 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2014-05-14 13:01
After listening to the great Bill Evans on piano and realizing that he plays the piano using saxophone stlye lines I listen to other instrument lines such as piano, violin, guitar and form a style based on their lines that are played.
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2014-05-14 17:26
For my clarinet improvs I'm imitating the riffs I like from some clarinetists (think blues not jazz), plus things I've done for decades on piano, plus stuff I like from sax and guitar. Once I really started listening I was amazed how similar all these are. Oh and don't forget vocalizations and scat.
Here's 45 sec of southern rock guitar solo. Why couldn't I do 90% of this on clarinet? (Or actually, just use the patterns and modify them for my own purposes.) http://www.flmemories.com/C/TBRiff1.mp3
25 point bonus if you can identify the song without cheating (no Shazam).
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2014-05-14 18:16)
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2014-05-14 19:57
Bruno wrote:
> Watch this!
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krDxhnaKD7Q&list=FL9KqD4t6FA2Ysz3QSbhbUvg&index=46
>
> You can't escape it! Once you hear it the game is over!
>
Exactly! Nobody invents anything. Well, actually- every riff had to start somewhere, but you'd be very hard pressed to create something new today that would be worth keeping.
The skill of any soloist is the ability to blend and incorporate known elements into a pleasing whole. Nobody suggests that a cook has to create new ingredients, but we all enjoy a flavorful new dish, or an old favorite with or without minor changes.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
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Author: Bruno
Date: 2014-05-15 21:08
Speaking only for myself, I'd be ecstatic if I could play about 25% as good as Buddy DeF., or Artie Shaw. But not Daniels - he noodles too much and his solos are not constructed well - no beginning, middle, and end. I know he's good and many like him. Just my quirky idea of what solos should be about. I favor soloists who can construct original melodies over the chord structures - Desmond, Bird, Brubeck, Konitz, Hawkins, Prez, etc.
B>
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2014-05-17 08:57
This evening I tried for the first time to follow along with that guitar clip- and discovered that of course they're playing in concert Em. Now, I do eventually want to be ready to jam in concert Em or whatever key anybody happens to be in- with or without an A clarinet at my fingertips. But for now I just want to get the usable meat out of this passage.
No problem- Sonar transposes down a half step with a couple of clicks, and I'm in Fm... sweet. For Bb clarinet, your chords are... Fm Bb7 Ab / Bbm Db Eb. Hmmm that's a lot of flats. Perhaps better to have left it alone? ... F#m B7 A7 / Bm D E ... maybe! (If you play an A clarinet along with the original guitar key, your chords would be Gm C7 Bb / Cm Eb F, probably the easiest.)
http://www.flmemories.com/C/TBRiff1Ebm.mp3
The actual guitar melody notes are more difficult to play than you might think. Some of that is because everything pretty much sounds easier than it is, and some because what's natural on one instrument can be awkward on another. In this case (for the Fm version) I found myself constantly slurring back and forth across the middle B-C break. (Isn't that what the Rose etudes are supposed to do for you? I think I'd rather use this.)
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2014-05-22 17:57)
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2016-05-31 18:44
The "TBriff" I posted is from Omar and the Howlers (what a great name) "Ton of Blues" from their 1995 album "Southern Style". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUJb7fxRZlk, from about 1:40.
Turns out these guys did have a sax in their band for a while, I don't hear it in this song but that doesn't mean it's not there. This is not a style of music that to me screams out for clarinet. But maybe, just maybe, if somebody sat down with them and played clarinet well enough- whatever was a perfect match for the style etc (technically difficult? perhaps or perhaps not)... Omar and his fans would be happy for the addition. What would that sound like? Anyone else here like this style well enough to want to try?
I'm working on a new song, "If You Want to Play in Albuquerque, You Gotta Have a Clarinet in the Band". Still in the concept stage.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2016-05-31 21:41)
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Author: tucker ★2017
Date: 2016-06-01 01:52
Hey Stan.... very nice. Just added Omar and the Howlers to my playlist! Thanks!
