Inside 'oondom

10. If you are afraid of clowns, it's been called the CLOWN OF THE ORCHESTRA!
9. They cost to much to buy. But if you have a rich Grandma you could sucker her into getting you one and pay for lessons and reeds.
8. Some people call the bassoon a belching bedpost. How repulsive is that?
7. If you hate jigsaw puzzles, don't get a bassoon. It has too many parts that have to fit together. (See Bob's bio)
6. If you decide to take up the bassoon in school, most school bassoons really suck. See #9.
5. It's heavy and you need two strong hands to hold it up, and you need be handy to play one, and you need to have well educated thumbs. How many instruments actually require you to use all five digits on both hands to play it and hold it up?
4. It been called an ill wind that nobody blows good. (We actually think this refers to the contrabassoon!)
3.....No number three. Bob is too busy making bassoon reeds to get to this....check back. Maybe making and scraping reeds is a good reason not to play bassoon? AND reeds are really expensive to buy. See #9.
2. The name for the bassoon in German is das Fagott. AKA a bundle of sticks....Enough said?
1. (A little fanfare on a bassoon reed) Some think the bassoon is a phallic symbol. Is that cool or what?

Number 10 A bassoon looks awesome in the gunrack of your pickup truck
Number 9 If you go to a costume party you can remove the crook and go as Captain Hook
Number 8 The big end works great with your shopvac
Number 7 If you've lost your bong, you've got it made
Number 6 Attached batteries and a stun gun and you have a cattle prod for the barnyard
Number 5 You can blow up ballons on the big end, or pehaps other latex items
Number 4 If you cross the bassoon with an onion you get music that brings tears to your eyes
Number 3 You can whack knees with it (Tonya) or fend off wolves
Number 2 If you put the bell up to your ear against the wall you can hear what people in the next room are saying about you
Number 1 For an instrument that pretty much sucks, the bassoon offers pure blowing satisfaction

What are some of your reasons for playing the bassoon? What are some reasons for NOT playing the bassoon? Let us know!

So, where does the Bassoon fit into the world of jazz?

Yes, we do some jazz on both the Wanted and Captured CDs. Please check out our recordings. Brother Mark has played jazz in clubs here and was also doing rock bassoon. We do rock bassoon on our CDs too. The type of pickup I use can be purchased from Forrests Music. I use a wah-wah pedal (cry baby) and a Fender guitar amp. We do Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze on the Captured CD and wah-wah bassoon on the Escaped CD in Miserlou. Having a pickup and an amp give you a sense of power that you can't imagine until you've tried it.

Hells Angels

The Bassoon Brothers have also recorded Michael Daugherty’s Hells Angels for bassoon quartet and orchestra which has jazzy improvised sounding passages in it, but not improvised. This is on the Oregon Symphony’s American Contrast CD on the DELOS label.

Ray Pizzi

Ray Pizzi is the Godfather of jazz bassoon. The one who made a point of writing and performing on jazz bassoon on his recordings and frequently performs in the jazz style in movie scores. Ray is beyond funky. Check out his website. You can hear him in the first Star Wars movie playing in the Cantina band wailing away on some high jazz bassoon. He is also in the soundtrack for the movie Predator 2, but you’d never recognize it as a bassoon. He is on TV commercials and many soundtracks. He has several recordings, originally on LPs with some CDs now available on his website. Ray’s main instrument is tenor sax and he is truly amazing on that and flute as well. Henry Mancini wrote a concerto for Jazz Bassoon and Orchestra dedicated to Ray. To my knowledge there is no commercial recording of this work as yet.

Paul Hanson

The most prolific improviser on bassoon is Paul Hanson who has several current CDs and plays on many others including some rock bands and pop artists. Paul is truly amazing. I don’t know if Paul has a website or not, but can be reached through Forrests Music. They have a website. He has published a book for practicing jazz bassoon.

Michael Rabinowitz

Michael Rabinowitz is another fine jazz bassoonist with three CDs out living in New York and used to play bebop jazz bassoon on the streets for change. Website?

Janet Grice has two jazz CDs out.

I think there are some Europeans doing jazz but I’m not up on that.

