Bass clarinet: Encyclopedia II - Bass clarinet - Bass clarinet in jazz

Bass clarinet - Bass clarinet in jazz

While the bass clarinet was seldom heard in early jazz compositions, a bass clarinet solo by Omer Simeon can be heard in the 1926 recording "Someday Sweetheart" by Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers.

Harry Carney occasionally played bass clarinet in some of Duke Ellington's arrangements, beginning in the late 1930s.

Eric Dolphy (1928-1964) was the first major jazz soloist on the instrument, and established much of the vocabulary and technique used by later performers.

While the bass clarinet has been used often since Dolphy, it is typically used by a saxophonist or clarinetist as a second or third instrument; such musicians include David Murray, John Surman, and James Carter. Very few performers have used the instrument exclusively, but one such performer is the Baltimore-based American musician and bandleader Todd Marcus.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Bass clarinet in jazz", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki