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Pete Fountain

Peter Dewey Fountain, Jr. was born July 3, 1930 in New Orleans, the cradle of American music, Jazz. He was a skinny kid who spent too much time hanging around the front stoop of the Top Hat Dance Hall near his home. The Top Hat was a stronghold of Dixieland Jazz and Jazz already had a strong hold on Pete Fountain. But, oh the sounds! This was music straight from the soul. Sounds that would never be written in stone, that would always be brand new because they were purely personal. Pete heard all the greats in New Orleans and he knew he wanted to play Jazz. After endless hours of practicing and listening to the recordings of Benny Goodman and Irving Fazola, the personal sound of Pete Fountain began to emerge and it was "Fat." By the time Pete was 16, he had already gained a reputation on Bourbon Street. Through these formative years of his musical training, Pete performed with several sensational bands. One such band was the Junior Dixieland Band which performed in the famous Parisian Room-often performing for legendary jazz men. A few years later Pete joined Phil Zito's International Dixieland Express. They were playing the El Morocco on the street. Pete was performing with some of the best known jazz bands in the country—The Basin Street Six, The Dukes of Dixieland, and Al Hirt. Until 1956...Be-Bop and Rock & Roll were the hot new sounds, and the music that Pete loved could not provide him or anybody else with a living. Jazz, in its own birthplace New Orleans, was definitely asleep. He gave up music. He had no choice. With a wife and three small children to support, music was a luxury he could not afford. In 1957, Lawrence Welk, host of the nation's most popular television program, wanted Pete on the show, and for two years, Pete was the most famous Jazz musician on television. Pete Fountain became a household name and New Orleans Jazz made a comeback that has never faded. After two years in California, Pete came home to New Orleans. He had learned what every New Orleanian has to accept as a fact of life. you can leave New Orleans, but it never leaves you. Pete immediately opened his own jazz club in the heart of the French Quarter. His national fame and fans followed him to New Orleans which allowed Pete's club to expand, through many years, into the largest jazz club in the city.

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178
Album Review

Pete Fountain with the New Lawrence Welk Orchestra: Big Band Blues

Read "Big Band Blues" reviewed by Jack Bowers


When writing in a recent review about the scarcity of top–notch Jazz clarinetists on the scene today, I managed to overlook one — a pardonable error, as Pete Fountain has been sequestered for so long in his native New Orleans that it’s fairly easy for him to fly under one’s radar screen. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that Pete’s a master of his instrument, or that he’s quite comfortable in any context from duo to big band (even though he hadn’t ...

269
Album Review

Pete Fountain: Pete Fountain A Touch Of Class

Read "Pete Fountain A Touch Of Class" reviewed by AAJ Staff


New Orleans clarinetist Pete Fountain, takes us on a smooth ride with this CD as he performs some familiar classic Big Band tunes. The title of this CD: A Touch Of Class, caught my attention because having heard Pete Fountain for many years in a variety of diffrent bands and settings, I for one have associated Pete Fountain/clarinet/dixieland respectively in that order and still do.After purchasing this CD and then looking at the song titles as I was ...

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Video / DVD

Doc: Pete Fountain

Doc: Pete Fountain

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Most people who grew up in the rock era viewed clarinetist Pete Fountain the same way they did Al Hirt—a bearded New Orleans traditional jazz player who turned up on lots of variety shows in the late 1960s and '70s, and whose pop and honky-tonk albums were marketed largely to older folks with a bland taste in music. All of which, of course, is unfair. As the following documentary sent along by reader Les Johnston shows, Fountain, who died in ...

3

Obituary

Pete Fountain

Pete Fountain

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

As I prepared to leave Ystad, I learned that clarinetist Pete Fountain died on Saturday in jny: New Orleans. By way of his recordings and television exposure, he became an unofficial and effective cultural spokesman for his beloved hometown and was happy to return there following his years in the 1950s with Lawrence Welk’s TV show. Despite the renown it brought Fountain, the Welk relationship was not a musical marriage made in heaven. He was happier in his Bourbon Street ...

341

Recording

Pete Fountain Salutes the Great Clarinetists

Pete Fountain Salutes the Great Clarinetists

Source: All About Jazz

Pete Fountain has reached that enviable stage at which the compilers of catalogues for use in record shops are uncertain whether to list him under “jazz" or in the “popular" category. In fact, Pete's success helps to underline the inherently false implication of this listing system that jazz cannot be popular music in the broadest sense.

His two years of national TV exposure with Lawrence Welk, his extraordinary success in albums under his own name and most recently the warm ...

118

Event

New Orleans French Quarter Costumed Mardi Gras 2010

New Orleans French Quarter Costumed Mardi Gras 2010

Source: All About Jazz

Mardi Gras 2010 in New Orleans was a celebration to remember. Throngs of fun-seekers gathered in the French Quarter under as sunny skies and cool winds. The day was just what the city needed--a time to soak in the suds of the NFL World Championship Saints NFL Super Bowl victory.

Mardi Gras energy trumps Mother Nature's cold snap

NEW ORLEANS | Pete Fountain, clarinet in hand and looking dapper in a white tuxedo and fedora trimmed in gold, kicked off ...

242

Recording

Pete Fountain Live in Santa Monica

Pete Fountain Live in Santa Monica

Source: All About Jazz

Recorded Live at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on March 16, 1961

“Anytime we got that gang together with Pete, you know, we all laughed and scratched and had fun. We never knew how long it would go or where it would end up, but everybody seemed to like it. It was a ball. And Pete? Everybody loves Pete!" That's super-drummer Jack Sperling, speaking of ad-lib, off-the-top concert in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on March 16, 1961. The gang, ...

Eric Seddon
clarinet
Willie D
saxophone, tenor
Chuck Currie
woodwinds

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Dixieland Classics

Concord Music Group
1998

buy

Dixieland King

Concord Music Group
1998

buy

Pete Fountain At...

Concord Music Group
1993

buy

Pete's Beat

Concord Music Group
1992

buy

Videos

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