Pete Fountain Presents the Best of Dixieland: Various Artists - Verve Records

Pete Fountain Presents the Best of Dixieland: Various Artists

Booklet Below

2001 Verve Records 314549364-2

CD Listing:
1. Basin Street Blues
Kenny Davern with The Dixie Rebels
2. My Inspiration
Irving Fazola with Bob Crosby and His Orchestra
3. Dogtown Blues
Matty Matlock with Bob Crosby and His Orchestra
4. Perdido Street Blues
Sidney Bechet with Louis Armstrong
5. Take My Hand Precious Lord
George Lewis
6. Wild Man Blues
Johnny Dodds's Black Bottom Stompers
7. Love Is Just Around the Corner
Pee Wee Russell with Eddie Condon and His Windy City Seven
8. Memories of You
Eddie Miller with Pete Fountain and His Band
9. Dame Blanche
Bob Wilber with Jack Teagarden
10. Sweet Lorraine
Jimmie Noone's Apex Club Orchestra
11. Show Piece
Edmond Hall and His Quartet with Teddy Wilson
12. Beau Koo Jack
Omer Simeon
13. Meet Me in Chicago
Jack Maheu with the Art Hodes Orchestra
and the Jimmy McPartland Orchestra
14. Rose Room
Albert Nicholas
15. Body and Soul
Barney Bigard with Louis Armstrong and the All-Stars

Produced by Ernest Anderson and Milt Gabler, Joachim E. Berendt,
Norman Granz, Creed Taylor, Jack Tracy, and others

"When they asked me to put together a compilation of traditional New Orleans jazz, I immediately thought of my fellow clarinet players," says Pete Fountain. "The clarinet has the distinction of being the hardest of all horns to play and probably the most neglected of all instruments."

Fountain is easily the most celebrated clarinet player since the Swing Era, and this unique collection gives him, in turn, a chance to celebrate his heroes and his peers, the great "stick" players of New Orleans and traditional jazz. Personally selected and annotated by Fountain himself, this set covers the entire history of the instrument in classic jazz, from founding fathers like Sidney Bechet and Johnny Dodds to Swing Era masters lie Pee Wee Russell and Irving Fazola to contemporary giants like Bob Wilber and Kenny Davern.

Liner Notes:

When they asked me to put together a compilation of my favorite recorded examples of traditional New Orleans jazz, I immediately thought of my fellow clarinet players. In my opinion, the clarinet has the distinction of being the hardest of all horns to play and probably the most neglected of all instruments. It flourished in the early days of New Orleans jazz and in the Swing Era, but has been largely forgotten ever since, perhaps because it is such a demanding instrument. Therefore I put together this compilation to help all the clarinet players get a break!

Incidentally, I do not regard myself as being overlooked, since I got a lot of wonderful lucky breaks over the years. This time it's all the other clarinetists that I want to put in the spotlight.

My first hero, of course, was Benny Goodman. I don't think anybody came to the clarinet from the Thirties onward without being directly inspired by Benny. When I heard that sound, I was hooked on the instrument. It might sound odd because I was born and raised in New Orleans, which is ground zero for jazz clarinetists. But Benny himself, as I later found out. was originally motivated to play clarinet by the great New Orleans masters: Jimmie Noone, Johnny Dodds. Sidney Bechet. Along with George Lewis, Irving Fazola, Edmond Hall. Barney Bigard, and Albert Nicholas, these guys are the gold standard of jazz clarinet. So it isn't surprising, really, that it took a Chicagoan to lead me back to my hometown style.

My second hero was Irving Fazola (originally known as Irving Prestopnick). who became a star with Bob Crosby's orchestra and whom we all called Faz. For years I tried to get a "fat" sound just like Faz had. It was always my goal to try and combine Benny's technique with Faz's soul. The first time I heard him in person, I asked him to play "Twelfth Street Rag", and he told me to get lost! I found out later that was because he hated the song and the solo he had played on it, even though that record was a hit for him. A few nights later, he came into a club where I was working and complimented me on my playing, and it was the greatest moment in my life! On the day Faz died — he was only thirty-six — I subbed for him at the Opera House Burlesque. His mother later gave me his clarinet. I couldn't play it for two reasons: First, it was an Albert system instrument (I play Boehm, and the two fingering systems are very different); second, it smelled so heavily of garlic (Faz was infamous for his odors) that pretty much no one can play it to this day. But it's still an honor to have it.

Then again. the Bob Crosby band had a lot of great clarinet players. like Matty Matlock and Eddie Miller. Matty was from Kentucky, but no one could accuse him of not being as good as any New Orleans stick player! That band was lousy with great clarinetists. They were one of my major inspirations as a bandleader. as I always tried to get a balance between the traditions of swing and Dixieland.

Eddie Miller was a special hero and friend of mine. Whenever he came back home to New Orleans. Eddie used to sit in with my band. the Basin Street Six, and he invited me to visit him if I ever came to Los Angeles. I actually wound up taking him up on that offer on my honeymoon. For four nights I jammed with Eddie and the Teagarden brothers. while my blushing new bride sat in the club drinking Cokes. since she was too young to order alcohol. Some honeymoon! I'm amazed that she didn't leave me then, but we've now been married fifty years.

In 1968, Eddie came back from Los Angeles and resettled permanently in New Orleans, and actually went to work in my band! At every show I introduced him by saying, "Playing with this man is like taking a music lesson every night," and I meant it. "Memories of You" is a beautiful example of how we used to play together, with Eddie on tenor, his usual horn, and me on clarinet.

