Walking in Benny Goodman’s footsteps

Jennifer K Mahal

The voice on the phone has a laugh in it. In good humor, Richard

Stoltzman remembers the night Benny Goodman came to his Carnegie Hall

concert.

“I dedicated some of the music in the concert to him,” said the

clarinetist who will play as part of the Eclectic Orange Festival next

week. “I didn’t expect him to come.”

Before beginning, a nervous Stoltzman acknowledged Goodman’s presence

in the balcony. While the audience gave a standing ovation, Stoltzman

anxiously twisted his clarinet apart, sending parts rolling toward the

edge of the stage.

“I was terrified,” he said of chasing his instrument in black tie and

tails. “Luckily no one saw me do this. Everyone was looking at Benny. It

was not a good time.”

After the concert -- which the then-thirtysomething “got through” --

Goodman said “Man, you play some of that stuff too fast.”

Stoltzman, 59, probably won’t play too fast during his Wednesday and

Friday concerts, each of which emphasizes a different side of Goodman’s

musical choices -- one classical, the other swing. The Wednesday concert

also features wife and violinist Lucy Stoltzman and pianist David Deveau.

David Warble and his big band orchestra will play with Richard Stoltzman

on Friday.

“To bring together Benny Goodman’s classical music along with the

Benny Goodman we all know and love -- it’s just a very good way to get to

experience both sides,” said Sandy Robertson, vice president of the

Philharmonic Society, which puts on the festival every year.

Most people don’t realize that “The King of Swing,” who died in 1986,

was classically trained and commissioned some of the greatest clarinet

works in classical music.

Stoltzman, who became the first wind player to get the Avery Fisher

Prize in 1986, played Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto and Bartok’s

Contrasts for years without realizing that Goodman had commissioned them

both -- Copland in 1947, Bartok in 1938.

“The idea that we sort of separate classical and jazz is so silly,”

the two-time Grammy Award winner said. “The Bartok commission is full of

jazz riffs and fold rhythms and the Copeland, some of his markings are

with humor -- sauve, crude plaintive -- all kinds of things that are

evocative. Not the stereotype of a classical piece.”

On the other hand, while the big band works have a beat, there are

also pieces such as Leonard Bernstein’s “Prelude, Fugue and Riffs.”

“It’s a complicated, fascinating counterpoint of colors within the big

band,” Stoltzman said. “Some of the music of ballads have the same kind

of perfection that we expect from Mozart.”

And Goodman was a perfectionist, Stoltzman said.

When he died, he was found fully dressed on his bed with his clarinet

and the music for his Mostly Mozart concert in New York’s Lincoln Center.

He had been practicing, said Stoltzman, who ended up subbing for Goodman.

The father of two said he never thought that he’d be a professional

clarinet soloist when he grew up.

“When you think about it, who was the role mode?” said the man with a

bachelor’s degree from Ohio State and a master’s from Yale. “If you were

good and lucky and practiced a ton, you could get a job in an orchestra.”

Stoltzman’s first exposure to the clarinet came through his father,

who loved big band music and was always hoping to play professional tenor

sax. In those days, Stoltzman said, to play sax, you had to double on the

clarinet.

The clarinet in the Stoltzman household was kept in a little pouch

under a bed, where the little boy found it one day.

“It was very nice. You could roll it around,” Stoltzman said. “And

then my dad caught me and instead of punishing me, he decided ‘hmm, maybe

I’ll have some talent.’ So he got me a clarinet when I was little -- one

that was all metal so I couldn’t break it.”

Father and son played together in church, reinforcing the choir.

“So my first experience was basically playing along with voices,” he

said.

Stoltzman met Goodman through Mel Powell, Goodman’s former pianist who

taught music composition at Yale.

“Mel just said, ‘Do you know Benny? Would you like to meet him?”’

Stoltzman said.

That question led the young clarinetist, who had thoughts of becoming

a junior high school music teacher, and his friend, pianist Bill Douglas,

to Goodman’s New York loft. The duo played for the maestro, performing a

piece by Douglas and then a modal piece on which they began to improvise.

“Benny stopped us and said, ‘What the heck are you guys doing?’ We

said, ‘Improv.’ He said, ‘Jesus, sounds like Brahms to me.”’ Stoltzman

remembers.

It was the start of a mentorship, which had Stoltzman occasionally

visiting Goodman and playing with him.

“He would invite me to his apartment and pull out these old books of

duets for clarinets,” he said. “Outside of his penthouse was a glassed-in

area, like a greenhouse. I remember he had on [a smoking jacket] and we’d

play duets. . . . Not in public, just for him. He just wanted to do it. I

was in awe to be able to sit there and play there with him.”

FYI

WHAT: Benny Goodman: Classical

WHEN: 8 p.m. Wednesday

WHERE: Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine

COST: $20-$29

CONTACT: (714) 740-7878 or o7 https://www.eclecticorange.org

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WHAT: Benny Goodman and the Big Band era

WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday

WHERE: Segerstrom Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town

Center Drive, Costa Mesa

COST: $20-$35

CONTACT: (714) 740-7878 or o7 https://www.eclecticorange.org

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