[Dixielandjazz] Clarinet/Saxophone doubling

[david richoux]

The sax vs. clarinet thing is a big deal for a lot of bands (probably 
goes back to the early rift between Sidney Bechet and everybody else) 
but for "And That's Jazz" it seems like our reed man Al Flood plays 
clarinet and fish-horn about equal time with a bit of tenor sax if the 
song seems to call for it and that works for us. I think that Bob 
Murphy of the Natural Gas plays soprano sax exclusively but there are 
few that would complain that  band is not "Trad!"

My personal take on this is to let the flavor of the song guide the 
instrumentation (if you have the option) - what does your band WANT the 
song to sound like and is it a clarinet song or a sax song?  If 
everybody else in the band suggests that a particular horn be used then 
I would hope that the reed player would take the hint!

Dave Richoux
On May 14, 2004, at 6:02 PM, Mark Bauer wrote:

> In my dixieland band that I play in, The reed player does play some
> clarinet(almost none really) but mostly he plays soprano sax. Soprano 
> sax in
> a dixieland band completely changes the timbre in my opinion. He does 
> play
> clarinet on the tunes he has to, but my question is this: How much 
> saxophone
> is too much for a traditional dixieland jazz group? In other words 
> should he
> be at least playing clarinet on 2/3rds of the tunes or should the 
> soprano be
> broken out just once and awhile? Any help and advice you guys could 
> give
> would be helpful.
>
> MB
>
>