I was also especially fond of all the clarinet players who worked with Louis Armstrong — Louis was the greatest musician ever, so it's not surprising that all the giants of the clarinet would want to be in his band. The three clarinetists most closely associated with Pops are Johnny Dodds (in the Twenties), Barney Bigard (in the Forties), and Edmond Hall (in the Fifties). On different occasions, such greats as Sidney Bechet, Albert Nicholas, and Omer Simeon also worked with Louis. The legendary Bechet, who generally played soprano saxophone rather than clarinet, really stood out for me — no one else ever had a sound or a vibrato like that.

After New Orleans, I suppose the most fertile breeding ground for clarinetists was Chicago. Pee Wee Russell is considered a representative of the Chicago school. Pee Wee was an anomaly — a lot of people didn't know what to make of his squeaky, squawky, bluesy sound, but most of the musicians loved it, especially us reed players.

The next group of players can be roughly considered my own generation, and I'm very proud to be lumped in the same category as Bob Wilber and Kenny Davern. They are the standard-bearers of today, just as Benny, Faz, and Bechet were the standard-bearers when I was growing up. I listen to everything they do, and I always catch them whenever we're in the same town at the same time. Jack Maheu is a special friend of mine. He just opened his own club, the Tin Roof, here in New Orleans. Most nights at my club, I'll play "Tin Roof Blues" and then give a plug for Jack's place. I also like to go over there whenever I'm not working at my joint and do two-clarinet duets with Jack. We clarinet players have a unique kind of bond: When we get together, it's not about competition or cutting each other, it's about cooperation and working together in harmony.

I just turned seventy, and I still play five nights a week at my club in the New Orleans Hilton. I get my biggest kicks out of playing for little kids, some of whom have never heard a jazz clarinet before. They ask me, "Mr. Fountain, do you still practice every day?" I tell them, "No, I don't practice anymore. I'm seventy and if I haven't got it now I never will. Now it's your turn to practice!"

- Pete Fountain with Will Friedwaid September 2000

Pete Fountain is probably the best known clarinetist, and certainly one of the best known traditional Jazz musicians. of the last fifty years. With the exception of two years when he served as featured soloist on The Lawrence Welk Show. he has resided in New Orleans his entire life, where he continues to operate and serve as the primary attraction at Pete Fountain's French Quieter Inn at the New Orleans Hilton. He has recorded nearly 100 albums, including many national best sellers.

1. Basin Street Blues (Spencer Williams) 4:03
Kenny Davern (clarinet) with The Dixie Rebels: Pee Wee Erwin [recording under the pseudonym Big Jeb Dooley] (trumpet); Lou McGarity (trombone); John Mortillo (piano); Milt Hinton (bass); Cliff Leeman (drums).
Recorded November 8, 1988 at Fine Recording, Ballroom A, New York City
Original-LP issue: The Dixie Rebels Strike Back With True Dixieland Sound Command 33-801

2. My Inspiration (Bob Haggart-Nappy Lamare) 2:86
Irving Fazola (clarinet) with Bob Crosby and His Orchestra: Sterling Bose, Billy Butterfield, Zeke Zarchy (trumpet); Ward Silloway, Warren Smith (trombone); Matty Matlock (clarinet, alto saxophone); Joe Kearns (alto saxophone); Eddie Miller (tenor saxophone, clarinet); Gil Rodin (tenor saxophone); Bob Zurke (piano); Nappy Lamaze (guitar); Bob Haggart (bass); Ray Bauduc (drums).
Recorded October 20, 1938 in Chicago
Original 78-rpm issue: Decca 2209; available on CD: Bob Crosby: South Rampart Street Parade GRP GRD-816

3. Dogtown Blues (Bob Haggart) 4:07
Matty Matlock (clarinet) with Bob Crosby and His Orchestra: Billy Butterfield, Yank Lawson, Charlie Spivak (trumpet); Ward Silloway, Warren Smith (trombone); Joe Kearns, Eddie Miller (clarinet, alto saxophone); Gil Rodin (clarinet, tenor saxophone); Bob Zurke (piano); Nappy Lamare (guitar); Bob Haggart (bass); Ray Bauduc (drums).
Recorded November 18, 1937 in Los Angeles
Original 78-rpm issue: Decca 18038; available on CD: Bob Crosby: South Rampart Street Parade CRP CRD-615

4. Perdido Street Blues (Li] Hardin Armstrong) 3:03
Sidney Bechet (clarinet, soprano saxophone) with Louis Armstrong (trumpet); Claude Jones (trombone); Luis Russell (piano); Bernard Addison (guitar); Wellman Braud (bass); Zutty Singleton (drums).
Recorded May 27, 1940 in New York City
Original 78-rpm issue: Decca 18090

5. Take My Hand, Precious Lord (Thomas A. Dorsey) 5:23
George Lewis (clarinet) with Joe Robichaux (piano); Alcide "Slow Drag" Pavageau (bass); Joe Watkins (drums); Thomas Jefferson (vocal).
Recorded January 14,1958 in Chicago
Original LP-issue: The Perennial George Lewis Verve MGV 8277

