I like the sound of the bass clarinet and there are many examples of it's effective use in jazz of course. One of my favourites is [Blues Bag] by Buddy de Franco and Art Blakey. I heard Buddy interviewed on the radio once, quite a few years ago, saying that he thought it was his best recording (to date, of course - perhaps he made some he liked better later) and yet some people looked askance when he said this. The album contains lots of interest IMHO, one is the presence of Freddie Hill on one track. Also Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller and Victor Feldman. but it's the bass clarinet sound that sets the tone and makes the album special.

Another example, the memory of which stays with me somehow, is David Murray playing "Elegy for Fanny Lou" - some sound - on [Ballads for the bass clarinet]. I don't know the other tracks - just heard it on the radio some years ago.

Any other interesting cases to cite?

Eric Dolphy!

Bass clarinet is one of my "axes", as it were. Sadly, I've been busy with school and live in an apartment with thin walls do I'm long out of practice.

Harry Carney played some great Bass Clarinet from the mid 50s.

...and Bennie Maupin's Bass Clarinet was very importan to Miles' Bitches Brew.

Too bad. I love that album. Love the bass clarinet, too.

Alastair Graham's take on Dolphy & his bcl

of more recent vintage:
Carlos Actis Dato
Louis Sclavis

both were featured on recent BFT disks.

(sorry not to write much more here, I seem to have a bout of RSI...)

Michel Portal is also damn good on bass clarinet.
But, of course, no one has made better use of the instrument than Eric Dolphy!

Eric Dolphy is, of course, the modern master, but there is one very interesting Tony Scott album where he plays lots of bass clarinet... This album has thankfully been reissued as I wore out my original Bethlehem vinyl. The album is part of the Avenue Jazz Bethlehem reissue series, and is "Milt Hinton: East Coast Jazz #5" and Tony is listed, for contractual reasons, I presume, under his real name, A.J. SCIACCA. Dick Katz on piano, and Osie Johnson on drums round out this lovely little quartet album.. highly recommended.

Also, Joe Temperley plays great bass clarinet, as well as being one of the best baritone sax players around today...

I didn't know that story about Blues Bag ... I think this is the one bass clarinet album I would take to the desert island, even before Dolphy.
I love that instrument, much more than the higher sibling.
Bennie Maupin is great on it, Marty Ehrlich, Bob Mintzer and many other play some great stuff on it. I will have to get me that Milt Hinton CD ...

Another favorite of mine:

One of the most relaxed swinging albums I have. Mann (as well as Jack Nimitz) also plays some bass clarinet on this:

Some good calls, already, and not much to add.
Scott's indeed very good on that Milt Hinton disc, Garth! It is actually the Tony Scott quartet performing under the name of Hinton, only, if I remember right.

Carney can be heard on bcl on one tune of his with strings date (which was reissued on Ben Webster's "Music for Loving", a 2CD set compiling Webster's with strings dates and some).

Quite a fan of Portal and Sclavis, too. Both together is even better!

Then, I think Dolphy is da man on bass clarinet, for me. His solo recordings of "God Bless the Child" are really something else!

On the "East Coast Jazz Series / 6", a date by Urbie Green, Al Cohn (as "Ike Horowitz") can be heard playing some good bass clarinet.

How about Coltrane? There's some on that rare "Cosmic Music" date.
Donald Garrett, the bassist and bass clarinetist playing in the later Coltrane bands (on the Seattle concert, for instance), has somehow never really gotten much love from me, he almost seems pedestrian, at times.

ubu

Who doesn't play bass clarinet this days?

Some favorites:

- Rudi Mahall
- Carlos Actis Dato
- Hans koch
- André Jaume
- Denis Collin
- Jacques Foschia
- Joe Giardullo
- Vinny Golia
- Avram Fefer
- Michael Moore
- Don Byron
- John Purcell
- Michael Marcus
- Marty Ehrlich
- Michel Portal
- Louis Sclavis

edit: corrections. Thanks N.D.

Anthony Braxton? I have to check my collection...

David Murray is a great bass clarinet player.

Check out David Murray's "Ballads for Bass Clarinet".

This one [East Coast Jazz Vol 6] also has "Ike Horowitz" (alias Al Cohn) playing bass clarinet as well as other instruments, and the album is known as [The Lyrical Language of Urbie Green] too. I had no idea of the alias - thanks for the info.

Eddie Daniels plays bass clarinet on [A Flower for All Seasons] too - duet date with Bucky Pizzarelli.

Carney's my favorite!

Murray may be among my favorites of the living. . . .

Thanks for the mention of Michel Portal...and KILLER player!

Have to agree with Lon on his choice....chitlins con CARNEY!

Check out Adam Kolker on Bruce Barth's <I>East & West</I> and Kolker's other stuff.

Chris Potter plays some great bcl.

Gary Smulyan is also a badass on bcl.

Obviously gotta give props to David Murray.

When I heard the Northwoods Improvisers in March, a veteran Detroit player named Mike Carey played some amazing bass clarinet- very fleet, bluesy, and often oblique. He was part of a three-horn section that also included Faruq Z. Bey and Skeeter Shelton.

John Surman (though I don't think he plays it much these days).

Gianluigi Trovesi

Love the instrument.

i really enjoyed great ideas of western man and will look for sultry seranade.

anybody know of any other mann recordings where he played bass clarinet?

There are a few bass clarinet tracks spread over his three Verve LPs recorded between the Riversides and the Atlantics. A good cross section is the Verve Jazz Masters 56 dedicated to Mann. The one live album of the three (Flautista, which has one with bcl) was reissued with two bonus tracks in the Verve By Request series - be aware it is a Latin Jazz album.

IIRC he abandoned the instrument when he started recording for Atlantic, and only took up the tenor for one LP in the mid-1960's.

