[Dixielandjazz] Clarinet/Saxophone doubling

[Mark Bauer]

We try to sound as traditional as we possibly can and I'll admit that there
are a lot of tunes in our book where soprano sax would fit in very nicely.
Thank you for your input.

MB



-----Original Message-----
From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
[mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com]On Behalf Of david
richoux
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 10:59 PM
To: dixie
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Clarinet/Saxophone doubling


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
>
>


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