Kenny Davern: My Inspiration

My Inspiration, Kenny Davern liner notes

The New York Times recently called Kenny Davern "probably the finest clarinetist playing today." If anything, that's an understatement. Kenny is a clarinet player's clarinet player. Since Benny Goodman disappeared from the scene, Kenny has had no peer in the swing-mainstream mode. By almost any standard -- tone, intonation, lyricism, invention, taste, feeling -- he is in a class by himself, and has a distinguished body of recordings to prove it. So what makes this album special? Simple: a consummate clarinetist has teamed up with one of the greatest living jazz arrangers, bassist Bob Haggart, to create an irresistible feast of melody, tone and texture. "It's every horn player's dream to hear himself with a lush bed of strings," says Kenny. "These are melodies and songs that live forever. For me, the message of this session is this: here is music played with love; charts, melodies, arrangements written with love, and performed with feeling." For Haggart, as for Davern, the chance to team up on a clarinet-with-strings session was a dream come true. Incredible as it seems, the composer and arranger of such standards as "South Rampart Street Parade," "What's New?", "My Inspiration" and "Big Noise From Winnetka" had never before. written a whole album for strings. "The idea for this project came about two or three years ago when Kenny and I were working together in the World's Greatest Jazz Band," Haggart recalls. "It occurred to me that his beautiful, limpid sound would go so well with a string backing, and I told him so. He said, 'Great idea! You 'll do the arrangements."'