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Westlake Records Blog Posts

Lunch With Artie Shaw

AN EARLIER POST mentioned Artie Shaw. I presume anyone reading this knows Artie was a big band leader in the 1930s and ’40s and one of the best popular clarinetists of all time. One day around 1980 my friend (and…

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Tempo

THE FOLLOWING DIATRIBE IS DELIBERATELY CONTROVERSIAL   EVERY CLARINETIST MUST ENDURE comparison with Benny Goodman and his ability to play lyrically at fast tempos. I might go so far as to say that nobody else I can think of has…

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What Is A Musician?

THE FOLLOWING DIATRIBE IS DELIBERATELY CONTROVERSIAL YEARS AGO I asked a couple of musicians with good reputations to record four or five tunes I had hoped would appear on an album. We were acquaintances and colleagues but they insisted I…

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When Did Jazz Die?

THE FOLLOWING DIATRIBE IS DELIBERATELY CONTROVERSIAL Discuss it on our Forum HERE’S WHAT REALLY UPSETS ME: Jazz is commercially dead and that puts one of its feet in the casket of cultural death. It’s just that some musicians haven’t figured…

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