Pete Fountain Day * Coral Records (CRL 57313) * October 23, 1959

Recorded Live in New Orleans Municipal Auditorium October 23rd (or 26th or 29th) 1959

Side A

I Got Rhythm

Ja-Da

China Boy (Go Sleep)

Avalon

Shine

Side B

Tiger Rag

Don't Be That Way

Poor Butterfly

Someday Sweetheart

'S Wonderful

Pete Fountain * clarinet

Godfrey Hirsch * vibes

Merle Koch * piano

Don Bagley * bass

Jack Sperling * drums

The first of a series of live recordings from Pete Fountain's Coral Records period, this album is unique. It documents and celebrates the return of Pete Fountain to New Orleans after his year of national success on the Lawrence Welk show in Los Angeles. Although he was to speak with gratitude of Welk for the rest of his career, for the exposure and the break, Pete never liked working for the show. The cameras and pressure made him a nervous wreck, he didn't get enough playing time for real jazz, and he was stifled creatively by Welk. In his own words, he "finally cracked" after the 1958 holiday special, when Welk called his jazz phrasing of Silver Bells "sacrilegious." Pete pointed out it wasn't even a religious song, but was further chastised for messing with Welk's arrangement. This was the final straw: realizing he wasn't happy playing Welk's music, and that he was homesick for New Orleans, he took the risk of quitting. The gigging scene was bleak in the Crescent City, especially for a top paid performer with a national audience and young family to provide for, but when Welk asked him what he would do in New Orleans, Fountain answered, "I don't know. But I'm going back home even if I have to play for strippers as Faz did." (Fountain, 155-56).

Shortly after this became public knowledge, Charles "Bud" Dant, an A&R man for Coral Records stepped in and offered Pete a contract. A five year deal was inked that became the foundation for some of Pete's most important albums, including Pete Fountain Day, which was not the first they did (that was the studio album Pete Fountain's New Orleans, followed quickly by The Blues, which featured Big Band arrangements by Dant--both of which were recorded in Los Angeles before his return). Pete Fountain Day, however, was perhaps the most symbolically significant.

Pete Fountain Day LP (Eric Seddon Collection)

Pete quickly lined up a steady gig at the Bateau Lounge in the French Quarter after his return, moved the family to Annunciation Street (Fountain, 165), and was content to ply his trade. In a rare moment of exposure and a appreciation for a jazz musician, however, New Orleans Mayor Vic Schiro had something more in mind--an idea that might tie Fountain's return to a tourist marketing scheme for the city. He declared October 23, 1959 "Pete Fountain Day" and offered a concert at New Orleans Municipal Auditorium. [Note regarding the actual date of "Pete Fountain Day": Pete's autobiography lists it as October 23rd. The liner notes to the Coral album, however, mention it twice--once as October 26th, the other October 29th!]

"I will never forget that day," Pete was to write in his autobiography, years later. "It was the highest honor I have ever received." (Fountain 165-66).
  
Coral Records decided to record it and release a live album. The result, aside from its significance historically to the history of jazz in general and the New Orleans scene specifically, is one of the finest live albums any jazz clarinetist has produced.

The liner notes to the album, mostly written by Sim Meyers (then Amusements Editor and Music Critic for the New Orleans Times-Picayune), with a summary on the back by Burt Korall, (then Co-Editor of The Jazz Word), stress the sweep of New Orleans musical history, from the opening of the first resident opera company in America there in 1796 through the years of slavery, Civil War, emancipation, the distressed economic and social condition of freed African Americans and the birth of jazz, all the way up to 1959. The notes suggest that Pete's concert represented a final consummation of high culture, symbolized by the opera house, and native culture, symbolized by jazz. Other historians have presented other narratives, and perhaps don't view Pete Fountain Day with the same level of significance, but it's worth noting that for many this was a truly symbolic day in the history of music.

Interior Liner Notes to Pete Fountain Day (Eric Seddon Collection)

Our understanding of history is always growing, always changing as we learn more and, hopefully, as we grow in honesty about ourselves. While knowing other perspectives, I personally found these notes heartening, and gladly add them to the record of important opinions concerning the history of jazz. But all of that aside, what makes this album essential beyond its historical context, nearly seven decades later, are the exceptional performances of the repertoire. 

I won't go into depth on the individual tracks, except to say that this version of "China Boy (Go Sleep)", has been reissued on various compilation discs over the years, and for good reason. It might be the greatest version of the tune recorded by a clarinetist, or anyone for that matter--and I say that with the classic takes of Benny Goodman, Sidney Bechet, and many others squarely in mind. The rapport between Pete and Jack Sperling on drums, particularly, borders on telepathic, and solidifies the two as a tandem to be considered along the lines of Goodman & Krupa, or Artie Shaw & Buddy Rich. All of the other cuts are vintage Pete Fountain, with top notch Coral recording sound. To my knowledge, as of this writing, the album has not been fully remastered, nor has it been reissued. Why, I'm not sure: there are various internet rumors, which I won't bother with here. My advice is to buy one of the LP copies still floating around the internet. Its importance and brilliance are worth the effort.   

