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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>To: Musicians and Jazzfans list, DJML<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>From: Norman Vickers, Jazz Pensacola<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Thanks to Pensacola’s Mike Lynch; Portland, OR Steve Chesebrough and New Orleans/Richmond VA’s Mike Gorrier “Mr. Jazz of New Orleans” who alerted me to this yesterday. There will be numerous, I hope, obituaries for Pete.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>When I moved to New Orleans in 1959 for continuing medical training at Charity Hospital ( Tulane service), Pete had just come back to town after two years with Lawrence Welk. His record, “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” was a big hit ( see obituary comment) and was playing frequently on many of the radio stations. He opened with a group on Bourbon Street for a few years before he got his own room at the Hilton at foot of Canal Street on the Mississippi River.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>My connection was with his guitarist, Lloyd Ellis, a Pensacola native who played with Pete for 14 years.(’74-’88) When Pete would take vacation, Lloyd would come to Pensacola and visit with friends. Pete was a frequent guest on the Johnny Carson show and, of course, his regular band would not travel with him, but he’d always take Lloyd with him! After Lloyd retired from Pete’s band, he came to Pensacola and played intermittently here until his death from cancer 4-4-’94.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>( There are a couple of excellent bios of Lloyd, searchable on line.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><h3><span class=kicker-label><span lang=EN><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/section/arts/music">Music</a></span></span><span lang=EN> New York Times 8-7-16<o:p></o:p></span></h3><h1 id=headline><span lang=EN>Pete Fountain, a Clarinetist Known for His High-Spirited New Orleans Jazz, Is Dead at 86<o:p></o:p></span></h1><p class=byline-dateline><span class=byline><span lang=EN>By </span></span><span class=byline-author><span lang=EN>PETER KEEPNEWS</span></span><span lang=EN>AUG. 6, 2016 <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>Pete Fountain, a clarinetist who brought the traditional jazz of his native New Orleans to a national audience through frequent appearances on the Lawrence Welk and Johnny Carson television shows, died on Saturday in New Orleans. He was 86.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>The cause was heart failure, said Benny Harrell, Mr. Fountain’s son-in-law and manager.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>Mr. Fountain was a mainstay of the New Orleans music scene for more than six decades, a familiar sight at Mardi Gras and the annual Jazz and Heritage Festival. And the appeal of his high-spirited brand of Dixieland stretched far beyond New Orleans, especially after he began appearing on “The Lawrence Welk Show” in 1957.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>His outgoing musical style made an odd fit with the sedate “Champagne music” of Mr. Welk’s orchestra — Mr. Fountain often noted that Champagne and bourbon did not mix — but the combination was a hit with viewers, and his segments became a staple of the show. In later years he was also a frequent guest on Mr. Carson’s “Tonight Show.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>Peter Dewey Fountain Jr. was born in New Orleans on July 3, 1930, and was exposed from an early age to the lively small-group jazz that was an integral part of that city’s atmosphere. Inspired by Benny Goodman and the New Orleans clarinetist Irving Fazola — and by a family doctor who recommended that he learn a wind instrument to strengthen his weak lungs — he began playing clarinet at age 12. Before he was out of his teens, he had become a familiar presence in the nightclubs on Bourbon Street.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>“When I was a high school senior, my history teacher asked me why I didn’t study more,” he wrote in 2001, in the notes of a CD anthology of his recordings from the 1950s and 1960s. “I answered that I was too busy playing clarinet every night, and when I told him I was making scale — about $125 a week — he said that was more than he made and I should play full time. I guess I was a professional from that point on.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>In 1950, after some local success as a sideman, Mr. Fountain formed his own band, the Basin Street Six, with the trumpeter George Girard. “We clowned around a lot with that group,” he recalled, “but most of the time we played good music.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>The Basin Street Six broke up in 1954, and he then worked briefly with the Dukes of Dixieland in Chicago before teaming with the trumpeter Al Hirt to lead a band that had a successful extended engagement at a New Orleans nightclub, Dan Levy’s Pier 600.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=visually-hidden><span lang=EN>Photo</span></span><span lang=EN> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><img border=0 width=427 height=638 id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.jpg@01D1F0A0.014F41A0" alt="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/08/07/arts/07FOUNTAIN/07FOUNTAIN-blog427.jpg"><span lang=EN><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=caption-text><span lang=EN>Pete Fountain at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2009. He lived away from New Orleans for only two years.