Frank Tiberi is a jazz bassoonist who has recorded with Woody Herman band.

I think the jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman dabbled in jazz bassoon.

Possibly also Yusef Lateef.

Jazz saxer Illinois Jacquet has recorded an LP with a long Bassoonist Blues.

One very obscure jazzer is Dick Braun who played in the San Diego Symphony. CD called The Bassoon Bugs.

The oldest jazz bassoon recording that I have is Stuart McKay’s Reap the Wild Winds.

However, I believe this was preceded by bassoonery in the Australian Jazz Quartet? Here's some info:

Errol Buddle
Buddle's discography was closing in on 100 titles involving as many as ten different instruments. A master of reeds who came out of the Australian jazz scene in the '40s, Buddle paid dues in Detroit with bandleader and drumming monster Elvin Jones, and if a double-reed pun can be allowed, has been quite bocal about having recorded the first jazz improvisation on bassoon. He also plays alto, tenor and baritone saxophone, clarinet, oboe, and flute, and might even have a sideline as a drummer if the discographical indication of "d" means what it is supposed to.

The town of Adelaide was his early stomping grounds, the scene of formal study at several colleges and conservatories as well as radio work beginning in 1946. During the second half of the '40s he worked in Jack Brokensha's combo, among others; in the '50s he relocated to Sydney and had a weekly gig for his own band featuring many leading players on the Australian jazz scene. In 1952 he went to Canada on a work permit, playing first bassoon with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra. On the side he played tenor in local bands and did more than just gaze at the city of Detroit across the water. He began collaborating there with bandleader Johnny "Scat" Davis, including an appearance on television in 1954. Buddle worked with his own group in Detroit and also gigged with Jones through the end of 1954. He continued to live away from Australia until 1958 but remained heavily involved with his native country's jazz scene, joining a band known as the Australian Jazz Quartet as the thunder of Jones' tom-toms was still ringing in his ears.
Source: Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide

Sol Schoenbach
I was told by American bassoon patriarch Sol Schoebach, former Principal Bassoon of the Philadelphia Orchestra and teacher of many of the country's finest bassoonists while at the Curtis Institute, that he played a jazz with Benny Goodman’s band. He called himself "the mystery bassoonist", who walked on stage, played a jazzy solo and walked off. Bay area bassoonist Herb Fawcett has provided some new information, "I located a Philadelphia FM radio broadcast tape (interview Sol) that I
>> will copy for you when it arrives. It has the Benny Goodman stuff on it."

So we'll get that information after all these years. The Goodman Society new nothing of this when I contacted them. We'll let them know.

Gunthur Schuller wrote a concerto for bassoon that includes jazz improvising. I was recorded by Ken Pasmanick.

Finally, there was a bassoon in the 1920’s Paul Whiteman band. I have done no research on that one.

This article was submitted in response to an email from Melanie Chua.

The word bassoon appears in literary works quite often as a description. There are novels where a character plays the bassoon or contrabassoon too. Most rare is the use of the word bassoon in song lyrics. If you come across any references to bassoon please email us for inclusion in this listing.

Descriptive Bassoon

The Oath

"Jackman filled his large chest with air. He had Glitsky by an inch or two
and thirty pounds and all of it was never more visible than it was now, when
it was clearly so tightly controlled. His voice, when it came, was a deep
bassoon of authority."

The Oath
John Lescroart
Penguin Group 2002

Bassoon in Fiction

The Offshore Pirate

"He worships me because I'm the only man in the world who can play better ragtime than he can. We used to sit together on the wharfs down on the New Your water-front, he with a bassoon and me with an oboe, and we'd blend minor keys in African harmonics a thousand years old until the rats would crawl up the posts and sit around groaning and squeaking like dogs will in front of phonograph."

From a book of short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald which also includes the Curious Case of Benjamin Button adapted for a movie in 2008.

Before Gatsby (The First Twenty-Six Stories)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
University of South Carolina Press 2001

Children's Bassoon Books

Ralph's Secret Weapon

This is a great story from a book that is no longer in print. You'll have to look for it in the local library or find a used copy. Ralph takes bassoon lessons from the Maestro and enters a competition which he wins. His grandmothers cake and his fine bassooning help save the from a dreaded sea monster. Bassoonist Chris Weait has created a musical version of the story complete with costumes.

