Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 - (Page 34)

For Pete’s sake Pete Fountain launched his jazz career by way of prime-time television I don’t know about y’all, but if I was trying to make a name for myself in jazz, I don’t think performing on the Lawrence Welk Show is the way I would choose to go about it. Most discussion of how to “make it” in the jazz press today, in magazines like Down Beat or Jazz Times, points to building a “hip” image, such as Josh Redman wearing some Donna Karan outfit, or coming up through the ranks with some sage jazz veterans, like Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard did with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Lawrence Welk’s name just doesn’t come up in the conversation, but maybe it should, because that’s how New Orleans jazz clarinetist Pete Fountain became famous. At age 77, he’s going on five decades of stardom, although I have to admit that most people would still place his jazz celebrity via Welk’s band in the “truth is stranger than fiction” category. Welk may not have been “hip,” but he had some very potent TV ratings (which for advertisers is better than “hip”), and between 1957 and 1959 that hokey showcase made Pete Fountain a household name. Pete knew a good thing when he saw it, and he passed it on, arranging for a friend from New Orleans, the trumpeter Warren Leuning, to join Welk as well. Warren stayed from 1958 through 1961, even longer than Pete. A superb technician, he went on to become a fixture in Burt Bacharach’s band and in Hollywood film studios. These days Leuning might get a call from Barry Manilow one day and Quincy Jones the next. So when it comes to New Orleans musicians, there are actually two Welk-inflected jazz success stories to talk about, but Pete Fountain was the guy who opened the door. Like many New Orleans musicians, Pierre Dewey LaFontaine, Jr. (his given name) came from a musical family — his dad played drums and fiddle — and by the time he was nine he was taking clarinet lessons. In 1948 he was rubbing shoulders with the Assunto Brothers (destined to become the Dukes of Dixieland) in the Junior Dixieland Band, and a year later he joined Phil Zito’s International Dixieland Band, which recorded for Columbia in 1949. There must have been some problems with Zito, because nine months later, in August, 1950, Pete was recording as a founding member of the Basin Street for Pete the luck didn’t last. He headed for Chicago for seven months with the Dukes, returned to New Orleans in 1956, and then bounced from Tony Almerico, to Sharkey Bonano, to Al Hirt in quick succession. Although he maintained a lifelong friendship with Hirt (whom he affectionately called “Jumbo”), when the offer came to join Lawrence Welk’s TV band in California early in 1957, Pete was ready to go. Working with Welk could be a lot of fun. In his memoir, A Closer Walk: the Pete Fountain Story, Pete remembered what happened on live television at the Waldorf Astoria when he was asked to prime the bubble machine backstage before the first number. The bubbles were supposed to drift gracefully up from behind the band and float out across the ballroom, but Pete poured in too much fluid. Pretty soon, a wall of suds was cascading everywhere, so much so that the musicians couldn’t read their sheet music. Pete liked the effect, so he poured in some more. Completely helpless, Lawrence Welk stood there shrouded in a sea of bubbles, attempting to maintain his composure. As Pete put it, “It was the most memorable opening of any live television show.” I believe him. When he came back to New Orleans Six, along with George Girard, Joe Rotis, and Roy Zimmerman — all refugees from Zito’s band. The Basin Street Six is still revered for launching Girard (who died young) and Fountain, but it only lasted four years. Next Pete organized a group of his own — Pete Fountain and his Three Coins. One wonders if patrons got a free wish with every admission, but 34 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Winter 2008-09

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 Contents Friends Editor's Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Prospect.1 New Orleans The Historic New Orleans Collection The Enduring Performance of Michael P. Smith Jazz Notes Louisiana Foodways Birds of a Feather: Windfowl Carvings in Southeast Louisiana Louisiana Association of Museums Louisiana Architecture O. Winston Link in Louisiana The Ogden Museum of Southern Art The Colfax Massacre Louisiana State Museum Unlocking the History of Greek Key Architecture Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

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