LICORICE SCHTICK CLARINET TRIO:

SCHTICK WITH IT!

Clarinet lovers should be hip to Licorice Schtick, a Pinellas County clarinet trio that specializes in unique arrangements of jazz standards and originals. The trio's brilliant Schtick With It! is as much arty as Artie (Shaw, that is.) These guys - Pete Temko, John Creveling and Larry Kleinfeld - play with tenderness, whimsy and subtlety where it counts. Things kick off with a jaunty Sweet Georgia Brown, which devolves into slap-sticky doo-wop. Duke Ellington's Mood Indigo is reworked entirely, deconstructed, and patted with pomp and precision, tapped out with just three clarinets. Would you believe it sounds divine? As do compositions by Birdman Charlie Parker and piano wild guy Thelonious Monk. Originals, too, like Kleinfeld's winning Shelbs are top-notch.