Pete Fountain with Charles 'Bud' Dant & His Orchestra * Licorice Stick * Coral Records (CRL 57460) * 1964

Side 1

1. Licorice Stick (Fountain-Owen Bradley-Dant)
2. Young Maiden's Prayer (Fountain-Bradley-Dant)
3. Gravy Waltz
4. Fountain Blue
5. Tippin In
6. Estrellita

Side 2

1. Hello Dolly
2. Maria Elena
3. Clairnet Strip (Fountain-Bradley-Dant)
4. Born To Lose
5. The Honey Wind Blows
6. I Love You So Much It Hurts


Clarinet solo with Orchestra and Choir accompaniment 


From the outset of this odd album we're greeted by a wordless chorus, banjo, and simplistic clarinet melody over 'rhythm changes.' It sounds a bit as though Ravel got lost in a department store in the Ozarks. For all it's odd simplicity, though, the tune is an historic one, at least in a crossover sense. Entitled 'Licorice Stick', it was co-written by Fountain, Owen Bradley, and Charles 'Bud' Dant. Jazz fans might not recognize the name of Owen Bradley (who shares composer credits with Fountain and Dant on three numbers), but to the history of Nashville, he is quite an important figure. His Country Music Hall of Fame page credits him with shaping what became known as the "Nashville Sound" and even mentions Pete Fountain:

Owen Bradley was named head of Decca’s Nashville division in 1958, from which position he helped shape the evolution of the Nashville Sound. Like Chet Atkins, his counterpart at RCA, Bradley put singers out front, using rhythm sections consisting of guitars, bass, drums, and piano to provide basic support and adding background harmony parts or string sections as needed. The resulting music was easily accessible to a wide range of listeners. In addition to turning out hits by Decca’s country acts, Bradley also produced a Grammy-winning record for folk star Burl Ives (1962) and attracted Dixieland clarinetist Pete Fountain and pop organist Lenny Dee to Nashville. Bradley himself scored pop hits for Decca in 1957 (“White Silver Sands”) and 1958 (“Big Guitar”).  

So far as I can tell, this album is the first of Pete's artistic efforts to combine New Orleans clarinet with the Nashville sound. Before purists get themselves into too much of a frenzy, and start shouting about 'commercialism' it's important to consider a couple of things. First, Pete never abandoned his hard earned jazz style, which was a combination of New Orleans, swing, and cooler west coast jazz. He continued to perform and record in that style for the rest of his days. Second, Pete's interest in the Nashville sound might not have been so completely mercenary as fans often assume. In his autobiography, he pointed out that his father was never much of a jazz fan--his dad actually preferred Country music. Discussing a later album, for instance, Pete tells this story:

Recently I have been recording in Nashville, where Owen Bradley has shown me some fantastic things about the business. There are more great musicians sitting around in the recording studios there than you can believe. They are loose. 

My most recent album, New Orleans, Tennessee, was done there. It has a great country flair, really a swinging sound. Pop listened to it and said,"I'm glad you finally started to play some good music." He is still a staunch country-and-western fan. [pg 191] 

It's in this spirit that we ought to listen to the Nashville efforts of Pete Fountain--not as a contribution to New Orleans style jazz, but as a new type of fusion. As such, they are at least unique, and as I have suggested before, seem a forerunner to Pat Metheny's Americana tinged guitar works.

'Young Maiden's Prayer' is another Fountain-Bradley-Dant collaboration, featuring Pete's full chalumeau singing a melody that hints at 'Amazing Grace', 'Deep River', and any number of other old spirituals. The backbeat is Nashville, with guitar giving country blues fills, and a twanged bass guitar that will be tough for some jazz fans to adjust to, but if accepted on its own terms is decent enough, if dated.

Ray Brown and Steve Allen's 'Gravy Waltz' is a return to the more easy listening jazz style Dant and Fountain cultivated on I Love Paris a year before. The strings are less country, more Hollywood tinged.

Rod McKuen's 'Fountain Blue' is a pretty little ballad for Pete to play, with the Nashville sound (wordless female vocal, rhythm section, plinking piano) backing him up. Tunes like this are strong enough to warrant more performances, especially among clarinetists.

With 'Tippin' In' the album goes honky-tonk suddenly, and honestly, the record starts to seem a bit of a bizarre hodge-podge. 'Estrellita' rights the ship a bit, focusing once again on Pete's mellow chalumeau ballad capabilities.

One Side Two, Pete attempts to draft a bit off of Louis Armstrong's mega-hit 'Hello Dolly.' It would probably have benefited from a real jazz treatment with Pete's gigging band. This version comes off sounding too canned. There's a strange moment when a female voice says "Play it one more time"--the whole thing seems disembodied, as though the woman wasn't even in the same room as the band. It's a weird dissociated feeling one gets from some of this music, which I find paradoxically interesting but a bit creepy too--like hanging out in an abandoned shopping center after hours. This is even the zeitgeist for 'Maria Elena', a beautiful little melody Pete was to perform and record often. With 'Clarinet Strip,' we get some timbres that seem to have been sampled and used by They Might Be Giants thirty years later. To quote Johnny Carson, it's "weird, wild stuff." 

