The fact is I do have such a clarinet. My $90 Marigaux/SML came to me with a huge split in the receiving socket of the lower joint, a register key that had snapped in half, a B/E tone hole chimney on the lower joint that had been strangely shaved or broken off, and keys tarnished to a unique golden color. Even in this deplorable condition, from the first time I played it I felt it combined the darkness and satisfying lower tones of my R-13 with the accessible (and equal-speaking) clarion and altissimo of old Leblanc clarinets. I became passionate about the instrument and replaced the register key and filed off blackwood shavings from an antique hairbrush, bound them with wood glue, and built up the missing tone hole chimney. I "repaired" the socket crack using layers of clear packaging tape. It played.
I first sent it to Albert Alpin of Boston, who rebuilt the tone hole chimney properly and repadded it, then two years later to John Butler in Texas, who overhauled it and addressed some of the wood chipping. The wood had been allowed to completely dry out and was showing signs of instability.
Generally, this is the first clarinet I turn to when I have the time in my day to play. It has a moderately wide bore (but narrower than vintage Selmers) with a powerful, sweet, sonorous tone quality ("smoky" someone once said) and great flexibility throughout the range. The top notes are easy and full. The middle twelfths are a bit wide, and I am still testing different mouthpieces to bring them in, but the throat tones are dead on. The pinched B-flat is identical in quality to the side B-flat. The keywork is perfect for my hands, and I never stumble. The wood is open-grained and heavy.
I have owned, and sold, two other SML clarinets. Curiously, an obviously newer instrument with the identical "Marigaux/SML" markings had a lower serial number than my older Marigaux (above). I believe the serial numbers of Marigaux clarinets are not consecutive.
Buffet-Crampon
I have four Buffet clarinets. Two, a 21xxx series and 25xxx series, were built in the 1930s, and two, a 93xxx and 95xxx series (the latter an A), were built in the 1960s.
The two older clarinets are macabre antagonists, the 21xxx with a relatively narrow bore and tight grain, and the 25xxx, built only a few years later, with a very open grain and a substantially larger bore. Nothing but the keywork is alike on these two clarinets. The 21xxx has excellent intonation and a more focused, slightly "cold," sound compared to the 25xxx. The 25xxx is warm, with an exaggerated flexibility and poor intonation. Both are heavily undercut and have a smaller dynamic range than later clarinets. In return, they provide a sweet, "singing" playability that is absent on clarinets made after the 1970s. If the 1986 R-13 I had (and sold) was a trumpet, these clarinets are violas (or cellos, or maybe marshmallows). They are, more precisely, Reginald Kell's old sound. They are the clarinets of Ralph MacLane.
My 93xxx and 95xxx Buffets are a departure from this intimate quality, yet not so much as was to come in the years following Buffet's centennial. Here we have arguably the finest clarinets ever made. The dynamic range is greater, but the Buffet trademark, "The Sweetest Clarinet Ever Made," is still accurate. The 95xxx was restored by Steve Fowler of Pasadena, MD, and the 93xxx was restored by, in my opinion, a repair technician working at the same level of detail and skill as Guy Chadash: Vytas Krass of South River, NJ. Mr. Krass restored the high polish of the bore using the technique Buffet employed before vaster production, or possibly the Boosey-Hawkes buy-out, made it impractical. This involves polishing using oil and shellac and a very fine abrasive applied using a spinning mandrel. The 93xxx was finished with a set of white leather pads, and the Buffet stamps were restored with gold leaf. The key action was corrected, and the joints were carefully sanded to correct warpage.
Henri Selmer, Paris
If we can say that the tone quality of a Buffet clarinet from any era is concentrated and "serious," the play of an old Selmer Paris clarinet, which is a joy to hold in the hands, is plangent and "extroverted," yet constricted in an entirely different way than Buffets. The keywork of old Selmers was designed in such a way that it is more comfortable (particularly on the lower joint). The unfraised, approx. 15-mm Selmers following the early 1920s have a satisfying response that gives a direct, unidimensional tone for each note, emphasizes the upper partials, and requires the player to provide his or her own shading.
