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Kenny Davern

John Kenneth Davern's embryonic days in the music world found him as a big band sideman in various sax sections, and then on to the classic jazz combos of Greenwich Village and New York's uptown clubs as a clarinetist, to his soprano sax adventures in the Soprano Summit, and now back to the clarinet.

Davern is a native of Huntingdon, Long Island. As a young professional at the age of 16, he sat in with many of the legendary groups in New York City and the fast company gave him the background he needed to become a member of Jack Teagarden's band and to record with Jack at age 19. The bands of Phil Napoleon and Pee Wee Erwin found Kenny in the front line alongside these giants from 1955 through 1965.

Stints with Billy Butterfield and Herman Autry in the late 50's as well as Ruby Braff paved the way for his own group at Nick's. Recognition was solidified with a year's tour in 1963 with the Dukes of Dixieland, followed by engagements in New York and Canada with "Wild Bill" Davison, Bud Freeman, and Shorty Baker.

The Ferryboat in Brielle, N.J. and the Gaslight Club in New York occupied a lot of his time through 1968. The late 60's and early 70's found him working with Dick Wellstood in clubs such as Michael's Pub in New York. Between club appearances, Kenny began to appear at some of the many festivals and jazz societies that were springing up all over the country.

Soprano Summit's first recording was released in 1973 and the group officially formed in 1975. The great reed star, Bob Wilber, proved to be the ideal musical partner for Davern.

Kenny has appeared in the film classic The Hustler starring Paul Newman, as well as the Broadway show Marathon-33 and the Off-Broadway show One Mo' Time.

The early 80's found him forming the Blue Three with Dick Wellstood and Bobby Rosengarden. They made a highly successful recording and toured the US and abroad. Recordings with Ralph Sutton and Gus Johnson as well as Dick Wellstood and Art Hodes are still big sellers. His recording, The Very Thought of You in 1985, won the Music Trades Association Award as the Best Jazz Record of the Year in England, where a few years earlier he had been selected as the Number One Clarinetist in the World by the English Jazz Journal Reader's Poll.

The busy years since 1985 have found Kenny at many American festivals, European tours, clubs, and concerts.


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3
Radio & Podcasts

Beginnings Part 2 with Kenny Davern, Nat Adderley, Annie Ross and Junior Mance

Read "Beginnings Part 2 with Kenny Davern, Nat Adderley, Annie Ross and Junior Mance" reviewed by Monk Rowe


A second set of engaging “a-ha" anecdotes from Kenny Davern, Nat Adderley, Annie Ross and Junior Mance. ...

158
Album Review

Kenny Davern: No One But Kenny

Read "No One But Kenny" reviewed by George Kanzler


The album title could stand as a fitting epitaph for clarinetist Kenny Davern, who died of a heart attack in December, 2006 at seventy-one. For no one else played jazz quite like Davern, whose affection for old trad jazz tunes belied a quirky sense of time as singular as Thelonious Monk's and a cavalier attitude toward such traditions as chord changes, bar lines and conventional pitch. Like Sonny Rollins, another jazz musician fond of old tunes, Davern was a master ...

158
Album Review

The Kenny Davern Quartet: In Concert at the Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque, 2004

Read "In Concert at the Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque, 2004" reviewed by Florence Wetzel


Now in his 70s, Kenny Davern is a modern master of the clarinet, and his playing is an example of the effortlessness that comes only from decades of effort. This release finds him in the good company of guitarist James Chirillo, bassist Greg Cohen, and drummer Tony DeNicola on eight classic songs that radiate the pure, toe-tapping pleasure of jazz. In the liner notes Davern is quoted as saying that he was initially attracted to the clarinet ...

170
Album Review

Kenny Davern and Joe Temperley: Live at the Floating Jazz Festival

Read "Live at the Floating Jazz Festival" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


A Rollicking Blowing Session on the High Seas...

The musicians comprising this band, save possibly for Joe Temperley, are all associated with a traditional mainstream group of musicians typically showing up on the Arbors, Nagel Heyer, Chiaroscuro, and Concord Labels. They include, in addition to these present, Ruby Braff, Howard Alden, Randy Moss, Randy Sandke, Mark Shane, Ken Peplowski, etc. They are all expert practitioners of jazz, a bit right of center, but able to play what is asked of ...

136
Album Review

Kenny Davern & Joe Temperley: Live at the Floating Jazz Festival

Read "Live at the Floating Jazz Festival" reviewed by Dave Nathan


Although these veteran performers at the 18th Floating Jazz Festival had been around for quite, they had never played together as a group. There was also a bit of concern with having a baritone sax and clarinet on the front line. Not unexpectedly with these highly skilled artists, their concerns were unjustified. Joe Temperley, who is the first call to "play" Harry Carney when a tribute to Duke Ellington is being put together, and Kenny Davern, whose resume reads like ...