Looking back at that moment in 1959, it's perhaps worth noting that not many jazz musicians, if any, have made the decision to return as Pete Fountain did. He continued making TV appearances, most notably on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, entirely to promotional purposes--to keep audience interest in his New Orleans nightclub. Pete still hated being on TV, and it always made him a nervous wreck to do these spots. Yet partially because of them, he remains a solitary figure in the history of the music: one who hit it so big that he was for a brief period synonymous with "jazz" to a large portion of the American public, yet who returned to New Orleans permanently.    

Back Cover: Pete Fountain Day LP (Eric Seddon Collection)

Further reading:

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

Book Review : Tom Sancton * Song for My Fathers: A New Orleans Story in Black and White

Jazz clarinetists are particularly fortunate when it comes to autobiographies. Contributions to the genre include some of the most important players in the history of the instrument: Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Barney Bigard, Woody Herman, Pete Fountain, and Mezz Mezzrow have each published volumes, and at least one of them—Sidney Bechet’s Treat It Gentle—ought to be considered a masterpiece of American literature in its own right. Among the more recent books written by jazz clarinetists, however, is an extremely important memoir by Tom Sancton: New Orleans native, one time Paris Bureau chief for Time magazine, and trad jazz clarinetist.

Sancton’s book is entitled Song for My Fathers: A NewOrleans Story in Black and White (Other Press, New York, 2006). Beginning with the New Orleans jazz funeral of Doc Celestin on December 18, 1954, we’re given more than a glimpse into a crucial two decades of Crescent City history, unfolding through the eyes of young Tom Sancton. Son of a reporter and aspiring novelist, whose mother was a southern belle, he is thrown into the world of Creole and black jazz musicians during the foundation of Preservation Hall. His perspective is unique: a white kid in that milieu, at a point in time that will never be repeated—when musicians like George Lewis, Creole George Guesnon and Sweet Emma Barrett pioneered the early jazz revival.

The book is masterful, combining many genres seamlessly. A coming of age story, a chronicle, an analysis of oral tradition music making, with the flair and page-turning quality of a novel, this is simply one of the best books about jazz, and about New Orleans, I’ve ever read. Through much of it, Sancton’s adolescence on display as he learns to play clarinet, falls in love for the first time, and tries to balance his passion for jazz with school and other obligations. We overhear him taking music lessons from Lewis and Guesnon; in the process becoming privy to their struggles, ambivalences, and hesitations, as they were finally showcased and given a share of success for the music they helped pioneer and preserve. Throughout the book, the figure of his father looms large: the younger Sancton’s admiration, then disillusionment, with his father is skillfully and poignantly told, settling into a sober middle aged reassessment. None of this interferes with the musical aspect of the story—instead, like the quality of New Orleans jazz itself, Sancton’s life and the music become inseparable.

Like Sidney Bechet’s autobiography, this written demonstration of the life becoming the music, and the two flowing in and out of each other, is the most remarkable aspect of the book. Anyone who seriously involves themselves with New Orleans jazz must eventually come to this conclusion: it is the life one lives, and the depth of one’s soul, that must come through the music. There is no faking it. And Tom Sancton fakes nothing: you can smell the Zatarain’s, feel the humidity, taste the danger of bullets being thrown during a parade, get lost in the tunes—you can experience with him a type of hero worship turning bitter, then mellowed, then resolving into something like pure gratitude. I picked this volume up on the recommendation of a friend from NOLA, and at first wasn’t so sure what to think. It ended up giving me a far deeper appreciation of music, life, and the relationship of the two.

[ This review first published in the September 2015 edition of the EARLYJAS Rag ]

Ten Essential Jazz Clarinet Recordings (5)

5. Edmond Hall * Profoundly Blue

In a rare case of mutual admiration among jazz clarinetists, Benny Goodman once referred to Edmond Hall as his favorite hot jazz clarinetist; a compliment which was reciprocated by Hall. It's difficult to appreciate this statement today. Benny had heard his style flooded by a sea of imitators throughout his career (even now there are plenty riding the Benny train). At least one of the players on this list was an admitted imitator of Goodman, in part: many of Pete Fountain's standard gig numbers were drawn directly and almost without alteration from Benny's versions. Pete never hid this influence, and it doesn't detract from his own unique approach, though it does demonstrates the dominance of Goodman's approach.

When it came time for the King of Swing to endorse another player, he chose one of the most original in the history of jazz: a New Orleans clarinetist known for his work with traditional groups (including Louis Armstrong, with whom he is most associated), yet who branched out into the High Romantic Era of Swing Clarinet, allowing himself to be influenced by Goodman and Artie Shaw.

It's this combination that makes Hall so indispensible, and my favorite of the New Orleans players. He managed to take that NOLA talking style of playing, and advance it beyond classic into romantic era jazz, giving us something profoundly different from those who came before him, yet with the same warmth.

Every time Hall plays, heat seems the result--a sweltering, humid, sauna of sound. Profoundly Blue is an excellent compilation album, and worthy introduction to his work.