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Author: brycon
Date: 2016-06-01 22:14
Quote:
Turns out these guys did have a sax in their band for a while, I don't hear it in this song but that doesn't mean it's not there. This is not a style of music that to me screams out for clarinet. But maybe, just maybe, if somebody sat down with them and played clarinet well enough- whatever was a perfect match for the style etc (technically difficult? perhaps or perhaps not)... Omar and his fans would be happy for the addition. What would that sound like? Anyone else here like this style well enough to want to try?
Some somewhat unrelated points/observations:
For the OP (probably long gone, but what the hey), if someone is playing modern (i.e. postbop) jazz, he/she is playing saxophone lines. The language grew out of Bird; it's entirely idiomatic for the saxophone.
Stan, I grew up playing clarinet and saxophone. But in terms of jazz, I was completely into saxophonists: Bird, both Sonnys, Cannonball, Joe Henderson, etc. Those were the guys I transcribed and played on the clarinet. For some reason, though, some of them translated really well to the clarinet--Sonny Stitt, for example. And others, like Sonny Rollins, didn't work so well. I still ended up transcribing a ton of Sonny Rollins but less for the notes he plays and more for the sense of articulation, rhythm, and overall improvisational approach, which is among the greatest in jazz history.
Interestingly, all the modern jazz players (that I can think of) that came out of the Sonny Rollins-style are tenor saxophonists: Chris Potter, Josh Redman, Joe Lovano. But I hear guitar, trumpet, trombone, and pianists all playing Coltrane lines. Maybe the Coltrane hegemony is due to conservatories pushing him on students, but I think it also has something to do with the way that they both played: Sonny's playing is just somehow tied to the tenor saxophone in a way that Coltrane's isn't.
Pierre Boulez made a similar point about his own music versus Elliot Carter's. Carter's music (like Bach's) could be played on a variety of instruments whereas his own music was orchestrated in a way that didn't allow the same sort of translation (nevermind that his solo clarinet piece is now played by bassoonists).
So the problem, to me, isn't a simple 1 to 1: what works well on instrument A will work well on instrument B. Contemporary jazz guitar (like Kurt Rosenwinkel) would be great on the clarinet, but blues guitar, I think, would be less successful because it's a more instrument-specific, idiomatic playing style.
Post Edited (2016-06-01 23:54)
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Author: bassclarinet101 ★2017
Date: 2016-06-01 22:31
Personally for style, I like to transcribe Vince Guaraldi. I find a lot of his solos translate well in terms of style for the clarinet. I don't think it stops just at the transcription though, but also in analyzing what is going on in the solo, harmonically, motivically, Schenker, and whatever other tools the clarinetist happens to be capable of wielding. Knowing how the solo develops in as many ways as possible will develop your own sense of musicianship, and an individual style crafted from your influences (good or bad). I'd also make sure not to just study jazz for jazz solos, but feel free to grab from any sense of line you like anywhere. I'm a Bach fan, and so Bach's sense of voice leading tends to make its way into my work, but I also love Mozart, so maybe I'll tend towards theme groups, etc.
-Daniel
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2016-06-01 22:51
Interesting.
On a personal note, I try to write tunes that are deliberately clarinet tunes idiomatically. And I think that clarinetists who play the blues effectively (Bechet, Fountain, Noone, Shaw, Goodman) differ strongly from most other instrumentalists--not just in register choice, but harmonic/melodic choices. The clarinet lends itself to a more harmonically direct, gutbucket type expression, using range an an essential device.
I also think it's a huge mistake for jazz programs to push Bird as a paradigm that all players must emulate (like a Bach, who can be transcribed to other instruments). To me his language perfectly wedded to one specific instrument: the alto sax. I do think Trane's approach to similar style is more universally applicable.
For me, the great ones to emulate (other than clarinetists) have been the trumpet players. Wynton Marsalis has always seemed directly helpful for my clarinet ideas, for instance.
