Hi Frogman: I'm glad you responded for I can tell you know your clarinet stuff.
Granted, Stolzman (or RCA/BMG) has elevated the visibility of the clarinet to the great unwashed. It makes me wonder that if RCA/BMG had backed Eddie Daniels would not the same thing have happened for an even better reason. Frankly, I think Daniels is just a better clarinet player, and that would include classical. On recordings, Daniels hasn't been given enough opportunity to prove his classical chops, IMHO. I first heard him with Thad Jones/Mel Lewis live in 1966 at the Village Vanquard in New York and I knew he was something special, dueling, as it were, on tenor, with the late, great Joe Farrell. Hell, I didn't even know then that clarinet was his principal instrument. I learned later that one of his teachers in New York was Joe Allard, a clarinet teacher legend, which probably accounts for that marvelous sound. Last spring I heard Daniels give a workshop up front and personal at Rice University and the sound and technique he got out of that instrument was just incredible. If you ever had the misfortune of hearing the Stolzman recording with the Woody Herman band you'd know that 'caution' is Stolzman's best friend. Cheez, it's embarrasing. Frogman, you are indeed lucky (you must have been on the staff) to hear Drucker play the Copland that many times in that short a time. I just wish I could hear Daniels play it once, on a recording, but nobody's biting. I asked him.
Granted, Stolzman (or RCA/BMG) has elevated the visibility of the clarinet to the great unwashed. It makes me wonder that if RCA/BMG had backed Eddie Daniels would not the same thing have happened for an even better reason. Frankly, I think Daniels is just a better clarinet player, and that would include classical. On recordings, Daniels hasn't been given enough opportunity to prove his classical chops, IMHO. I first heard him with Thad Jones/Mel Lewis live in 1966 at the Village Vanquard in New York and I knew he was something special, dueling, as it were, on tenor, with the late, great Joe Farrell. Hell, I didn't even know then that clarinet was his principal instrument. I learned later that one of his teachers in New York was Joe Allard, a clarinet teacher legend, which probably accounts for that marvelous sound. Last spring I heard Daniels give a workshop up front and personal at Rice University and the sound and technique he got out of that instrument was just incredible. If you ever had the misfortune of hearing the Stolzman recording with the Woody Herman band you'd know that 'caution' is Stolzman's best friend. Cheez, it's embarrasing. Frogman, you are indeed lucky (you must have been on the staff) to hear Drucker play the Copland that many times in that short a time. I just wish I could hear Daniels play it once, on a recording, but nobody's biting. I asked him.