Richard Hadlock’s Liner Notes

A clarinet first entered my life sometime around 1937. That's when I discovered that an attractive cylinder of dark grenadilla wood, offering the possibility of producing beautiful sounds, may also -- if the player be less than gifted and devout -- dash all hopes of fame, fortune or even much musical achievement. This small instrument is a severe taskmaster.

The clarinet never forgives the slightest error. Failure to place fingertips exactly over open holes may result in howls or shrieks. A wee misplacement of lip or tongue might ruin both sound and pitch. Pressing the register key does not reward the player with an octave jump, as with a saxophone, but produces instead a daunting interval of a twelfth. And then there is the lifelong quest for reeds which don't squeak and mouthpieces sculpted just right for the individual musician.

Artie Shaw, the great clarinetist who had opinions on everything, once explained why saxophones finally prevailed over clarinets in jazz. It was, he thought, because saxophones are easier to play and clarinets are just plain hard to master.

Right. That's why I am most impressed when I find a clarinetist in full command of his instrument, a player quite at peace with all those snares and pitfalls, who is yet able to make his clarinet sing in a highly personal way.

Jim Rothermel is such a player. (I must add that he is equally accomplished, both professionally and artistically, on flute and the various saxes, but that's the subject of another essay.) In addition to his solid jazz credentials, Jim has the talent and knowhow to meet the demands of studio work, that endless variety of gigs often sought by highly skilled and versatile musicians. Like switching hats, Jim Rothermel plays with conviction and authority in western swing, rhythm and blues, swing and rock bands. He backs vocalists of every stripe (including the Pointer Sisters) and cuts show or concert scores with seeming ease. He enjoys playing dixieland, or traditional, jazz as much as he does swing, bebop or avant-garde music. Early in his career he was a member of the Chesapeake Bay Bearcats and after settling in the Bay Area in the 'sixties Jim played and recorded with several good "trad" bands. It all feeds into the Rothermel style, enlarging its scope and deepening its glow.

Come to think of it, Jim has done a lot of what we kid musicians used to dream about: making countless recordings; getting to play with jazz stars such as Billy Butterfield, Buddy DeFranco, Art Pepper and Jay McShann; playing in top clubs as well as on stage at Carnegie Hall and the Monterey Jazz Festival; travelling in Europe and Japan; becoming a first-call instrumentalist for film, TV and recording work.

With all that, Jim's greatest passion, I believe, is playing clarinet in a small, loose group of talented jazz musicians, as he does here. Unlike many top studio players who don't quite shed their meticulous sideman personalities in the heat of spontaneous improvisation, Jim sounds like a fully committed jazzman, quite willing and able to take spirited chances as he builds his solos.

Along with Goodman and Shaw, there are many whom Jim thanks for their influences: DeFranco, Jimmy Hamilton, Buster Bailey, Jimmy Giuffre, Bill Smith, Barney Bigard, Pee Wee Russell, Bill Napier and Tony Scott are some of the clarinetists; Paul Desmond, Sidney Bechet, Cannonball Adderley and Johnny Hodges are saxophonists who have left their marks on the Rothermel clarinet style. And then there are major generic influences such as Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra and .... well, it goes on.

Any of these great performers may make a cameo appearance in a Rothermel chorus. Sometimes, though, when I think I hear a Tony Scott lick (check "Undecided" in this set) it may be simply a good clarinet cadence which Tony and Jim came upon quite independently. Jazz is full of parallel motions and notions.

Not to be forgotten are Jim's all-American grassroots beginnings. " In Pennsylvania," Jim recalled, " my Aunt Margie had a windup Victrola and I enjoyed whatever was played on it. My favorites were Spike Jones and all the big bands. We used to gather around the parlor piano and sing numbers like 'I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover.' When I was very little I sat on top of the upright and sang. I loved the attention I got and that was probably the start of my wanting to entertain an audience."

Jim's father was a career Navy man, which meant moving his family around a bit. Jim was born in Panama (Canal Zone) and fell in and out of schools in Pennsylvania, Virginia and points south. At age 9 he heard a concert trumpet soloist in North Carolina which triggered a desire to play some kind of wind instrument. By the time he was in eleventh grade Jim was playing saxophone in a group called Eleanor Willits and the Starliters. Reading music never seemed to be much of a problem.

Of course the combined influences of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw shine through quite often on this recording. There is no denying their towering positions in jazz clarinet history. You can spot Benny in the introduction to "Memories of You" and the first part of "Puttin' on the Ritz." Artie has some say in "Hop, Skip and Jump" and "Cadillac Slim." Actually, Shaw's blend of beguiling lyricism and magnificent tone pops out often here, as in Jim's beautiful version of "There Will Never Be Another You."

It seems to this listener that Jim leans more toward Artie than Benny. Shaw's almost sax-like, sensuous variations on good songs seem to influence Rothermel's respectful treatment of melody and subsequent countermelodies.

As we should expect, Jim has surrounded himself here with some of the Bay Area's finest jazz musicians, musicians with whom he has worked well on previous recordings. Like their leader, pianist Shota Osabe and guitarist Duncan James are soloists from the school of eloquence and taste. Duncan once worked with guitar master George Barnes and some of that brilliance has surely rubbed off on him. Together with Al Obidinski (a most in-demand bassist around San Francisco) and versatile drummer Tony Johnson (out of Australia) the group achieves a tight quintet sound reminiscent of Artie Shaw's last Gramercy Five in the mid-'fifties.

Getting back to the trials and tribulations of clarinet playing, perhaps it would be fitting to let Artie Shaw have the last word, as he often did. His view of the clarinet might speak as well to Jim Rothermel's music: "... it's just a piece of wood, you know, with holes in it, and you're supposed to try to take that and manipulate it with throat muscles and chops (we call it embouchure) and try to make something happen that never happened before. And when you do, you never forget it. It beats sex, it beats anything!"

Richard Hadlock

Berkeley, California

March, 2007

Richard Hadlock has presented his weekly radio program "The Annals Of Jazz" for the past fifty years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and can be heard Sunday evenings on KCSM FM.