Ralph's Secret Weapon
Steven Kellogg
Puffin Pub. 1986

Bassoon in Prose

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Wedding Scene, Gustave Dore Ancient Mariner

One very famous line from literature is in Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

"Hear the wedding guest
Beat his breast
For he heard the loud bassoon."

On the Wanted CD by the Bassoon Brothers we do sing those lines as a lyric in the Wedding Guest written by David Carroll.

Bassoon in Lyrics

The Music Man

The 1957 broadway show The Music Man was based on a story by Meredith Willson and Franklin Lacey with music and lyrics by Meredith Willson. Music Man the movie was released in 1962 where you'll see a bassoon in the marching band. (p.s. It's NOT a good idea to march with a bassoon.) In the lyrics for the song 76 Trombones we hear the following:

"There were copper bottom tympani in horse platoons
Thundering, thundering all along the way.
Double bell euphoniums and big bassoons,
Each bassoon having it's big, fat say!"
The Music Man DVD

Bassoon in Literature

An extensive list of the The Bassoon in Literature appears in the IDRS publication The Double Reed.

These are some of our favorite soundtracks from movies and TV shows:

Movie Soundtracks

Never Cry Wolf
The ultimate bassoon sound track is from Never Cry Wolf. Get it, hear it! See below Movies where you'll see a bassoon for more info.

Bourne Ultimatum
The Bourne movies have the bassoon is the theme music as the opening lead. Best heard in the last one Bourne Ultimatum

March of the Penguins
This movie features the fine bassoon work of Rose Corrigan, LA bassoonist. This is an interesting movie with a sparse soundtrack, so you are going to hear the bassoon well.

Ray Pizzi in the Soundtrack
Ray spent has spent his career in Hollywood working the studios
He can be heard on bassoon in the following:
Star Wars
He's wailing up high in the Cantina Band in the very first Star Wars movie. Now that you know it's a bassoon you'll hear. The player in that band has a pretty strange looking space age bassoon. A doll is available of that dude.
Predator 2
It's a bassoon but Ray makes it sound so creepy you wouldn't know what it is. Scary.
Fandango
Ray gets a few quirky solo licks the theme music. These bring a smile to my face. Purely Pizzi.

Television Themes and Soundtracks

Rumpole
Here's the theme from a long running English show.
Rumpole Theme

Alfred Hitchcock Presents
His TV theme was taken from Gounod's Funeral March of a Marionette. For the 1959 season the theme was played by a bassoon octet (6 bassoons, 2 contrabassoons). The Bassoon Brothers have recorded the original octet version on the Captured CD. On the Wanted CD is a version for quartet with drums.

Alfred Hitchcock Hour
One episode feature an hour long soundtrack of the bassoon octet version most likely in 1960. We are researching this. The show in question had Peter Fonda in the cast.

There are many other TV shows with good bassoon leads too! Let us know any your favorites.

BASSOON IN HUMOR

Garrison Keillor.

Garrison gets our special nod for his efforts to find humor with the bassoon. He's rumored to be a bassoonist himself, but maybe he's just a closet bassoonist. He's done several radio shows featuring the bassoon and his Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra is performed around the country with Symphony Orchestra. Bravo, Garrison. P.S. Garrison's sister is MARRIED to a bassoonist.

If you missed the funny story about a bassoonist on Prairie Home Companion
Click it: http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/20030419/

Go to the above page and click on April 19. Then click on 35:52 Bassoon
Orchestra script. You can listen to the show on this archive too. Bassoonists include John Miller and the Minnesota Orchestra bassoon section.

What's so darn funny or strange about the bassoon?

Maybe you've got some ideas or jokes to add. Let us know what you are thinking Here's a few picks from the Bassoon Bros Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Play Bassoon:

It looks awesome in the gun rack of your pickup. Can be used as a cattle prod. The big end works great on a shop vac. If you've lost your bong, you've got it made. If you cross a bassoon with an onion you get music that brings tears to your eyes. Works great as a crutch. Put the big end up against the wall and you can hear what the people in the next room are saying about you...

