 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: steph
Date: 2002-08-08 23:40
Do any of you know if there are any famous presidents, rock stars, movie stars, etc. that used to play clarinet?
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Author: Jacy
Date: 2002-08-09 00:26
Woody Allen is the only one I can think of at the moment, but I'm sure there's quite a few more.
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Author: Francesca
Date: 2002-08-09 00:34
I doubt anyone really cares, but Idaho's former governor, Phil Batt, plays clarinet. He even donated his old instrument for a school to use.
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Author: ken
Date: 2002-08-09 01:41
I believe the actor "Hal Linden" from the U.S. 1970s TV sitcom Barney Miller plays(ed) jazz clarinet in one capacity or another.
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2002-08-09 02:22
Yep, Hal Linden does play clarinet. I saw him do the Mozart Concerto with the Boston Pops on PBS awhile back.
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: task slave?
Date: 2002-08-09 02:23
Here's two off the top of my head:
King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Rama IX of Thailand - a player of clarinet and sax, mostly jazz; also a composer.
Alan Greenspan; Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board
Thomas Piercy
thomaspiercy.com
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Author: Dee
Date: 2002-08-09 02:27
You forgot Steve Allen, who played the part of Benny Goodman in the movie but can actually play clarinet.
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Author: Ralph G
Date: 2002-08-09 02:55
I've only seen Woody Allen play the eefer. That doesn't count! C'mon, Woody, play a real clarinet! :-)
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Author: Ralph G
Date: 2002-08-09 03:04
BTW, I remember an episode of "Family" when Henry Fonda was a guest, and his character played the clarinet. I don't think that was an important part of the plot or anything, so I wonder if he actually played and it was worked in.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2002-08-09 04:12
Sid Caesar studied clarinet and saxophone(and played with Charlie Spivak, Shep Fields, and Charlie Thornhill)...GBK
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Author: GBK
Date: 2002-08-09 04:55
I forgot to add the following, who played clarinet in their younger days:
Steven Spielberg
Julia Roberts
John Williams (composer/conductor) ...GBK
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2002-08-09 05:17
let me see ==there is mark, connie, willie, gbk,dee, diz and a host of other that are famous and play the clarinet.
how about rich?
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Author: Wes
Date: 2002-08-09 06:14
Ernani Bernardi, former Los Angeles councilman, played the clarinet and sax as well as having his own band. Elmer Dills(tenor sax) and a Mr. Whetmore(piano), CA state congressmen, were both active musicians. Whetmore booked a lot of bands every week who played from his one-size-fits-all arrangements from trios to big bands. I played a lot with him years ago and he required that no one improvise while playing for him. Many politicians do not show any skills at music, or anything else. They admit to going to law school but to have any other skills would not be PC.
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Author: Dan Oberlin
Date: 2002-08-09 10:45
If you asked everyone in this country to name one "person"
who plays the clarinet, the winner would probably be:
Squidward!
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2002-08-09 13:44
Harpo Marx could play the clarinet a little. He did it in one of their movies.
Presumably Bill Clinton put down his sax and noodled on clarinet once in a while.
Aker Bilk is rumored to play the clarinet, but I've never heard it.
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Author: earl thomas
Date: 2002-08-09 14:54
Leonard Garment, a lawyer high-up in the Nixon Administration, played clarinet. As mentioned above, Alan Greenspan played alto and clar in the old Woody Herman Band and did the taxes for many of the band's members at the time. I think Leonard Garment may have been in that same band. I believe his son is a clarinetist, too. Charlie Parker, Lester Young, etc., of course, played clarinet, and nobody's more famous than they.
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Author: Bob
Date: 2002-08-09 17:45
Tommy Lee Jones in a recent movie..forget the name...wife gave him a Selmer and he played it..supposedly...
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Author: William
Date: 2002-08-09 19:28
Eugene Corporon, college band director of note, is a fine clarinetist. As is. also, Univeristy of Wisconisn--Madison wind ensemble conductor, James Smith.
Jimmy Dorsey (of the famous 30s/40s Dorsey brothers orchestras) is noted for his alto sax playing, but was also a fine jazz clarinetist.
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Author: David
Date: 2002-08-09 22:18
Warren Mitchell (bass) Harry Kim (fictional)
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Author: GBK
Date: 2002-08-10 20:21
Suzanne... Could you please cite where you got the information concerning Christina Aguilera playing the clarinet?
