[Dixielandjazz] Clarinet/Saxophone doubling

[Mark Bauer]

He's basically an older guy that doesn't want to practice.



-----Original Message-----
From: David W. Littlefield [mailto:dwlit at cpcug.org]
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 7:26 AM
To: Mark Bauer
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Clarinet/Saxophone doubling


At 07:02 PM 5/14/2004 -0600, you 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.

Clarinet is the standard, and soprano the changeup. However, look at your
real market: if what is traditional means less than creating excitement,
then use the clarinet for changeup.

I assume the reason your guy prefers soprano is that it's easier for him to
play, ie, he doesn't have clarinet fingers. If he's a younger guy and could
practice if he wanted, push him to work on finger exercises. And make sure
he's very explicit about why, just so you know what you've got to do.

--Sheik