We try to make timely or locally relevant reasons to play (or not play the bassoon) at every Bassoon Bros concert. Here's one: You can whack knees with it. (Tonya Harding)

As you know, the bassoon is called the "clown of the orchestra". It's the buffoon you hear in cartoons. The most egregious recent use of the buffoon aspect is the movie Dunston Checks In (1996). I heard such a use again last night in a 1940s movie The Lady in Question (1940). Many of the old movie scores seem to go for this clunky clumsy comedic aspect. But why can't they play it in tune!!! I guess that makes it sound more silly.

Other typecasting: Lex Luther in the Superman movies has a bassoon theme. Peter and the Wolf's curmudgeonly, complaining Grandpapa. In pop music there's Smokey Robinson's Tears of a Clown with the hot bassoon lick and pedal low notes and Simon and Garfunkle's 59th Street Bridge Song. There's a wailing jazz bassoon in the Star Wars Cantina Band. Creepy bassoon unearthly sound effects in Predator 2. Strange bassoon iterations in Fandango. These last three were played by jazz bassoonist Ray Pizzi. Bassoon theme in the movie Bourne Identity. The ultimate bassoon movie is Never Cry Wolf where the soundtrack is almost all bassoon, the bassoon is played in the movie and is even used as a weapon to fend off wolves and the bassoon sounds like wolves too. Played by Rufus Olivier of San Francisco Opera.

Musically we bassoonists often portray soreness, strangeness, sadness, silliness, stupidity, or scariness. Is the opening to Tchaikovsky 6th typecasting? Nielsen's 5th opening, Rite of Spring. Entrance of the Dragoons in Carmen? Opening motif of Siegfried. Grandpapa?

We ARE the Halloween instrument. In the Hall of the Mountain King, Funeral March of a Marionette (The Hitchcock Presents Theme with 6 bassoons and 2 contrabassoons got to me as a kid.), Sorcerer's Apprentice, etc.

We are, of course, referred to as the belching bedpost or the burping bassoons. Especially the contrabassoon (and the bassoon too) has been called "an ill wind that nobody blows good". Low flatulent contrabassoon solo notes often bring up a laugh. Petroushka and Sorcerer. The loud rustic second bassoon solo burps in Beethoven 6th intrudes in someone else's space. When Haydn first heard a Bassoon he is reported to have said, "Thank God it doth not smell."

Young players have trouble with lack of respect because our instrument is referred to as a bundle of sticks (firewood) or worse, a fagot, das Fagott, il fagotto. The small tenoroons are called fagottinos. Peter Schickele (a "reformed" bassoonist himself) thinks we should all be called "stickests". But to be called a fag player or fag blower when you are fourteen is fightin' words. My students all mention that kind of name calling to me, that kids kid them about it being a fag. I get young players writing about this aspect to the Bassoon Bros.

Our biggest problem is lack of respect. The Bros call it the bassoon the Rodney Dangerfield instrument. Not only does the public not recognize what the sound is, but usually call it an oboe. It's cast in TV commercials in a lowly role, in one case as a theme for toxic sludge. I did a radio spot in Portland for garbage recycling. A toilet paper theme. Hmmm.

Kids who play the bassoon get a blank stare back when they tell someone what's in the case. Among those who commented on this phenomenon was Bill Conti (yes, the famous composer of the Rocky theme) who auditioned on bassoon to get his college scholarship rather than piano. When asked what was in the case he'd say it's a trumpet. Brother Bob Naglee, who got that out of Bill, revealed that he'd tell his classmates there was a clarinet in his bassoon case. Local Portland pianist Merle Lotz made it to Curtis on bassoon but went in the direction of the keyboard.

There are fewer bassoonists in this world than any other band or orchestral instrument. We qualify for endangered instrument programs in many communities. We also worry about extinction as well as lack of respect. If a school has an old bassoon it's usually unplayable. The instrument and its reeds are difficult to master and cost way too much. The fingering system is the same as it was 400 years ago, while other wind instruments adopted a modern fingering system in the mid-19th century.

