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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-

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