 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: hans
Date: 2025-01-07 06:07
I just watched this for the first time and thought there might be other BB members who haven't seen it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZWnu8JkqUA
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2025-01-07 09:06
Thanks for posting! I think I heard this around the time of its recording. Artie was an opinionated and rather polarizing personality (not withstanding his ability to play jazz on the clarinet).
I like his characterization of the music business:
"The Business is riddled with mishigas."
As far as popular music goes, truer words have never been spoken. I think though his characterization of being driven crazy by the demand to keep doing the thing you're popular for doing, depends a lot on the person and the situation. I do some staging work and hear a lot of "nostalgia" concerts. In them the "aging" stars do their greatest hits. One would suppose that this repetitive work is where they are making the money that is probably the greatest motivator for their latest tour. Some folks can enjoy "repertory" work like that, some can't. I think the classic players amongst us are better at that.......you're gonna play Beethoven 5 and Dvorak 9 a lot during your career (and you'd better maintain your sanity while you do!).
If you want to learn more about Artie the man, read his books "The Trouble With Cinderella," and "I Love You, I Hate You, Goodbye."
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: jim sclater
Date: 2025-01-07 15:06
In vol. 50, #3 of The Clarinet there is a reprint of a portion of Henry Duckham's interview with Artie Shaw. Very interesting stuff. Interesting man, seemingly a thoughtful, complex man.
He said "People are always asking me what mouthpiece I used. I never did know. I just hunted around until I found one that felt reasonably good." His idea of a consummate clarinet player was Daniel Bonade.
jsclater@comcast.net
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Author: ruben
Date: 2025-01-07 20:17
Jim: Jimmy Hamilton didn't know what mouthpiece he was playing either. I asked him and he said: "I think it's the one that came with the instrument."
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: graham
Date: 2025-01-07 20:41
I recently saw an interview with Goodman in later life, and he was asked which classical players he admired. He gave Leister, then agreed to Kell, when prompted by the interviewer. But he couldn’t think of any other names, though he seemed to be reaching for a name that had slipped his mind. I found Leister an odd choice from his perspective, though Leister was famous at the time. Kell hadn’t played for years by then of course.
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Author: symphony1010
Date: 2025-01-07 23:52
Artie Shaw is fascinating. It sets your brain alight when you hear him speak or play. I've never quite understood how he played so high with what sounds like a soft, easy setup.
I thought he was rather hard on Goodman which, after enjoying so much of this, led me to want to challenge him on why he couldn't break out of the straitjacket he found himself in. He had enough money to try any new direction he wanted but said he always needed the audience to be with him. This seemed somewhat at odds with his statement that music would always come first - then why not play what you want and believe in and to hell with the audience? Enough other people do it!
At the end of it all I listened to his Summertime rendition which I enjoyed and hadn't heard before.
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Author: David Eichler
Date: 2025-01-08 04:07
"I thought he was rather hard on Goodman which, after enjoying so much of this, led me to want to challenge him on why he couldn't break out of the straitjacket he found himself in. He had enough money to try any new direction he wanted but said he always needed the audience to be with him. This seemed somewhat at odds with his statement that music would always come first - then why not play what you want and believe in and to hell with the audience? Enough other people do it!"
Many of the pre-bebop jazz players did not evolve beyond the type of playing which the became established players. Even more modern players like Charlie Parker and Bud Powell did not evolve once they found their style. Dizzy Gillespie did evolve somewhat, but it was really with the younger beboppers like Miles and the players he worked with in his groups that jazz started to adopt more rapid evolution, with individual players continuing to evolve and taking creative risks that might alienate of of their audience. As a jazz player, Benny Goodman was fundamentally a popular musician who wasn't willing to stray from that and risk losing his audience. Goodman was much more adventurous in the Classical realm.
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Author: hans
Date: 2025-01-08 04:39
Paul,
FWIW, Artie also wrote "The Best of Intentions".
IMO Vladimir Simosko's Shaw biography gives some useful insights as well, although Artie's equipment received very little discussion.
Re: mouthpieces, in Artie's book (written in collaboration with Arnold Brilhart) he gives mouthpiece advice and I have attached the page.
Also attached is the interview video transcript, for those who prefer to read it.
Hans
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Author: hans
Date: 2025-01-08 04:44
I seem to have failed the attachment procedure. Trying again.....
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Author: ISM
Date: 2025-01-08 04:59
David,
What do you mean about Goodman being adventurous in the Classical realm? I have recordings of him playing several of the chamber music standards, and frankly, in my opinion as a hobbyist clarinetist, they would not have been recorded and distributed if it weren’t for his big name.
Imre
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2025-01-08 05:22
Boy do I wish Seabreeze was still frequenting the bboard to provide his perfect examples about Goodman et al. Seabreeze had the perfect demonstrative points for this discussion.
Lacking that - I won't venture into the debate of Artie's musicality/technique, etc - as many of us buy into one camp or another because someone we looked up to believed in that specific camp.
What struck me about this interview is how terribly unhappy Artie seemed at this point in his life. A string of wrecked marriages, and a life apparently aimed at self instead of selflessness. He seems very conflicted in this interview (and his outlook on life) and contradicts himself many times over in his examples during this interview (parts 1 and 2).
I genuinely feel sorrow for the guy. To have been so happy on the rise, and so miserable from that point on to his grave.
Some nice points were made in the interview, and I appreciate the share, but it sure makes me sad to see anyone with such a dour (sometime condescending) outlook on life.
One of the pros I know was leading his own band when he realized Artie had come in. Artie stayed for the remainder of the set, and the pro said he expected Artie to come give him the Artie treatment...so he braced himself as Artie approached the stand..."You sound pretty good, kid."
The pro told me, "I didn't know if I should feel insulted or not - I was expecting to receive the patented tear-down, and all I got was 'You sound pretty good, kid!'"
Fuzzy
;^)>>>
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Author: David Eichler
Date: 2025-01-08 06:14
"What do you mean about Goodman being adventurous in the Classical realm?"
https://interlude.hk/the-modern-patron-benny-goodman/
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Author: symphony1010
Date: 2025-01-08 10:11
Whatever the positives or negatives around Goodman we should be eternally grateful for his commissioning of some of the best music for the instrument.
I heard him give the first performance of Malcolm Arnold's 2nd concerto in the 80s in London. He also played the Mozart and then players from London's jazz fraternity joined him at the end for some wonderful numbers to conclude.
In case people here haven't heard it, here is a broadcast from the 80s introduced by Jack Brymer in his own inimitable style: -
https://youtu.be/JYip3q4FSK4?si=zhWWMM93Y1u1Yf52
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