Concerto for the Clarinet (Clarinet)

Rating:
Summary: moderately disappointing
Review: "The Grove Dictionary of Jazz" says this piece, which is not, in fact, a concerto, rather a big band arrangement (with strings) featuring clarinet, its title inspired possibly by Ellington's "Concerto for Cootie", shows, more than any other, the range of Artie Shaw's clarinet style, which is not to say it is his best recording. It is featured toward the end of the movie "Second Chorus", starring Fred Astaire, Burgess Meredith, Paulette Goddard, and Artie Shaw (playing himself). It is available on certain Artie Shaw compilation discs.

This "book", however, is not, in fact, a score, but an abridged clarinet solo with simplified piano accompaniment and "orchestral" cues. The trumpet and piano solos are missing, but so far as I can tell the clarinet transcription (in concert key in the piano part, transposed in the clarinet part) is accurate. The pages are flimsy, and there is no cardboard cover, just a title sheet of the same flimsy paper. My copy arrived crimped at the corner.