The clarinet has fallen into eclipse, but on this show we'll feature two recent clarinetists, Dr. Michael White of New Orleans and Anat Cohen of Tel Aviv. The clarinet was once one of the more prominent instruments in jazz, but in the postwar years, it steadily lost ground to its cousin, the saxophone. High school and college jazz bands these days often don't have a clarinet player in them, and new albums from clarinet-playing band leaders are rare. Dr. Michael White is a New Orleans stylist (and a professor of African-American music), offering music in the best tradition of that city. Anat Cohen of Tel Aviv, Israel, is a sister of jazz artist Avishai Cohen, and her style, perhaps not surprsingly, has a Middle Eastern feel to it. This show features recent tracks from White and Cohen, and "classic" cuts from Pee Wee Russell and the great early clarinet jazz star Sidney Bechet. This program also includes some high-energy music from The Rippingtons and from the new album by pianist Hiromi Uehara's band Hiromi's Sonicbloom, plus jazz from the Philadelphia band Thunderbird Service and the incomparable pianist-singer-composer Aziza Mustafa Zadeh.

The clarinet has fallen into eclipse, but on this show we'll feature two recent clarinetists, Dr. Michael White of New Orleans and Anat Cohen of Tel Aviv. The clarinet was once one of the more prominent instruments in jazz, but in the postwar years, it steadily lost ground to its cousin, the saxophone. High school and college jazz bands these days often don't have a clarinet player in them, and new albums from clarinet-playing band leaders are rare. Dr. Michael White is a New Orleans stylist (and a professor of African-American music), offering music in the best tradition of that city. Anat Cohen of Tel Aviv, Israel, is a sister of jazz artist Avishai Cohen, and her style, perhaps not surprsingly, has a Middle Eastern feel to it. This show features recent tracks from White and Cohen, and "classic" cuts from Pee Wee Russell and the great early clarinet jazz star Sidney Bechet. This program also includes some high-energy music from The Rippingtons and from the new album by pianist Hiromi Uehara's band Hiromi's Sonicbloom, plus jazz from the Philadelphia band Thunderbird Service and the incomparable pianist-singer-composer Aziza Mustafa Zadeh.