Word: instruments
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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When the younger jazzmen did away with Dixieland and big-band swing and dove into the cool depths of bop and progressive jazz, they also left behind the sweet, lucid sound of the clarinet. Once known as an ill woodwind that nobody blows good, this relatively new instrument suddenly struck the U.S. mass ear in the 1920s in the hands of Ted Lewis, who made it wail, and reached peak popularity in the pre-World War II days of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, who made it swing. It is still a must in every Dixieland and New Orleans jazz...
Artie Shaw agrees. "The clarinet is a clear, positive instrument. Cool music has a tendency toward fuzziness. It depends on hints or suggestions rather than definite, clear-cut statements. Most so-called cool jazz seems to have evolved from music played in low ranges−trombones, tenor and baritone saxophones." Clarinetist Shaw is currently living in Spain, building himself a huge stone mansion on the Costa Brava, and talking about retiring to live...
...resonant belly and side walls, hard maple for back, neck and scroll. It is seasoned for 25 to 300 years. Testing for quality, the fathers twisted and tapped the wood as they worked it; their sons now listen with electronic ears and compute its acoustical properties. The instrument is put together with glue-also mixed for its resonant qualities-and at that point it is as mechanically perfect as it will ever be. But it will only last a few years unless protected by varnish-and the varnish, despite its unique softness and nonpenetrating qualities, destroys some resonance. Almost...
...violin is a thin, hollow wooden box with a long neck, a body shaped like a figure eight, and a capacity for more subtlety of expression than any other orchestral instrument. It was perfected in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries by craftsmen of the Amati, Stradivari and Guarneri families. Others have been trying to duplicate their masterpieces of workmanship ever since...
Russia's David Oistrakh to William Moennig Jr. during his U.S. visit: "I'd love to play one of your violins in my concerts, but I must use a Strad. Otherwise, if I made a mistake, people would blame it on the instrument...