Larry Kart

Sachs can be heard to great advantage (as can a number of other fine players, including Joe Wilder, Eddie Bert, Oscar Pettiford, and George Wallington) on several fine albums from the late composer-arranger Tom Talbert. The first one, "Bix, Duke & Fats," is quite special. http://www.amazon.com/Bix-Duke-Fats-Talbert-Orchestra/dp/B00005LCTV/ref=sr_1_5?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1368741635&sr=1-5&keywords=tom+talbert http://www.amazon.com/This-Living-Tom-Talbert/dp/B0000060IL/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1368741601&sr=1-3&keywords=tom+talbert There's also a fascinating Talbert biography: http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2012/06/tom-talbert-different-voice.html

Tom Brechtlein on drums?

Yes, with Norvo.

Hey, I like the Carpenters:

A tentative top five, in no particular order: Tauno Hannikainen's Sibelius Second (EMI). Mozart Sinfonia Concertane for Violin and Viola, Drurian/Skernick/Szell (Columbia) Mozart Clarinet Concerto, Karl Leister/Karajan (EMI) -- not for Herbie (though he's on goodish behavior here) but for Leister; his between-the-cracks phrasing (if that's the way to put it) is sublime. Something by Horenstein, but there's too much to sort out. Something by Vlado Perlmutter, but there's too much to sort out. Interesting that IIRC three of those five -- Hannikainen, Horenstein, and Perlemuter -- came to me by way of Chuck.

That set is insanely expensive, especially for a public-domain release. I think that's mainly because its OOP and (allegedly) scarce. My copy back in the day was fairly cheap IIRC.

I have this one: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Cello-Sonatas-1-5-Beethoven/dp/B000007NKE It's OOP and fairly pricey used. Can't vouch for the sound quality versus the EMI because I haven't heard the latter.

Fournier/Schnabel

It was one of the oddest (and maybe the stupidest) things I've ever done, but for Down Beat back in the day (maybe 1969) I reviewed a Steve Miller album (it was his first or second) and Tyrone Washington's "Natural Essence" together and gave the Miller's album four stars and "Natural Essence" three-and-a-half stars. What I was thinking there I no longer recall/have no idea. Actually, I do recall that the Miller album definitely had its moments (Boz Scaggs was on board), though I also recall hearing and reviewing a later edition (late '70s) of the Miller Band at a rock fest at then Comiskey Park in Chicago. They were pretty bad.

Wasn't inept, just corny as hell. Guess she figured she had to do her cutsie BG bit on that one . Lame. Maybe not outright flubs, but things get downright vague/insecure/awkward/anomalous rhythmically at any number of spots -- at .45, at 1.00, at 1:19, at 1:33, and at 2:25 and for a fair while after that IMO.

There's lots of post-Les Petit work from Marquet on YouTube, but it seems much more variable to me (in part because of so-so on location video recordings) than what he did with Morel's bands, where everything was top notch. At least one latter-day Marquet performance with the Paris Washboard Band captures some of the former magic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpD-Tp__AME

Maybe she says: "Something's fishy here."

Not told ideally perhaps, but I prefer this one: A man is having an affair with his secretary. They leave the office early one day and go to her apartment, where they screw all afternoon, finally fall asleep exhausted and don't wake up until 8 p.m. The man rushes home, where his wife meets him at the door and asks where he has been. The husband decides to confess. "My secretary and I are having an affair. We left work today, went to her place, screwed all afternoon, and then we fell asleep." "You bastard," the wife says. "You've been playing golf again." Again, not perfectly told, but I prefer it because golf is a game for obsessives and bowling AFAIK is not. Further, bowling, for those who do go hard for it, is a game that typically revolves around a bunch of guys getting together. Thus the Helmsley joke might have worked better if the punch line would have been something like: "You've been out bowling with your buddies again!"

Here's a clip of that young female French clarinetist I was thinking of but whose name I couldn't recall. She's Aurelie Tropez. http://www.reedwarmers.com/uk/aurelie-tropez-biography.html

Anat Cohen evidence -- Some very rhythmically inept playing at times IMO:

Lotte Lehmann singing Brahms and Wolf (Victrola). Maybe the greatest female singer ever, I'm thinking.

I have the old LP Holiday on Verve box (put together in Japan IIRC). Just right.

Yes, Morel's music and his soloists are working in an older tradition than Cohen is, but she is "in the tradition" by and large and also sounds to me like she's playing by the numbers and/or under glass, while Morel's reed soloists -- Alain Marquet, Marc Bresdin, and Michael Bescont -- are vividily in the present, emotionally and in terms of creating anew. Or so it seems to me.

Lots of Les Rois Du Fox-Trot on YouTube, including their version of "A Night in Tunisa"! Here's their version of Ellington's "Misty Mornin,'" with an exceptional solo IMO from altoist Marc Bresdin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzGprenHkso

Morton's "Deep Creek Blues" from Jean-Pierre Morel's Les Rois Du Fox-Trot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OInNyuWamKY and from Wynton Marsalis:

I know what you mean in general and agree, but Jean-Pierre Morel's Charquet & Co. (later Sharkey & Co.) and his Le Petit Jazz Band seem to me to be a different sort of phenomenon, just as Dave Dallwitz, Ade Monsborough and the other remarkable Australians were. The initial/sensibility orientation was "trad," but the results were something new. Dallwitz's "Ern Malley Suite," for one, was evidence of that.

If you want to hear some really fiery, creative "in the tradition" clarinet playing, check out Frenchman Alain Marquet with Sharkey & Co. in 1978: Marquet in more recent times was no less excellent with Le Petit Jazz Band. Also, though I can't recall her name right now, there is a youngish female trad clarinetist (American or European, I don't recall which) who could eat Cohen for lunch.

Why? All I hear is lots of licks, no particular sense of line. Also,it seems to me that her time isn't that great at times, though this was more the case on tenor than on clarinet. In any case, what is there about her that you find striking musically? My impression is that if she were not for the human-interest factors of her being a woman and from Israel, Cohen would not have entered the public consciousness to this degree. Further, there's the fact that some of her early prominent NYC gigs came about because her boyfriend, Bill Gates' financial advisor, bankrolled them. Don't know to what if any extent that's still the case, but that certainly served to get the ball rolling.

Pace Dan Morgenstern, one of her big fans, but Cohen's playing gives me a pain.

No -- not Anat Cohen!