This is a strange, sometimes awkward album for a jazz fan to listen to. I have no idea how it was received in 1964. It must have done well enough for Pete to make several more in the Nashville style. It's not my cup of tea...though I'll admit to a sort of strange attraction to figuring it out. To me it's like seeing your favorite Shakespearean in a really odd B movie. You can't help but watch it. Besides, as I wrote above, it really did aim at something unique--and at moments comes close to reaching something special. As a musician always looking for more creative projects and ways to reach out to new audiences, I think this album (and the Nashville projects which followed) are of definite value.

In the end, though, I think Pete will be best remembered for his New Orleans style work, and of albums that are like this one,  I prefer 1962's Swing Low, Sweet Clarinet, which already hinted at this direction.

Pete Fountain * Swing Low, Sweet Clarinet * Coral Records (CRL 57394) * 1962

Side A

Dis Ol' Train

Sing You Sinners

Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Down By the Riverside

Let Me Walk Closer to Thee

Side B

Yes Indeed

Swing Low, Sweet Clarinet

If I Go to the Promised Land

I Talk to the King (Fountain, Dant, & Wrightsman)

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho

Pete Fountain * Clarinet

Dick Cathcart * Trumpet

Plas Johnson * Tenor Sax

Godfrey Hirsch * Vibes

Stanley Wrightsman * Piano

Bobby Gibbons * Guitar

Morty Corb * Bass

Jack Sperling * Drums

Gwen Johnson * soprano voice

The Jubilee Singers * Vocals/Chorus

In many ways, this album feels like a precursor to Pat Metheny's Americana inspired projects: they seem to explore the juncture between 'jazz' and other 'roots' music, investigating what broader orchestration might be used to express the type of optimism and warmth of the American heartland--specifically the Midwestern America of the 1950s and 60s. To some, these projects are anathema: they're branded as 'commercial,' 'illegitimate', a straying from purist jazz, whatever that might be.   

The musical situation is complicated by the reality that this was indeed a commercial venture. Every professionally marketed recording is, of course--but in particular these forays of Pete Fountain and Bud Dant were certainly made with the hopes of capturing the mood of a large percentage of the listening public. The present album was no exception--it included a then recent Ray Charles hit--'Yes Indeed'--even hinting in Sam Rowland's liner notes that a "single of this title would be a smash hit!"

Growing up in the Northeast, slightly past the era when this album was produced, I initially found this album outside of my tastes--in an almost identical manner that I find Metheny tunes like 'Every Summer Night' difficult to enter emotionally. There seemed something a little too bubbly and optimistic about it for me. Living in the Midwest for the last 23 years, however, has changed my perception of this music in a good way. Honestly, I never really understood the attraction to the Nashville or Memphis sounds (which influenced Pete Fountain from an early age, and found their way into many of his records) until spending years among the landscapes and people of Southern Indiana and Kentucky (not quite Tennessee, but I guess close enough to 'get it'). I found that often what we from the coasts are dismissive of--what we call unsophisticated or naive--is really heartfelt gratitude, and a unique expression of beauty not to be found in other music. Not all of Pete's records in this style strike me as having that level of beauty, but this one does--to me it's one of the best examples of this type of Americana.

The opening number-- 'Dis Ol' Train'--hits with heartland ambiance full-force, Jubilee Singers and all. If you wonder whether this album is for you, it's front loaded to help decide! Even when I was most resisted to the aesthetic, I had to admit that when Pete and Jack Sperling broke in, I was amazed at the pure joy--it's an absolutely breathtaking moment of clarinet, drums, chorus--and if we're honest, what moment is like it in music history? It's kind of, well, strangely...unique. The rest of the album unfolds with similar interest.

The title track is a cover of an earlier record by the English classical soloist Reginald Kell. When I met him in 1990, Pete told me that of all the classical clarinetists of the past, he admired Kell the most, and didn't listen to many others. He preferred Kell for his big sound and expressiveness, which he felt more akin to New Orleans jazz players. The concept seems to have been to build an album around 'Swing Low, Sweet Clarinet', the title of which was an obvious reference to the spiritual 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' (also included). All of the other numbers are spirituals, some in small combo setting, some with big band, some with the whole contingent including the Jubilee Singers. Highlights for me are 'Dis Ol' Train' for reasons mentioned above, 'Sing You Sinners' (Pete with Quintet), and a 5/4 clarinet and Big Band version of 'Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.' As with all of these Fountain/Dant concept albums, the pacing, symbolism, and choice of tunes is first rate, the album flowing seamlessly from beginning to end.

