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Pg 2 MOuNTaIN HOMe February 2008
ByJohn Fulmer
Photos
By
John
Fulmer
Sound
Home
A
Ed ClutE plays a tunE on his mason-hamlin grand piano at his
watkins glEns homE. ClutE will hEadlinE thE mountain homE wintEr
Jazz fEst on marCh 1 at thE pEnn wEllshotEl.
STANDINGbee E mce, ce- cbe be , E Ce
c e e e ec e be.
te ec, e e ce, ve, e 1920, e E d dc
Phonographs were all the rage, a must-have for apper-era audiophiles, equivalent
e --e p , bee e, e-ee e.
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February 2008 MOuNTaIN HOMe Pg
Pls S Home on pg 10
Ed ClutE slips an Edison diamond disC on his Edison maChinE.
a prECursor to thE modErn phonograph, it is onE of his prizE
possEssions. thE first Edisons wEnt on salE in 1912.
he ten-inch wide records used on the machines
are one-quarter-inch thick. The eighty-rpm discs,
a transitional technology from the earlier cylinder-
recording method and the thirty-three-rpm vinyl lp,
are heavy as serving platters and made of an ungodly
chemical mixture of phenol, formaldehyde, wood-
our and solvent. As the needle slips into the records
groove, a slightly scratchy ragtime stomp bleats out
from the horn, or speaker, hidden behind a grille.
Except for record collectors and amateur archivists
like Clute, the song, which regales the listener to the
joys and wonders of Wisconsin, has been long forgot-
ten. Clute himself cant think of its title or the name
of the band off the top of his head.
But thats understandable. Clute, who, along with his
Dixie Five Plus One, will headline the rstMountain
HomeWinter Jazz Fest on March 1, is a professional mu-sician, a classically trained pianist, and a lover of ragtime
and early jazz. His studio, in which the Edison machine
sits, is a minor museum, stuffed with sound stuff. There
are three pianos in the center of the room: two Mason-
Hamlin grands, one of which is also a player piano, and
a Foster upright foot-pump player.
It would take an assistant or two to catalog the
records, tapes, CDs, and piano rolls stacked in the
shelves that cover the studios walls. And since Clute is
blind, they all had to be coded with a braille writer and
elaborately organized.But instead of worrying too much about whether
he can identify a band or its nearly 100-year-old ditty,
Clute sways in front of his prize machine with a
childlike look of delight on his face, blissed out by a
song to which Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald might have
danced The Charleston. Obedience to minutia, the
curse of too many collectors, doesnt seem to be his
problem.
Clute also keeps an archive in his head. Ask him
to play a ragtime-era song or one of the standards
from the Great American Songbook, and he doesnthesitate. Nor does he say much, except perhaps, Oh,
thats agreatsong. He just plays it. And awlessly. But
this talent took years of practice.
lute, who is sixty-four, was born and, for the
rst six years of his life, lived in the house next
to the studio. High on a hill in Watkins Glen, New
York, it offers a stunning view of Seneca Lake. Clute
said his mother encouraged his interest in music.
My mother says I was playing the piano at the age
of three Clute said. I went to the Batavia Schoolfor the Blind when I was seven and studied all the
subjectsmath, English, historybut with a big
emphasis on music.
After graduating from Batavia in 1964, he headed to
the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he
spent four wonderful years. During the summer, he
attended the Amherst Summer Music Center in Maine,
which is no longer in existence, but Clute described it
as a very good music school.
After graduating from the conservatory, he met
up with Jean Casadesus, a French classic pianist andthe son of Robert and Gaby Casadesus. Jean Casa-
C
T