[Dixielandjazz] Washington Post Obit On Davern adds a few insights.

[Steve Barbone]

Jazz, Swing Clarinetist Kenny Davern, 71

By Adam Bernstein - Washington Post Staff Writer -December 15, 2006

Kenny Davern, 71, a clarinetist and soprano saxophonist who became an
acclaimed torchbearer of traditional jazz and swing, died Dec. 12 at his
home in Sandia Park, N.M., after a heart attack.

Far from a musical anachronism, Mr. Davern was regarded as a virtuosic
musician. He was particularly renowned for his lyrical and expressive
clarinet style -- "a chilling upper register, a rounded, woody tone and a
hint of Pee Wee Russell's rasp," jazz critic W. Royal Stokes wrote.

Emphasizing melody more than freeform improvisation, Mr. Davern spent five
decades musically articulating the legacy of his heroes, including trumpeter
Louis Armstrong and clarinetist Russell.

As melody-driven as he was, Mr. Davern enjoyed experimenting with
avant-garde approaches. This led him, in 1978, to play baritone saxophone on
the avant-garde jazz album "Unexpected" with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy,
electric bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Paul Motian.

"If you ask 10 people what jazz music is, you might as well ask them what
God looks like: You'll get 10 different answers," he once said. "There's no
defining jazz -- it's a meaningless term."

John Kenneth Davern was born Jan. 7, 1935, in Huntington, N.Y., and was
raised in Queens. He became entranced by jazz after hearing Artie Shaw's
"Concerto for Clarinet" and Russell's solo on "Memphis Blues" with Muggsy
Spanier's band.

He told jazz writer Will Friedwald last year: "I heard all these grunts and
growls, sounds of spittle -- I had no idea even what horn he was playing,
but I said to myself, 'This is what I wanna do with my life!' "

After early training with David Weber, who became principal clarinetist with
the New York City Ballet orchestra, Mr. Davern formed a high school
Dixieland band and at 16 earned his union card as a baritone saxophonist.

Mr. Davern began recording in 1954, when he joined Jack Teagarden's
Dixieland group and freelanced with swing and Dixieland combos.

He went on to work with such masters as saxophonist Bud Freeman, cornetist
Ruby Braff and trumpeters Pee Wee Erwin, Phil Napoleon and Wild Bill
Davison.

In the early 1960s, he led a small group at Nick's in Greenwich Village that
jazz writer Dan Morgenstern once called "the best band to have played at
Nick's in 10 years." Mr. Davern was subsequently fired for declining to play
a blander style of music he derisively called "Nicksieland."

His most enduring collaboration was with reedman Bob Wilber, whom he met in
1972 in the last moments of Dick Gibson's four-day jazz party in Colorado
Springs. Gibson flung them together, and they performed Duke Ellington's
"The Mooche" without preparation.

"We got a rhythm section together -- by a fluke, Dick Hyman, Bucky
Pizzarelli, Bobby Rosengarden and Milt Hinton were all there -- and we got
up and did the number," he said in 1998. "We finished it off on two high
notes in thirds and, to our amazement, people just rose up in applause --
650 folks just screaming with delight -- and it was then that we realized
that we had something different. And something that should be recorded."

With both men doubling on soprano sax and clarinet, he and Wilber formed the
Soprano Summit, which toured and recorded for most of the 1970s with guest
artists in the rhythm section. In the early 1990s, he and Wilber revived the
group as Summit Reunion.

Other pairings did not work out. The Blue Three, with Mr. Davern, pianist
Dick Wellstood and drummer Rosengarden, toured widely in the early 1980s and
but fell apart amid personality clashes.

"If a venue or a group of players or a particular player annoys me more than
three times, he just ceases to exist," Mr. Davern once said.

His marriage to Sylvia Davern ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 36 years, Elsa Green Davern; two stepchildren;
and four grandchildren.