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,
Eleanor Sophia Smith choral director. She also composed songs and arranged music specifically for her students to perform. She initiated an annual Christmas concert which also included a dramatic presentation and was eagerly anticipated by the neighborhood for its holiday pageantry. Under her direction of the music school, the Hull House Boy's Band developed, which included immigrant boys from the neighborhood who would later become noted jazz performers. Jazz pianist Art Hodes recalled that one of the first jam sessions he ever had occurred when a young clarinetist named Benny Goodman joined the Boy's Band. James Petrillo, who would later become the leader