Play That Licourice Stick

Music for clarinet on a collection called American Classics by Sharon Kam with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gregor Buhl. The music featured is by Copland, Bernstein, Morton Gould, Artie Shaw and Gershwin. The pieces are all jazz inflected, getting progressively more so as the programme progresses until it closes with a selection of Gershwin standards. The Concerto For Clarinet by Copland opens the disk, with expansive melodies and just a nod towards jazz. That is followed by Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, which is a much more concerted attempt to produce a jazz inspired orchestral workout. Even further along the line towards jazz is Derivations For Clarinet And Band by Morton Gould, which like the Copland was written for Benny Goodman. The LSO, or those sections of it required for these scores, show that they can swing out really well and Kam is clearly revelling in the material, even if her clarinet can get a bit squawky at the top of the range. The real jazz McCoy surfaces with Artie Shaw's Concerto For Clarinet which is a pure big band score that more than holds its' own with the more recognised classicists. Kam closes the recital with fairly straight renditions of four Gershwin songs from the Great American Song Book tradition; Summertime, They All Laughed, The Man I Love and I Got Rhythm. There are doubtless more idiomatic recordings of this repertoire but it works well as a programme.