How has the style of playing the clarinet in Jazz developed between 1910 and 1940?
Although he is most famous for playing soprano saxophone, Sidney Bechet also played clarinet. I’m not sure of his innovations of jazz, but I know he’s quite famous. Most of my jazz knowledge is from Bebop to present, but I know Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw led bands and played clarinet leads. Much of New Orleans style jazz has the clarinet playing a second melody kind of accompanying the main melody played by brass. Listen to Louis Armstrong’s “Canal Street Blues” and you can hear a clarinet weaving through and around the main melody, but the brass will aways play the main lead melody. That was the role of clarinet for the old “New Orleans” style of jazz. Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman weren’t playing in the streets of New Orleans or marching or anything like that. They were in dance halls and playing the more modern swing. Advancements in recording by the 1930’s probably had a huge role in their ability to play clarinet leads and solos as compared to what could be recorded in 1917 ( rig
