[Dixielandjazz] Clarinet/Saxophone doubling

[Russ Guarino]

The soprano sax is much easier to play than the clarinet and that could be
a determination for many players, outside of musical flavor considerations.

Russ Guarino

david richoux wrote:

> 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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