Perhaps the final chapter in my long, slow, awakening to this type of music came when I was playing a duo gig a few years back with a pianist I'd never met before the job itself. We were hired to play New Orleans style music, and he was recommended to me. In between sets we talked about our favorite recordings and he brought up this album. In fact, he said with great sincerity and emotion that it was his favorite album of all time. I was shocked--this couldn't be true, could it? A professional jazz pianist preferring this over everything else? But it was. He even had a digitally remastered CD of it, the likes of which I'd never seen or heard. His quiet devotion to this album made me take it more seriously, and I've listened to it with more open ears, mind, and heart since.

So there you have it. Is this 'jazz'? Well, sure. Some of it. Is it likely to please a jazz audience? That depends on how receptive the listener is to this type of Americana. In my opinion, we'd better be open to this sort of expression, though, and perhaps try to tap into it creatively ourselves. To push it away only diminishes our musical world.

Detail from my copy of the original LP, showing the stamp of WHLD in Niagara Falls.
There's something nostalgic about imagining this LP played over the airwaves.
(Eric Seddon Collection)

       

Pete Fountain Salutes the Great Clarinetists * Coral Records (CRL 757333) * 1960

Side A

Woodchopper's Ball
Petite Fleur
Sometimes I'm Happy
Frenesi
When My Baby Smiles at Me
March of the Bobcats

Side B

Begin the Beguine
Me and My Shadow
Green Eyes
Let's Dance
My Inspiration
Amapola


Pete Fountain * Clarinet
Charles 'Bud' Dant * Big Band arrangements & Conductor



The second of Pete Fountain's Big Band collaboration albums with Charles 'Bud' Dant (the first being 1959's The Blues), Pete Fountain Salutes the Great Clarinetists highlights Pete's gratitude towards several clarinetists who either helped shape his style, or laid the trajectory for the branch of jazz he was to contribute to in his career. Those highlighted are Sidney Bechet, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Artie Shaw, Ted Lewis, Irving Fazola, and Jimmy Dorsey. Two in particular were foundational influences on his playing: Fazola and Goodman.

The liner notes of this album, written by Leonard Feather, are more interesting than most, as they touch upon jazz history. In them, Pete draws some telling lines, helping define his artistic goals, both in the album, and as a clarinetist.

"This is my tribute to some of the great people who have been associated with the clarinet. It's not in any way an attempt to duplicate their own individual styles," said Pete regarding the album itself. This caveat functions in at least a couple of different ways. First, it seem to me the only real way any meaningful jazz tribute can happen. To copy someone else's style wholesale, parroting back performances, is really antithetical and destructive to actual jazz, which has to be a representation of the actual person playing. That's not to say that influences are bad; they're not. We all can, and in a sense should be openly expressive of those who came before us--jazz musicians are part of a living tradition of this music, after all. But the very nature of this art form demands more than reproduction or interpretation: it demands the whole of a person's expression, which by definition will end up being unique.

In a secondary sense--and this can get a bit touchy--whether we're talking about Jimmy Dorsey or Monty Sunshine (whose version of Bechet's 'Petite Fleur' probably served as the immediate inspiration for its inclusion on this album), Pete was actually far more technically brilliant a performer, and couldn't duplicate the styles of such players without the result seeming like a parody. Comparison with Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert is instructive: during the historical survey, Benny's imitation of Ted Lewis sounds like a satire, though it was clearly an homage.  Pete's strategy on this album prevents such a problem. 

"I have to keep in mind," Pete went on with typical frankness,"that I was lucky to have an open field on my instrument. After all, when Benny Goodman came along, most of the time he had Shaw and Herman and Dorsey and others on his back; but the fellows who came up in between that period and the present--Buddy de Franco, Tony Scott and the others -- are in a different field and represent a different approach to the instrument."

To this, Leonard Feather interjects: "I would debate this last item; despite his New Orleans associations and Dixieland background, Pete essentially is a modern musician, one who has listened to jazz with ears that are as harmonically sensitive and fingers consistently agile as those of De Franco and the other contemporary stylists."

It's an interesting opinion. Buddy DeFranco was an acknowledged bebop virtuoso who had consciously left the Big Band and swing scene in the late '40s to pursue modern jazz single-mindedly. Though he'd occasionally return to that world for the sake of making ends meet, his jazz vocabulary and technique remained decidedly influenced by Charlie Parker. As a clarinetist, DeFranco was clear in interviews that he wasn't influenced or interested in the New Orleans tradition. He had been trained classically, and attracted to jazz clarinet specifically through the playing of Johnny Mince and Artie Shaw. He wasn't as openly dismissive of New Orleans style as Shaw later was (Artie claimed to have invented jazz clarinet along with Benny Goodman, suggesting everyone before them was more or less irrelevant), but DeFranco's attitude seems to have been similar.