Sonny Rollins is, in my opinion, one of the hardest players to transcribe and emulate. Even his 'simplest' ideas are much more complex than they initially sound. Maybe it's just me, and others find him easy...beyond that his whole approach is, to me, one of the most satisfying and challenging. And his style has directly influenced my own, but as you say, it's more articulation and approach than language. I'd also say, whether consciously or not, most of what he does is not so far removed from Sidney Bechet as it might seem...and Bechet has become more important to me as time goes on.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: brycon
Date: 2016-06-02 00:14
Quote:
I also think it's a huge mistake for jazz programs to push Bird as a paradigm that all players must emulate (like a Bach, who can be transcribed to other instruments). To me his language perfectly wedded to one specific instrument: the alto sax. I do think Trane's approach to similar style is more universally applicable.
I think things may be changing. My school's jazz program, at least, has people transcribing Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, and other pre-Bird players. (But I didn't major in jazz, so I can't say much more about the cirriculum.)
Quote:
Sonny Rollins is, in my opinion, one of the hardest players to transcribe and emulate. Even his 'simplest' ideas are much more complex than they initially sound. Maybe it's just me, and others find him easy...beyond that his whole approach is, to me, one of the most satisfying and challenging. And his style has directly influenced my own, but as you say, it's more articulation and approach than language. I'd also say, whether consciously or not, most of what he does is not so far removed from Sidney Bechet as it might seem...and Bechet has become more important to me as time goes on.
I absolutely agree about Sonny--I've played Babbitt, Boulez, and other complex modern composers, and Sonny Rollins's solos have some things that are just as difficult. He's always so swinging that whatever he plays sounds completely idiomatic and natural, but it's often a huge pain in the butt to play. Interestingly, whenever I finish a transcription, I usually pick out the lines I really like and come up with ten to fifteen variations in all 12 keys--things like starting on a different part of the measure, using triplets rather than eigths, stretching it out to 2 measures rather than 1, etc. I usually get some good things, but with Sonny's phrases, I inevitably get something that's worse; his playing has such a great sense of humor and irony and any small alteration seems to turn it banal.
Interesting point about the Sonny/Bechet connection. I love Bechet's playing too. I'll have to give it some serious listening time this summer.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2016-06-02 00:31
Point taken on jazz programs--what I'm talking about is out of date by this point, undoubtedly--and I arguably went to the most Bird-centric program on the planet, at its zenith of Birdolatry.
Bechet strikes me as the father of Newk's rhythmic sensibilities. Not to say that Newk didn't get things from other places, but there is a tremendous kinship between him and Bechet. Perhaps it's best to say that, when I'm working with Bechet (as I have been a lot recently), I no longer miss Newk. They're both emotionally operatic, in ways that their contemporaries rarely were (at least not to same degree). I've never heard Sonny talk about Bechet...not even sure if there is any direct influence there...but even their disappearing from the scene for years at a time, and their social/spiritual observations about the music, philosophically, are so similar as to suggest a family resemblance.
In the past couple of years, I've gone more trad than anyone could have anticipated (even myself), but the deeper I go, the less I miss other eras...the early stuff seems to have it all there, already, and seems to be waiting to have it further unpacked and developed.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-06-02 02:16
How well do you think James Carter's tenor and soprano sax lines translate to clarinet? I find it curious to think about this because in his own infrequent excursions on the clarinet, I don't hear the same boundless energy and inventiveness that I always hear in his sax performances.
Am I missing something?
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Author: brycon
Date: 2016-06-02 02:32
I hate James Carter's playing, so I have no desire to find out how it translates (though I imagine it doesn't work well). He's a talented guy, but it's all just mindless cliches played with horrible time-feel--his playing, for me, is the sonic equivalent of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.
Post Edited (2016-06-02 02:40)
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2016-06-02 03:46
By contrast, I love James Carter's playing---far more than any of the other 'sax heroes' of my generation. His extension of range, use of timbre, and thorough dousing of his language in Blues is a tonic to the harmonically nebulous conceits and non-melodic pattern play of mainstream post bop jazz, for which I have little use (so TOUCHÉ brycon!)
