By the time I was fifteen, I was trying to play at the piano a little bit, improvising at the piano, trying to play Fats Waller transcriptions and listen to Art Tatum and getting really discouraged with the piano.
Because of Art Tatum. I saw Art Tatum when I was thirteen, twice. That was really the end of the piano for me. Even the Fats Waller transcriptions – my hands weren't big enough to reach those tenths. I just don't have the right touch for the piano. So I had found a cousin's clarinet in the closet and I started fooling around with that. Then at the age of sixteen I heard Sidney Bechet on a record, playing "The Mooch". The combination of materials – the Ellington piece (which I knew already), and the soprano saxophone (Bechet's sound) – were like the magic call to me.
So, at sixteen I took up the soprano. Later when I went to this school they wouldn't accept me as a soprano student so I chose alto. I bought an alto but I was the worst alto player you ever heard in your life. I mean really a wretched alto. I just had no feeling for it at all. And then later on, I tried tenor for a while. I was no good on tenor either. There were so many great tenor players around and I loved Lester Young but it was impossible. So the tenor was not for me. And the clarinet I gave up because it was too hard. The soprano had so many problems that I just wanted to concentrate on that.
Later when I was working with Max Kaminsky and his band, I told him one day, "Look, I'm gonna stop playing the clarinet. I just want to play the soprano." He said, "You're crazy. You wont get any work on it." And he was right – he fired me. Nobody else called me to play because soprano sax didn't exist. The instrument just didn't exist.
(in Friedlander, Lee: American musicians)
Because of Art Tatum. I saw Art Tatum when I was thirteen, twice. That was really the end of the piano for me. Even the Fats Waller transcriptions – my hands weren't big enough to reach those tenths. I just don't have the right touch for the piano. So I had found a cousin's clarinet in the closet and I started fooling around with that. Then at the age of sixteen I heard Sidney Bechet on a record, playing "The Mooch". The combination of materials – the Ellington piece (which I knew already), and the soprano saxophone (Bechet's sound) – were like the magic call to me.
So, at sixteen I took up the soprano. Later when I went to this school they wouldn't accept me as a soprano student so I chose alto. I bought an alto but I was the worst alto player you ever heard in your life. I mean really a wretched alto. I just had no feeling for it at all. And then later on, I tried tenor for a while. I was no good on tenor either. There were so many great tenor players around and I loved Lester Young but it was impossible. So the tenor was not for me. And the clarinet I gave up because it was too hard. The soprano had so many problems that I just wanted to concentrate on that.
Later when I was working with Max Kaminsky and his band, I told him one day, "Look, I'm gonna stop playing the clarinet. I just want to play the soprano." He said, "You're crazy. You wont get any work on it." And he was right – he fired me. Nobody else called me to play because soprano sax didn't exist. The instrument just didn't exist.
(in Friedlander, Lee: American musicians)
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