Jazz band but a few early jazz musicians such as Alcide Nunez preferred the C soprano clarinet, and many New Orleans jazz brass bands have used an E soprano clarinet. Swing clarinetists such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Woody Herman led successful big bands and smaller groups from the 1930s onward. Band leader Duke Ellington, active from the 1920s to the 1970s, used the clarinet as the lead instrument in his works, with several players of the instrument (Barney Bigard, Jimmy Hamilton and Russell Procope) spending a significant portion of their careers in his orchestra. Harry Carney, primarily Ellington's baritone saxophonist,
Rusty Goodman Speers, The Happy Goodman Family, Michael English and Gaither Vocal Band. Goodman performed with The Plainsmen Quartet but he is better known with his family group, The Happy Goodman Family, where he sang along with his brothers Howard, Sam, Bobby and his sister-in-law Vestal Goodman. He is also the father of Tanya Goodman Sykes, singer/songwriter and former member of The Goodmans and Heirloom. Goodman launched his solo career in 1975 when Canaan Records founder Marvin Norcross approached him to record his first solo album. Goodman agreed and recorded "The Singer". He frequently performed both as a soloist and with his