Thanks...GBK
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Author: Suzanne
Date: 2002-08-10 20:33
Right when she first started becoming really famous, they did a cover story on her in, I believe, People magazine (I don't have the issue number or anything, it was a while ago that I read it), and they mentioned her clarinet-playing history in passing.
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Author: Suzanne
Date: 2002-08-10 21:37
As a side note, my repairman claims to have worked on Christina Aguilera's clarinet---I'm not so sure if I believe that one though...
Another one: Jennie Garth (Beverly Hills 90210)
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Author: David Dow
Date: 2002-08-11 02:12
I won't it against them if they play the clarinet.
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Author: David Pegel
Date: 2002-08-11 03:23
Didn't Alan Greenspan actually end up going to Juilliard for his clarinet playing? Or is that another off-the-wall rumor?
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Author: Bob
Date: 2002-08-11 12:51
I think Julliard was where he studied finance...another rumor
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Author: Christoffer
Date: 2002-08-11 13:15
Ludwig Wittgenstein, the philosopher. His brother Paul was a professional concert pianist and lost an arm in World War I. Ravel's left-hand piano concerto was written for him.
Ludwig took up the clarinet during his education as a school teacher after he thought to have said what reasonably could be said about philosophy.
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Author: david sherr
Date: 2011-04-15 11:31
Peter Graves. I worked with him and Hal Linden on episodes of the Dinah Shore Show. see www.belairjazz.org
http://www.belairjazz.org
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Author: Tony M
Date: 2011-04-15 12:20
In a later episode of 'West Wing', when Jimmy Smits is in the election race with Alan Alda, the question of trying to make a connection with 'the people' is brought up. Someone asks Smits if he plays a musical instrument. The question clearly harks back to the Clinton saxophone. Smits says 'Clarinet', they say 'Forget it.' It made me smile.
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Author: Paul Globus
Date: 2011-04-15 17:17
Kudos to Ken Shaw for referencing Harpo Marx. Indeed, he played a short bit on the clarinet in the Marx Brothers' first movie, Animal Crackers.
Harpo was a natural musician, as was his big brother Leonard (Chico). As a harpist, he was actually a superb player -- one of the very best around at that time. He plays a harpo solo in just about every movie the Brothers ever made.
A great man whose equal as a physical comedian we shall never see again.
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2011-04-15 20:48
Composer Roy Harris played the clarinet.
Those who live in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, or Kentucky are probably familiar with Meijer's, hypermarkets that sell everything from groceries to electronics. Hendrik Meijer, the founder of the chain, and his son Fred (who ran the company for many years) both knew how to play the clarinet.
Actress Julia Roberts plays clarinet and oboe.
http://musiced.about.com/od/famousmusicians1/a/famouspeople2.htm
Yes, Dick Van Dyke did briefly study the clarinet.
http://www.mpacorn.com/news/2004-02-19/On_The_Town/018.html
Post Edited (2011-04-15 20:54)
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Author: timw
Date: 2011-04-15 21:29
I remember seeing a vaudville comedian named Ted Lewis who wore a top hat and always carried a clarinet as part of his act, about the same era of the Marx Brothers, mostly forgotten today. His famous catchphrase, "Is Everybody Happy" was also part of the act.
Also, Fred Macmurray played the saxophone, but I'm not sure about the clarinet.
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Author: Tony M
Date: 2011-04-15 22:05
Harpo on clarinet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHYIIkq2IXk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIY1ilOl6So
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Author: donald
Date: 2011-04-15 22:29
Tony M- your West Wing anecdote made me smile, a little known fact is that Alan Alda fell in love with his wife seeing her perform the Mozart Quintet (his version of the story at any rate).
dn
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Author: Anon
Date: 2011-04-15 22:47
Tedy Bruschi - New England Patriots
http://www.patriots.com/search/index.cfm?ac=searchdetail&pcid=43&pid=3211
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Author: GBK
Date: 2011-04-15 23:26
I've posted this list before, but once again:
Alan Greenspan
Woody Allen
Ray Charles
Hal Linden
Keith Lockhart
Sid Caesar
Steven Spielberg
Julia Roberts
Jim Carrey
John Williams
George Segal
Deidre Hall
Harpo Marx
Van Cliburn
Billy Crystal
Rudy Vallee
Bill Clinton
Jimmy Kimmel
Alyson Hannigan (actress)
Roy Rogers
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
Modern composers/conductors who also played (even briefly in their youth) clarinet:
John Adams
John Corigliano
Donald Martino
Leonard Bernstein
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Paul Hindemith
Meyer Kupferman
John Williams
Roy Harris
Sir Colin Davis
...GBK
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Author: ned
Date: 2011-04-16 06:22
..............me.................I'm famous in my own lunchtime!
