The Book Of Jazz - online reference book

Its Nature, Instruments, Sources, Sounds, Development & Performers

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	The Anatomy of Improvisation                                                227 benny goodman / Slipped Disc fAIRlY FAST
	The final four measures, again using the device of repetition with rhythmic revision, give an effect of tremendous tension that is further heightened by the leap out of this phrase into the high D and then to the B Flat in Measure 16 that actually forms a link to the first phrase of the next sixteen measures. Though speed and technique clearly are not musical virtues in themselves, part of the enjoyment of a performance such as this is derived from the facile flow of ideas at a challenging pace; the same solo at half the tempo would lose most of its meaning. This holds true of many of Goodman s most moving solos. The peerless control that made Goodman unique has seldom been challenged in jazz. One of the few clarinetists to offer a comparable mastery of the instrument, adapted in his case to the bop idiom, is Buddy De Franco. In the example chosen* Monogram, De Franco exemplifies mental and muscular control brought to bear on an ad lib blues at fast tempo. This is his