This is FRESH AIR. In modern jazz and improvised music, there are many single-instrument choirs, such as saxophone quartets and brass ensembles. Also, bands have clarinets. Germany's The Clarinet Trio ...

But Shaw, who died last week at age 94, early on realized that he and Goodman ultimately had little in common, except for the immutable fact that each played the clarinet, rather well. More to the ...

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 ...