</span></span><span lang=EN> <span class=visually-hidden>Credit</span><span class=credit> Cheryl Gerber/Associated Press </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>A talent scout for Mr. Welk heard him there in 1957 and flew him to Los Angeles for the first of his many featured appearances on Mr. Welk’s popular ABC variety show. He soon moved to Los Angeles, but he moved back home after two years. It was the only time in his life that he was away from the New Orleans area for a significant period.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>While living in Los Angeles, Mr. Fountain began a long association with Coral Records. Most of his albums for the label were closer to instrumental pop than to traditional jazz, and the critics were unimpressed, but sales were healthy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>He is survived by his wife, Beverly; a daughter, Darah Fountain Harrell; two sons, Kevin and Jeffery; a sister, Del Materne, six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>In 1960, shortly after returning to New Orleans, Mr. Fountain bought a local nightclub, the French Quarter Inn, and began a residency there with a small group. Eight years later, he opened a larger room on Bourbon Street, Pete’s Place. The club moved to the Hotel Riverside in 1977 and remained in business until he reluctantly shuttered it in 2003, citing a decline in tourism after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>“I needed a change. I didn’t want it, but I needed it,” he told The Advocate, a newspaper in Baton Rouge, La. “It’s been a real good ride, and we’ve still got a lot of riding to do.” He continued to perform regularly at a casino in nearby Bay St. Louis, Miss., for many years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>Mr. Fountain struggled to get his life and career in order after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The roof was blown off his house in New Orleans; a second house, in Bay St. Louis, was destroyed. Most of his possessions were lost. Over the next year and a half, by his estimate, he moved eight times.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>He was hospitalized shortly after the hurricane, complaining of dizziness and other symptoms. He later told The Associated Press that doctors could find nothing physically wrong with him, and he attributed his illness to “depression about all the stuff that happened.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>His health problems caused Mr. Fountain to miss Mardi Gras in 2006; it was the first time in 46 years that his whimsically named Half-Fast Walking Club participated in the festivities without him. Shortly afterward, he suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery. But he was well enough to perform at the Jazz and Heritage Festival that May (his cardiologist was in attendance in case of an emergency), and despite continuing health problems, he remained a mainstay of that festival, and of the city itself, until 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-body-text><span lang=EN>His performance at the 2013 Jazz and Heritage Festival turned out to be his swan song. “Last year was his last public performance,” Mr. Harrell announced shortly before the 2014 festival. “He’s fully retired now.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><strong><span lang=EN style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Correction: August 6, 2016 </span></strong><span lang=EN><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN>An earlier version of this obituary misstated part of the name of a group Mr. Fountain led at Mardi Gras for many years. It is the Half-Fast Walking Club, not Marching Club.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN>Christopher Mele contributed reporting.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=story-print-citation><span lang=EN>A version of this article appears in print on August 7, 2016, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Pete Fountain, New Orleans Clarinetist, Dies at 86. <span class=story-footer-links><a href="http://www.nytreprints.com/" target="_blank">Order Reprints</a></span><span class=pipe>|</span><span class=story-footer-links> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html" target="_blank">Today's Paper</a></span><span class=pipe>|</span><span class=story-footer-links><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp839RF.html?campaignId=48JQY" target="_blank">Subscribe</a> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>F.<span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Norman</span> Vickers<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>5429 Dynasty Drive<span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>Pensacola, FL 32504-8583<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Home 850-484-9183; cell 850-324-5022<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Jazz Society of Pensacola 850-433-8382<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://www.jazzpensacola.com">www.jazzpensacola.com</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="mailto:nvickers1@cox.net">nvickers1@cox.net</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Member Jazz Journalists Association<span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>