Artie Shaw - Clarinet Method

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Artie Shaw was reluctant to talk about clarinet technique, and throughout the long course of his musical retirement, tended to stress an indifference to the clarinet itself. In many interviews he compared himself favorably to Benny Goodman, referring to the latter as a technician, while emphasizing his own, ostensibly more musical concerns. "I played music, he played the clarinet," is a famous summary of Artie's thought. Those who have listened critically to both men can only come to the conclusion that this was more of a Shavian evasion, or a continuation of the rivalry, than anything else. Both of them played the clarinet musically, neither was anything close to a mere technician, and neither of them was anything less than technically brilliant. Yet of the two, and despite his protestations, Shaw was actually more revolutionary in a technical sense. His range was superior to Goodman's, his control of the instrument more complete than any clarinetist on record, and his technique seemingly unprecedented. In the clarinet repertoire preceding him, one might find demonstrations of range comparable in the Spohr and Tausch concerti, but never the use of glissandi--the near complete flexibility that was Shaw's trademark. Accompanying this was a consistency of tone and fluidity of approach that seems to defy the rules of normal clarinetistry.Because of his expressed ambivalence towards the clarinet and technical discussions, I've often wondered if he even realized, fully, the degree to which his playing surpassed the models before him. We have no record of the great virtuosi of the 18th and 19th century, and therefore can't know what Heinrich Baermann or Franz Tausch would have sounded like--perhaps they also had Shaw's flexibility, and perhaps the use of portamento was common and unreported in solo repertoire. By the time Shaw hit the scene, though, there seems to have been no player able to do what he did. With these persistent questions (which are unlikely be fully answered), I was lucky enough to stumble across and purchase a copy of Artie's 1941 book on clarinet technique. These are so rarely on the market that, as of this writing, the only copy available on Amazon is offered for $295, a hefty price for a relatively slim, 89 page volume. Almost half of this book is still in print, in the form of two volumes entitled Artie Shaw's Jazz Technic. Volume 1 is a facsimile of the original Method's pages 38-63, while Volume 2 collects fourteen etudes found on pages 64-77. Missing from the current volumes are the opening exercises dealing mostly with diatonic scales and chords, and six transcribed solos with piano accompaniments at the end. The opening exercises are very instructive. While I don't possess an encyclopedic knowledge of method books prior to 1941, my collection has quite a few, and I've never seen one that works through each key by starting on each scale degree, successively, in modal style (even if this is not explicitly stated). In many ways this book looks like a harbinger for the later, popular saxophone method written by Joseph Viola. Also telling are the selection of transcribed solos, especially the inclusion of "Dr. Livingstone, I Presume" which contains Shaw's most open reference to Klezmer. This is made all the more significant for the odd fact that Shaw was later to disavow the tune as silly--and to distance himself from klezmer as such. Anyone who has read his autobiography, The Trouble with Cinderella, however, knows that Artie wrestled with his Jewish identity. This more or less constant contradiction in his life--boldly and even proudly putting forth obviously klezmer rooted music, such as Dr Livingstone and Nightmare--only to evade analysis of it as such should be treated, in my opinion, as neither disingenuous nor dishonest on Shaw's part. Instead, I believe he was a man who struggled with the weight of his own brilliance, and who didn't always understand the roots of his genius. The

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