Prof Braxton, surprisingly enough, plays both Bb clarinet and flute on the Merkin Hall duo with Richard Teitelbaum on electronics, recorded in 1994, long after I thought he'd more or less abandoned these instruments. (I think he decided to pull out everything he had for this gig on account of RT having such a massive range of sampled and synthetic sounds.)

And, while we're listing clarinets, there are plenty more to choose from: above the "normal" Bb model there are instruments in C, D and Eb and a sopranino in Ab, and below the Bb there's the basset horn in F and alto in Eb before you get to the bass, and then the contraalto in Eb between the bass and contrabass. And that's only the ones in current use: going back a century or two, as our resident clarinet expert Mr Sudden will tell us, there are many more different ones.

The Dolphy transcription wasn't actually done specifically for Sparnaay for what it's worth (which I'm not sure is very much)...


In fact there's no chance involved: the cylindrical bore is indeed the crucial difference, leading to the clarinet's characteristic harmonic spectrum. But if I'm at the airport and a security person is proud of identifying my contrabass clarinet as a saxophone I just agree and pass swiftly on.

I would hesitate to say that clarinet fingering is 'more difficult' - the French-system clarinet has fewer cross-fingerings; the work of the little fingers is much simpler on the French-system clarinet since because nearly everything's duplicated there's rarely any need for sliding. You do have to think differently because a C overblown isn't a C any more, but the actual work the fingers (as opposed to the brain) need to do is easier I would say.

I want to re-iterate Jimmy Giuffre and now I have done so.

I cannot believe, sometimes, the range of this musician. He seems to have never stopped trying new things. Also hard to know when he started trying them.

Good night!

Bassoons and oboes are effectively conical-bore instruments, in fact - the nature of the double-reed setup makes a conical bore practically a necessity although there are exceptions (the main one being the sordune since you ask. Oh, oops, it seems you didn't ).

The little finger keys on a simple-system clarinet (and for that matter in the Albert system, and even the fully modernised Oehler which German orchestral players use - and some of their jäzzers like Oliver Leicht) are certainly very like a saxophone's in operation. That's why those clarinets often have rollers to facilitate movement between the little finger keys.

But the French system I was talking about is the Buffet-Klosé system as patented in 1843. Instead of needing to put down the C key as well (I'll use the second-register pitches because then the saxophone relationship is clearer) for B or C#, the B and C# keys automatically depress the C key as well, allowing for the duplication of all three keys so that they can be operated by either little finger on its own. That system works so well that the French-system keywork has barely changed since then - my 'modern' instruments have only one key that the 1843 patent doesn't have. The 1843 French clarinet can play as comfortably in any key as any other woodwind instrument even today - and can indeed play almost all the quarter-tones throughout its range. It's a damn fine piece of design - if there's one thing wrong with it it's that its efficiency has deterred further experimentation...

Sorry, nothing to do with jazz. I'll get me anorak.

[there followed a certain amount of discussion concerning a recent performance of Member Barrett's interference. This has been moved here.]

That looks like one of those Braxton diagrams, KK! (you know, evolution of processes > imaginary state models > formal scheme evolution and all that jazz) ...