6. Wild Man Blues (Louis Armstrong) 3:01
Johnny Dodds's Black Bottom Stompers:Louis Armstrong (cornet); Roy Palmer (trombone); Johnny Dodds (clarinet); Barney Bigard (tenor saxophone); Earl Hines (piano); Bud Scott (banjo); Baby Dodds (drums).
Recorded April 22, 1927 in Chicago
Original 78-rpm issue: Brunswick 3567

7. Love Is Just Around the Corner (Leo Robin-Lew Gensler) 3:05
Pee Wee Russell (clarinet) with Eddie Condon and His Windy City Seven: Bobby Hackett (cornet); George Brunies (trombone); Bud Freeman (tenor saxophone); Jess Stacy (piano); Condon (guitar); Artie Shapiro (bass); George Wettling (drums).
Recorded January 17, 1938 in New York City
Original 78-rpm issue: Commodore 500; available on CD: Pee Wee Russell: Jane Original GRP CMD-404

8. Memories of You (Eubie Blake-Andy Razaf) 4:11
Eddie Miller (tenor saxophone) with Pete Fountain and His Band: Fountain (clarinet); Godfrey Hirsch (vibraphone); Earl Vuiovich (piano); Oliver Felix (bass); Nick Fatool (drums).
Recorded May 22, 1965 at Pete Fountain's French Quarter Inn, New Orleans
Original-LP issue: Pete Fountain: Standing Room Only Coral CRL 757474

9. Dame Blanche (Kees Bruyn) 2:28
Bob Wilber (clarinet) with Jack Teagarden (trombone); Bobby Hackett (cornet); Bud Freeman (tenor saxophone); Hank Jones or Gene Schroeder (piano); Ed Shaughnessy or George Wettling (drums).
Recorded June 4, 1962 at Fine Sound, New York City
Original-LP issue: Jack Teagarden Verve V6-8495

10. Sweet Lorraine (Clifford Burwell-Mitchell Parish) 3:13
Jimmy Noone's Apex Club Orchestra: Noone (clarinet); Joe Poston (alto saxophone); Earl Hines (piano); Bud Scott (banjo, guitar); Lawson Buford (tuba); Johnny Wells (drums).
Recorded August 23, 1928 in Chicago
Original 78-rpm issue: Brunswick 80023; available on CD: Apex Blues GRP GRD-633

11. Show Piece (Edmond Hall-Teddy Wilson) 3:37
Edmond Hall and His Quartet with Teddy Wilson: Hall (clarinet); Wilson (piano); Billy Taylor (bass); Art Trappier (drums).
Recorded July 20, 1944
Original 78-rpm issue: Commodore 580

12. Beau Koo Jack (Louis Armstrong-Alex Hill) 2:44
Omer Simeon (clarinet) with Earl Hines (piano) and Claude Roberts (banjo).
Recorded September 11, 1929 in Chicago
Original 78-rpm issue: Brunswick 7109

13. Meet Me in Chicago (Art Hodes) 7:09
Jack Maheu (clarinet) with:right channel: Art Hodes Orchestra: Nap Trottier (trumpet); George Brunies (trombone); Pee Wee Russell (clarinet); Hodes (piano); Earl Murphy (bass); Buddy Smith (drums); and left channel: Jimmy McPartland Orchestra: McPartland (trumpet); Vic Dickenson (trombone); Bud Freeman (tenor saxophone); Floyd Bean (piano); Johnny Frigo (bass); George Wettling (drums). Clarinetists Maheu and Russell solo back to back in that order on this track.
Recorded May 7, 1959 at Universal Recording Studios, Chicago
Original-LP issue: Art Hodes-Jimmy McPartland: Meet Me in Chicago Mercury SR 60143

12. Rose Room (Art Hickman-Harry Williams) 3:21
Albert Nicholas (clarinet) with Earle Howard (piano); Jimmy Woode (bass); Kansas Fields (drums).
Recorded January 3, 1963 in Koblenz, Germany
Original LP-issue: Americans in Europe, Vol. 2 Impulse AS-37

13. Body and Soul (Johnny Green-Robert Sour-Edward Heyman-Frank Eyton) 5:30
Barney Bigard (clarinet) with Louis Armstrong and the All-Stars: Armstrong (trumpet); Jack Teagarden (trombone); Dick Cary (piano); Arvell Shaw (bass); Sid Catlett (drums).
Recorded November 30, 1947 at Symphony Hall, Boston
Original LP-issue: Satchmo at Symphony Hall, Vol. 2 Decca DL 8038; available on CD: GRP GRD-661

Produced by Norman Granz (track 5): probably Bud Dant (track 8); Creed Taylor (track 9); Jack Tracy (track 13); Joachim E. Berendt (track 14); Ernest Anderson and Milt Gabler (track 15); others unknown.

Some of these tracks were transferred from disc sources. Surface noise is audible.

Pete Fountain Presents the Best of Dixieland: Al Hirt - Verve Records

Pete Fountain Presents the Best of Dixieland: Al Hirt

Booklet Below

2001 Verve Records 314549362-2

CD Listing:
1. The Original Dixieland One-Step
2. Tin Roof Blues
3. Royal Garden Blues
4. Panama
5. Blue and Broken-Hearted
6. Wolverine Blues
7. Washington and Lee Swing
8. I'm Going Home
9. Jazz Me Blues
10. Night and Day
11. South Rampart Street Parade
12. Sugar

Al Hirt (trumpet) with Pete Fountain (clarinet, tenor saxophone); Bob Havens (trombone); Roy Zimmerman (piano); Bob Coquille (bass); Paul Edwards (drums).