Part of the Bros mission is to get back the respect and recognition that we deserve for our wide playing range (greater than any other wind instrument), versatility, ability to sing like the human voice in our middle register and the "voice of the sea God" (Mozart?) in the low register and don't forget our woodblock-like staccato. Why did Vivaldi write 37 bassoon concertos, more than any other instrument than violin? How did we go from the crown of the orchestra (old bassoons had little metal crowns on the bell), to the clown of the orchestra?

I used to play jazz at the Jazz Quarry on SW Jefferson (closed in 1987). I arrived on night to play and saw on the lighted billboard above the entrance, Mark Eubanks Jazz Oboe. Okay then, what's the difference between a bassoon and an oboe? A bassoon burns longer....

Then there are those who make fun of the bassoon by attempting to play it. Hey Steven Colbert! You ain't funny. And then there are those who try to play it well and sound funny anyway.

Oh well, we bassoonists are all trying to do our part to better our lot in life. Maybe the respect will come.

Mark Eubanks 4/18/07 Portland, Oregon

If you missed the funny story about a bassoonist on Prairie Home Companion
Click it: http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/20030419/

Go to the above page and click on April 19. Then click on 35:52 Bassoon
Orchestra script. You can listen to the show on this archive too. Bassoonistsinclude John Miller and the Minnesota Orchestra bassoon section.

Santa Is a Bassoonist

We've just discovered that Santa is a BASSOONIST!

Here's a list of famous people who played bassoon and perhaps went on to bigger things. Let us know if you have names to add to the list below. Did any US Presidents play bassoon? What did Charles Darwin have to do with the bassoon. Was he a bassoonist?
Darwin

Who was the nerdy actor who played a bassoon solo on the Ellen DeGeneres Show???
But, can we find a video link to that show??? Might have been on a 2006 appearance.

Answers: See below.

Sir Edward Elgar

This famous English composer best known for his Pomp and Circumstance and his orchestral work Enigma Variations also wrote Romance for Bassoon, a fine solo piece for bassoon and orchestra and sounds good with piano too. He started playing bassoon in a woodwind quintet and wrote pieces for his group.

Source http://www.elgar.org/3smalls.htm says,"...the Romance for Bassoon and Orchestra, sits oddly among Elgar's output until it is remembered that Elgar was himself the bassoonist in the wind quintet of 1878-1882. But this work is no throwback to the wind quintet days. The lazy, rather meandering melody of the Romance is in marked contrast to the lively, rather agitated style of many of the pieces for wind quintet and the formality of the slower movements.

What caused Elgar to write this unusual work? The dedication is to Edwin F James, the soloist at the first performance, but James does not feature elsewhere in the Elgar biography and it seems more likely that the dedication was more a token of gratitude for 'services rendered' than a mark of deeper affaction. That the work results from a lingering attachment to his youthful days in the quintet is supported by the fact that the second work from this period, Cantique, is indeed an arrangement for small orchestra of the second Intermezzo of 1879."

Bill Conti

The composer famous for his theme from the movie Rocky and many other TV themes and movie scores, Bill played bassoon and won a scholarship to college on the instrument. As he put it in a conversation with Brother Bob, he had a choice of going up against a bunch or more talented pianists or go for the bassoon scholarship.

"Born in Providence, Rhode Island on April 13, 1942, Conti began studying piano at age seven under the tutelage of his father, an accomplished pianist, sculptor and painter. At the age of 15, he organized a band and began to play for high school dances in Miami, Florida. He was a member of his high school band and symphony orchestra and won the "Silver Knight Award" from the Miami Herald for high achievement in the field of music.

Conti received a bassoon scholarship from Louisiana State University where he majored in composition and played jazz piano at many of the local night spots to help defray the costs of his education. While attending LSU, he held a variety of musical posts including first chair bassoon in the school symphony orchestra, the staff arranger for the University's marching band and accompanist for the LSU Ballet Corps." Source Pittsburgh Symphony artist bio.

The rest is history. Bravo Bill.

Peter Schickele a.k.a. PDQ Bach

Fellow bassoonist and composer Peter Schickele is a mentor for the Bassoon Brothers. "I played bassoon during high school and college in the Fargo-Moorehead Symphony Orchestra and then in the orchestra at Swarthmore College. But when I got to Juilliard, there were real bassoonist around. They knew how to make reeds and everything. So, I gave it up. I had never even owned an instrument. I had never intended to be a bassoonist. I just wanted to play in an orchestra." Source: http://northwestreverb.blogspot.com/2008/03/conversation-with-peter-schi...

