[Dixielandjazz] all I know about clarinets

[Charlie Hooks]

Edgerton wrote:

> 
> Do you have any suggestions to guide me in my half-hearted quest for
> clarinet nirvana? Or am I doomed to a life of choosing between a tractable
> but uninteresting Yamaha and a lusty but demanding LeBlanc? (Are these
> clarinets or women?)
> 


    Sounds as though you already know more about the clarinet field than I
do.  I pretty much stayed with my LeBlanc "Symphonie" model with the 1955
ocb medium lay O'Brien crystal that played beautifully in tune with just the
sound I wanted, although I would have preferred staying with the old Albert
system I started on.  I have, and on occasion will try to play in parades,
an Albert Eb that can sound like a piccolo trumpet!  It may be that the
Albert sound is what you're after, but let's hope not: they're too damn hard
to learn in later years.  They're even too hard to REMEMBER in later years!

    I've had some success with changing to a different barrel on the Selmers
I play now (that my LeBlanc is just worn out in the joints--like me). Chuck
Hedges swears that the proper barrel makes all the difference; but trouble
with Chuck is, whatever barrel he's playing at the moment is "the perfect
one," and tomorrow he'll have changed to an even more "perfect" one. Before
meeting Chuck, I never knew there were so many shades of perfection!

    Then there's a chance that different mouthpieces will do the trick, but
that's also conjectural.  Years ago, when the original old man OBrien was
alive, I used one of his #5 (his widest) opening to play without an amp in
the Boll Weevil Jass Band, a Turk Murphy style hard blowing bunch, and I
could stand up there an blow right with them.  Trouble was, it soon killed
my chops and gave me intonation problems.  The guys all loved it, but I soon
went back to the medium lay.  Once you start the mouthpiece search, it never
ends.  So I've adopted Gene Bolen's attitude: he explained his policy. "Piss
on reeds!"  I now just put one on the horn and blow it.  Question is, who is
master, it or me?  Maybe the same with mouthpieces, but I think not.

    ..."the Selmers I play now..."!  Nope.  The ones I DID play until a year
ago when twisty-finger arthritis made me go to a plateau clarinet unless I
want to spend the rest of my life playing saxaphone.  I don't.

    Sorry I can't be of more help, but writing about it is fun.

    Charlie