“It is a rare event in jazz where one man can all but reinvent an instrument, bringing it to a new stage of revolution.” –Leonard Feather

It’s a rare event to hear acclaimed clarinetist/saxophonist Eddie Daniels on the stage of a New York City jazz club. With his highly regarded release Mean What You Say bringing him renewed attention, Daniels will celebrate his 65^th birthday with a four-night stand at the Iridium, October 19-22, his first Manhattan club date in over a decade. Joining the party will be vibes master Joe Locke and, on opening night only, special guests Paquito D’Rivera, Ken Peplowski, and Ron Odrich. IPO will record the sessions live for a future release.

Highly regarded in both jazz and classical music circles, Daniels has about twenty recordings to his credit as leader, yet few CDs or public appearances in the past ten years until the spring 2006 release of Mean What You Say (IPO). Of the upcoming Iridium gig, Daniels noted that “…I will be featuring some of the music from my new IPO CD Mean What You Say, which featured my return to the tenor saxophone after having made the clarinet my voice for so many years. The sets at the Iridium will also feature the clarinet and tenor in a new setting with vibist Joe Locke and pianist Tom Ranier, bassist Dave Finck, and drummer Joe LaBarbera. For me this group will bring a new sound to today's jazz, with some of the music remembering the MJQ.....the soft beautiful lyrical quality…with some hard driving qualities of today's music. We will perform some of the great standards and some original material written for this quintet. I am also pleased that the great alto saxophonist Paquito DeRivera and my fellow clarinet colleagues Ken Peplowski and Ron Odrich will be joining me on opening night.”

Raised in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn, Eddie Daniels was attracted to jazz in his teens after hearing the instrumentalists accompanying such stars as Frank Sinatra. He started out on clarinet at 13 and alto sax (which had been his father’s instrument) at 15, and performed at the Newport Jazz Festival’s youth competition. Enrolled at the High School for the Performing Arts (studying clarinet and tenor sax), he became the first clarinet in New York’s All City High School Orchestra. Eddie went on to earn a BA in Music and Education at Brooklyn College and embarked on high school teaching career in New York City. A few years later, he enrolled in a Master’s degree program in clarinet and composition at Julliard.

While playing a gig with Tony Scott at the Half Note, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis stopped by and invited Daniels to join their new orchestra as a tenor player, which began its long tenure at the Village Vanguard in 1966; Daniels remained with the orchestra through the early 70s. A single solo on clarinet, recorded for Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra’s Live at the Village Vanguard lead to Eddie winning Downbeat's International Critics New Star on Clarinet Award. Notes Eddie of his decision to play clarinet on “Little Pixie,” “We each had 32 bars and at the last minute I decided to dive for the clarinet and it was live and there were no other takes, and so I played that solo on the clarinet, and for some reason I won the DownBeat “New Star Clarinet” for those 32 bars.”

Over the years, Daniels received accolades for both his classical and jazz chops. In 1966, he won the saxophone prize in the International Competition for Modern Jazz; in 1989 he won a Grammy Award for his playing on the Roger Kellaway arrangement of “Memos from Paradise,” just one of many such awards and nominations. Maestro Leonard Bernstein noted that, “Eddie Daniels combines elegance and virtuosity in a way that makes me remember Arthur Rubenstein. He is a thoroughly well-bred demon.”

The Iridium is located at 1650 Broadway (at 51^st Street) in Manhattan. For reservations, call 212-582-2121 or go online at www.iridiumjazzclub.com. Showtimes at 8:30 and 10:30 pm, with third sets at Midnight on Friday/Saturday. For a Jazz Police review of Mean What You Say, click here!