I think your observation is keen, Bob. Carter is one of the few sax players to inspire my direction on clarinet-having said that, I haven't heard his clarinet playing...I'm not sure his tone concept would translate, but will have to check him out more...it's been several years.
Btw, to me Carter is primarily a blues player, like myself. The 'cliches' are therefore essential...and his sense of time (from what I've heard) is the antithesis of mindlessly metronomic (boom)...it's more of a timbral, emotional language than an innovative manipulation of harmonies that we're after...and audiences respond, because it's real. Also...Newk once referred to JC as 'my boy.' I don't think I'd care if no one else endorsed me!
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2016-06-02 03:57
Btw, there is a recent YouTube of me playing a few choruses on 'Tin Roof Blues' out there--not a great sound quality as it was recorded on an iPhone, but it will demonstrate the musical point, maybe. I certainly wasn't thinking about James Carter when I played it---more just trying to play a good solo--but you'll hear a similar approach I think--use of range, extended timbre, very clear blues language. Some people undoubtedly prefer something more complicated harmonically, but for me that detracts from what you can do with the timbral language while still making a profound impact on an audience of 'regular people'.
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-06-02 04:30
I've always been impressed by James Carter's winning personality; he seems energetic, positive, appreciative, and ready to get on with it. After a tiring plane ride to Russia, he bounded into a master sax class with gusto and delight recorded here
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=James+Carter+clinic+in+Mariachi.
The other sax players swing and play the changes correctly but Carter is outside the box (in ways indicated by Eric), with extended upper range, big solid bottom register, and way off the accepted paths blazed by Parker and Coltrane. Carter plays as avant garde as anyone when he wants, but he never sounds avant guarde because it all fits into a pattern that is as old as jazz and includes everything from blues to gospel shout, as well as echoes of past generation sax players like Hawkins and Webster. When he plays "wild man" tonal distortions and multiphonics, am I wrong to hear this as a modern day counterpart to the equally wild vibrato, for instance, of Sidney Bechet? Carter's rhythm can jump ahead, fall behind, and in a sort of limitless stretch, go way above or under the beat, but he always comes out right. No matter how bizarre his lines may seem to be going, they all are part of a conversation that is on some musical topic, not just random noise delivered for the sake of "subversion" or meaningless novelty. These are just a few of the reasons so many like him and his playing. He is energizing and people can follow his meaning and intention.
He appeals to audiences; look at the Russians' heads bobbing up and down as he plays. Sadly, I hear none of that in his rare clarinet performances. He knows his saxophones inside out, but I suspect he is still something of a stranger to the clarinet.
Post Edited (2016-06-02 05:31)
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2016-06-02 04:49
Wow...I couldn't agree more with this, Bob. Thanks for expressing it so well. Excellent notice of the Bechet/avant garde legacy, gospels shouts...everything. This is really the way I feel about his playing too. It annoys me when he's left off critic lists of guys my generation. He's better than all of them, in my opinion.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: brycon
Date: 2016-06-02 04:50
Fair points, Eric. He does have a Don Byas type thing going on, which is fine. But his time feel sucks. He's way on top of the beat, and not in a way that Sonny or Joe Henderson would play over the beat: those guys mess with the time to create tension, so when they get back into it, it feels solid and swinging. Carter is always ahead of the beat and out of control for me.
I guess my distaste isn't the lick versus lines approach (which does annoy me, but I'm admittedly biased), but it's more the bad time and playing a quarter-tone flat--it's more offensive as a saxophone player than as a jazz musician, I suppose. And he does play bebop sometimes--the horror. Lol.
But I am with you on the Coltrane clones--enough is enough. I think the NY scene is changing, though. A lot of players are thinking more melodically and less Breckeresque pattern playing.
