[Dixielandjazz] Glasgow Herald on Davern

[Steve Barbone]

Norman Vickers sent this out with the Caveat that if you are saturated with
Davern, then don't read it. On the other hand it is somewhat different from
other obits and talks a bit more about Davern, the man.

Also interesting is the reference to Louis Armstrong as the primary
influence. Davern did indeed play clarinet like a trumpet in may respects.
Probably why, in later years, he chose to perform mostly as the only horn in
a quartet or quintet. No question that Pops (as well as Pee Wee) is in his
playing.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


ALISON KERR  December 19 2006 Glasgow Herald

Jazz clarinettist and saxophonist; Born January 7, 1935; Died December 12,
2006. 


There can be few sounds as thrilling as clarinettist Kenny Davern cutting
loose with one of his characteristically passionate and exhilarating solos ­
as anyone who heard the American jazz star during one of his countless
visits to Scotland over the past 20 years will testify.
 
Davern, who has died suddenly at the age of 71, was widely regarded as the
foremost exponent of his instrument in the world; a musician whose sound was
immediately identifiable and who brought a touch of class to everything he
did. 

Among regulars at the Edinburgh and Nairn jazz festivals, and at the former
Glasgow Society of Musicians, Davern was also known as an intimidating
character who did not suffer fools gladly, and who reserved his greatest
contempt for anyone who tried to make him play in front of a microphone. Woe
betide any sound engineer who hadn't been alerted to Davern's strongly held
views on acoustics.

Similarly, festival organisers were known to vanish mysteriously when Davern
went on the attack ­ and he never let anything like an audience get in the
way of a rant. He often treated his listeners with derision, too: one trick
was to ask for requests and then shoot them down with an acerbic comment.
However, the cantankerous clarinettist was a part he enjoyed playing. It
wasn't the whole story.

The intimidating Davern was my first-ever interviewee. Forty-five minutes
into the nerve-racking session, the significance of the fact that the wheels
on my borrowed tape recorder weren't turning dawned on both of us: I had
forgotten to lift the pause button. After a terrifying five minutes, during
which I was ready to jack in journalism, the unthinkable happened: he
softened. At 11.30pm, as I tried to make a break for the door, he offered to
start the interview again. Not only did the second version turn out better
than the original, but, years later, I learned that Davern was dining out,
among mutual musician friends, on the story.

The soft centre shouldn't have been so unexpected. Davern was a player of
great warmth and passion. He routinely sent shivers down the spine and made
hair stand on end when he broke out of his hitherto controlled solos and let
rip. There was nothing like it when he soloed, exploding into the upper
register, then swooping down again.
 
Playing ballads or blues tunes, he had a seductive style, coaxing the sound
from the horn the way a snake charmer would draw the reptile from a basket.
His playing embraced extreme musical characteristics in the same manner as
his personality was, by turn, intimidating and charming. His sound was
sweet, fluid and polished one minute; thrillingly spiky, raw and plaintive
the next. It is impossible to think of his signature songs ­ especially
Sweet Lorraine ­ without hearing him playing them.

Born in Huntington, New York, the self-taught Davern began his jazz career
at the age of 16. He played with many older greats, including Jack
Teagarden, and despite flirting with avant-garde jazz during the 1950s, his
primary influence was always Louis Armstrong.

In the 1970s, he and fellow clarinettist/saxophonist Bob Wilber formed the
super-group Soprano Summit. Davern then formed The Blue Three with pianist
Dick Wellstood, before operating as a touring soloist after Wellstood's
death. He leaves an impressive, though not vast, legacy of recordings, and
once told The Herald: "Just to record for the sake of being in a studio is
masturbatory." He is survived by his wife, Elsa, his two step-children and
four step-grandchildren.