Has anybody heard of this? I’ve been a jazz buff for most of my life but can’t recall any double reed instrument musicians playing jazz…
Well,Wikipedia lists a number of them, including Yusef Lateef and Paul McCandless. (I think McCandless was featured on the Paul Winter Consort’s signature tune “Icarus”.)
I believe I once heard a jazz piece by… was it Harry Freedman?.. that had an oboe in it.
And here’s a YouTube video for you to enjoy:
The jazz part starts a few minutes in. I don’t know if it’s “pure” jazz but it’s nice.
Paul McCandless played primarily oboe throughout his days with Paul Winter Consort and with Oregon.
There were a couple of Weather Report albums that featured English Horn - I Sing the Body Electric and Sweetnighter. It wasn’t particularly easy to distinguish the English Horn from Wayne Shorter deliberately playing soprano sax with a heavy reed, though.
There’s a jazz/rock bassoon player in Toronto by the name of Jeff Burke. Here’s a sample of him playing on the local cable access channel - Jeff Burke.
For more traditional jazz, Bob Cooper is featured on oboe on the Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars album Vol. 4: Oboe/Flute
Here is an astonishing recording of tenor titan Illinois Jacquet, of all people, playing bassoon.
Yusef Lateef’s “Into Something” has a lot of oboe on it. Pretty cool. You can’t bend a tone on an oboe, so when he plays the blues it’s kinda surreal.
Y’know, I never really cared for Jacquet until this moment, but this is one of the best recordings of 'Round Midnight I’ve ever heard.
Thank you, Biffy.
Man, how I love the Dope.
ETA: According to Charles Mingus’ stage patter, Eric Dolphy played his share of oboe, but I’ve never heard a recording of him doing so. Will look around.
Back around 1984 or '85 I took a few sax lessons from Don Lanphere. One day when I mentioned I also played the bassoon, he ran to his record collection and pulled out an old LP featuring some jazz bassoonist. Sadly, I don’t recall the player’s name.
I give you Paul Hanson, here playing with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.
If you want a really bizarre choice of double reeds, how about Rufus Harley and his bagpipes?
The earliest jazz recording I know of that uses a bassoon is Running Ragged (Bamboozlin’ the Bassoon) by Joe Venuti’s Blue Four, with Frank Trumbauer on both bassoon and C-melody saxophone.
I was going to post that very link!
If you look closely, you’ll notice something odd about bass player Victor Wooten during that tune:
He’s wearing a different shirt by the time the song ends.
Thanks all, for the replies! Question answered, my ignorance fought! 