Recorded 1956 in New Orleans

This reissue includes all of Al Hirt's Jazz Band Ball, Verve MGV 1012
Original recordings produced by Norman Granz

Al Hirt was "one of the very greatest musicians I ever heard, let alone worked with," says Pete Fountain. "Just playing side by side with him night after night made me work harder and keep trying new things."

In the mid-Fifties, Fountain and Hirt were the fair-haired boys of New Orleans jazz. Within a decade, both became major instrumental stars on the pop charts. In 1956 they made their best album of traditional New Orleans jazz together, Al Hirt's Jazz Band Ball, using the combo they were co-leading at Dan's Pier 600 on Bourbon Street. Widely celebrated as one of the finest hours of New Orleans jazz, this legendary document of two emerging superstars has never been previously reissued on CD, and now contains new liner notes from Pete Fountain himself.

Liner Notes:

"Jumbo" was always my nickname for Al Hirt and even today, after he's left us, I somehow can't think of him as anything else - he was a giant of a man, in physical stature as well as talent.

Our careers and our lives always ran sort of parallel, even though he was eight years older than me (he was born in 1922) and he had a whole other early life before we met. We were both born in New Orleans and cut our teeth on New Orleans jazz, but as a teenager, Al went to Ohio to study formally at the Cincinnati Conservatory, and he had worked in some famous swing bands, such as those of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. Al also spent three years playing trumpet for Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights. We both grew beards together when we were playing on Bourbon Street - I had a goatee and a thin mustache that looked like my clarinet, and Al raised a big full beard that paralleled his big full sound on the horn.

I first met Jumbo when he came back to New Orleans around 1948. We played together in a little band at the Famous Door on Bourbon Street. I was still a scrawny little kid, and Jumbo was just as big then and every bit as gifted as he was fifteen years later when he was a superstar. We became fast friends and something of a team; the papers wrote us up and we were, as my friend the writer Doug Ramsey put it, "the Gold Dust Twins of New Orleans jazz"

Like I mentioned, Jumbo had been conservatory-trained, which, combined with his own natural talent and energy, made him one of the very greatest musicians I ever heard, let alone worked with. I really learned a lot just working with him, even though I didn't play trumpet. It helped my technique, because just playing side by side with him night after night made me work harder and keep trying new things. I learned so much about my own horn just trying to keep up with that animal! He was so well schooled - he could play anything. Not only did we play together, but more importantly, we went fishing together.

We were working together a lot around 1956 - and not just musically. By that time we both had families; I had three children and Al had a whole houseful of kids. Strangely, there didn't seem to be much work for traditional New Orleans musicians in New Orleans around that time. I couldn't get a gig at all and Jumbo was only working a few nights a week. We had a friend who started an extermination company called A&M Pest Control. "M" was a friend of ours who was professionally known as "Miller the Killer." It was a disastrous episode for me; not only did I have to crawl around under houses spraying for termites, but what was even worse was that I had to go around like a door-to-door salesman trying to sell people our services. I was the worst salesman you could imagine. Since I was so skinny, I had no trouble sliding under people's houses, but to this day I have no idea how Jumbo (he was in the roach division) managed it, since thin he wasn't.

Finally, I got a call from my friend Godfrey Hirsch. He played vibes, drums, and piano, and was a bit older than us; he had lived in New York in the 1930s, where he played with nationally known bands such as Richard Himber's Orchestra. Our mutual pal Dan Levy, who ran a club on Bourbon Street called Pier 600, wanted to put together a band with Godfrey, Jumbo, and myself. I hadn't touched the clarinet in months, but after a considerable amount of practicing and playing it came back to me.

In addition to the Pier 600 gig, which was only three nights a week, we started getting club-date work. Our routine went like this: Whoever got the gig became the bandleader and wore the bow tie.One night at one club we were Al Hirt's Dixielanders, and he wore the bow tie. The next night at a somewhere we were Pete Fountain's band, and I wore the bow tie. People kept seeing us at different functions with different guys allegedly in charge.

By this time Pier 600 really started to happen. We started small, working only three nights a week mostly to empty tables, but within a few months we had become the happening event in New Orleans. That was where everything started for us. We recorded for a local label, and then made what I thought was our best album, Al Hirt's Jazz Band Ball, for Verve Records. I was glad that we got to lay down some of the music we were playing at Pier 600 - our versions of the traditional New Orleans repertoire that we had grown up with.

We both "broke out" about the same time. I went on The Lawrence Welk Show and started to make records and TV appearances. When I couldn't do a spent on The Dinah Shore Show, I told them to get Al Hirt instead. They did, and that was the beginning of his career as a national figure.

Al begin making his singles with a country sound for Victor at the same time I was doing a long series of albums for Coral. For a while, Al had a manager who tried to pull us apart and make it seem like we were rivals or something because we were both on top of the charts at around the same time. We never felt that way of course; all through the Sixties and Seventies we played together when ever Jumbo was in town. And we were fishing buddies to the end.

A few years before Jumbo died, some promoter sent us off on a big tour: my band, Al's band, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. We played New England and upstate New York and had a ball. It was great to be able to spend some time with him again. I suggested that maybe at the end Al and I could come out and jam with the Preservation Hall guys, but Al said, "They pay us to play, they're going to have to pay us more to play together." I don't want to make it look like Al was greedy, since over the years there were dozens of times when he would just drop by my club and sit in with us - and play the whole evening for nothing!

