Most for Your Money : Often asked to emulate Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, famed clarinetist usually prefers to play his own way.

When the distinguished clarinetist Abe Most did the project that fulfilled one of his chief artistic goals, he was not himself.

In fact, Most, once star soloist for Tommy Dorsey and Les Brown and a TV and film studio ace, was emulating the styles of his two main idols--Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw--along with those of Woody Herman, Matty Matlock, Irving Fazola and other renowned swing-era clarinetists.

The project was “The Swing Era,” a 15-volume set produced by Time-Life Books that was recorded in the early ‘70s and sold through the mail. The set was composed of re-creations of great swing era numbers of all the great bands of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s. Billy May arranged all the orchestrations for the band, and Most played all the clarinet solos.

“I liked Benny and Artie so much. I always thought that if I could play a little of both of them in my career, then I would be all right,” Most says. “So when I got the call from contractor Manny Klein to do the Time-Life, I jumped at it. But I didn’t tell him it was something I had wanted to do all my life.”

Though he is still often called upon to perform the styles of Goodman and Shaw, Most usually just plays his own way. “I play what I hear, which includes not just swing, but be-bop and music of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s,” he said. “I try to play more linearly, than using a vertical, chordal approach.”

Most appears tonight at Chadney’s with a quartet that spotlights his musically resourceful brother Sam, who plays flute and tenor sax. The clarinetist exhibits a charmingly breathy sound, a sure sense of rhythm and that forward drive that is at the heart of swing. His direct, emotional quality reaches out to a listener.

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Indeed, his music has a human, lived-in feeling to it, and it reflects his openness and the cluttered, friendly ambience of his Encino home. There, the walls and tabletops of the home are adorned with family pictures--the Mosts have three children, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild--and numerous collections, chiefly clown paintings and Kennedy memorabilia. Most’s music room is a mass of books, sheets of music, instruments and awards--among them a plaque from Tom Bradley declaring Aug. 21, 1988, “Abe Most Day” in Los Angeles.

Most, a native of Manhattan, began playing clarinet at age 9 and says he started to really enjoy the instrument when he realized he had a special gift: He could improvise. “Jazz makes you feel like a free spirit,” he says. “Nobody tells you when to breathe, when to do anything. When you are with the right guys and there’s a groove, it’s like flying.”

A quick study, Most was working on New York’s 52nd Street at age 18, and was in Brown’s band at 19. He did three years in the Army-Air Force band, a stint with Dorsey, another with Brown, and then a 22-year job at 20th Century Fox.

Most has played on the soundtracks of such films as “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell, “The Man With the Golden Arm,” and more recently, “1941” and “Home Alone 2.” He’s also a regular on the soundtracks of such TV shows as “Northern Exposure” and “The Commish.”

The clarinetist was paid tribute by his friends and colleagues recently at the Ventura Club in Sherman Oaks. Morris Repass, a trombonist who has often performed with Most on TV and film soundtracks, echoed many of his colleagues when he later said, “Abe is one of the few great musicians who is also a great human being.”

Where and When What: Abe Most, with Sam Most, Frank Marocco and Jake Hanna at Chadney’s, 3000 W. Olive St., Burbank. Hours: 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. tonight. Price: No cover, no minimum. Call: (818) 843-5333.