We commissioned a work called Blue Set No. 2 from Peter. The very challenging work for quartet appears on our Wanted CD and is available in sheet music form as well. We've worked with Peter over the years on his PDQ Bach shows and have also thoroughly enjoyed hearing/watching his performances on the instrument. His Concerto for Bassoon vs. Orchestra had an unusual twist to it when he performed it here with the Oregon Symphony in the 1980s. He arrived with a rented bassoon and soon discovered that it wasn't playing quite right. A button was lodged in the low F tonehole! During rehearsal one of the keys fell off too. So we fixed him up with a replacement instrument. I'm still trying to figure out how he got the confetti to blow out of the bell.
Schickele
Peter performed his Abassoonata several years later here and was such a hoot. Sheet music is available for this piece which calls for the bassoonist to play the bassoon AND piano, because the piano player has failed to show up on time. Peter has written another more serious concerto for bassoon and chamber orchestra, and the bassoon is prominently featured in a number of his chamber works.

The Bassoon Brothers have recorded three of PDQ Bach's pieces. Last Tango in Bayreuth and Blue Set on the Wanted CD and Lip My Reeds on the Bassoon Brothers Escaped CD. We hope to commission another work if he is up to it.
Tromboon
Brother Mark's tromboon playing on Night Train (Wanted) and Sabre Dance (Captured) was inspired by Peter's Oratorio called the Seasonings where the tromboon provides flatulance as well as a sweet melodic line. The tromboon is played with a bassoon reed and bocal attached to a trombone. Mark has performed this work twice with Peter in Portland. Most recently in March 2008 where he gave the definitive performance of the Seasoning's tromboon part with the Portland Symphonic Choir.

Chip Davis

Chip went from playing the bundle of sticks to playing with drumsticks. He's sold more than 36 million recordings worldwide.
Chip Davis

The alias of composer Chip Davis, Mannheim Steamroller was among the pioneers of neo-classical electronic music, emerging as one of the driving forces behind the New Age phenomenon. Born in Sylvania, Ohio, Davis' father was a high school music teacher, while his mother was a trombonist with Phil Spitalny's All Girl Orchestra. His grandmother was his first music teacher, giving the child his initial piano lessons at the age of four; two years later, Davis composed his first piece, a four-part chorale written in honor of his dog. He later joined a boys' choir as well, and while attending the University of Michigan played bassoon in the school's concert band. Source WINAMP.

Mark Elder

Mark Elder moved from playing the bundle of sticks to a silent but powerful stick.
Mark Elder
Music Director of the Halle Orchestra in Manchester, the English bassoonist moved from the back of the orchestra to leading it. In an article in the Guardian about the music of Shostakovich Mark says, "One of the last pieces I played as a bassoonist with an amateur orchestra was Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony. I loved it because it was funny and unpredictable: it chirrupped along and suddenly I got this long, passionate and stern bassoon solo at the start of the fourth movement. As bassoonists we revere the symphonic works of Shostakovich." Is there a lost bassoon concerto by this master yet to be unearthed? We doubt it, but you never know.

Rainn Wilson

It's really okay to be nerdy and play bassoon. Here's our NERD HERO Celebrity Bassoonist. See what happened to him...
Rainn Wilson
You've seen him on TV. The Office and Six Feet Under. But the greatest thing about Rainn Wilson is that he actually played basoon on the Ellen DeGeneres show as a great surprise to those watching and to Ellen. We are still looking for a video of that. Maybe he played Happy Birthday or something. Did you see this? Rainn is yet another Northwest Bassoon having grown up in Seattle.

"Rainn Wilson’s adolescence was subsequently rife with a number of off-kilter activities, with his efforts to learn the bassoon and passion for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons surely singling him out as a kid entirely comfortable in his own skin."

