[Dixielandjazz] A slow start to the Million Dollar Question

[Charlie Hooks]

on 7/20/02 1:38 AM, Margaret Squires at margeaux@inreach.com wrote:

> Usually when I'm at a festival
> and hear a clarinet player that I like, I try to get close enough to the
> stage to see what he's playing on.

    So do I, and accost him afterward to be sure!  These things matter.

    
    Same Nick Opperman.  His brother Dave runs--or did run--the New
Reformation band from the piano.  They are both good friends, although I see
them less.  (New Ref was begun by Gary Miller, and thr guys have continued
the tradition very well.)

    Odd you should ask: I've played LeBlanc all my life until recently when
arthritis forced me to play a plateau clarinet.  I bought a new LeBlanc
"Symphonie" model in 1948 by accident: it happened to be what the guy had in
the store.  I could not have made a better choice!  For 315 dollars brand
new I bought an instrument so well in tune, with a beautiful feel.  I still
own it and will not part with it, although my fingers have now twisted off
the holes. Now it's Plateau clarinet or saxaphone forever, a no-brainer.

    In 1956 I was teaching English at Morningside College in Sioux City, IA,
which has an excellent music conservatory and at that time had Robert Lowrey
on the staff as clarinet professor.  He also preferred LeBlanc, and he
turned me on to the perfect mouthpiece for it--a medium lay 1955 model, off
center bore O'Brien glass crystal.  I played it until it finally shattered
in 1989.  It isn't replaceable, since the man who made it is long dead and
his son, the present O'Brien, seems incompetent.  But, even if its maker
were alive, no two glass mouthpieces are ever the same: I mmediately began
trying to replace it the year I bought it, just to have a spare.  Found I
could buy the identical markings, yet the two mouthpieces bore little
relation to each other. I had just lucked out again.

    But just last year I had occasion to see Shirley Mackie's mouthpiece
(Shirley is a top classical clarinetist and world famous woman composer),
and damned if she wasn't playing, yep, a 1955 OCB medium lay O'Brien!  I
almost attacked her for it! I'm still trying to get used to a Larry Coombs
model bakelite, and it's a good mouthpiece, but...

    I've used medium strength La Voz reeds since the year they were first
made, tried many others but always came back to La Voz.  I can take one out
of the box and it will play.  At U of Mich in A2 I bought a book on reed
making and learned (1) that I'd never spend the time to make a reed from a
blank, and (2) that I can do many things to a commercial reed that will
improve its performance.

    Abe Most agrees with me* that a good clarinet sound is partly a function
of the player's mouth, a high arched mouthroof preferable for a better
resonance chamber.  So part of my sound diminished when I got upper dentures
four years ago, although a specially constructed thin metal roof does help.
Truth is, horn playing is a very physical affair, and getting older doesn't
help a damn bit!

    Play while you can, Maggie!  Play while you can.

still trying,
Charlie

*I found that out by accosting him after a concert.