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Author: Paul Miller
Date: 2011-04-16 09:23
@David:
Wikipedia implies he was an undergrad at Juilliard, but I heard somewhere that he was in the prep division.
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Author: msa
Date: 2011-04-16 12:38
Nicki Minaj knows how to play the clarinet!
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2011-04-16 15:05
Osmo Vanska, currently music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, is sufficiently accomplished on clarinet to have recorded the Crusell Quartets for BIS.
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2011-04-16 16:45
GBK you left out Benny Goodman, Arti Shaw and Woody Herman, they were pretty famous weren't they? :-) ESP (LOL)
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Author: ned
Date: 2011-04-17 07:22
Ed says ''GBK you left out Benny Goodman, Arti Shaw and Woody Herman, they were pretty famous weren't they?''
I'd say they were clarinet players who BECAME famous, as distinct from FAMOUS people who play clarinet.
There be the difference..................
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Author: Michael E. Shultz
Date: 2011-04-17 10:23
Professor William Lipscomb, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, played the clarinet. In fact, he had been the principal clarinetist for both the Pasadena Civic Orchestra and the Minneapolis Civic Orchestra.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/us/16lipscomb.html
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2011-04-17 10:55
My two favourite examples, though neither is still living, are Ludwig Wittgenstein, and David Marr (the neuroscientist, not the political journalist -- look him up in Google) with whom I used to play at university. David was really good, and could easily have become a professional. He died tragically early (35) of leukaemia.
Unfortunately I have no direct experience of Wittgenstein:-) but can report that in the 1920's, he chose to become an elementary schoolteacher in Trattenbach, south of Vienna.
"The villagers (including some of his own colleagues) were, in any case, disposed to take a dislike to this aristocratic and eccentric stranger, whose odd behaviour sometimes amused and sometimes alarmed them. Anecdotes about his 'fremdheit' [strangeness] were told and retold, until he became a kind of village legend.
"There is the story, for example, of how he once got together with two of his colleagues to play a Mozart trio -- himself on clarinet, Georg Berger playing the viola part on a violin and the headmaster, Rupert Koellner, playing the piano part. Berger recalls:
> Again and again we had to start from the beginning, Wittgenstein not
> tiring at all. Finally, we were given a break! The headmaster,
> Rupert Koellner, and I were then so unintentionally inconsiderate as
> to play by heart some dance tune. Wittgenstein reacted angrily:
> "Krautsalat! Krautsalat!" he cried. He then packed up and went.
(From 'Ludwig Wittgenstein -- The Duty of Genius', by Ray Monk)
Tony
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Author: Tony M
Date: 2011-04-17 12:37
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent unless you can play it on your horn" I used to be able to remember the proposition number for this but not any more sadly.
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Author: salzo
Date: 2011-04-17 13:33
Kurt Vonnegut played-in one of his books he talks about taking a ride with Benny Goodman, and how he was estatic because he got to talk "licorice stick" with the King of Swing.
My all time favorite famous guy who plays the clarinet was Jeffrey Dahmer.
I remember when he was in the news for his famous escapades, they had a picture of him in some news magazine, playing the clarinet.
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Author: fernie51296
Date: 2011-04-17 19:33
A guy on the radio where i live said he played clarinet when he was younger
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Author: ned
Date: 2011-04-18 04:25
fernie writes: ''A guy on the radio where i live said he played clarinet when he was younger''
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Crikey...............this is truly amazing, you know!
As a matter of fact, I actually spoke to a famous person once...............then again..............I suppose he can't have been all that famous as I can't recall his name.
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Author: salzo
Date: 2011-04-18 20:45
And this is one deleted scene of Spielberg´s “Jaws”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfX1MkMazwc
I remember seeing that probably 30 years ago- I must have been watching an expanded version of Jaws because I always wondered what happend to that scene. Wh on earth would they take that out? Its the best scene in the movie(next to Quint getting eaten by the shark, of course).
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-04-18 21:28
The store clerk says "Try a #3. That should be softer than a #2."
Only after the shark chews on it. ![[rotate]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley25.gif)
Ken Shaw
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The Clarinet Pages
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:![[huh]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie11.gif)
and she wet the reed for the boy... ![[whoa]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie10.gif)
![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
