OR: CLARINET THING AT MITCHELL PARK, FEBRUARY 25, 2020 FULL CONCERT (67 MIN) These are times that try something novel, here in the mediated consciousness stream of my fellow music lovers and coronavirus resisters.
I do believe that our inclination to gather in groups of 200 and listen carefully is instilled and ingrained, after five billion years of evolution – I too am descendent from single cell creatures, RNA and yes the germs.
Plus my raison de etre appreciates live music over the recording industries. But since we did archive the 2/25/20 concert by Clarinet Thing at Mitchell Park Community Center El Palo Alto Room, with a discussion of how to commercially market it some day– to press 4,000 copies and or sell downloads online — we might as well let you enjoy it in the mean and at times very mean, cruel, whiles.
In terms of getting back to the path I’ve been on for 26 years as a concert promoter and you my fellow homo sapiens sapiens and hep cats, like I said for thousands of years, we shall see: Not all the cards have been dealt.
The band comprises: Beth Custer, Ben Goldberg, Sheldon Brown, Harvey Wainappel. There is herein within hearin’ a tribute to former band member Ralph Carney, an original song by Sheldon. The rest of the song is associated with Duke Ellington. The players add other comments about arrangements and influences: Steve Lacy, Billy Strayhorn, RR Kirk. Crew is John Lee sound – -actually the sound for the room was natural, he ran the recording mics. Mark Weiss and Terry Acebo Davis tore tickets at the door and put out the chairs. — this was before social distancing was a thing. (Although sadly and ironically, we learn now that eight members of a Mardi Gras Zulu krewe 2,200 miles away later succumbed to the Covid-19. As of this writing there are about 100 deaths in Santa Clara County, population just under 2,000,000 and the curve seems to be bending.

Caravan arranged by “our dear friend Rob Reich” Lotus Blossom arranged by Harvey Wainappel Billy Strayhorn Echoes of Harlem — the very first thing we learned together as a group; we formed in 1989. Beth says. Black and Tan Fantasy arr by Sheldon Brown Flor Africaine arr by Harvey Wainappel from a trio record with Mingus everybody’s favorite song the Mooch — used to call it a stock arrangement, 1945 c — learned it in junior high circa 1975, he says, Ben Goldberg. Creole Love Call arr Rahsaan Roland Kirk “a prophet for our times” Inflated Tear session E Flat clarinet Arranged by Sheldon Brown and it’s called (something) Stomp Contrabass clarinet solo and introduction by Beth using Ralph’s old ax Stare at the Conductor and Wiggle Your Fingers (John Cage reference) A Blues for Ralph Carney Our Dearly Departed Friend and Colleague Whom We Really Liked A Lot!! bw Bosko’s Party 1932 which features a version of “Happy Birthday to You” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjYrI5TJkJ0 And1, the next day: these are words of a fictional clarinetist, Rheinhardt, invented by Robert Stone, quoted by George Packer in 1995 — he moonlights as a right wing flack: Americans, our shoulders are broad and sweaty but our breath is sweet. When your American soldier fighting today drops a napalm bomb on a cluster of gibbering chinks, it’s a bomb with a heart. In the heart of that bomb, mysteriously but truly present, is a fat old lady on her way to see the world’s fair. This lady is as innocent as she is fat and motherly. This lady is our nation’s strength. This lady’s innocence if fully unleashed could defoliate every forest in the torrid zone. Rheinhardt is fictional “right wing hack”; Packer is real, and bats left. (“A Hall of Mirrors”, 1967).