Author: NOLA Ken
Date: 2022-05-20 18:02
A fellow community band member and I have come across an interesting matter than I'm going to throw out to see if anyone here can educate us about. We are both older amateurs who, living in New Orleans, of course had to acquire Leblanc Pete Fountain model clarinets in homage to our local hero. (Not the main instrument for either of us.) His is an earlier model, while mine is the model that just preceded the Big Easy model. Both were purchased used from dealers on that auction site.
My friend and I got to comparing notes and discovered that both of our instruments had arrived with unusually short barrels that cause the instruments to play very sharp. His is a Dynamic H barrel (PF signature on the bell), has clearly been cut down, and measures 52mm. While I cannot verify that the Leblanc barrel that came with mine is original, it measures 58.90mm and also appears to have been cut down. (There was also a 64.5mm Selmer barrel of unknown origin in the case when I got it.)
Neither of us are experienced jazz musicians. Is there something about either the jazz idiom or this clarinet model in particular that would explain the use of such short cut-down barrels?
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