Also at the time, and continuing to a certain extent to this day, there was already an ambiance cultural hauteur cultivated around bop and modern jazz: a pretense that it was somehow more intellectually and technically advanced than earlier jazz styles. Perhaps Feather was sensing that Pete's playing approach was just as virtuosically demanding as DeFranco's, or perhaps he felt Pete's ability to play over more contemporary rhythm sections suggested equality with modern jazz musicians. If so, he was certainly correct, and in any event, I think his point was meant to defend Fountain against condescension.

My own opinions about modern jazz and bop language are fairly well known to anyone who has read this blog for the past six years or so. I think it's a mistake to view jazz as an art in which one style supplants earlier expressions--and I think it's destructive to apply modern jazz language to all forms of jazz equally. I think we're getting to a point, perhaps because it is so conducive to conservatory pedagogy, that bop language has become a bit of an invasive species in other jazz ecosystems--we hear trad bands with bop language being used, which is kind of like thrusting Bartok  into Mozart's music. I hear bop language in gypsy jazz, smooth jazz, fusion. In one sense, it's a testimony to bop's popularity among musicians, but in another, something lyrical and expressive is being crowded out and lost.

Pete's playing, and what I think he meant by his comment, was that he had no interest in playing with bop vocabulary--he had built his clarinet style and language upon New Orleans and swing foundation, and would follow that trajectory. Significantly, unlike the modernists after him, he resisted switching to small bore clarinets--maintaining the large, commanding tone in the tradition of clarinetists from an earlier era. I've pointed out many times that the public seems to have preferred that style of clarinet, and that sound, at least in jazz.
   
As for this album in particular--beyond the very intriguing liner notes!--there's a lot to enjoy, but it is mostly about the arrangements.

"The orchestra," says Bud Dant, "was supposed to be built around Pete to showcase him, rather than to be integrated with him. And in the arrangements we would use a phrase or a passage here and there that might be reminiscent of the original recording, but here again there was no exact carbon copying." 

Pete's playing is solid, vintage Fountain, but perhaps not as dynamic as his playing on The Blues. He hits all of his spots and makes the tunes his own, but the stars of the show are Bud Dant, Don Bagley, Art Depew, Morty Corb, and Matty Matlock: the arrangers. Over the course of two sides and twelve tunes, they reinterpret swing era favorites for an audience in 1960. The charts all have the bright, streamlined quality of others of the era: the Elgart band come to mind, and the optimistic grace of Neal Hefti's work for Count Basie and Harry James. These are a bit broader than both, as their goal was primarily to frame Pete.

My favorites on this album are 'Sometimes I'm Happy', originally a Fletcher Henderson arrangement for the Benny Goodman band. Pete's version is arranged by Don Bagley, who masterfully weaves hints of the classic arrangement while giving it a completely different twist. Pete's statement of the melody demonstrates the importance of subtle tonal shadings for clarinetists--the meaning and nuance he brings to the simple melody carries the tune. That's apparent on all of Pete's recordings, and in many ways what sets him apart, but the simplicity of 'Sometimes I'm Happy' is also, in a way, it's difficulty. Pete shows how effective nuance can be.

'Frenesi' was such a big hit for Artie Shaw, I was skeptical anyone could reinvent it convincingly until I heard this version. Art Depew throws down a stylish cha-cha with his arrangement. It's a rare version of a creative cover that works just about as well as the original, making the listener want even more.

Another standout is Bud Dant's game plan for 'Petite Fleur.' This is a tune, like so many Bechet numbers, that seems to call out for larger orchestration, so operatic is the theme.

At the end of the day, this is a rather light album in terms of jazz. Mostly, it's a nice, refreshing listen on a hot summer day. Upbeat and romantic, it's a pretty showcase for Pete's legendary sound.

Bud Dant's words to close out the liner notes are a good reminder, though, of how important they felt the album to be to restoring the place of the clarinet in the jazz world:

"Pete hasn't only helped to bring the clarinet back in front where it should be," said Bud, "he's also managed, with his musicianship and his colorful personality, to make many new friends for jazz in general." This is context that's been marginalized in the decades since, and worth reconsidering when we think of the broad and diverse sweep of jazz music as a whole.

