At The Jazz Band Ball With Pete Fountain's Dixieland All Stars - Tempo Records

At The Jazz Band Ball

Pete Fountain's Dixieland All Stars

1959 Tempo Records EXA-93 7" EP (UK Import)

Side One:
1. Farewell Blues
2. At The Jazz Band Ball

Side Two:
1. March Of The Bobcats
2. Jazz Me Blues

Liner Notes:

Personnel:
Al Hirt (Trumpet)
Abe Lincoln (Trombone)
Pete Fountain (Clarinet)
Eddie Miller (Tenor Saxophone)
Stan Wrightsman (Piano)
Morty Corb (Bass)
Ray Bauduc (Drums)

In the city of New Orleans there are now many different forms of jazz which flourish in the clubs and cafes. And this is right for New Orleans was, after all, where it all started sometime back, about the 1880's. Though it is an indescribable shame that the old folk jazz is now finally dying out, practiced by only a few of the older musicians, it is, nonetheless, comforting to know that New Orleans still has Jazz. In fact, New Orleans has a considerable amount of jazzmen who still make a living in the Crescent City. Many of the younger men - Pete Fountain for instance - are no longer playing the same way as did their fathers and uncles, but the jazz they produce still swings in proper Southern fashion and, wherever they play, they carry with them the sound, the feeling of their great parent city.

Pete Fountain, a musician who evidently favours the late Irving Fazola, was born in New Orleans on July 3rd. 1930. He had a good start in jazz for his father, Peter Dewey Fountain. Sr., played drums and violin with various jazz bands in the Biloxi, Miss., area, and so young Pete came across the sound of jazz at a very early age. In 1942, when Pete Fountain was 12 years old, he joined the school band and it was then that he first decided to study clarinet. He proved to be a first rate pupil for, by 1948, he was playing regularly with the Junior Dixieland Jazz Band. In 1949-50 he had a spell with the Phil Zito band and then, in 1950, he really began to make a name for himself with the Basin Street Six. Then, in 1954, Pete Fountain decided that the time had come for him to front his own band and this certainly turned out to be a sound decision for he has been doing so, successfully, ever since. His success has caused him to make several trips to Chicago and the West Coast, where he is a great favourite with the lovers of clean, crisp Dixieland music, but, on the whole, he has stayed at home in New Orleans.

Here Pete Fountain is joined by two members of the old Bob Crosby Bobcats. Tenor man, Eddie Miller, has long been one of Pete Fountain's favourite instrumentalists which must have made this session even more of a pleasure for Pete: Ray Bauduc, a fine drummer who helped to swing the Crosby band for so long, is the other ex-Bobcat. With Abe Lincoln, an experienced trombonist from the late thirties, the pleasing Stan Wrightsman, Al Hirt and Morty Corb, the group produces a dynamic. swinging jazz which owes a great deal to small groups of the Swing Era.

And all this goes to prove that jazz is where you find it... mainly in New Orleans.

- JACK BAKER C 1959 by Tempo Records, London

Jack Delaney And His New Orleans Jazz Babies - Tempo Records

Jack Delaney And His New Orleans Jazz Babies
featuring Pete Fountain

1959 Tempo Records EXA-100 7" EP (UK Import)

Side One:
1. Shine
2. Sidewalks Of New York

Side Two:
1. Hindustant
2. Till We Meet Again

Liner Notes:

Jack Delaney And His New Orleans Jazz Babies

Personnel:
Alvin Alcorn (Trumpet)
Jack Delaney (Trombone,Vocal)
Pete Fountain (Clarinet)
Roy Zimmerman (Piano)
Chink Martin (Bass)
Joe Capraro (Guitar)
Monk Hazel (Drums, Mellophone)

Recorded : New Orleans, September 13th, 1955

Jack Michael Delaney has been playing professionally now for at least ten years; and he has been playing in good company too. Born in New Orleans, on August 27th, 1930, he had a normally gay childhood with the usual schooling which was completed by studies at the Southeastern Louisiana College. Then, after he had finished college, he joined the Johnny Reininger aggregation with which he played, full-time, from 1949 to 1951 when he left for a better job. In fact, it was to play with Sharkey Bonano from whom he learned a great deal about Dixieland - New Orleans jazz. However, in 1953, he joined Tony Almerico with whom he spent one year before going back to play with Bonano once more. It was around this time that Jack also became a staff musician at Station WDSU — TV, in New Orleans, where he increased still further his knowledge and experience of jazz and jazzmen. Always wishing to emulate his favourite instrumentalist, Jack Teagarden, he played many good sessions, both on and off record, with groups featuring such musicians as George Girard, Raymond Burke, Tony Almerico, Sharkey Bonano and Johnny Reininger. He has also earned considerable praise for his backings to such singers as Lizzie Miles and Eileen Barton and, though he is not yet thirty he may well be considered one of the leading white New Orleans musicians.

Unfortunately, the South still maintains its colour bar and it is therefore not too easy for mixed bands to exist, even in New Orleans. As a result of this, the two predominant races tend to play separately and it does, on occasion, become necessary to say whether a man is white or coloured, when assessing his position in this music. So one is pleased to hear a negro, Alvin Alcorn, playing on this session; especially a New Orleans musician of Alcorn's status. Although some 6 years with Kid Ory, on the West Coast, did much to modify his style, there is still the sharp lead sound of the New Orleans trumpet player. It is more `virtuoso' in flavour - more like Louis Armstrong - than is generally required of pure New Orleans jazz, but it still flows strong from this 47-year-old horn man who is joined here by two more old-time New Orleanians. Monk Hazel, now 56, was working with Abbie Brunies in 1924/5 and, in fact, with Emmett Hardy in 1920, is an experienced jazzman who recorded with Tony Parenti as far back as 1925. And the other old-timer is Chink Martin who is renowned for flunking his AFM sight reading test in Chicago in the Twenties. Asked to play the music, which he had carefully learned by heart, at the test, Chink solemnly played through four bars of tacet, and swore blind that what he was playing was all written down. However, as he was always a good bass player he still found work and it is pleasant to hear him on this session.

All in all, this mixture of young and old works out pretty well so listen and enjoy yourselves.

Jack Baker © 1959 by Tempo Records, London.