My favorites are Eric Dolphy, and Bennie Maupin (primarily on Bitches Brew). With Eric there are so many phenomenal examples, but I think his solo on "Hat and Beard" is my favorite.

Guy

Eric's solo on "Aggression" from the Five Spot recordings.

Tim Garland plays it quite often and beatifuly.

Tim Garland

Check out his work here:



....and also his Storms/Nocturnes Trio with Geoff Keezer & Joe Locke





Very rewarding music.

Anthony Braxton on contrabass clarinet is particularly spectacular! It just sounds so meaty!

Marty Krystall takes some bass clarinet solos on Buell Niedlinger's Big Day at Ojai that I have enjoyed quite a bit.

Yes, I heard him with Bill Bruford's Earthworks a year or so back playing lovely bc. I saw him a couple of weeks back at the Appleby Festival - I can't recall him playing bc there.

This new disc of Garland's has some gorgeous bc:



Another UK player who regularly features bc is Julian Siegel - both on his own solo record and as a member of the band 'Partisans'.

Krystall is great - and wholly underrated, in my opinion. That is a cool record - Neidlinger has some very interesting arranging ideas, to say the least.

In addition to those already mentioned, Giuseppi Logan was a wild bass clarinetist, as heard on Roswell Rudd's Everywhere and his own composition "Shebar" (More Giuseppi Logan, ESP). Frank Wright takes some heavy solos on bass clarinet in his duos with Muhammad Ali, Adieu Little Man.

Breuker was already mentioned, but I'l mention him again, as well as Theo Loevendie.

I love the bass clarinet so much my own group has 2 bass clarinetists in it! After Dolphy, my favorite is Ben Goldberg, based in the Bay Area. A true master. You can hear his playing on a number of outstanding -- if, in some cases, hard to find -- albums under his own name, with the New Klezmer Trio, the cooperative group Junk Genius, and with composer/bandleader Graham Connah. They're all good.

A couple i would recommend to start with:

- New Klezmer Trio's Melt Zonk Rewire -- easy to find, on John Zorn's Tzadik label, and just a masterpiece, in my opinion. Amazing bass & Bb clarinet playing, and great originals. With Kenny Wollesen & Dan Seamans.

- Light at the Crossroads, co-lead with Marty Ehrlich (mentioned often above), on which both Ben & Ehrlich play bass & Bb clarinets. That would be a good one to check out, and a good starting place. Very accessible and gorgeous. Featuring the always astounding Kenny Wollesen/Trevor Dunn rhythm section.

nathan

I'm always happy when that ol' bass clarinet makes an appearance.

Dolphy's the man, of course.

I Like David Murray's way with the instrument, too. Ballads for Bass Clarinet is a favorite among his records.

I love DeFranco/Blakey Blues Bag. Pity he didn't pursue the instrument. I like his playing on the orthodox clarinet, but it can get a bit tinny...

I just saw Don Byron in Boston and he unleashed the bass cl to good effect.

Louis Sclavis, Gianluigi Trovesi...

Finnish born, New York bred Paul Austerlitz is an old cohort of our own Allen Lowe. He's on some of Allen's records and has his own: A Bass Clarinet in Santo Domingo and Detroit(X Dot 25), where he dabbles in Dominican music (Gonzalo Rubalcaba guests), as well as essaying Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz" and Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady."

Which reminds me that Harry Carney was a master of the instrument, too, as he demonstrates on the same tune as rendered on Masterpieces by Ellington(Columbia/Legacy).

TWO bass clarinets!

Having just one in my band would be a fantasy fulfilled.

I'm becoming more and more interested in klezmer. We've got some great bands in Boston.

I'll try to check out you recommendations. I need to hear more Erlich -- and I dig Wollesen

David Murray and Louis Sclavis did a marvellous two bass clarinet duo concert at the Bath Festival a few years back.

I don't know much Murray. I think the first I heard of him was on Kahil El'Zabar's 'Of Love and Dreams', and I was a bit equivocal about his slap-tonguing in particular. However, yesterday, I was listening to 'Clarinet Summit' (India Navigation) and there is an astonishing solo feature for Murray (it's a really nice album all round, in fact).

I'm on a buying sabbatical, but couldn't resist ordering the Ehrlich/Goldberg disc for $ 10 .....

$10...damn...that's great! I hope you dig it. It's a beautiful piece of work...the mournful take of Dark Sestina is worth $10 alone! Great tune (recorded by Ehrlich w/ Muhal Richard Abrams and probably elsewhere) and amazing playing.

Kalo, yeah, 2 bass clarinets is a lot of fun...incredible range! Immensely fun to compose for. Definitely my favorite instrument...if only I played it! Must be compensating.

Speaking of multiple bass clarinets, one of my band mates, Cornelius Boots, leads a bass clarinet QUARTET, if you can believe it! Not so much a jazz group, but amazing. (They refer to themselves as "Heavy Chamber Music".) They're called "Edmund Welles", and they're playing at Zorn's new club the Stone in NYC this Friday, if anyone out in NYC needs some bass clarinet. They're recent recipients of a Chamber Music America’s New Works: Creation and Presentation Grant, and they're playing an epic & extraordinary new work by Cornelius. The other players are Aaron Novik, Scott Hill, and Sheldon Brown. Highly recommended.

nathan

Marcus Miller

I've been fascinated with bass carinet for a while now and thought about buying one, but I don't know where to find a teacher or even how to start.

Bill

Not exactly sure what I want to say here, except...

I LOVE BASS CLARINET!

chico freeman plays a decent bass clarinet.
pharoah sanders sometimes plays an instrument that looks like a short soprano sax (or a clarinet? hard to tell), but it sounds like a bass clarinet.