Pete Fountain Mardi Gras Bracelet 2015 (Eric Seddon Collection)

Pete Fountain * Mr. New Orleans * Decca (DL7-5377) * 1963

Side A

South Rampart Street Parade
Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet
The Second Line
Basin Street Blues
The Darktown Strutters' Ball
Marching 'round The Mountain


Side B

Over The Waves
Careless Love
Walking Through New Orleans
Sugar Bowl Parade
Farewell Blues
Washington And Lee Swing



Pete Fountain * Clarinet

Godfrey Hirsch * Marching Drum
Jack Sperling * Snare, Cymbal, Foot Drum
Nick Fatool * Field Drum
Paul Barbarin * Vertical Bass Drum with Brass Rim Cymbal
Jackie Coon * Trumpet
Moe Schneider, Lou McCreary, Bill Schaefer, Dick Nash, Dick Noel * Trombones
George Roberts * Bass Trombone
Bobby Gibbons * Banjo
Phil Stephens * Tuba
Morty Corb * Bass

Directed by Bud Dant

This is an unusual album, but also quite enjoyable if the listener is open-minded. It seems an experiment in tone painting--an interpretation of New Orleans street beats and parade music by a fictional marching band. That might sound odd...and, well, the music is a bit odd in a way, but that's part of its interest and charm.

First and foremost, the orchestration is innovative. Fountain and Dant employed four drummers, who play simultaneously, on this record, including Godfrey Hirsch on a marching drum, though he was usually Pete's vibraphonist! Along with Hirsch are three more legendary drummers, all playing street beats together--Jack Sperling, Nick Fatool (who played with Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw before Pete), and New Orleans legend Paul Barbarin (whose credentials included stints with King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, Freddie Keppard, and Jimmie Noone!) The four of them create a fictional marching drum corps, generating grooves for the entire album--and while the parade that aurally suggests itself is fictional enough, the groove isn't! What these masters did with marching and field drums was pure soul.

The band is trombone heavy with arrangements tending to script the low brass, giving Pete's clarinet and Jackie Coon's trumpet room to work. Those expecting real polyphonic improvisation, like Pete's earlier recording of South Rampart Street Parade with the Village Scramblers, might be initially disappointed by the opening of this album. When I first heard this record as a teenager some thirty years ago, I had a hard time getting past the counted off feeling and block arrangement that shocked my system at the beginning. My advice, though? Please stick with it. This album has a ton of very interesting and evocative playing and writing. You just have to understand the concept, which is unique. I've said that Pete's 1959 album The Blues is symphonic in its pacing and musical material, carrying the listener through. Similarly, Mr. New Orleans is like a tone poem--part orchestrated, part improvised--to evoke a clarinetist's view of a Mardi Gras Parade.

These arrangements probably wouldn't work very easily in actual parade circumstances--the balance would be difficult. The clarinetist would have to be mic'd and probably on a float, and who knows how acoustics would be properly achieved. But they hang together as though almost through-composed, with a unity typical of Fountain/Dant projects from this era. It's worth pointing out the diversity arrangers and arrangements:

Don Bagley arranged 'South Rampart Street Parade.'

'Grey Bonnet' and 'Careless Love' were good old fashioned head arrangements. According to Leonard Feather's liner notes, 'Farewell Blues' was virtually a head arrangement, too, with a little prodding from Bud Dant, who also wrote the playbook for Godfrey Hirsch's original 'Sugar Bowl Parade', 'Walking Through New Orleans', and 'Marching Round the Mountain.'

Matty Matlock had the honor of arranging Barbarin's original 'The Second Line' (with Barbarin in the drum corps!), while also contributing charts for 'Washington and Lee Swing.'

Heinie Beau arranged 'Basin Street Blues', 'The Darktown Strutter's Ball', and 'Over the Waves'.

Pete's playing is excellent throughout. His sound is particularly mellow and full. Either the sound engineers or his set-up avoided most of the reediness that comes through on his more aggressive live album soloing of the same time period, so if you like the Pete Fountain sound that is smoothest and most mellow, this is an album you'll want to hear, even if it's also pretty loud and raucous from beginning to end. While every jazz studio recording tends to balance clarinet somewhat synthetically, this one does so more extremely in a sense--enabling Pete to play in a very relaxed manner over four pounding drummers and blazing trombones, while still being easily heard. 

Jackie Coon's trumpet playing is a real treat on this LP, especially on the beautiful classic 'Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet.' Coon evokes all the sweetness and love of the old couple in the song, celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary and taking a ride through the fields to revisit the place they first said their vows. His nuance and sound are a perfect match for Pete's, leaving us to wish we had more examples on record of the two collaborating.

For Pete Fountain fans, of great interest is to hear how he navigates these arrangements of standards, propelled by street beats rather than a drum set with a ride cymbal. I think they'll be happy with the results. He even manages to salvage a tune like 'Over the Waves' which has been played so badly by so many--Pete imbues it with charm and jauntiness, rather than saccharine vibrato.

Fountain and Dant were to collaborate on many concept albums as the years progressed--some of them truly great, some less successful. To me, this is one of the most successful, worthy of repeated listening as the years go by.

