[Dixielandjazz] Irving Fazola influence on clarinet players

[Steve barbone]

<patcooke77 at yahoo.com> WROTE (polite snip)
> 
> The Fazola influence indeed! I was playing with Fazola in the late forties,
> and we were doing 3 nights a week here in New Orleans.  There was a young
> fellow who used to come in and sit and watch and listen attentively to Fazola
> quite frequently.  I had no idea who he was at the time, but a few years later
> after Faz had died; I went into the same club and there was a band on the
> stand.  I was coming in to meet someone, and I was looking for them instead of
> watching the band.  Then I heard this clarinet and thought Fazola had risen
> from the dead.  It was Pete Fountain .....(and you know the 'rest of the
> story').
 

Fazola was a beautiful player. He also influenced Kenny Davern to some
extent (as did Pee Wee Russell and Benny Goodman) though Davern is very much
his own player.

However, if you listen to Davern on "My Inspiration" from his CD of the same
name, he sounds very much like the earlier Fazola version. Every once in a
while, players like Fountain or Davern will give us a snippet of their
influencers.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone`