Since the end of the big band era, the clarinet has taken a backseat to its sexier woodwind cousin, the saxophone. But in the Bay Area, thanks to a fertile environment of classically trained ...

He soon doubled on clarinet and played with a long list of dance bands ... Into the 1950s and beyond, Hucko recorded with or led big bands playing swing era hits. He also was a mainstay on the ...

He led the most influential, for a time the most popular, and perhaps the most polished of the big bands of the swing era." Goodman's NMAH clarinet was crafted in the workshops of the legendary ...

Clarinetist Buddy DeFranco, a brilliant jazz improviser who devised many paths for his instrument following its peak popularity in the swing era, died Dec. 24, his website announced. He was 91.

The clarinet’s opening statements ... them some extra character — a visceral twinge in the one of the first big dissonant chords, and quick, walloping washes in the dash to the end.