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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.

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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:

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

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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?

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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.

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Tim Garland plays it quite often and beatifuly.

Tim Garland

Check out his work here:

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

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Very rewarding music.

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:

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

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

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.

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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

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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... :tup

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).

Edited by Kalo
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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

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

Edited by Kalo
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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).

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$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

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