Post Edited (2016-06-02 04:52)
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2016-06-02 17:57
Interesting thoughts on the beat. Carter is definitely an extremist...and his pushing of the beat is second to none. There are times where he pushes it so hard, he comes back around on the other side behind it. That must drive you absolutely mad if you don't like it! I think this is conscious on his part, though, and just another Carterian way of messing with us. You'll notice that he does this regularly in reference to older jazz styles--he's one of the ONLY sax players of my generation who has anything interesting to offer regarding old tunes like "Farewell Blues", "Avalon", etc. The others can't even PLAY them. With changes that triadic, they inevitably stumble all over their erudite, convoluted, emotionally meaningless pattern babble and extended harmonic abstraction, and never push the beat--and I consider some guys you REALLY admire as pattern babblers, hiding behind extended harmonies.
I chuckle when people talk about the complexities of soloing on Wayne Shorter's tunes, for instance--to me they're brilliantly designed, and Wayne IS indeed an amazing composer. But what makes them "great" is that they are vehicles for soloists who don't want to hit any wrote notes. The way he extends everything, there are actually few wrong possibilities, so Wayne's tunes cover a multitude of sins....
Compare that to playing over 'Hindustan' or 'Farewell Blues' and you'll find that our post modern virtuosi can't come up with ANYTHING compelling melodically. All they have are their extended "scale colors" and esoteric mumblings. I think it's selling snake oil to the jazz intelligentsia, and no one wants to call them on it, for fear of looking too 'common' (or for fear that they'll be revealed as having nothing to say). But put Carter or someone who can really howl in front of an audience, or really play triadic, blues/diatonic solos on W.C. Handy, and it teaches that reality is always going to trump snobbery with the general public. This, in turn, will get him condemned as too commercial, and we're back to the circular firing squad that is jazz (haha...it doesn't pay to worry about it too much...just duck when the bullets fly...)
As for his sense of time, check out the evolution of rhythmic relationship to the beat--Carter is just showing us another way to go with it. Now, I wouldn't play the way he does--I'm not that extroverted a musical personality. But if you listen closely to Earl Hines (especially), Jimmie Noone, Sidney Bechet, et al, the preference to go behind the beat is NOT necessarily original or default in jazz, though it HAS been for a very long time.
I play with a fantastic musician who gets routinely misunderstood by rhythm sections. When he bursts into to anticipatory wildness, beatwise, rhythm sections panic and follow him. Totally wrong. When I started hiring him, I would keep a pretty tight grip on my rhythm section, making sure they didn't "follow", but let him have his free reign. The result is fantastic. Even he wasn't aware of what the "problem"was (there WAS no problem). Even when we work as a duo, if I hold the fort rhythmically, he never goes TOO far...but he pushes brilliantly. There is a lot of room to explore these things.
The flat thing...well I hate people playing flat...but JC isn't as bad as some respected players...he's kind of above and below pitch all the time, but I never heard him as predominantly flat (as some tenors). I could never stand Jackie Mclean's quarter-to-half-tone sharp sound...which is probably a shame, cuz it blocks me from listening and appreciating him...so I can get the allergy to a player on intonation basis. Sometimes Coltrane bothers me on that count too.
Ah well...this is a good one. Man, we need to get together. Some year.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2016-06-02 20:21
Thanks for the detailed discussion, guys. Nice recording, Eric.
I've posted before about one of my favorite recordings of Pete Fountain, that I spent many hours transcribing and many more studying- "Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans" Bravo 1992 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mimWHUWuaG4.
I was surprised some time back to compare this with Pete's LP recording of the same song from 1959- 33 years earlier- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsfihxhMY0I. Cool but IMHO not in the same league as the later clip. At first I just took the improvement to be the result of many years of playing the same tune over and over, and it getting gradually more complex and interesting.
Now I wonder if it's just a different setting- that he might have played it either way, or 1000 other ways, any decade and any place, as his mood or the crowd dictated. I consider that less likely- anybody here know?
Anybody care to defend the earlier clip as better, more authentic New Orleans, or even equal to the later one? Does my strong preference for the later clip reveal anything about my own style choices? Be nice, please.