The last time Al sat in with me was just a few months before he died. I still miss him more than I can say, and I just can't give him enough credit for everything he did for me. To this day, whether I'm making music or catching fish, it just doesn't seem the same without Jumbo.

- Pete Fountain with Will Friedwald September 2000

Pete Fountain is probably the best-known clarinetist, and certainly one of the best-known traditional jazz musicians, of the last fifty years. With the exception of two years when he served as featured soloist on The Lawrence Welk Show, he has resided in New Orleans his entire life, where he continues to operate and serve as the primary attraction at Pete Fountain's French Quarter Inn at the New Orleans Hilton. He has recorded nearly 100 albums, including many national best-sellers.

Al Hirt (trumpet) with Pete Fountain (Clarinet);
Bob Havens (trombone)
Roy Zimmerman (piano);
Bob Coquille (bass);
Paul Edwards (drums).

On track 6: Add Fountain (tenor saxophone).
On track 7: Fountain (tenor saxophone) replaces (clarinet).

Recorded 1956 at Dan's Pier 600, New Orleans Original-LP issue: Al Hirt's Jazz Band Ball Verve MGV 1012

Original release produced by Norman Granz.

Pete Fountain Presents the Best of Dixieland: Louis Armstrong - Verve Records

Pete Fountain Presents the Best of Dixieland: Louis Armstrong

Booklet Below

2001 Verve Records 314549363-2

CD Listing:
1. Back o' Town Blues
2. Basin Street Blues
3. Canal Street Blues
4. New Orleans Function: Flee as a Bird / Oh, Didn't He Ramble
5. Dear Old Southland
6. High Society
7. Mahogany Hall Stomp
8. Muskrat Ramble
9. Panama
10. That's A-Plenty
11. Tin Roof Blues
12. Way Down Yonder in New Orleans
13. Weary Blues
14. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
I5. When the Saints Go Marching In

Louis Armstrong (trumpet, vocal) with Yank Lawson (trumpet); Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young (trombone); Barney Bigard, Johnny Dodds, Edmond Hall, Peanuts Hucko (clarinet); Dick Cary, Earl Hines, Billy Kyle (piano); George Barnes (guitar); Squire Gersh, Arvell Shaw (bass); Danny Barcelona, Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole, Barrett Deems, Baby Dodds (drums); Bob Haggart, Gordon Jenkins, Sy Oliver (arranger, conductor); and others.

Original recordings produced by Milt Gabler and others

"Louis played all kinds of music in his life," observes Pete Fountain,' l like to think that the kind of tunes he liked best were what he called `the good old good ones.' By that he meant the traditional New Orleans repertoire. These were the songs that he grew up playing and that the rest of its pretty much all learned from him."

One aspect of Louis Armstrong's career that is frequently overlooked is his importance as a performer of New Orleans-style Dixieland music. Herein, Armstrong's fellow New Orleans legend Pete Fountain has compiled and annotated a closer look at a unique aspect of the canon of the single most dynamic figure in all of American music.

Liner Notes:

I'll never forget the first time I ever heard Louis Armstrong. In person, I mean. Of course, I had always listened to his records, but the first time I heard him live was really special - especially so because I had the honor of sharing the stage with him! It was around 1948, I was only eighteen years old, and I was playing with the Basin Street Six, my first important band. The New Orleans Jazz Society was sponsoring a big concert at the Municipal Auditorium with Armstrong and his All-Stars. They wanted a young, local band to open for Pops, and to my amazement we got the gig.

I'll also never get over the thrill of what it was like to hear that man and that band, let alone to appear on the same bill as him. The All-Stars were wonderful. Another one of my hometown heroes, Barney Bigard, was on clarinet. Jack Teagarden, the greatest trombonist ever, was also in the group, and Earl "Fatha" Hines was on piano. But it was Louis who kept us all spellbound. He was very complimentary and told us he was surprised at how good we were. We were kind of nervous - who wouldn't be? - and Pops made us feel great by saying that we made it rough for him to follow us! l don't know how he felt about it, but he certainly made our night. And he always remembered that night. Whenever I saw Pops again, he always said, "Remember when you were with that little ol' band in New Orleans - the one that really romped?"

I only met one man who was a bigger fan of Louis than I was, and that was George Girard, our trumpet man with the Basin Street Six. He knew everything that Louis ever played, not just the famous numbers. He based his whole sound on a combination of Louis and Harry James, the same way I based my clarinet sound on a combination of Benny Goodman and Irving Fazola. That's the idea: to take what you like from your idols and keep combining them, and then hopefully it will come out sounding like yourself. All the musicians worshiped Louis, especially the trumpeters, even big stars like Harry James himself. Nobody idolized Louis more than George; Louis was his inspiration. George was a great player and he would have achieved even greater things had he not been killed by cancer just a few years after that concert. He was only twenty-six.

At one time in the early Fifties, Louis asked me if I wanted to come on the road with him. Of course, I would have given anything to go, but I was then a member of the National Guard Reserve and I could not leave Louisiana. A while earlier, Tommy Dorsey had asked me the same thing, if I would play clarinet in his big band. I also had to tell him that I couldn't, and he was furious with me. He screamed, "Whaddya mean, you can't leave New Orleans?" Louis was much nicer about it, but then Louis was nice about everything.

