Jazz band chord progression. The clarinet is a woodwind instrument with a single-reed mouthpiece. A clarinet player is known as an clarinetist. Originally, the clarinet was a central instrument in jazz, beginning with the New Orleans players in the 1910s. It remained a signature instrument of jazz through much of the big band era into the 1940s. Larry Shields was the clarinetist for the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the first jazz band to record commercially in 1917. The American players Ted Lewis and Jimmie Noone were pioneers of the instrument in jazz bands. The B soprano clarinet was the most common instrument,
Bop City War II. While modern jazz, whether in the form of swing or bebop, was popular on Los Angeles' Central Avenue, San Francisco was at the time a haven of traditional jazz (also known as Dixieland). In the 1940s and early 1950s, the Bay Area scene was dominated by Dixieland revival bands such as Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band. In the late 1940s, however, new clubs emerged in the Tenderloin and North Beach districts, which changed the music scene in the city. Bop City emerged from the short-lived club Vout City, run by Slim Gaillard on the same premises. Gaillard