Panama
St Louis Blues (*)
All the Wrongs You've Done to Me
Lonesome Road (*)
Side B
I Used to Love You
I've Found a New Baby (*)
It's a Long Way to Tipperary
Might Like the Blues (*)
Pete Fountain * Clarinet
Al Hirt * Trumpet
Jack Delaney * Trombone
Roy Zimmerman * Piano
Joe Capraro * Bass
Arthur (Monk) Hazel * Drums
(*) Stan Wrightsman * Piano
(*) Bobby Gibbons * Guitar
(*) Morty Corb * Bass
(*) Jack Sperling * Drums
This was one of the first Pete Fountain albums I heard as a kid, and certainly my first exposure to Pete in a quartet setting. The quartet tracks are pretty much responsible for my addiction to the entire New Orleans tradition of clarinet--and I'm happy to say I've never completely gotten over them. The New Orleans Scene was also my first introduction to the repertoire presented--including 'St Louis Blues', which Pete plays in the key of F rather than the more standard key of G. Back in the dark days of the 1980s, before the internet, the only 'Real Book' out there was the pirated version, and most of the tunes were bop and early fusion. To my trad-oriented mind it was filled with numbers of very little interest, but because it was the standard gig book, I did my best with it. The only way a kid like me could really learn the tunes that Pete played was to transcribe them by ear and hope to run into a band of older players who knew them. As it turns out, that method is almost as old as jazz itself, and certainly an indispensable part of a jazz musician's learning process. I didn't know that then--just desperately felt the need to play this music (which, as it turns out, is also an indispensable part of being a jazz musician, so in retrospect I was following the right path).
Anyhow, I finally did run into that band of older players who knew 'St Louis Blues', getting my chance to sit in with them. That group was the Galvanized Jazz Band, and a quick internet search reveals this fine ensemble is still gigging regularly in Connecticut. To my ear, they were a real top notch Dixieland ensemble. I was about seventeen year old, and one of the older cornet players who used to play with them occasionally heard about me. He said I should get some experience playing 'out,' offering to take me the two hours or so of highway driving to get there. So we plunged onto the highway one Fall evening, in the type of relentless lashing rain that people from Connecticut know so well. The band was playing along Long Island Sound somewhere, at one of the many seafood bars--in retrospect as perfect setting you can get in the North for New Orleans style jazz. When I finally got my chance to call a tune, I figured I'd better call something I could rip on, to really impress the guys, and one of the only Real Book tunes I'd liked was John Coltrane's 'Mr. P.C.'
"Do you play any Trane?" I asked.
"No," was the annoyed response, and a couple of the band members rolled their eyes. My mind raced.
"How about St Louis Blues?"
"Now you're talking!"
I counted off and dug into the head--in the wrong key! I was playing Pete's version, rather than the standard! The guys were so good, though, we stopped and restarted--and they all transposed seamlessly behind me. The clarinetist for the band that night was very encouraging--I'll never forget our conversation about the music. Pete's recording of this came up--he probably realized it was from this album that I'd gotten the tune.
Some albums are so full of memories of time and place, so loaded with nostalgia, that they become impossible to separate from our lives. Or maybe we don't want to separate them--realizing that if we pull this album out to dissect it, our lives will start to fray too much in those spots. I'm that way with The New Orleans Scene--it was part of the sustaining soundtrack to my life as a teen, and a more or less constant companion afterwards. If I grudgingly attempt to look at it objectively for a moment, the numbers with Al Hirt and the larger ensemble never particularly grabbed my attention--though their version of 'Panama' is still the primordial template for the tune in my mind, from that first exposure. Honestly, there are other examples of Pete in a larger New Orleans ensemble setting that seem to have more spirit and verve (particularly earlier recordings from the mid 1950s). I'd also have to admit some of his other recordings of 'I've Found a New Baby' might even outstrip this brilliant studio recording--the live version on At the Bateau Lounge is certainly in the running. Still, these eight tunes are a very solid collection some of the great standards. Pete's playing on 'St. Louis Blues,' the aforementioned 'I've Found a New Baby,' and 'The Lonesome Road' were so powerful that they hooked me for life, and probably altered my trajectory from that of a New York kid wanting to play modern jazz and swing, to a clarinetist looking south towards New Orleans for my inspiration.
So I recommend this short, patchwork album to everyone, with the caveat that I can't objectively listen to it. It's too much of an old friend. And for all you kids out there transcribing--by all means, get after Pete's playing as much as you can. But remember most bands play 'St Louis Blues' in G.
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| Pete Fountain Mardi Gras Medallion (Eric Seddon Collection) |