The next time I ran into Louis was in Chicago, around 1954. My old friends Frank and Freddie Assunto had formed a band called the Dukes of Dixieland, and they asked me to join. By that time, my obligation to the National Guard was over, so I could travel wherever I wanted. We had an extended stay in Chicago at a joint called the Preview Lounge. One day we found out that Louis and the All-Stars were playing at the Blue Note, and when he saw us in the audience, he invited Frank, Freddie, and me to come up and sit in with him. Now, that was a thrill I'll never forget, the only time I actually got to play with Louis himself. What a wonderful night of sitting in! That's when Louis really got to know the Assunto brothers. Eventually he would make a record with them, Louis Armstrong and the Dukes of Dixieland. I would have given anything to record with Pops, but it never did work out.

About ten years later, I worked with Louis again, and it was also in Chicago. This was after I had been on The Lawrence Welk Show and had started my own band, which was a sextet featuring four rhythm plus my friend Godfrey Hirsch on vibraphone. (Whenever I wanted to add trumpet or trombone, Godfrey always threatened to quit - he didn't like playing with brass instruments, just reeds and rhythm.) This was at a wonderful place called Orchestra Hall, a beautiful concert hall, like Carnegie, where all the leading symphonic orchestras play when they're in Chicago. Again, I opened the evening with my group, and then Louis came out with the All-Stars. I would have loved to sit in with his band on that show, but it didn't work out. Still, as before, it was an honor to share the program with him.

I never saw Louis other than backstage, but when I did, he was always very kind and friendly; to me and to everyone else. He was always talking about music; he just lived to play and get in front of the people. True to the legend, when it wasn't music he always talked about his diet. He really was a strong advocate of eating red beans and rice, and he handed out packages of his favorite laxative, Swiss Kriss, to everybody - his motto was "Leave it ! all behind ye!" I remember he gave me a package, but I was afraid to try it!

Louis played all kinds of music in his life - with his big band, with strings, popular songs and standards. I like to think that the kind of tunes he liked best were what he called "the good old good ones." By that he meant the traditional New Orleans repertoire. These were the songs that he grew up playing and that the rest of us pretty much all learned from him. Louis was the first to record such traditional religious tunes as "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "The New Orleans Function". The latter piece is actually two times played together as in a traditional New Orleans funeral, with Louis narrating the role of the preacher between the dirge ("Flee as a Bird") and the up-tempo march ("Oh, Didn't He Ramble"). It's priceless the way Pops goes "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust / It's too bad ol' Brother Gate couldn't have stayed on Earth with us!"

But then again, everything that Pops ever played was priceless. I loved him and may God bless him for the legacy that he left us.

- Pete Fountain with Will Friedwald September 2000

Pete Fountain is probably the best-known clarinetist, and certainly one of the best-known traditional jazz musicians, of the last fifty years. With the exception of two years when he served as featured soloist on The Lawrence Welk Show, he has resided in New Orleans his entire life, where he continues to operate and serve as the primary attraction at Pete Fountain's French Quarter km at the New Orleans Hilton. He has recorded nearly 100 albums, including many national best-sellers.

Pete Fountain Presents the Best of Dixieland: Pete Fountain - Verve Records

Pete Fountain Presents the Best of Dixieland: Pete Fountain

Booklet Below

2001 Verve Records 314549365-2

CD Listing:
1. Mahogany Hall Stomp
2. Tin Roof Blues
3. My Inspiration
4. Bye-Bye, Bill Bailey
3. High Society
8. Struttin' With Some Barbecue
7. Dixie Jubilee
8. South Rampart Street Parade
9. Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet
10. The Second Line
11. Basin Street Blues
12. The Darktown Strutters' Ball
13. Marching 'Round the Mountain
14. Over the Waves
15. Careless Love
18. Walking Through New Orleans
17. Sugar Bowl Parade
18. Farewell Blues
18. Washington and Lee Swing
20. Walking Through New Orleans

Pete Fountain (clarinet) with His Mardi Gras Strutters, the Basin Street Six, Santo Pecora and his Dixie-land Jazz Band, and others (collective personnel): Jackie Coon, George Girard, Charlie Teagarden (trumpet); Santo Pecora (trombone); Lew McCreary, Dick Noel, Joe Rotis, Bill Schaefer, Moe Schneider (trombone); George Roberts (bass trombone); Eddie Miller (tenor saxophone); Armand Hug, John Propst, Stan Wrightsman, Roy Zimmerman (piano); Bobby Gibbons (guitar, banjo); Phil Stephens (tuba); Morty Corb, Bunny Franks, John Sinac (bass); Paul Barbarin, Charlie Duke, Nick Fatool, Godfrey Hirsch, Jack Sperling (drums, percussion); Bud Dant (arranger, conductor); Don Bagley, Heinie Beau, Matty Matlock (arranger); and others. Recorded June 1950-July 1968 in Chicago, Hollywood, and New Orleans

Original recordings produced by Bud Dant, Norman Granz, and others.

"I call my music 'swinging Dixie," says Pete Fountain, by which he means that it combines the best aspects of the two kinds of clarinet playing he heard growing up in New Orleans: the swing kings (especially Benny Goodman) he caught on the radio, and the local legends of traditional jazz he heard right on his doorstep in the French Quarter.

