Pete Fountain
b. 3 July 1930, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Taking up the clarinet as a small boy, Fountain was sufficiently adept to play and record before he was out of his teens. In the early '50s he worked with various bands in his home town, including the Basin Street Six. In 1954 he formed his own small band and for the next couple of years played with this group and with the Dukes Of Dixieland. In the later years of the decade he appeared as featured soloist on Lawrence Welk's networked show. Regular performances with Al Hirt ensured that he remained in demand, both in New Orleans and in the vastly different atmosphere of Las Vegas. Fountain's ability transcends the formulaic limitations of some post-revival dixieland. Although he has long been musically associated with this area of jazz, his consummate skills might more accurately place him in the mainstream. Nevertheless, he has chosen to remain in a field which has proved to be enormously popular and commercially successful and has thus, inevitably, met with critical displeasure and disregard.