Pete Fountain Half/Fast Walking Club Mardi Gras Doubloon
(Eric Seddon Collection)

Pete Fountain * The Blues * Coral Records (CRL 757284) * 1959

Side A

St. Louis Blues
Blue Fountain 
Columbus Stockade Blues
Aunt Hagar's Blues
Lonesome Road
The Memphis Blues

Side B

My Inspiration
Wang Wang Blues
Beale Street Blues
Wabash Blues
Five Point Blues
Bayou Blues 

Pete Fountain * Clarinet
Stan Wrightsman * Piano
Morty Corb * Bass
Jack Sperling * Drums

Reeds: Babe Russin, Chuck Gentry, Eddie Miller, Jack Dumont, Matty Matlock, Russ Cheever, Wilbur Schwartz, William Ulyate
Trombones: Harold Diner, Moe Schneider, Peter Lofthouse, William Schaefer
Trumpets: Art Depew, Conrad Gozzo, Jackie Coon, John Best, Mannie Klein, Ray Linn,  Shorty Sherock


Charles Bud Dant * Director

Arrangements by Bud Dant, Frank Scott, Stan Wrightsman, Art Depew and Morty Corb


The Blues was the second of four albums Pete Fountain cut for Coral Records in 1959 immediately after his departure from the Lawrence Welk Show. This remarkable sequence of records seems to have been carefully considered to document Pete's many strengths. Pete Fountain's New Orleans, for instance, is a pristine, beautifully executed Los Angeles studio album of his quartet. At the Bateau Lounge showcases another of Pete's quartets (retaining Jack Sperling on drums for both dates) in a small New Orleans club. Contrasting that atmosphere considerably, Pete Fountain Day demonstrates the quintet's power in New Orleans Municipal Auditorium (proving, among other things, that before there was Arena Rock, there was exceptionally effective Arena Jazz). Municipal Auditorium is quite a space compared to a French Quarter lounge, holding nearly eight thousand people at capacity. And unlike any of the others, The Blues -- recorded in Los Angeles almost immediately after Pete Fountain's New Orleans -- demonstrates how compellingly Pete could front a Big Band.

That a jazz clarinetist will automatically succeed as a Big Band soloist is decidedly not a given. Polyphonic New Orleans jazz (whether it's called 'Dixieland' 'Ragtime' or 'Trad')  is in many ways a different discipline than Big Band approach, and not everyone can make the adjustments necessary. Sidney Bechet, for instance, over the course of his years recording with Noble Sissle's Orchestra in the 1930s, never seemed the right fit (though in fairness, it would have been interesting had Bechet put down the soprano sax in favor of the extended range of a clarinet for those recordings).

In order for the pairing of clarinet and band to work, a few things need to come into place. Most importantly, the player needs a commanding sound, especially in the altissimo, and the arrangements must work to the advantage of hearing the clarinet shine in all registers. Those elements are evident on this LP, which is perhaps the most enjoyable of all Pete's Big Band albums.

The arrangements by Bud Dant, Frank Scott, Stan Wrightsman, Art Depew and Morty Corb, while not typical of swing era writing, are certainly in the wheelhouse of late '50s, early '60s West Coast sound--direct precursors to the sort of clear, strong arrangements of Tommy Newsom and others, which would come to dominate the Tonight Show Band under Doc Severinsen for decades to come. They're extroverted at times and subdued at others, with large, sweeping gestures, leaving perfect room for Pete's rich chalumeau when necessary, and providing plenty of raucous volume for his altissimo to clear the band like a pole vaulter clears the bar at other moments.

The band itself was comprised of jazz veterans of the top ensembles of the swing era, many of whom had settled into the Los Angeles studio scene after the 1940s. There's a maturity and commitment to their playing not easily matched. 'St Louis Blues' sets the tone perfectly with hot playing from the band and dynamic altissimo of Pete at the climax. The rest of the album unfolds with the natural flow typical of Dant's skill as an arranger and producer. In fact, the remarkable flow of the various blues numbers chosen, along with their contrasting elements, gives the listener a sense of unity and diversity similar to a great symphony, with Five Points Blues on Side B functioning as a finale, and Bayou Blues (written by Pete's bass player, Morty Corb) as an epilogue or coda.

In between, however,  are plenty of numbers fans of Pete Fountain will want to hear regularly. 'Blue Fountain'--a moody, blues-noir number-- seems to have been written specifically for this album, by fellow Welk alum Frank Scott and the album's pianist Stan Wrightsman, and is a creative vehicle for Pete's singing lyricism. The other numbers show the remarkable range, formally and contentwise, of the Blues as a genre. There are marches, spirituals such as 'The Lonesome Road,' which Pete famously recorded in small combo settings as well, and ballads.  Side B leads off with 'My Inspiration,' a decided nod towards Pete's childhood hero, Irving Fazola, foreshadowing another Big Band album Pete was to record with Dant a year later--Pete Fountain Salutes the Great Clarinetists.

