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Woody goes after that sound in two ways. First, by using a wide open mouthpiece and a very hard reed -- a Rico Royale No. 5 -- which provides a lot of volume but requires cast-iron lips to play. (Benny Goodman once borrowed Woody's clarinet for a sit-in and had to shave the reed down with a kitchen knife before he could get a toot out of it.) Second, by playing an Albert System clarinet -- an antiquated, wide-bore instrument based on a virtually obsolete fingering method. Why the Albert System? "Because all the guys I liked played the Albert," says Woody.
The instrument Woody uses these days is a patched-together twelve-key Rampone, made in Italy in about 1890. Like many of the horns in Woody's collection, it was supplied by fellow clarinetist Davern, who picked it up in a New York City pawn shop. Davern once offered to lend Woody a horn that had belonged to the great New Orleans clarinetist Albert Burbank, another of Woody's idols. Woody hesitated. "What if somebody steals it?" he said. "So what?" replied Davern. "They'll probably steal it while I'm playing it," said Woody.
That quip was uncharacteristic of a man who scrupulously separates the clarinetist from the comedian and never tells a joke on the bandstand: when Woody is playing jazz, he's all stick and no shtick. Not that funny things haven't happened in connection with Woody's music. When he and his New Orleans Funeral and Ragtime Orchestra first got together in the early '70s, they were summarily ejected from the first few clubs they played in because their music was so noncommercial. At one establishment, the band was fired in the middle of a particularly lugubrious spiritual, after the owner's child tugged on trumpeter John Bucher's sleeve and begged, "Please, mister, don't play anymore."
Michael's Pub, where the band finally landed a regular gig in 1971, has been the scene of more than a few light moments. When the Mets were in the 1986 World Series, sports-junkie Woody showed up with a tiny transistor television and propped it up on his music stand so he could watch the game while he played. Trombonist Dick Dreiwitz and his wife Barbara, the tuba player, tell of a surprise visit by Groucho Marx. "After one of Woody's solos," says Barbara, "Groucho reached up and handed him a few pennies as a tip." Psychiatrist Ron Brady, a friend of Woody's, recalls the time a man claiming to be a biologist walked into Michael's and asked Woody for a skin sample. "He said he was working on a clone."
Most fans, however, do not get near their hero. Michael's Pub owner Gil Wiest aggressively fends them off, which is just fine with Woody. He makes no bones about the fact that he's there for his own kicks, not to strike up a rapport with the audience. "I'm not somebody who smiles and bows," he says. "You know, I'm up there to play. It's strictly business with me." Yet many patrons expect something different from the former stand-up comic. "Most of them are shocked that he doesn't speak or tell jokes," says banjoist Eddie Davis. "But after a few tunes, they get caught up in the music."