[Dixielandjazz] Tony Parenti

[D and R Hardie]

                Thanks to Steve and all the others who contributed 
information on Tony Parenti. I was aware that, as Dave Richoux pointed 
out  the Cajun heritage was French (Canadian) and I was surprised when 
I read a suggestion he was Cajun. I have always regarded his  playing 
on his recordings for Circle in the 1940's as representative of the 
Italian school and I mentioned this in Exploring Early Jazz (p1950) and 
referred to the vocal quality of the style. That appears partly  to 
relate to the characteristic sounds of the vowels of the player, and 
perhaps differing national mouth structures, hence the recognised 
differences between French and Italian styles. List members can no 
doubt list other players in the Electric recording era with Italian 
language backgrounds. I must say I don't hear it in early recordings by 
Cordilla and Rappolo but do in players like Fazola. ( BTW Cordilla was 
a great tin whistle blower)
             Strangely my  first Boehm clarinet was a Rampone and I  
still hear in it a very different tonal quality from my later Malerne 
and Buffet instruments.

regards
  Dan Hardie
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~darnhard/EarlyJazzHistory.html

On Monday, August 6, 2007, at 12:40  PM, Steve Barbone wrote:

> Dan Hardie - darnhard at ozemail.com.au wrote: (polite snip)
>> Incidentally, was clarinettist Tony Parenti a Cajun? I always thought 
>> his tone
>> on record  leant towards the European Italian School.
>
> I don't think he was a Cajun. He was born in New Orleans a year before 
> Louis
> Armstrong. Met him in the 1950s. He made a record back then with a pal 
> of
> mine, trumpeter Jack Fine (who now lives in Gretna LA) Parenti told me 
> his
> father had been a musician in the Italian Army before coming to the 
> USA. No
> doubt that, and some cross pollination with Scaglione and Cordilla 
> accounts
> for some of the "Italian School" you hear in Parenti's playing.
>
> Parenti even played with Dizzy Gillespie. Funny story about that band. 
> It
> was at the Metropole Cafe in NYC and the front line of the regular 
> band was
> Charlie Shavers, Big Chief Russell Moore and Parenti. Shavers got a 
> high
> paying gig offer one night so he sent in a sub, Dizzy. By all 
> accounts, both
> Moore and Parenti got a huge kick out of playing with Dizzy and Dizzy 
> had an
> absolute blast playing "Dixieland" with them.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
>