite, and also wrote a bizarre screenplay for a movie called "What's Up Tigerlily?" in which he redubbed a Japanese crime/espionage movie with all-new english dialogue. It was very funny. His films used to be very funny but over the years, and especially after he became involved with Ms. Farrow, his work became much less amusing, and much more contrived IMO. He is a very talented and very odd fellow.
He has frequently played clarinet on the soudtracks of his movies and his playing is always a prominent feature of those soundtracks. I'm no great judge of the jazz inspired music he plays, but I am surprised that his playing isn't brought up more often here. I have read that he is almost completely self-taught, though I don't know how true that is.
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Author: Daniel Bouwmeester
Date: 2001-11-18 13:18
I had seen a couple of years ago a documentary over Woody Allen on TV. The cameraman was following Woody Allen in a tour with his dixieland band. There was a part where you could see him in the buffet factory testing instruments.
The technician from Buffet, had convinced woody to play the Elite. But after a couple of concerts he wasn't satisfied with the sound so he went back to the factory. Going there he saw the window where all the ancient clarinets are, he tried a metal clarinet and he asked if he could buy it. That was of course impossible because of the historical value of these instruments. The part about the buffet factory stopped there.
When I have been myself to the buffet factory, I talked to Carlos (don't no his last name) and asked him about the Woody Allen story. He told that after long negociation (Woody is very iritating when he wants something) they decided to build a custom new old 13 key clarinet.
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Author: A David Peacham
Date: 2001-11-18 21:07
To say that Woody Allen is "very talented" is a bit of an understatement. Many would say that he ranks alongside Kubrick and Spielberg in the history of post-war cinema. Watch his masterpiece "Manhattan" (1979 or thereabouts, not to be confused with his much more recent "Manhattan Murder Mystery".) The combination of the bitter-sweet, tragic-comic story, the black-and-white photography and the jazz soundtrack is quite breathtaking. And, as the story of Allen's character's entanglement with a teenage girl, oddly prescient of his much later real-life entanglement with his ex-wife's adopted daughter. (Not his own adopted daughter, by the way; surely not even in New York can you marry your own adopted daughter.)
Off-topic: sure it is, but the soundtrack is worth a listen. So rare to hear a soundtrack that actually enhances a film.
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Author: Terry Horlick
Date: 2001-11-21 06:57
Wow, I can't top that, David. I just know that some of his early films are fun to view if you can put up with the neurotic mannerisms he always portrays. One of my favorite moments is his stint in a marching band in "Take the Money and Run". I won't say more and spoil the film for you. For my money that film is about his best. The later stuff tends to be less than amusing.
Didn't he once skip an Acadamey Awards when he was nominated because it was on the night that he usually played clarinet in a bar... and he wasn't about to miss that?
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