And do the additions from old to new clip show any particular kind of influence- if they were really changes in Pete's style of play over time- were they from anybody else, or just his own creativity?
All this analysis is interesting but at some level I prefer to just play and see what comes out.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2016-06-04 02:35)
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2016-06-02 21:03
Two great performances by Pete, IMO.
If you listen to the sort of work Pete was doing in the late 50s, early 60's he had already played "Do You Know What It Means" a gazillion times by the he made the Coral recording, so I really think the idea was just to present it beautifully, with a ballad tempo. Pete was excellent at not over cluttering his ideas, especially when he went into the studio. Live is always a very different experience, especially if you know "okay, I've got fifteen minutes left in this set, so I might want to stretch this solo to three choruses right now" (every band leader does this, usually with some regularity on a gig). Or maybe he was feeling it and wanted to throw a lot to a receptive audience. Different crowds have different moods, and depending on how the room feels, you'll change what you do.
Having said that, I agree with your assessment that Pete continued to learn throughout his career, and his solos tended to reflect all the ideas that he continued developing. There's a Tonight Show performance of him playing "Just a Closer Walk With Thee", for instance, that is masterful, and I think really does show growth from his earlier recordings. So your theory is as good as any other. I'll tell you what though, I love that older Coral recording...I tend to think of it as almost the jazz clarinetist's manuscript for the tune.
Great recordings to think about and to hear again.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-06-02 21:15
The earlier recording was right after Fountain returned to New Orleans, ending his television show gig with Welk in Los Angeles. He was still playing a Leblanc LL instead of the Dynamic H he switched to a little later and he was really homesick and glad to be back in his native city. I recall that he was still quiet and rather shy, unsure of how to cope with his newfound fame.
The old performance is lyrical. He just plays the song tribute to his home town staight out with little variation and no grandstanding or technical fourish. After the piano chorus he comes back strong with a little "shout chorus" of his own but quicky slips back in to the main melody. His vibrato is heartfelt and moving; forget anything like "traditional New Orleans jazz"; he is just singing a favorite tune on the clarinet that he learned to play by ear. It might as well be a lullabye; not Lullaby of Broadway or Lullabye of Birdland, but Lullabye of New Orleans. He's being rocked in the cradle of his birthplace--there's no place like home.
The newer performance is more showy, florid, flashing with the sparkle of extended embellishment and improvisation and the confidence of fame and success but still melodically close to the tune. He is fluid and liquid. He grandstands a bit at the end. Neither performance could be called traditional New Orleans jazz. Both pianists have a later, "uptown" Ellingtonian approach and the bassists are doing a swing, walking kind of bass line. There are lines of influence of course connecting them to earlier jazz.
Both versions feature good jazz clarinet and are quite listenable. I prefer the first for its simplicty and directness. It's hard to just play a tune well, without elaboration, pomp and circumstance, flourish and chuzpa. Sometiimes it's nice to hear sweet singing and sweet swinging, like a lullaby.
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2016-06-02 21:18
Thanks for your quick reply. I'm very glad all of us have different musical tastes, and that each of us also changes over time (I like a lot that I used to dislike, not so much vice versa). Would be a very boring musical world otherwise. Same as I'm glad not everybody wants to live in southern CA (well, almost not everybody).
Another of my favorites all the way back to when I was 14 is "Tiger Rag" from Pete's 1967 LP "Music to Turn You On". (Can't find it on YouTube- maybe I'll have to post it.) That recording has much of the same kind of complexity I admire in "Do You Know..." from 1992. So Pete had much or most of it in him already by then, and album producers are notoriously restrictive of creativity- who knows how much choice he had in 1959 anyway? I guess it's good they aren't identical.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2016-06-03 02:15)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-06-02 21:35
I don't want to open another can of worms but I have to ask if it makes sense to somehow equate "creativity" with "complexity"? Aren't simply beautiful, ravishing things creative? Isn't the slow second movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto incredibly creative even though the overall arch of the melody takes precedence over any technical complexity? Aren't exquisitely rendered melodic lines creative? Isn't Gregorian Chant creative? They are certainly very hard to compose and very hard to play well. Even the slightest ripple or flub can ruin them. When I first heard Astrud Gilbero sing "The Girl From Ipanena" in that cool vibratoless voice as still as the blue tip of an iceberg totally without complexity or embellishment, I though "how creative!" Or Miles Davis' perfectly still performance of "My Ship" from the Miles Ahead album. If these are not creative, why aren't they?
