Now, a Jazz Moment...

MUSIC: "Klaunstance" CD: Yardbird Suite, Rhino RZ 72260 (disc 2, cut 5)

Buddy DeFranco: When I heard Charlie Parker, I knew that was gonna be the new way to play jazz. And it was right. Charlie Parker influenced every jazz player on earth from his point.

NEA Jazz Master Buddy DeFranco is known as "the father of bebop clarinet." but it took a long time to achieve this status. People thought he was crazy back in the 1940s when he first tried to take the king of swing instruments into this new and difficult musical territory.

Buddy DeFranco: It was much more difficult to play as far as fingering and articulation. In fact, even to this day, I can't explain the articulation of bebop, even though I do it. You know, because it's a question of the melding between your brain, your tonguing, your phrasing, your breathing, and your fingering. It has to work all together. And there's no way to describe it.

MUSIC: "Cairo" CD: Oscar Peterson & the Buddy DeFranco Quartet 1953 Live, Jazz Band EBCD2111-2 (cut 8)

This Jazz Moment with clarinetist Buddy DeFranco was produced by the National Endowment for the Arts.