Bass clarinet and a bass clarinet solo by Omer Simeon can be heard in the 1926 recording "Someday Sweetheart" by Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers. Additionally, Benny Goodman recorded with the instrument a few times early in his career. Harry Carney, Duke Ellington's baritone saxophonist for 47 years, played bass clarinet in some of Ellington's arrangements, first recording with it on "Saddest Tale" in 1934. He was featured soloist on many Ellington recordings, including 27 titles on bass clarinet. The first jazz album on which the leader solely played bass clarinet was "Great Ideas of Western Mann" (1957) by
Benny Goodman During the 1942–44 strike, the War Department approached the union and requested the production of V-Discs, a set of records containing new recordings for soldiers to listen to, thereby boosting the rise of new artists Also, by the late 1940s, swing was no longer the dominant style of jazz musicians. By the 1940s, some jazz musicians were borrowing from classical music, while others, such as Charlie Parker, were broadening the rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic vocabulary of swing to created creating bebop (or bop). The bebop recordings Goodman made for Capitol were praised by critics. For his bebop band he hired