Post Edited (2016-06-02 21:43)
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2016-06-02 21:50
My very favorite musical moments are slow and technically "easy" (of course they are not)- where the combination of the beauty of the composition and interpretation and the exquisite tone (whatever instrument) gives me cold chills. I cannot always predict what will strike me that way, but when it does... wow. For me personally it seems to always include the barely perceptible pitch variations that require a wind instrument- but somehow also happen on piano, go figure.
One consequence of this is my firm belief that if an instrument (combo with player) does not sound amazing on slow single notes*, there's no hope for high quality no matter how complex the performance. Same as in cooking, fabulous simple ingredients are required for fine complex dishes. Overly loud or embellished music to me is like overly spiced food- what are you hiding? Sure, let's start a quarrel- we need more of those here, LOL.
*This is a problem for all kinds of instruments, but especially for piano- since only a small fraction of them are anywhere close to this ideal, even factory fresh and tuned to perfection- not 1 in 100 public performance pianos are that good. I mean where you sit down and slowly play middle C... D... E... and go "wow". We live in a day where a pianist can bring a really good instrument to any setting. It was not always so.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2016-06-03 00:35)
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2016-06-04 02:34
Here's Pete playing "Tiger Rag"- from his 1967 LP "Music to Turn You On" https://youtu.be/0Eq-0qUmNRc. Compare to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-S5r0rwFu0 from the Lawrence Welk show 9(?) years earlier- clip says 1958.
Both are fabulous. I like the sound in the later clip better, and perhaps it is less complex? more settled and polished? Really I am in awe of both. Many riffs are identical or essentially similar. If you'd never heard either and knew no history, by sound you'd still know they were the same player.
I take both of these as evidence that the 1959 "...New Orleans" LP style was somebody's deliberate choice. I hope it was Pete's not some nameless record label hack. But hey, somebody's got to make sure the bills get paid.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-06-04 03:45
The 1967 version is commercial kitsch, but the 1958 one is brilliant-- rivaling in symmetry and form Alphone Picou's classic chorus on High Society. Check out the appreciation of the old one by William Ridenour. I didn't know Ridenour decided to play clarinet because of Pete Fountain!
Post Edited (2016-06-04 04:00)
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2016-06-04 04:57
Perhaps if somehow I'd been around the 1958 version in 1967 as much as I was the '67 LP version (which I must have played and marveled over 500 times once I discovered it- not a whole lot else intriguing on that LP)- I would share your preference. I wasn't looking for much music that wasn't readily available for purchase at Sage in Bellaire, TX, or from the RCA Record Club. And Floyd Cramer got 80% of my attention and music $$. Man that was a long time ago.
I don't care a whole lot for either backing- not a lot out of the Welk orchestra ever did much for me anyway, though I did watch and listen in the late 60's. I prefer the '67 LP arrangement, commercial and bland as it may be. I wonder how much input Pete had in it- my guess is not much. The 1992 Bravo clip though- I assume every musician and every arrangement is as Pete wanted it to be. If not, I'd wonder why not- if he couldn't get that at that point in his playing career, not much hope for anyone else to ever have any control.
While "surfing" around on YouTube, I found a kind of sad entry- look up "Pete Fountain surfer"- I don't even want to post the link here. Surely, surely, Pete did not want to do this, either that or he was just in a silly mood- I guess that's possible. But I'm sure this did nothing good for his career. To me it's like the bad Elvis movies and bad songs in them. Entertainers are often at the mercy of others, and they end up with the blame.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2016-06-04 05:16)
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The Clarinet Pages
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