I feel so bad about Pete's death, I just loved his music.
I saw him live around 2001. He entertained at a Sweet Adelines
international in Portland, Oregon, where the Greater Kingston Chorus was
competing, and he was wonderful.
Sandy
-----Original Message-----
From: ourplace-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ourplace-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Marty Rimpau
Sent: August-07-16 8:39 AM
To: our place list
Subject: [ourplace] pete fountain; clarinetist was jazz envoy for new
orleans
Pete Fountain; clarinetist was jazz envoy for New Orleans . By Matt Schudel
Washington Post . WASHINGTON - Pete Fountain, whose rousing performances on
clarinet made him a star of Dixieland music, a familiar figure on television
and in nightclubs, and one of the most popular musical ambassadors of his
native New Orleans, died Saturday in his hometown. He was 86. The immediate
cause was not disclosed, but Mr. Fountain, who was in hospice care, had
heart surgery and strokes in recent years. From 1957 to 1959, when Mr.
Fountain was a standout soloist on "The Lawrence Welk Show," he was perhaps
the most widely recognized jazz musician on TV. He developed his musical
style as a teenager while playing in Bourbon Street clubs - which he called
his "conservatory" - and seemed to have every old-time Dixieland and gospel
tune at his fingertips. His recording of the hymn "Just a Closer Walk With
Thee" sold 500,000 copies w hen it was released in 1959, and several of his
nearly 100 albums became gold records. Known for his shaved head, goatee,
and dapper wardrobe, Mr. Fountain was as effervescent as his music. For
years, he owned Crescent City nightclubs in which he held court as the
bandleader, featured performer, and raconteur. Few musicians, with the
possible exceptions of trumpeter Al Hirt and the members of the Preservation
Hall Jazz Band, were so deeply identified with the early music of New
Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. He appeared nearly 40 times at the New
Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and was a guest on Johnny Carson's
"Tonight Show" more than 50 times. He performed at five White House state
dinners and before Pope John Paul II during a 1987 papal visit to New
Orleans. "It snuck up on me," Mr. Fountain said of his fame in 2002. "I
didn't look for it. I never did strive for anything. Through the years I
just wanted to play. He stayed true to the classic music of his home town,
and his versions of such tunes as "Basin Street Blues," "Clarinet
Marmalade," and "Tin Roof Blues" are considered authoritative. "I never had
any interest in going the improv route," he told New Orleans CityBusiness.
"I was just enjoying what I was doing too much. I didn't want to progress in
the progression of progressive jazz. I just like to hear the melody too much
and know where I'm at. Pierre Dewey LaFontaine Jr. was born July 3, 1930, in
New Orleans. His father, who drove a beer truck and was a part-time
musician, changed the family name. Mr. Fountain began to play clarinet at
the urging of a doctor, who said it would help build his lung capacity. He
began performing in nightclubs at 15, alongside many of the founders of New
Orleans jazz. When one of his high school teachers reprimanded him for
sleeping in class, Mr. Fountain explained that he was working nights on
Bourbon Street. The teacher asked how much he made: The teen said he took
home $150 a week. "He said, 'I don't make that - go turn in your book,"' Mr.
Fountain recalled to the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1997.
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