CLARINETS DIRECT

020 85811113 or 07787 770071

BUFFET, EVETTE & SCHAEFFER, PLATEAU Bb CLARINET, £1095

An extremely fine, and unique, Evette & Schaeffer, E13 covered hole clarinet, which is a commission sale for ourselves. Clarinets Direct is fortunate to count many of the UK's foremost professional players amongst our clientele. One such is Tony Coe, perhaps Britain's most famous Jazz clarinettist. This instrument was a custom build for Tony, and the work was undertaken by the late Bill Wrathel. Bill was for many years the chief repairer at Michael White's Musical Instruments, Ealing, and he was well liked and respected by many of London's foremost clarinet and sax players. The matching serial numbers are K275 which makes this an early Evette & Schaeffer, manufactured originally as an open hole instrument in the 1930's.
There is no damage to the Grenadilla wood, which is crack and repair free, but there are surface scuffs and scratches. The original German Silver rings have been cleverly adapted by Bill Wrathel, with custom touch plates soldered on and then filed. The plateau mechanism itself, has been intelligently designed, oweing much to the flute plateau mechanism, key barrels have been cut and adapted with tiny screws to allow individual pad cups to cover: This is very neat work. Note that the index finger of the LH does not have a pad cup, and this is to facilitate half holing in the Altissimo register. The instrument has recently had a complete re-pad in Pisoni deluxe white leather pads and all pads are "as new". A modern adjustable thumb rest has been fitted, and the original thumb rest screw holes left unfilled. The case is the original which shows some stains to the interior, and wear generally, but is still fully functional. The barrel is actually a Buffet measuring 66.5mm. The supplied m'piece is a stock Buffet. This instrument is a one off example which actually plays much better than other mainstream manufacturers standard models. Tony is only selling it because he has been fortunate enough to find a matched pair of Triebert plateau clarinets.