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,
Franny Beecher included a blonde 1959 ES-350T, which in his later years he no longer owned. He played a cherry sunburst Gibson ES-137 Classic in concerts and while touring. In October 2007, Beecher performed as a special guest of the Rib House Band at the Bridgeport Rib House in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania. Franny Beecher was the lead guitarist in the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1948-49. He appeared on The Toast of the Town show (which later became The Ed Sullivan Show) on CBS television with the Benny Goodman band in December, 1948. He is featured on two Benny Goodman albums, "Modern Benny" on