Here my experience departs radically from the norm. Vintage Selmers are generally thought to be the century's best jazz clarinet because of their supposed flexibility. Perhaps I am the only person who feels that in the years flanking WWII Buffet made a better clarinet for improvisation and tonal shading than Selmer. The heavily undercut tone holes of an old Buffet allow greater flexibility on a single note. Old Selmers, by comparison, constrict the variability of individual notes, much like what happens when you depress a single piano key. On these Selmers, color and inflection is up to the performer, just as it is on piano. The famous Selmer flexibility enters the picture when you wish to move rapidly up and down the clarinet's tessitura, which is accomplished with less "hindrance" than that presented by the massively-undercut Buffet. The issue becomes not one of "jazz" playing versus "classical," but a simple choice of tools for the type of response desired. Taking this a step further, neither clarinet design (nor any accessories) is by definition "jazz" or "legit."
Intonation on vintage Selmers is compromised to favor the clarion register, as Buffet was forced to do in their (short-lived) wide-bore designs of the 1940s and early 1950s. The entire shape of these Selmers, in which the bell flare and mouthpiece chamber form an integral part, differs from that of Buffet. The models through serial number prefix K to S remain basically the same, with a departure in the N series that introduced the "Centered Tone" model, and the introduction of the "Series 9 star" model around the time of the "R" clarinets. Again departing from the norm, I believe the Selmer bore size continued to widen until the later "N's." Most feel the largest-bore clarinets were the "L" and "M." The legendary Selmer clarinet design was discarded with the introduction of the "Series 10" model, and Selmer, like Leblanc, disappeared beneath its attempt to mimic Buffet's new R-13s. In the mid-1960s clarinet design ironically heated up only to fuse into minute departures from the same basic idea. From that period forward, my interest in different clarinets stops.
G. Leblanc
Mid-century artist clarinets designed by Leon Leblanc, the son of Georges, were the finest clarinets made. Their "Symphonie" models were Leon's tribute to his beloved instrument, and Bonade posed with them in photographs and rep'ed them. The springs were gold, not blued steel. The patented keywork was easy and responsive, if a bit tight for larger hands. The wood was burnished and elegant to the eye. Every tenon was ringed. The joints arrived to the new owner snug in little individually-cut velvet bags with silk drawstring ties. Intonation was dead-on for the era. On these Leblancs, which extended up through the "LX" models, the upper clarion and altissimo registers belong to the rest of the scale, accessible and blending effortlessly with the primary tones. These clarinets are a joy. So why didn't Bonade play them?
Early Leblancs were an earnest, very high quality attempt to make an in-tune clarinet. Unfortunately, here the compromise was not in the scale but in the tone. These are clarinets with the meat course missing. The sound is focused, but prissy and tiny. I have an old "Dynamique" that is in the queue for restoration, and if I do have the work done my opinion may change. Yet I suspect that it will not present a dramatic improvement, despite the fact that the "Dynamique" was Leblanc's wide-bore (and possibly more powerful) model of that era.
Should a player bother to own one of these? Yes! It will change how you feel about the clarinet. After a few evenings on one of these, you'll find they are addictive ... user-friendly, even, and responsive. Models with a circular pearl inlay marked "L7" are especially nice.
Boosey & Hawkes, London
The much-maligned B&H 1010 is a brilliant clarinet, with unfraised tone holes, superior key plating, heavy close-grained wood, kid-leather pads, additional venting (in the final production), and a cylindrical bore that was the largest ever produced in the 20th century. Ironically, the clarinet of Acker Bilk yields restrained, single-colored notes much like the old Selmers (there are some similarities in their designs), yet reaches beyond them to make the final sound purer and more concentrated. Unfortunately, my 1010 is in a state between being playable and needing work, so my hours on it have been limited. I have not experimented with the tuner enough to comment on the variability beyond what is generally known. But it has survived the many downsizings to which I've subjected my collection. It's a great clarinet.
You must use a matching B&H mouthpiece or one reamed out to suit the instrument. I have one mouthpiece that came with my 1010 and several done by Daniel Bangham of the U.K. from molds of originals.
Although I did purchase two factory-new clarinets, I sold them. I've kept only the old junk I've gotten off of eBay or acquired in other ways. Both the new clarinets were really fine, and one, a Selmer "Recital" Bb, was excellent. I could try to explain this, but I don't think it has that much to do with the clarinets themselves as it has to do with me. I'm just the kind of person who, right or wrong, believes older things are better. They are certainly more interesting.
