I didn't know him as a clarinetist. He was originally a great tenor saxophonist, and gravitated to clarinet later because that's where the gigs were. Musicians don't really make career decisions. They don't have the control or power to choose a course. Their careers are decided for them, however they might deny it.
I knew Ken from Mr. Hick's Place, the tough organ blues joint in Roosevelt, Long Island where Eddie Murphy, who grew up around the corner, had done his first standup (there was an autographed glossy in the manager's office, autographed "To Mr. Hick's Place, where I lost my comedy virginity, love, Eddie"), and where I had that unfortunate incident with drum legend Roy Haynes.
Ken was a wonderful jazz and blues sax player, but he started getting more work playing swing, and then more work on clarinet. Soon he locked in there, and hardly anyone knew how much more he could do. When Ken and I occasionally crossed paths in subsequent years and I told him about the bebop, free jazz, klezmer, salsa, and other wide-ranging styles I was playing, he'd seem a little wistful. He could have excelled in any of those scenes. He had similarly free-wheeling DNA, but success can lock you firmly into a narrow space. Me, I had the great good fortune to be starving to death, and playing anything I wanted.
Another player our age back in the day at Mr. Hick's Place was modern jazz saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, also wailing the blues at the time. We never shared a stage; Ellery and Ken played weekly like me, but we each had our own night. Ellery was also versatile, and might have wound up a swing guy like Ken, or a miscellany guy like me, but we all took such extremely different tacks that today it's almost impossible to believe we all converged so early on doing that.
Come to think of it, it's probably weirder still that I became a food critic and Internet entrepreneur. We didn't diverge, we careened.
Fast forward two decades from the Mr. Hicks years, and I'm playing with the Lionel Hampton big band. One night the great Benny Golson is substituting for Hamp. Golson is a sophisticate, a glass of fine cognac, very harmonically advanced but he played with a velvety ease that made it easy to forget how modern he actually was. The band, which had been Clockwork Oranged by Hamp and his manager to play with an intensity that could best be described as desperate/frantic, goaded Golson into uncharacteristic bluesiness that turned rambunctious and, finally screamingly rambunctious. I almost couldn't believe my eyes and ears. Imagine Tony Bennett hollering like Sid Vicious. Of course, Benny sounded great.
While I was waiting on the bus to be driven back to town, Benny boarded and settled into the seat across from mine. “Will a recording of this evening’s performance be issued in Japan as 'Benny Golson, Hootin’ and Hollerin’?” I asked with a grin.
Benny cackled smoothly, his cool very much regained. After staring dreamily into the distance for a moment, he focused his eyes and turned his head back toward mine.
"You know, we all got our start doing that. Playing that music. Walking the bar. Any musician from my time who claims he didn't is a liar.""Same," I replied, amiably.
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