Contemporary jazz abounds with trumpeters and sax players, but clarinetists seldom headline clubs now. A few senior citizens from the bebop and trad jazz eras like Eddie Daniels and Bob Wilber are still with us, but the number of prominent clarinetists born after World War II could be easily counted on one hand, and that hand probably lost a finger in a meat-packing accident.

Ken Peplowski

^{Courtesy photo}

Don Byron, eclectic and fond of revisiting somewhat obscure musical personalities, is the most heralded clarinetist today. Not as widely known as Byron, but equally formidable, are experimentalists such as Marty Ehrlich and Chris Speed.

However, many local jazz fans aren’t especially interested in either of these types of music. They want to hear common-practice bop. If that’s your preferred flavor of jazz, then the Birch North Park Theatre was the place to be Wednesday evening as clarinetist Ken Peplowski led a quartet in less frequently performed jazz and pop tunes.

Peplowski is perhaps best known as a swing revivalist, and for good reason: he knows the boundaries of swing improvisation, and is careful not to cross them. This expertise has led to his being featured in Benny Goodman band projects and as a guest at jazz parties.

As wonderful as Peplowski is at swing, it’s wrong to pigeonhole him there. He’s a capable bop and post-bop artist, and while more facile on clarinet, he is also a solid tenor saxophonist. Wednesday evening Peplowski showed off all these aspects—swing/bop clarinetist/saxophonist—accompanied by Mike Wofford on piano, Tom Warrington on bass, and Joe LaBarbera on drums.

Peplowski began each set on tenor sax. He’s a disciple of the Lester Young/Stan Getz school, preferring a focused yet breathy tone on his instrument. At times he brought a raspy edge to his sound, such as when playing a Joao Gilberto bossa nova. In his highest register, he occasionally lost control during fast passagework, but his melodic creativity overrode those lapses.

His ballad work on "Love Locked Out" revealed a sensitive musician who improvised a new melody on the final chorus that hinted at the original, never going too far afield from the harmony. In "It’s a Lonesome Old Town," Peplowski turned an old Sinatra ballad into a Caravan-esque Middle Eastern tone poem, complete with moody mallet work from Joe LaBarbera and his toms, the whole group rarely rising about a pianissimo.

Enjoyable as Peplowski’s saxophone work was, it was his clarinet work which made the evening memorable. After Eddie Daniels, there are few working clarinetists besides Peplowski who can turn out a bop solo so well on their instrument. He threaded "Blue Room" and "My Shining Hour" with bebop filigrees, elaborate and exciting. A solo introduction to "Just One of Those Things," fun as it was, wound up as a musical cul-de-sac, but once the rhythm section jumped in, everyone cooked straight through to the end.

"Just One of Those Things" was the most familiar jazz standard Peplowski did all evening. He resurrected quite a few rarities, none lovelier than Duke Ellington’s ballad, "A Single Petal of a Rose." Peplowski chose to play the entire piece unaccompanied and without amplification, stepping down off the stage onto the cover of the pit. The acoustics at Birch enabled Peplowski to play whisper soft, and his vibrato imbued this gem with longing. He ended on a ghostly tremolo on a fifth, held for a breathtakingly long time.

In Mike Wofford, Peplowski had a versatile accompanist, sensitive to the leader’s arrangements, yet able to come to the fore with his own engaging solo work. Tom Warrington’s time kept the ensemble moving along in fast numbers, and his bass work during ballads complimented his partners admirably. Warrington did not have many opportunities to solo, but when needed he filled in competently.

Joe LaBarbera’s drumming was exemplary for its restraint. He never played over his band mates, his swing was perfect, and he knew just the right brush or mallet or cymbal or tom to use to contribute to the mood of each number. Frequently called upon to trade fours with Peplowski and Wofford, his solos propelled the music without getting lost in grandstanding. In the closing number, "Just One of Those Things," LaBarbera had several choruses to play a rousing solo, finally unleashing a surge of power which he had tastefully held back all evening long.

Set List

The Thespian / Freddy Redd

Falsa Baiana / Joao Gilberto

Love Locked Out / Ray Noble

Blue Room / Rodgers, Hart

A Ship Without a Sail / Rodgers, Hart

My Shining Hour / Arlen

Intermission

Together / Henderson, Brown, de Sylva

It’s a Lonesome Old Town / Harry Tobias

Who Knows / Ellington

A Single Petal of a Rose / Ellington

Just One of Those Things / Porter

BONUS FEATURE: This has nothing to do with the fine musicians who performed Wednesday evening, but just for giggles, here are some young jazz musicians hanging out after a gig:

"You killed, man!"