147
Album Review

Kenny Davern, Ken Peplowski: The Jazz KENNection

Read "The Jazz KENNection" reviewed by AAJ Staff


Nine action-packed cuts, and even a little musical trickery are the order of the day for The Jazz KENNection. The trickery occurs, well, let’s just say song titles can be deceiving! Ken and Kenny have put together a rousing collection of tunes from “Georgia On My Mind” to Ellington’s “Creole Love Call.” There is no really slow tune on this album, and it really plays to the improvisation abilities of both Ken and Kenny. The rhythm section is comprised of ...

173
Album Review

Kenny Davern & The Eddie Condon All Stars: Kenny Davern: A Night with Eddie Condon

Read "Kenny Davern: A Night with Eddie Condon" reviewed by Mike Neely


Kenny Davern: A Night with Eddie Condon presents a live performance that really sounds like a live performance, and that’s a rarity. The music is all around you like you’re listening from a table a few feet from the stage: you can hear the stage banter, the audience around you, and the cymbals tinging right above you. This disc was taken from a reel-to-reel recording of a 1971 concert in Syracuse, New York. The sound is surprisingly good, even the ...

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130

Radio

Clarinet Great Kenny Davern This Week on Riverwalk Jazz

Clarinet Great Kenny Davern This Week on Riverwalk Jazz

Source: Don Mopsick

This week, Riverwalk Jazz celebrates Jazz Appreciation Month with never-before- broadcast tracks featuring the great reedman Kenny Davern. The hour-long program is carried in the US on the Public Radio International network, on Sirius/XM sattelite radio and can be streamed on-demand from the Riverwalk Jazz website. Kenny Davern was a kid when he first heard Pee Wee Russell play “Memphis Blues" and he knew then that he wanted a life in jazz. Over five decades, his world-class playing on clarinet ...

84

Book / Magazine

Kenny Davern: Just Four Bars

Kenny Davern: Just Four Bars

Source: Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman

Readers accustomed to novels may find most jazz biographies only intermittently satisfying. Lives, of course, cannot be arranged into dramatic arcs worthy of Trollope or Faulkner—but, just the same, the chronicle of the life and music of your favorite musician often has all its drama in the beginning: attempts to find a personal style, to become proficient, to be recognized. Once the musician is reasonably successful, the narrative might become a listing of gigs, concerts, recordings. Some musicians aid a ...

61

Interview

Kenny Davern, Remembered

Kenny Davern, Remembered

Source: Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman

First, some comedy. The last time I saw Kenny Davern in action was at Sunnie Sutton's 2006 Rocky Mountain Jazz Party--only a few months before his death. At the dinner for musicians and friends the night before the party started, Kenny took a napkin off one of the tables, draped it over his arm, and transformed himself into an elderly, mournful New York Jewish waiter, asking each table, “Is anything all right?"

Then, in the middle of a set, he ...

302

Obituary

Clarinetist Kenny Davern Dies At 71

Clarinetist Kenny Davern Dies At 71

Source: All About Jazz

By Steve Voce John Kenneth Davern, clarinetist and saxophonist: born Huntington, New York 7 January 1935; married 1970 Elsa Lass (one stepson, one stepdaughter); died Sandia Park, New Mexico 12 December 2006. “Louis Armstrong can say something with one note, but then there are others who take an hour to rev up and wind up with a fart in a bathtub." Although Kenny Davern became one of the most effective jazz clarinettists of the last 50 years, he always regarded ...

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Performance / Tour

"Salute to Kenny Davern" Highlights in Jazz Thursday, December 1 8PM Tribeca Performing Arts Center

"Salute to Kenny Davern" Highlights in Jazz Thursday, December 1 8PM Tribeca Performing Arts Center

Source: All About Jazz

November 29, 2005 To: Listings/Critics/Features From: JAZZ PROMO SERVICES Press Contact: JIM EIGO, [email protected] For Immediate Release HIGHLIGHTS IN JAZZ PRESENTS 3RD CONCERT OF THEIR 33RD SEASON “Salute to Kenny Davern" feat. The Statesmen of Jazz New York, NY October 26, 2005 Jack Kleinsinger's “Highlights in Jazz," New York's longest running jazz series, is pleased to announce their third series concert Thursday, December 1, 2005 - “Salute to Kenny Davern" featuring The Statesmen of Jazz with Wycliffe Gordon, Houston Person, ...

114

Performance / Tour

"Salute to Kenny Davern" Highlights in Jazz Thursday, December 1 8PM Tribeca Performing Arts Center

"Salute to Kenny Davern" Highlights in Jazz Thursday, December 1 8PM Tribeca Performing Arts Center

Source: All About Jazz

October 26, 2005 To: Listings/Critics/Features From: JAZZ PROMO SERVICES Press Contact: JIM EIGO, [email protected] For Immediate Release HIGHLIGHTS IN JAZZ PRESENTS 3RD CONCERT OF THEIR 33RD SEASON “Salute to Kenny Davern" feat. The Statesmen of Jazz New York, NY October 26, 2005 Jack Kleinsinger's “Highlights in Jazz," New York's longest running jazz series, is pleased to announce their third series concert Thursday, December 1, 2005 - “Salute to Kenny Davern" featuring The Statesmen of Jazz with Wycliffe Gordon, Houston Person, ...

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