Bass Clarinet Excerpt: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story - "Cool"

[@BANDLDR]

“Jazz and jazzy are not the same thing.” 100% 👍🏼

[@BorschtBeltMama]

I loved the bad dude Bach image! And that is a brilliant suggestion to think about "potatoes and peas". You are a gifted teacher and a great stand up comedian.

[@kevinstrauss8020]

No one teaches an excerpt like you, and the Backun Q sounds fabulous.

[@toddreynolds]

Wow. No one teaches an excerpt like you. Fantastic video, Mr. Lowenstern.

[@davesummers3304]

Solid, delicious approach! My grandson will be watching this and enjoying your approach to swinging the heartbeat! Only downside, I'm watching you at 5:30 in the morning and now I'm already thinking about dinner!

[@markalanpalmer7787]

First Earspasm video of the year--finally 2024 can begin! Great lesson. Love those potatoes!

[@FrictionFive]

"Who doesn't love french fries???" Things about bass clarinet music I didn't know I needed to know!

[@solomonmakonnen3327]

Haven’t seen one of these types of videos from you in so long!!!!

[@clairegoguen622]

So adorable; you're one hell of a teacher ;-)

[@txsphere]

Mind blown. Genius!

[@mdickinson]

Shout out for van Gelder's Jubillee! Have had some memorable meals there over the years!

[@kennyfoster2837]

Very nice job teaching this excerpt! If you pay attention to your root vegetables, you can actually sound hip!

[@matthewsnyder6127]

The best thing to do is listen to the original 1957 Broadway cast recording of Cool and emulate the phrasing played there. Whoever edited this arrangement was clueless, because it did not have to be so misleading.

[@nilesloughlin6845]

I don’t think the arranger was clueless. Take a look at some musical theater pit books if you get a chance, or Alan Raph’s “Dance Band Reading and Interpretation.” A lot of this style of “big band” writing and playing was tacitly understood by musicians back in the day, writers and arrangers didn’t think they had to dictate out what was expected of players in the music, so they would just indicate the desired style. Younger contemporary players who are only raised in a classically-derived tradition don’t often learn the linguistic stylings and vocabulary of Jazz, so they don’t understand how to interpret or phrase music that was written for performers who did.

[@matthewsnyder6127]

@@nilesloughlin6845 If that was the case why did they mark those first three notes staccato? As Mike demonstrated, that is absolutely not how they are supposed to be played. In the jazz world, you would simply leave them without any articulation at all if you were assuming the musician would know how to play them. If you want try to show how to play them correctly to a classically-trained pair, put a legato under the first note, a light accent or staccato under the second, and so on.

[@ThomAvella]

ah, the decades-long tradition of classical and broadway arrangers not really knowing how to write jazz phrasing!

[@reedguy]

Great job, Mike! Your “shorthand” explanation is fantastic. I just played this recently…luckily our conductor, Dave Branter, is a superb jazz musician who is good at coaching jazz articulation for the “square” players. To make life easy and not have to “fight” the part, I re-wrote it. If clarinettists would like a guideline to correct jazz articulation, purchase Basic Jazz Conception for Saxophone by Lennie Niehaus, the bible for jazz articulation since 1966! Lots of exercises that focus on a single rhythm followed by etudes that mix them up. The included recordings have an alto sax backed by a drummer for the exercises and a full rhythm section for the etudes. There are Bb versions! I’ve used this with colleagues who have said they “can’t swing on a rope,” and they have been delighted! Warning: this WILL NOT WORK if you do not immerse yourself in listening to jazz every day! You could do worse than listening to Lennie Niehaus’ recordings from the fifties!

[@finnsclarinet]

Great video! Is there a chance you could do a video about the bass clarinet excerpts from the Afro-American Symphony by William Grant Still?

[@nilesloughlin6845]

Not familiar with that one and I’ve played bass most of my life, this would be good 👍

[@Jay-pk8zd]

I am a Frenchman, and I love potatoes...😅 cheers Michael

[@OConnorFlute]

❤❤❤❤

[@johnasti7429]

Saw you at NAMM. You're much taller in person.. BTW, the original instrumentation for Broadway (I've played 5 different verstions) Bass Clarinet is on a saxophone chair. But I like your idead of using "potato". Great example.

[@joaquinguerrero4987]

Why potato and not tomato? 🤣

[@FishingWithMason-wl8uj]

I’m a middle school student why am I practicing this lol

[@noubedenkmaareenswat]

Nice but …..‘Potato’? Why not use the word ‘Maria’ … the music was written to this text, wasn’t it? 🙂