"There was one point in high school actually when I was on the chess team, marching band, model United Nations and debate club all at the same time. And I would spend time with the computer club after school. And I had just quit pottery club, which I was in junior high, but I let that go. I also played bassoon in the orchestra … so you can imagine. I was kind of pimply. I was a pimply youth. So I really understand what it is to be an outsider and I think that the nerds are kind of taking over now."

Thanks to Jonna Griffith for remembering this celebrity bassoonist's appearance on Ellen.

Sources: http://www.askmen.com/men/entertainment/rainn-wilson/index.html
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/the-office/profile/rainn-wilson.aspx
Gene Shalit

This TV personality looks like he should be a bassoonist and he IS!

"Shalit has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston's Symphony
Hall and Tanglewood…played his bassoon on stage in Lincoln Center...and
conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in a full concert of classical
music. In none of these venues has he ever been invited back.

For the past 31 years (and counting), Gene Shalit has been a regular
presence on NBC's Today. He has been reviewing motion pictures, plays, and
books on television, radio, and in major magazines for 37 years."

Source MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6694545/
Stan Getz

Lengendary jazz saxophonist Stan Getz was listed as a bassoonist (as well as sax) in the New York Musicians Union directory in the 1950s. Source Ray Pizzi.
Stan Getz
"The son of Ukrainian immigrants, Stanley Gayetzby (Getz) was born in Philadelphia but spent most of his childhood in the Bronx. During his adolescent years he quickly identified himself as a musical prodigy, taking up the harmonica at age 12 and then switching to the bass for six months before receiving his first alto saxophone at 13. In high school Stanley was talked into taking up the bassoon, and mastered the instrument so quickly that a year later he was selected to play in New York's All-City High School Orchestra, an ensemble that featured the area's best players in his age group. After a period of study with New York Philharmonic bassoonist Simon Kovar the promising young windsman was offered a scholarship to Julliard, but it was too late: the wicked urges of jazz had already taken hold of his innocent soul and Stanley passed up the offer in favor of a new tenor sax and a membership in the local musician's union." Source http://www.nndb.com/people/814/000085559/

Larry Bryggman

CBS Daytime star on As the World Turns played two reed instruments. Accordion and Bassoon. "Long considered the best actor in daytime television, Larry Bryggman has portrayed Dr. John Dixon on As the World Turns since the character's villainous inception in 1969.
Larry Bryggman
Born of Swedish descent in Concord, California on December 21, 1938, Bryggman grew up in nearby Oakland. His father worked for a neon sign company in San Francisco while his mother taught piano. A serious student of music, he learned to play the piano, drums and various woodwinds, including the bassoon. He also learned to play the accordion at the request of his father, often accompanying the Swedish dancers in his community. "I've always wanted to be able to play a fine piano, to play a concerto," he says. "I studied piano a long time and I wanted to be a musician." Source http://members.aol.com/astagelife/bio.htm (submitted by Douglas Huff DMA)

Rumored to be Celebrity Bassoonists or Should Be:

Captain Kirk

Did the captain of Starship Enterprise did play some chamber music and his 23rd century basooon. (Shantner's Bassoon) created some controversy and confusion for those who have studied this portion of a twisted brain.
Captain Kirk

"The part of the brain that contains the musical instrument captain kirk of the USS Enterprise owned in 1967 and used to perform to the crew on Friday nights around stardate 16 400 supplimental. Spock, Bones and Scotty occassionaly made up the woodwind quartet with their own instruments - The saxaphone, picollo and English horn to the delight of the crew."

Bones (To Spock) : Spock you confounded fool the captain has been flying solo since 8pm on his basoon!
Spock (To Bones) : Facinating..
Scotty (To All) : Come on! We've gotta help him, grab your instruments and meet me on the bridge.
All : (Musical Mayhem)
Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=shatners+bassoon

Garrison Keillor

In one of his scripts he describes being a young bassoonist. Let us know if this is the truth or fiction!

Henry Kissinger
The elder statesman's voice is bassoon like. He must have played bassoon.

Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa liked the bassoon and used in some of his works. Maybe he did play it? We know that bassoonist Ray Pizzi performed with him and other bassoonists recorded with him.
Zappa

Frank said ; "The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has the medieval aroma, like the days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball . . . . I find this unfathomable, but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing the bassoon." Source http://www.timpricejazz.com/lessons/bassoonpractice.html

Who do you think should or could be a contrabassoonist?