Thanks to television exposure on The Lawrence Welk Show, Fountain became one of the best-known musicians in the world, cementing his popularity with a remarkable string of albums that not only combined swing and Dixieland, but elements of pop and country as well. Personally selected by Fountain himself, this collection features the best of his hard-core jazz recordings, from his earliest bands on Bourbon Street to his chart hits.

Available for purchase on CD, New and Used at Amazon

Liner Notes:

Other kids may have wanted to be Joe DiMaggio or Roy Rogers, but I wanted to be Benny Goodman. Of course, I had an advantage over aspiring young musicians in other cities - we could all listen to Benny and all those wonderful swing bands on the radio in those days, but since I was from New Orleans (where I was born in 1930), all I had to do was walk out into the street to hear the greatest jazz that ever was. I remember hanging around the Top Hat Dance Hall and listening to musicians like Sharkey Bonano, Raymond Burke, and the Prima Brothers, Leon and Louis. All I had to do was go to the corner and turn right and it unfolded before me like the Yellow Brick Road - my private path to happiness, to the Top Hat on Broad Street, just a close walk from the French Quarter.

That's why I got so interested in jazz when I was a kid. I used to hear so much around my neighbor-hood. I had been a sickly child, and the doctor thought that playing a wind instrument would help build up my lungs. I practiced until the neighbors threatened to move out, especially after I got my first hearing of Irving Fazola, a local clarinet legend who became famous with Bob Crosby's orchestra. Faz became my second idol.

I was on the path to becoming a musician then, though neither my family nor I had any idea how long it would take. Five years later, I was ready to play in a high school band. High schools in New Orleans recruit musicians the way colleges in other areas go after star quarterbacks. Two schools made me offers, and one was much closer, but when the director at Warren Easton High told me that I had a "fat" sound - the same way we used to describe Fazola's playing - I decided on the Warren Easton marching band. And I kept going down to Bourbon Street to soak up as much music as I could every night.

My first paying job was with the Broad Street Social and Pleasure Club - all of five dollars for four hours of work! I first met Freddie and Frank Assunto (who later formed the Dukes of Dixieland) when the three of us would sneak into football games by claiming we were the visiting team's band. When I was sixteen, we formed our first band, the Basin Street Four, which we later changed to the Junior Dixie Band at the suggestion of the owners of the Parisian Room, who let us sit in. We even played on national radio when the club broadcast its jam sessions, and one of the first gigs we actually played as a unit wasn't for the general public but for a roomful of professional musicians who had mounted a party of their own. We played and practiced and eventually won a touring radio talent show hosted by Horace Heidt, the bandleader. We worked remote spots on the edge of town, any place that they would let us play.

When I was a high school senior, my history teacher asked me why I didn't study more. I answered that I was too busy playing clarinet every night, and when I told him I was making scale - about $125 a week - he said that was more than he made and I should play full time. I guess I was a professional from that point on.

The first real name bands to hire me were Santo Pecora and his Dixieland jazz band, with whom I made my first recordings (done for Norman Granz in 1950), and Phil Zito's International New Orleans Dixielanders, in which I worked with the brilliant, short-lived trumpeter George Girard. George and I formed our own band not long after that, the Basin Street Six. We clowned around a lot with that group, but most of the time we played good music. At one point we were hired to play on a luxury liner bringing jazz to Honduras, and we recorded for Mercury. However, I hit a kind of personal slump in the mid-Fifties.

We couldn't find enough work to keep the band together, and to make matters worse, my good buddy George died of colon cancer at the age of twenty-six. By now I had a wife and three kids to support, so I went to work for my buddies the Dukes of Dixieland in Chicago; however, I got lonesome for my family and was drinking too much, so I came home. To make ends meet I quit music as a full-time occupation and took a series of day jobs, all of which were total disasters.

But I knew it was only a matter of time before I got into playing again. My real "comeback" gig was at Dan Levy's Pier 600, in a band co-led by Al Hirt and myself that slowly began to attract attention. When we first started, there was no one in the joint, but after a few months we had become the hot band to hear in New Orleans. And it was at the 600 in 1957 when I got the break of my life: Lawrence Welk, whose variety show was the top-rated television program at that time, somehow heard of me and offered to make me part of his organization. For two years I was a featured player, with a regular solo spot on his series and at his in-person appearances. l'll always be grateful for what Mr. Welk did for me - making me one of the most famous musicians in the country - but the gig itself drove me nuts, because it wasn't my kind of setting and it wasn't my kind of music. Champagne and Jack Daniel's don't mix.

The exposure I got on the Welk show allowed me to do two things. The first was to start my own series of albums for Coral Records, which was then Mr. Welk's label. Fortunately, I wound up in the more than capable hands of Bud Dant. Bud was more than my producer and more than my arranger, he was my mentor in the studio: Together we picked concepts, tunes, and musicians, and he guided me through several dozen of the most wonderful albums any jazzman was ever privileged to be involved with. The first two, Pete Fountain's New Orleans and The Blues, to my surprise, became two of the biggest selling instrumental albums of the early Sixties. After that, they had me in the studio all the time! One of my favorite albums was South Rampart Street Parade, from 1963, in which we replicated, in Los Angeles, the sound and feeling of carnival in my hometown, using an unusual ensemble of brass and rhythm including four drummers playing at once, parade style. I also enjoyed a series of sessions I did with my lifelong friend, vibist and pianist Godfrey Hirsch. Vibes were not standard equipment in New Orleans-style jazz units, and Godfrey gave the dates a Benny Goodman swing-style feeling, which I liked. I recorded everything from songs by the Beatles to "I Love Paris". I've been very lucky.

