From the Department of Woodwinds as Weapons:

Benny Goodman once told the story of Jimmy Dorsey getting fed up with Ted Lewis at a New Years party and getting in a little scuffle with him. When Goodman (who roomed with Dorsey at the time), saw Jimmy coming back very early from the party, he asked him what happened. "I hit Lewis over the head with my clarinet," he replied.

This seems to be a time-honored tradition dating back as far as the Elizabethian era. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet at one point gets fed up with Guildenstern and threatens him with the sharp(er) end of a recorder. In the 1990 film featuring Mel Gibson, Hamlet even tries to choke him with it.

It's not every day one finds connections between Shakespeare and a jazz ancedote . . .