Julian was here to do Master Classes in Victoria, Vancouver, Richmond and Langley.  We met 10 years ago and it was a treat to see him again. We had dinner with Brian Engstrom of Conn Selmer and I audited his master class at UBC, which was phenomenal!

Julian had said he would like to try a bass clarinet so I brought one of mine.  He explored it for about 1/2 hour after the class. It was amazing to hear someone go from novice bass clarinetist to accomplished in half an hour.  Talent isn’t everything, but when you have that kind of affinity for the clarinet it is really something!   Julian is incredibly  accomplished of course, but it is his charming personality and his understanding that classical music is still show business that puts him in a league of his own!  Next time he visits, dinner at my place!

I just received a new bass clarinet neck from Martin Suter of Das Blashaus in Switzerland. It was made to order (since he offers 18 models!) and took a couple of months. Well worth the wait! It makes the two stock Selmer necks (the best two out of 8 that I tried when I bought my instruments, and then had gold-plated) seem like pieces of tin.

This model is the HH2-SA-SG, meaning Heavy Heavy Steep Angle Selmer Gold Plated.   Heavy is not an understatement.  It is 72% heavier than the stock necks.   The inside of the neck is smooth as glass, unlike any stock neck and it is heavily reinforced from bending.   It sounds as beautiful as it looks….just like Morrie Backun’s barrels and bells.  The tone is firmer, richer and more resonant, especially at the extreme ranges of the instrument; intonation and articulation are also enhanced.

I’m ecstatic!

Jiwon You (clarinet), Belinda Wu (alto and tenor sax) and Fraser Jang-Milligan (alto and bari sax) all auditioned successfully for the Greater Vancouver Youth Music Academy Wind Ensemble.   Jiwon and Fraser are just in grade 8.  Jiwon just had six lessons and Fraser won her audition on bari, which she has only played for four months!   Fraser and her parents and I are now shopping for her own baritone sax!

These fine young players have beautiful tones and impressive musicianship that will be enhanced by participation in this fine ensemble.

Morrie Backun is making the bodies for an intermediate clarinet in his Vancouver plant and they have wonderful keyword installed in the Antigua plant in China.  What a collaboration!  This is a magnificent instrument.  The clarinet is wonderful by itself, but I have put a MoBa cocobolo bell and barrel in the case, as well as a Grenadilla Backun 9 bell (which is not available anymore, a real heavyweight bell with a darkly warm sound), a Cocobolo Fatboy barrel and four different Backun Protege barrels.  Talk about pimping your ride!  (If that is not enough, I also have a Leblanc by Backun resin Bliss clarinet for outdoor work and have a MoBa bell and barrel, a wooden Bliss bell and barrel and four more Protege barrels in THAT case….I’m just a sucker for lots of tonal options….)

OK, I’m a fanatic.  Joel Jaffe, who handles marketing for Backun Musical called and offered me one of the MoBa grenadilla prototypes.  I’ve been playing cocobolo clarinets for two years now, but this grenadilla instrument is so superior in sound to any other grenadilla clarinet that I just had to have it.  So now I have a matched set of MoBa clarinets, one in each wood.  Preliminary testing seems that I will use grenadilla for orchestral work and cocobolo for chamber music.    Every day in the studio, I have to choose which one to play…what a divine quandary!

I’ve just purchased the very first Morales-Backun clarinet, serial number MB100, in cocobolo with gold keys. This is one of the many rich benefits of my 25 year friendship with the amazing Morrie Backun and his family. First performance will be this weekend at the Eugene Rousseau master class where Debbie Webb, Roy Sluyter and I are performing Max Bruch’s Three Pieces for clarinet, alto saxophone and piano.

As wonderful as the instrument sounded in the shop, it is even more amazing in my studio where I know the soundspace. Although though it is brand new to me, it is making the Bruch easier technically because of the rock solid keywork. It is wild that the horn is both firmer and sweeter in tone and also more centred and responsive. It is hard to say what I like best, but the entries from nowhere and diminuendos al niente are just sublime.

I had the most heart-warming experience over the last few months. A friend of a friend contacted me regarding some used instruments….I had played at her wedding a few years ago. Her Dad took up the clarinet in retirement, and had passed away a few years ago. The clarinets were quite old and had not been played in quite a few years, and she didn’t know what to do with them. I had a look at them, and they were a matched orchestral set of A & Bb Buffet clarinets from the 70’s (same vintage as my first professional instrument.) They needed a complete overhaul, but the wood looked good to me…so we started the “Lattey Clarinet Project.” Sandro Massullo quoted us $2400 for the overhaul work including a new double case and Christine Lattey agreed that she would give them to a deserving young player for the cost of the overhaul…a really good deal. A few months later and they were ready for trial. The instruments turned out great and Danny Lee, the principal clarinetist of the Surrey Youth Orchestra was the lucky young clarinetist! Christine and her sister were there with me when Danny tried them out. He loved them…and his mom, little sister, the Lattey sisters and I were all darn near in tears of joy. We will be going to Danny’s concert with the orchestra in May to hear them in performance for the very first time in over a decade!

I just returned from Toronto, where I was inducted as Champion of Music Education along with Phil Nimmons and Chuck Daellenbach, amongst others. It was humbling to share the stage with some long-admired artists and a total gas to enjoy the enthuiastic and charming Eric Peterson as MC. I brought a young student with me to perform and she stole the show! Check us out!

The new Rico Reserve Classic clarinet reeds designed by Mark Nuccio of the New York Philharmonic are the best cane reed I’ve ever played. The cane itself is as fine a quality as I’ve ever seen and Mark’s design is responsive, warm and ringing in sound with superb articulation. I gave all my other reeds away….what more can I say? I mentioned them to the divine Erika Block a few days ago…and she was already on them!

Even more exciting…there is a Bass Clarinet version and I’m awaiting samples to test.

….and….my samples of the new Legere Alto Sax Signature reeds arrived two days ago. They are as magic as the Tenor reeds and I have 42 more of them on the way!

I really cannot find a reed I like as much on saxophone as Légère. It started with Bari sax reeds…there is no good cane Bari reed, in my opinion. I’m not one of those players who complains about reeds. I get 8 out 10 performance reeds out of a box through good seasoning and simple adjustments. There are lots of good manufacturers and Rico in particular has come a long way in the past few years. Tom Alexander’s Superial reeds have been a revelation. South America and Australia have started producing decent cane. Vandoren has always been the industry standard for me, though, and I’ve always circled back to them…but no more…not on saxophone.

I carry every premium reed in my studio, and all my students and all the players in Sax Noir have chosen Légère. It sure is nice to spend every lesson teaching saxophone instead of adjusting reeds (although I hasten to add I would never choose a reed out of convenience, only for sound.)

No one makes a good bari sax reed except Légère. They are either a poor design or poor cane or both. So, I changed to Légère on Bari and eventually all the other saxophones followed. Robust, dark, warm, clear and fantastic stability in the upper register. Great articulation. I did not miss the “grain” of a cane reed on saxophone, although I do on clarinet. Then Légère issued the Signature Clarinet reeds, and they are so much like cane that it is spooky!

Now come the Signature Tenor sax reeds, and as much as I have liked the standard product, these babies are amazing. I did not feel that the slightly grainy woody sound of cane was essential for the saxophone sound, but now that these synthetic reeds have a touch of that, they are even nicer. I just cannot wait for the Soprano, Alto, Bari, Bass Clarinet and Eb clarinet versions!

FYI, they play 1/4 strength softer than Vandoren Blue Box.