The second thing I was able to do after leaving the Welk show was to open my own club, Pete Fountain's French Quarter Inn, which has been running continuously for over forty years. When we moved the club to the New Orleans Hilton in 1974, I was forty-four, and my feeling was that I would only keep playing until I was around fifty. I had made enough money by then so that I could retire. But you know what? I just turned seventy and I still can't imagine giving up the music that I love.

- Pete Fountain with Will Friedwald September 2000

Pete Fountain is probably the best known clarinetist, and certainly one of the best known traditional jazz musicians, of the last fifty years. With the exception of two years when he served as featured soloist on The Lawrence Welk Show, he has resided in New Orleans his entire life, where he continues to operate and serve as the primary attraction at Pete Fountain's French Quarter inn at the New Orleans Hilton. He has recorded nearly 100 albums, including many national best-sellers.

Pete Fountain plays clarinet on all tracks, accompanied by:

1. Mahogany Hall Stomp (Spencer Williams) 2:52

Santo and his Dixie-land Jazz Band: George Girard (trumpet); Santo Pecora (trombone, drums); Armand Hug (piano); John Sinac (bass).
Recorded June 1950 in New Orleans
Original 78-rpm issue: Clef 8925

2. Tin Roof Blues (Paul Mares-Ben Pollack-Mel Stitzel) 3:07

Basin Street Six: George Girard (trumpet); Joe Rotis (trombone); Roy Zimmerman (piano); Bunny Franks (bass); Charlie Duke (drums).
Recorded September 19, 1951 in Chicago
Original-LP issue: Strictly Dixie Mercury MG 20151

3. My Inspiration (Bob Haggart-Nappy Lamare) 2:50

Basin Street Six: personnel unknown, possibly including: George Girard (trumpet); Joe Rotis (trombone); Roy Zimmerman (piano); Bunny Franks (bass); Charlie Dunlop (drums)
Recorded probably circa 1954
Original LP-issue: Strictly Dixie Mercury MG 20151

4. Bye-Bye, Bill Bailey (Charles "Bud" Dant-Pete Fountain) 2:39
5. High Society (A. J. Piron-Clarence Williams) 2:25
6. Struttin' With Some Barbecue (Lil Hardin Armstrong) 2:24
7. Dixie Jubilee (Pete Fountain-Charles "Bud" Dant) 2:29

Charlie Teagarden (trumpet); Moe Schneider (trombone); Eddie Miller (tenor saxophone); Stan Wrightsman (piano); Bobby Gibbons (guitar); Morty Corb (bass); Jack Sperling (drums).
Recorded November 9, 1961 in Hollywood
Original-LP issue: Pete Fountain's Music From Dixie Coral CRL 757401

8. South Rampart Street Parade (Ray Bauduc-Bob Haggart) 2:05
9. Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet (Percy Weinrich-Stanley Murphy) 2:55
10. The Second Line (Paul Barbarin) 2:29
11. Basin Street Blues (Spencer Williams) 3:02
12. The Darktown Strutters' Ball (Shelton Brooks) 2:24
13. Marching 'Round the Mountain (Pete Fountain-Charles "Bud" Dant) 2:46
14. Over the Waves (traditional) 2:35
15. Careless Love (traditional, credited to W. C. Handy-Spencer Williams) 2:52
16. Walking Through New Orleans (Charles "Bud" Dant-Pete Fountain) 2:46
17. Sugar Bowl Parade (Godfrey Hirsch-Pete Fountain-Richard Drown) 2:07
18. Farewell Blues (Paul Mares-Elmer Schoebel) 2:56
19. Washington and Lee Swing (T. W. Allen-M. W. Scheafe-C. A. Robbins) 1:47

Pete Fountain and His Mardi Gras Strutters:
Jackie Coon (trumpet); Moe Schneider (trombone); Phil Stephens (tuba); Bobby Gibbons (banjo); Morty Corb (bass); Jack Sperling (snare, cymbal, kick drum, percussion); Godfrey Hirsch (marching drum, percussion); Nick Fatool(field drum, percussion); Paul Barbarin (vertical bass drum, percussion);
Bud Dant (conductor).
On track 8: Add Don Bagley (arranger).
On tracks 9, 13, 15, and 18: Add Lew McCreary, Dick Noel, Bill Schaefer (trombone); George Roberts (bass trombone); John Propst (piano).
On tracks 10 and 19: Add Matty Matlock (arranger).
On tracks 11, 12, and 14: Add Heinie Beau (arranger).
On tracks 13, 16, 17, and 18: Add Bud Dant (arranger).
Recorded March 23, 1963 in Hollywood
Original LP-issue: South Rampart Street Parade Coral CRL 757440

20. The Mardi Gras Walking Club 2:45
(Charles "Bud" Dant-Pete Fountain-Lloyd McLaughlin)
Stan Wrightsman (piano); Bobby Gibbons (guitar); Morty Corb (bass); Jack Sperling (drums); unknown vocal group.
Recorded July 16, 1968 in Hollywood
Original-LP issue: Walking Through New Orleans Coral CRL 757503

Original recordings produced by Bud Dant (probably tracks 4-20),
Norman Granz (track 1), and unknown (tracks 2 and 3)

Some of these tracks were transferred from disc sources. Surface noise is audible.