1. Billy Bob Thorton
That strange voice in Slingblade? A weird contrabasso!

2. Janet Reno Former U.S. Attorney General
Brother Juan won a Halloween costume contest as Janet with his contrabassoon

Doctor Watson
The fictional character and sidekick of Sherlock Holmes was rumored to have been a contrabassoonist. This has proved to be wrong...
"The first confirmation of Moriarty’s musical virtuosity appears in the Sherlock Holmes film Pursuit to Algiers. In it Holmes discloses to Watson that “Moriarty was a virtuoso on the contra-bassoon.” Holmes, of course, was a skilled violinist ..."
Source: PROFESSOR MORIARTY’S LOW BLOW
by Joseph J. Fink: http://www.holmesian.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1075

3. Leonard Nimoy
It's quite logical that Spock would like the contrabassoon. AND he made a recording to prove it!
Leonard Nimoy

On Nimoy's CD The Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy check out The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins
Hear the song at this source: http://mog.com/music/Leonard_Nimoy/The_Two_Sides_of_Leonard_Nimoy
Maybe Nimoy's playing too?

What about Charles Darwin, was he a bassoonist?

Answer: NO
Darwin
[T]he following anecdote is recorded of Darwin, who, when studying earthworms, put them to a curious use. Earthworms are devoid of the sense of hearing, yet they move away from the footfall of birds and other enemies, and especially at the approach of their arch enemy, the mole.

Like the blind, they are intensely sensitive to vibrations. One day a physician called to see Charles Darwin. The great naturalist was in the library with an iron tray containing earthworms. The worms took no notice of the jingling of keys, the shrill note of a whistle, or similar sounds, but when Darwin's son played to them on a bassoon they the vibration and immediately began to wriggle.

This source is very strange and interesting for other reasons: http://www.oracularlab.com/oracularlab/jason/bassoon.html
Lesser Known, but interesting bassoonists

San Franscisco Mayor Eugene Schmitz (A crook who played on a crook)

EUGENE SCHMITZ, Mayor of San Francisco during the 1903 earthquake.
The Golden Gate city was in the grip of a heinous political machine headed by Abe Ruef, who had in his power Mayor Eugene Schmitz, a former bassoon player and orchestra leader tagged "the smallest man mentally and the meanest man morally that ever occupied the Mayor's chair." Thanks to the Ruef, Schmitz combine underworld leaders and corrupt businessmen plundered the city, their guiding principle, as one historian summed it up: "Encourage dishonesty, and let no dishonest dollar escape." Submitted by Douglas Huff, DMA

Not very interesting or funny bassoonists
Steven Colbert
I don't know why people think he's funny playing bassoon. I guess the public still gives us no respect. This is sick...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9WflT-tg1E

Nothing really to do with the bassoon
http://www.loudbassoon.com/
http://www,vidalbassoon.blogspot.com/

There are movies where you'll see a bassoon, some for just a moment, but others where the bassoonist has a part. If you are looking for a movie to rent or buy, check these out. Let us know your picks to add to our list.

Never Cry Wolf

The bassoon plays a huge role in this one and should be on every bassoonist's shelf. Some will be grossed out by role of rodents in this movie. The soundtrack features Rufus Olivier, Prinicipal Bassoonist with the San Francisco Opera, who plays purely haunting calls and high register pitch bends. Rufus plays a little bassoon recital with piano. The bassoon is also featured as a weapon! Check it out.

Never Cry Wolf (1983)

Topsy-Turvy

This is a movie about the lives of Gilbert and Sullivan. These guys are favorites of the Bassoon Brothers as you can tell from our recordings. The bassoon player is an archetypical Granpapa type with full (huge) beard and gets picked on by the conductor for his mistakes. We just don't get any respect. The movie goes on too long but the scene with the bassoonist is worth the wait--if you're a bassoonist...

Topsy Turvy

The Red Shoes

This 1948 drama about a ballerina and her impresario features a short scene where the maestro is rehearsing with two bassoonists. This is a very fine movie and well worth the effort to find it.
The Red Shoes