In terms of balance, soloing, and especially the engaging way this record pulls the listener through from beginning to end, this is a classic era Pete Fountain/Bud Dant collaboration. Highly recommended, essential listening, and a pure delight.

Pete Fountain 2015 Mardi Gras Doubloon (Eric Seddon Collection) 

    

Pete Fountain's New Orleans * Coral Records (CRL 757282) * 1959

Side A 

While We Danced the Mardi Gras
A Closer Walk With Thee
When the Saints Go Marching In
When It's Sleepy Time Down South
Ol'  Man River
Cotton Fields

Side B

Sweethearts on Parade
Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans
Basin Street Blues
Lazy River
Way Down Yonder in New Orleans
Tin Roof Blues

Pete Fountain * Clarinet
Stan Wrightsman * Piano
Morty Corb * Bass
Jack Sperling * Drums


Recorded in Los Angeles after leaving Lawrence Welk's show over artistic differences, Pete Fountain's New Orleans constitutes an opening statement of sorts, just prior to his return to the Crescent City. His first under a new deal with Coral records, this album lays down mature (for some even definitive) versions of twelve standards he was to reference and develop for the rest of his career. Unlike many of his early Coral albums--too often underappreciated classics in desperate need of reissue--this album has been continuously in print for nearly seventy years, the sound remaining remarkably fresh and timeless.

The tune selection was, for the time, a mix of old and new. Songs like 'Ol' Man River' and 'While We Danced the Mardi Gras', while already firmly established, were still relatively recent additions to the repertoire. The others were venerable New Orleans songs and hymns of diverse backgrounds and associations. 'When It's Sleepy Time Down South' was Louis Armstrong's theme song for many years,  'A Closer Walk With Thee' was deeply associated with George Lewis, becoming synonymous with Pete as a result of this album, and from there a legacy to all jazz clarinetists (those interested can even hear my version on our live album).  'Tin Roof Blues' will always be linked to many New Orleans clarinetists, but most especially with Leon Roppolo; likewise 'Way Down Yonder in New Orleans' with Jimmie Noone. 'Lazy River' is a tune from the all but forgotten New Orleans clarinetist, Sidney Arodin. Significantly absent are regular numbers from Pete's repertoire associated with clarinetists outside of New Orleans--no 'Avalon', 'After You've Gone', 'Shine', or others which might bring Benny Goodman to mind, for example. In short, this album, so unified in concept and delivery, is a tour through a master clarinetist's view of New Orleans.

For Pete personally, the album was seminal:

The first album was a milestone. [...] Back to that first recording session. It was beautiful. The simplicity and ease of not having to worry about what somebody else thought of every note was fantastic. I was on my own and I could play what I felt like playing.(Fountain 158)

The tunes were worked out in studio--'head arrangements' decided upon mostly by the musicians, though producer Bud Dant contributed some into and outro music. The Dant-Fountain collaboration was to prove fruitful for many years to come, both in small and large group settings, over the course of many discs.

Though I haven't bothered to look into the album's commercial success, as of the publication of Pete's autobiography in 1972, Pete Fountain's New Orleans had gone multi-platinum and, having been reissued in every available format since, has undoubtedly continued to sell. Part of the reason for this must be the timeless quality of the playing. The players aren't self consciously trad in approach--this isn't New Orleans revival style of any era. Instead, it's a creative fusion of New Orleans, swing, and west coast cool that seems to have a permanent place in American musical aesthetic. In fact, it's far less dated sounding than many 'classic' modern albums of the same era--a tribute to the musicians and recording engineers.

Those who are students or fans of Pete Fountain's playing will undoubtedly know other versions of every tune, perhaps even preferring different takes. Maybe the unbridled creativity of Pete's playing of 'Tin Roof Blues' live in Santa Monica two years later strikes some listeners as his best, or various versions of 'The Saints.' In many ways, though, this album was the blueprint for all subsequent performances. Here, with simplicity, beauty and significant flashes of that fire he was known for, Pete gave a unified vision of his own style. It reminds me of another album from the same era: Sonny Rollins's Saxophone Colossus. Both albums are summas of a sort, while simultaneously a fresh start--pivot chords in both men's careers. The albums have a perfection of balance that seem to pull the listener through--once started, you can't help but listen to the entire thing, in one refreshing session. Both were to be expanded upon for decades afterwardss, and both utilized that remarkably balanced ensemble, the jazz quartet.

This is Pete's love letter to New Orleans--the one where he told them to leave the light on for him, cuz he was coming home. The music shines as brightly today as it did in 1959.



Further reading:

Fountain, Pete and Neely, Bill. A Closer Walk: The Pete Fountain Story. Regnery: Chicago (1972). 


     

Autograph inscription in a copy of Pete Fountain's 1972 Autobiography,
A Closer Walk: The Pete Fountain Story. (Eric Seddon Collection) 

Review: Pete Fountain * I Love Paris * Coral Records (CRL 757378) * 1963

Side A

I Love Paris
Comme Ci, Comme Ca
Frere Jazz
Autumn Leaves (Les Feuilles Mortes)
La Vie en Rose
April in Paris

Side B

C'est Magnifique
Two Loves Have I (J'ai Deux Amours)
C'est Si Bon (It's So Good)
The Song from Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart)
Tout de Suite
My Man (Mon Homme)

Pete Fountain, Clarinet
with Charles 'Bud' Dant and His Orchestra

Can a real jazz musician record an "easy listening" album? Louis Armstrong did, so the answer must be yes. With this irrelevant question out of the way, once and for all, let's get on with the music.

There are quite a few high quality easy listening clarinet albums out there, not all of them from jazz musicians. Both Reginald Kell and Artie Shaw dabbled in the "light classical" genre beginning in the 1940s. The best results of these can be found on Reginal Kell and his Quiet Music, fortunately still available on CD, and Modern Music for Clarinet, a rare Columbia LP of Shaw's. The Shaw disc tends to sell for rather high prices these days, owing to both its rarity and the rumor that the cover art might be an example of early Warhol. It's also one of the more interesting in the genre, for its blending of both jazz and classical repertoire.

Yet even with these efforts in mind, my favorite in the Jazz Clarinet Easy Listening category is Pete Fountain's I Love Paris. This is music with absolutely no pretense: no throwing in Debussy's "Petite Piece" to "legitimize" the album, no busting out a virtuosic Django Reinhardt number to save face... this is straight up "turn-on-the-A/C-and-mix-your-martini-after-a-hard-day-at-the-office-to-unwind-with-the-missus" bourgeois relaxation. This is Rob and Laura Petrie chilling to some "jazz." This is suburban America trying to unwind (and that's no easy task--trust me, suburban America can be a bizarro world of reality denial).

The arrangements by Bud Dant are brilliant--lush strings, but spare in their lines, uncluttered. So many jazz "with strings" albums are ruined by arrangers bent on proving they can make a Hoagy Carmichael tune sound like Schoenberg. Bud Dant is much better than that.

Pete's playing is great--probably better than on any of his many Easy Listening projects. His tone takes over and he sells every tune well. I'm not a big fan of tunes like "La Vie en Rose" or "Autumn Leaves", but Pete's playing of them, his use of subtone, and his spare but tasteful solos transform them. He has a lightness of touch and intimacy that keeps these songs from slobbering over-emotion.

If you ask me in the winter time how many reeds I rate this, I'll probably answer "three." But as soon as the A/C has to be turned on, and summer heat rolls in, this album is Five Good Reeds. It's just the best in the genre for me.

If you're lucky enough to get an LP in good condition, be sure to check the right hand corner of the cover: just above the blue I LOVE PARIS lettering, it should be marked STEREO in white block letters. If it's unmarked, it's likely one of the mono versions. I highly recommend the STEREO version: one of the great joys of this album is to hear the ride cymbal and trombones on the left channel answered by the accordion and bongos [sic] on the right! So don't gyp yourself! Turn that A/C on full blast, in stereo!

Autographed Portrait of Pete (Eric Seddon Collection)

   

Big Band Jazz Clarinet: Essential Performances (6)

6. Pete Fountain * The Blues * 1959

In 1959, Pete Fountain came to his famous realization that "Champagne and Bourbon don't mix", decided that Hollywood just wasn't for him, and packed his family for the return trip to New Orleans. But before he left, he cut two very important albums. The first, Pete Fountain's New Orleans, seamlessly blended Pete's New Orleans style clarinet with a cool, West Coast rhythm section. It went on to become one of Fountain's best selling records, and is still available for download over sixty years later. The second, equally impressive despite having sadly slipped into obscurity, is Pete's first collaboration with the large ensemble scoring of Charles 'Bud' Dant, entitled The Blues.

These arrangements are streamlined, '50s-chic Big Band Charts, demonstrating the polish musicians brought to them in that day. The band was comprised of the top musicians in L.A. at the time, many of them veterans of the Big Band era.

Some of these tracks, especially the impressive lead-off 'St Louis Blues' have been reissued in compilation albums, but many (such as 'Blue Fountain') have been oddly neglected over the six decades since it was recorded. They capture Pete's playing at a moment of particular brilliance. His legendary fat, liquidy sound is all there, from the bottom to the top of the horn. Few clarinetists have ever matched the timbral beauty throughout the horn's range that Pete has.

There are still a few vinyl discs of this great album floating around. Get a stereo copy if you can (they were pressed in both stereo and mono--the stereo versions have a blue "Coral Stereo" strip at the top). Hopefully this great album will be made available for download soon.

[For a more thorough review of this album, click here.]